[Spoilers] Peace and Purity - Einion Logos of the Elohim

[WarriorKnight]

Traditional mouse-over first post.

If your in this game or are a dedicated lurker of someone else then don't come in here until you've been eliminated or the game is over.

Now for some smiley filler.

_____________________

The art of diplomacy - :trade:

Practical application of Fireball - :fireball:

& Blinding Light - :blinding:

Crusade in action - :minfac:

Catapults > everything - :catapult:

[WarriorKnight]

Reserved for some reason

[WarriorKnight]

So, with that out the way let's get things started.

Firstly I'll give a quick overview of my civ/leader for those who are unfamiliar with the Elohim.

The bad things:



The Elohim Palace is nothing to get excited about, giving Nature, Spirit and Water mana along with +20% WW. Given that the Elohim are rushers, additional WW is annoying. However, Tolerant can make up for this a bit, see below.



I get a unique repeatable ritual, Hallowing of the Elohim, which allows me to lower the AC by 5. However, each build costs 600 hammers (!) a very poor trade off so I'll probably only use this late game, if at all.



My two UB's are also lacking, although they are ok in some ways. The Chancel of Guardians gives my cities +25% city defense and a 20% chance for units in the city to start with Defensive (doubles fortification bonus). The 20% chance blows since that's not very often at all.



My other UB, the Reliquary, is actually nice to have. It gives 1 unhealthiness, 2 culture, 1 Great Prophet point (forget about all that though) and it gives Spirit Guide to all units built in the city (When the unit dies in combat, half of it's experience moves to another unit in your empire). Unlike the Chancel, Spirit guide is given to every unit, and there are a few tricks that can be done with this.




And now the good stuff:

The Elohim can see the location of all the unique features of the map at the beginning of the game. This is situational, but it could help if any of the big 3 or the guardian are nearby.

My worldspell, Sanctuary, is without a doubt awesome. It kicks all non-Elohim units from my land and prevents them from entering for 30 turns. This spell is the ultimate defense, but it's also great as an offensive worldspell since you don't have to defend your cities at all and any city you capture can't be taken back (since after you capture it it works as your territory). Since we're probably going to play on Quick, that means that 30 turns will be a really long time.



My hero is Corlindale, an archmage available at Fanaticism. The cool thing is, Fanaticism is about the same beaker cost as Sorcery, the tech that unlocks mages, and I don't need to research any arcane tech to enable him. His weakness is that he has 0 combat strength, and so is supposed to be extremely vulnerable to assassins, but assassins don't target non-combat units (!) so as long as he's well protected (and don't give him combat strength, I don't know how many times I've accidentally cast Bless on him) he will be invaluable.

Corlindale can also cast peace, which halves the AC and forces a cease-fire with anyone I'm at war with, but sacrifices Corlindale. This is really only useful if I have someone with Resurrection (the Life III spell) but once I do then some new tricks can start. Life III is usually only useful if you lose a battle with your hero, but not with Corlindale. Instead you can cast peace as much as you want and you can switch his spells around each time.



My 2 UU's are both nice. The Devout replaces the assassin. It doesn't have the marksman promotion, so it doesn't target the weakest unit in the stack, however it can explore rival territory without OB and it starts with Channeling & Life I, neither of which are earth shattering. However it can also upgrade to a Order, Empyrean, Runes or Leaves priest, and it keeps it's 2 promotions. This allows priests to learn the life spells, the main one being Destroy undead (life II) which I'll probably only use against Pyre Zombies or anyone doing a death magic focus. Priests also get Channeling I, which has an effect similar to potency which means priests are more likely to gain experience. This is quite nice, but probably only worth focusing on mid game since poisons is out of the way of where the rest of my unique stuff is.



My other UU is the Monk. A strength 6 unit with 2 movement available at priesthood. This unit is why the Elohim are rushers, and chances are I'll probably be rushing with them this game. I'll go into more detail later when I go into my strategy.



Einion Logos is Philosophical, Defender and Tolerant. Philosophical is quite a useful trait, probably not as good as Financial but certainly up there. It gives the same GPP bonus as in regular civ, but since there is more things Great people can do (Altar pieces, more can create shrines etc.) and the GPP counter goes up faster I think it's useful. Also instead of cheap universities it gives cheap Elder Councils and Libraries. Both of those are essential early science buildings.

Defender is meh, it gives all my units the Defender promotion, giving me +10% strength in my borders and +10% withdrawal rate (pfft). It also gives cheap palisades, walls and archery ranges (double pfft).

Tolerant is unique to the Elohim (for restricted leaders anyway) and is very interesting. It makes all cities I capture able to retain their ethnicity, allowing me to build their unique stuff. This obviously depends on who I capture cities from, but in general there is always at least one benefit from each civilization that I tolerate. I'll go over each rival civ benefits when I look over my opponents but I can benefit from UU's, UB's, Civilization Traits and Palaces. I can't benefit from Heroes, spells, leader traits, improvements and any sort of unique civ benefit (such as angels for mercurians, manes for infernals, sprawling etc.).

[Bobchillingworth]

Nice civ overview! Just a note that I am all but certain that Corlindale, despite not having any strength, does count as a combat unit, and assassins will most certainly murder him if he isn't stacked with a Guardsman unit. I'm "all but certain" in the sense that I have lost him to an AI assassin before when he was in a stack, but perhaps that's one of the things that patch O changed.



Also the Corlindale Life III resurrection is a fairly dramatic exploit- I actually tried to ban it in the PBEM I organizing thread, before we had picked our civs. I suppose you're free to use it, but it breaks the game by preventing anyone from launching a successful offense.

[Selrahc]

Does Corlindale lock people into 10t peace? Because in the FFH multiplayer games we ran when Dantski triggered the peace effect from the Seven Pines we were all able to redeclare on him immediately, without having to wait. As I understand it Corlindale's spell is a carbon copy, so while the spell would have a purpose(teleporting all enemy units to the border, halving the armageddon count), it wouldn't be a fail safe. If it does lock you into peace though that is pretty game breaking (even if relatively late arriving).

[Bobchillingworth]

Does Corlindale lock people into 10t peace? Because in the FFH multiplayer games we ran when Dantski triggered the peace effect from the Seven Pines we were all able to redeclare on him immediately, without having to wait. As I understand it Corlindale's spell is a carbon copy, so while the spell would have a purpose(teleporting all enemy units to the border, halving the armageddon count), it wouldn't be a fail safe. If it does lock you into peace though that is pretty game breaking (even if relatively late arriving).

Well, unless your opponent can take cities from you on the first turn of war, kicking them out of your land constantly works about as well as official peace for preventing them from getting any real offensive going.



Sorry, I'll stop jacking this thread now

[WarriorKnight]

Nice civ overview! Just a note that I am all but certain that Corlindale, despite not having any strength, does count as a combat unit, and assassins will most certainly murder him if he isn't stacked with a Guardsman unit. I'm "all but certain" in the sense that I have lost him to an AI assassin before when he was in a stack, but perhaps that's one of the things that patch O changed.

I'm pretty sure that was changed somewhere along the line, as I did a WB test before writing that and Corlindale wasn't targeted.

Also the Corlindale Life III resurrection is a fairly dramatic exploit- I actually tried to ban it in the PBEM I organizing thread, before we had picked our civs. I suppose you're free to use it, but it breaks the game by preventing anyone from launching a successful offense.

I don't think it gives a peace treaty but cease fire, which is less exploity. I also have to take him (a heroic archmage!) and a tier IV unit or religious hero out of action for 7 turns to bring him back (likely in a hot war). I don't feel like it's too much of an exploit but I could be biased.

[Selrahc]

Well, unless your opponent can take cities from you on the first turn of war, kicking them out of your land constantly works about as well as official peace for preventing them from getting any real offensive going.

Except for the fact that there is a delay on Resurrection. 7 turns between each peace spell. if there is a 10t enforced peace, then you're safe. If not.. they have seven turns between each cast to launch an attack. Arguably you'd be better off by deploying two extra archmages(one of which could have twincast) to the fighting.

EDIT: Ninja'd

[WarriorKnight]

[SIZE="3"]Enemy overview/Tolerant Effects[/SIZE]

[SIZE="4"]Mr. Yellow - Sabathiel of the Bannor[/SIZE]

The Bannor have nothing until Fanaticism, where then they get their hero and the Ultimate wartime civic. Needless to say, either you knock them out first or they'll knock you out eventually. Sabathiel fits well with ultimate crusade, getting Charismatic for more promotions on the endless supply of units.

I can't get Crusade from Tolerant, and since the Bannor UU's require Crusade to use them, I can't get them either. The main thing that the Bannor give is the Guardsman civilization trait, which gives all their Melee & Archery units the Guardsman promotion.

The Bannor might be a good target to rush since they don't have anything early. On the other hand, free Guardsman isn't really attractive since I doubt I'll be focusing on arcane units much. I could go either way with them.



[SIZE="4"]Irgy - Tebryn Arbandi of the Sheaim[/SIZE]

The exact opposite of the Elohim, Sheaim want to bring Armageddon to the world. In terms of stuff though, they get Pyre Zombies, Planar gate spawns and summoning/arcane/sundered arcane units. Fortunately they get no economic bonuses, a limited world spell and no real hero (Divine Essence is extremely late) so they are a rusher like me.

Tolerant allows me to build Pyre Zombies as well as Planar gates. I can get Sundered arcane units from them but not potency or summoner.

As the other rusher in the game, the last thing I want to do is declare on them. Even though I potentially get the most out of Tolerant with them, Pyre Zombies can't be reliably dealt with until I get a few priests with Destroy undead. I'll probably be looking to ally with him (unless we have AC arguments ).



[SIZE="4"]Mardoc - Hannah of the Lanun[/SIZE]

Probably the strongest pick of them all, Pirate ports + financial means Mardoc is going to tech like crazy. Obviously it depends on how most coast he gets, but even if there is a small amount he's going to be a force to be reckoned with.

The main benefit of tolerating the Lanun is to build their palace, since it gives +1 food to all coastal tiles. That's about it though since the UU's are rather underwhelming and I can't create ports of my own (since that require a spell and I can't tolerate spells).

Given the danger of the pick, I would like to rush them but it's not incredibly feasible since they can tech up faster then anyone else and Tolerant doesn't give much. Guess I'll wait and see if they are a good target or not.



[SIZE="4"]Nyktorion - Thessa of the Ljosalfor[/SIZE]

Tree hugging elves, except Thessa isn't the best elven leader. The health bonus from EXP is kinda wasted with so many forests but arcane is still useful.

The main benefit of Tolerant is that it gives me access to Dexterious, which gives archery units +1 attack. Since I probably won't even build a single archery unit, it's kinda wasted.

He'll probably be able to use his worldspell by the time I can launch an attack, which combined with the limited usefulness of Tolerant means I probably won't rush them. Later on though, Treetop Defense (Nature I spell, allows any unit in a forest to give stack full fortify bonus) combined with Defensive gives me some options. I'll worry about that later though.



[SIZE="4"]Thoth - Varn of the Malakim[/SIZE]

Finally the desert Dwellers, the Malakim focus on Disciples with their Lightbringer that can promote to lots of different things with Disciple starting experience and sweet leader. Sand Lions are quite scary too.

Tolerant let's me build Lightbringers, but since I probably won't have the Altar in any of my captured cities it's quite useless. In fact there's not much I get from the Malakim at all, I can't even build assassins (as the Elohim, I can't build assassins, trade-off for Devouts).

Since Tolerant is quite limited, I doubt I'll try and rush these guys.



[SIZE="4"]Infernals and Mercurians[/SIZE]

OK, there's still these two to cover since they are still theoretically in the game.

The Mercurians are a bit one sided. I can't benefit from their UU's since I don't get reborn angels and all the other Mercurian UU's are upgraded angels. They don't have any UB's and can't build several units. However the Mercurian Palace is awesome. Iron, -50% WW and +40% Military production is really, really nice.

The Infernals are even more one-sided. Since the cities still have the Fallow trait and I can't get Manes, Infernal cities can't even grow at all. Their UU's are also not particularly impessive. However, their palace is even better than the Mercurian one. Iron, No WW (!!!), +50% production, +25% city defense and +1 gold, beaker and culture from state religion buildings.

Given that monks start with Demon Slaying, I might be tempted to summon Hyborem and kill him for his palace but that probably more appropriate when I discuss strategy.

[Mist]

Chceking in with almost nothing to add

I have few loose thoughts to voice :

1) If bordering Lanun they would be my first and prime target regardles of wether they look soft or not. Hannah is a scary pick and the longer she's left to herself the scarier she becomes.

2) Bannor need to die before they reach Crusade. Charismatic Bannor need to die harder ( Bruce Willis ftw )

3) Elves would be a nice early assimilation ( repeat after me - there's no Borg in FFH ).

Thats it for now.

Peace :hippie: Soviet Russia style