Some thoughts if you're interested. First, I forgot to mention, the two level 3 adepts with >10xp, I'm waiting to get metamagic 1 as the promotion to level 4, so they can take metamagic 2 when they upgrade, getting dispel magic online ASAP. Once dispel is available you can start switching the mana nodes around like mad to get free upgrades. I'd hoped to have 3 non-node sources of death mana by the time I upgrade, and one plan then for the nodes was to put them both on fire (and cancel the trade to Nyktorion - giving him some warning of course) while doing a chunk of the upgrades to get free Fire II fireball and Death II spectre promotions. Free Entropy II is an alternative for some mages as well. Then switch them to Death during active fighting (for better spectres), and something which activates another tower build (assuming necromancy requirements can come from non-node sources) the rest of the time.
Overall those two mages I had basically written off getting efficient promotions for, so they're a good option for the dispelling mages. If you can help it, don't upgrade those two to archmages but instead other mages with more free promotions. You should be able to get 4 non-node death sources (palace, ToN, Nyktorion's and WarriorKnight's) by the time you upgrade archmages, and hopefully can arrange 4 of something else too. Puegom then for instance can get to combat 5 and spell extension 2 by level 6, as he'll get his casting promotions for free. Well, that was the plan, anyway.
The other big issue at the moment is the potential for Thoth to poach the Infernal Grimoire. You can outrace him to it, but only if you start now. If you wait to see for sure if he might be after it he'll beat you there for sure with his faster tech rate and better production. My advice then is the following:
* Research Infernal Pact now, to within 1 turn of completion, then switch back to something else (presumably Necromancy).
* If and when Thoth switches to AV, finish it immediately. This will hopefully at least put Thoth off trying to race for it. However, once you complete the tech you're now competing with the Infernals player.
* Start building the Infernal Grimoire as soon as you can, but don't finish it. Again, leave it one turn from complete and switch to something else.
* Negotiate with whoever's playing Hyborem, and try and make sure they're not building it. The AI always does, but really the Hyborem player ought to have to be concentrating on building workers (they start with none), staking out some turf and not getting wiped out. So hopefully you'll still have a bit of time to spare there.
* As soon as Thoth gets Infernal Pact (assuming he does, and hopefully he won't), you're on a very short clock to finish it off yourself.
Doing all that will hopefully give you enough time to get the pre-requisites for something worthwhile, while still covering you if you have to get it quickly just to deny it to Thoth if nothing else. I'd recommend trying for Strength of Will still, but getting Arcane Lore isn't so bad either - you can always then get Strength of Will with the Divination Tower. Malevolent designs is good too, but it's a dead-end out of the way tech.
Quote:The other big issue at the moment is the potential for Thoth to poach the Infernal Grimoire. You can outrace him to it, but only if you start now. If you wait to see for sure if he might be after it he'll beat you there for sure with his faster tech rate and better production. My advice then is the following:
* Research Infernal Pact now, to within 1 turn of completion, then switch back to something else (presumably Necromancy).
* If and when Thoth switches to AV, finish it immediately. This will hopefully at least put Thoth off trying to race for it. However, once you complete the tech you're now competing with the Infernals player.
* Start building the Infernal Grimoire as soon as you can, but don't finish it. Again, leave it one turn from complete and switch to something else.
* Negotiate with whoever's playing Hyborem, and try and make sure they're not building it. The AI always does, but really the Hyborem player ought to have to be concentrating on building workers (they start with none), staking out some turf and not getting wiped out. So hopefully you'll still have a bit of time to spare there.
* As soon as Thoth gets Infernal Pact (assuming he does, and hopefully he won't), you're on a very short clock to finish it off yourself.
Yep, I've confirmed with WK that Thoth had switched on OO on t139, so he'd still have to wait for a few turns to swap out of it.
His GNP is sitting at a whopping 770, almost 3 times of ours at the moment--and the Pact should take him at most 2 turns... not to mention that as a Spiritual leader he does not lose a turn on anarchy.
However, looking at the techs/buildings Thoth possesses, it might seem likely that he intends to stay in OO for an extended duration for the building of Stygian guards. (he has Fanaticism, and has the Mines of Gal-Dur, but not Iron-working)
This gives him access to a Str 7+2 unholy water-walking march unit. Pretty nasty. He might swap to AV just for a source of land collateral (Ritualists), but he'd be stuck with only Iron Chariots, which are significantly weaker. (I don't see him going for Diseased Corpses, since they are too easily countered by Life II Destroy Undead spell.)
Quote:An infernal player starts with 1 worker, not none.
True. But an infernal capital doesn't start with as much hammers as our highest production city. So the Infernals isn't really the issue, its whether Thoth would want to race to the Grimoire... but I'm counting on him staying in OO longer for more Stygians, and Cultists if he wants to deal with the Lanun.
Speaking of Hyborem... I certainly wouldn't want to be in his shoes being summoned this late... as he would probably face the collective wrath of the established civs.
Nyktorion would certainly want him out, as hell terrain would destroy all his ancient forests. Thoth would want him dead, due to all his flood plains possibly turning into burning sands. WarriorKnight should be the safest from hell terrain, being Good aligned, and having life mana to deal with it. I certainly wouldn't want him appearing next to me at the moment though, as our military is still on the weak side.
Nice handover! The Sheaim do get more powerful as the game progresses and the AC rises so it will be interesting to see what devilish deeds you get up to!
Quote:Nice handover! The Sheaim do get more powerful as the game progresses and the AC rises so it will be interesting to see what devilish deeds you get up to!
Have fun!
Thanks for the support!~
Nyktorion is currently away without access to civ for a few days so there's gonna be a lull before we get underway at full speed.
As for the AC... Its currently sitting at a measly 10 iirc.
The current religion situation are: The Unholy Sheaim Kingdom (TUSK :neenernee) : Ashen Veil Elohim Pacifists (EPACs): Order Ljosalfar Tree-huggers: (LosT): Fellowship of Leaves Lanun Maritime Empire (LaME): Octopus Overlords Malakim Despotism (MaD): Octopus Overlords
(Time to get into the Os-Gabella mood and RP a lil'~ *pimp*)
As you can see, the AC isn't going to spike up that much with this list of religions. (Thoth also has the Empyrean holy city, and he might decide to spread it around)
For the Sheaim, the increase in cap on the number of creatures we get from the Planar Gates comes at AC 50--thats a looooong way to go, so I'm not going to worry about it
As for the "power" of the Sheaim... Yes, and No lol...
It peaked early at Pyre Zombies, but now they are easily countered by Destroy Undead, which WK has access to.
*Diplo/Chat Tidbit*
Had a chat with WK on Monday, regarding Thoth in general. He's obviously concerned that Thoth has completed Corruption and could make a run for the Grimoire--hence we were trying to fathom Thoth's religion choices...
As mentioned above, staying in OO has 2-fold advantages: Cultists and Iron Stygians
Swapping to AV: Access to Sac the Weak, Grimoire for bulbing Manevolent Designs and getting the whole works of: Mardero, 4 Beasts, 4 Eidolons(which could be made to waterwalk from Stygians... ewww....)
Empyrean: Chalid. Chalid. Chalid. oh, and lots of blinding light goodness.
He's Spiritual so he can easily swap between religions without anarchy... so I'm actually guessing he's going to, and currently is, building up an army of Cultists and Stygians first (to deal with the possible Lanun threat on the western front), before swapping to AV or Empy--so that gives us hopefully a short break on the Grimoire)
Finally, when suggesting that Thoth wouldn't be silly enough to rely on Iron Diseased Corpses since WK has life mana, WK "leaked" that he does not have Life 2 priests yet. (which could come from Devouts > Priest)
Sheaim has no access to higher tiered units on the typical metal or mounted line, making them highly dependent on their arcane units, and disciple units, together with Planar creatures.
Problems:
(1) we do not even have necromancy yet. Skeleton adepts can only do so much.
(2) we have only just started building temples. we NEED ritualists bad. Diseased Corpses are useless--same Destroy Undead problem.
(3) we have 1 planar gate, no gated creatures.
This means: our strongest unit... is still a PZ.
Proposed solutions:
(1) hit sorcery sometime... not as critical actually, if we do...
(2) finish up more gates, more mage guilds, for access to Mobius Witches. These will take time.
(3) spam ritualists as a stop-gap measure. AoE stack damage can never go wrong. These would have to be our staple units till (1)+(2) gets done.
On the more... sunny side...
(1) the rest are more concerned about Thoth (except Thoth...)
(2) who might be at war with us, but I don't see him escalating it since it doesn't benefit him since he's that far away, with much more imminent problems from his 3 direct neighbours.
(3) WK extended NAP till 170. 30 turns to build up some... deterrent.
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Actually, a fancy idea I am considering was to screw AV and head down OO too.
Because...
(1) We have many coastal cities.
(2) We can BUILD stygians. Spammable 6+2 unholy str unit with bronze? Priceless.
(3) lolCultists to counter lolCultists.
(4) We WILL hit Arcane Lore sometime. I don't see Lanun doing it, nor the Malakim. Hence, Hemah. We control the Letum. Snowfall.
we "lose"...
(1) Sac the Weak. Debatably the best civic, up there with Aristo and Agarian.
(2) Ritualists. We can still spam them now and keep them.
(3) Grimoire. Wasting beakers into Pact and rushing Grimoire to bulb Arcane Lore might be a possible plan... but I've gotta do the number crunching on this to see if its worthwhile.
I actually see decent reason enough to go down OO... going to leave it as a possible option.
Anyone would like to weigh in on this?
Stygians and cultists may be nice to ward malakim off but you might look way too tempting for WK to stab you.
Destroy undead with no water around... and I doubt you can hit arcane lore + hemah that soon.
Tbh I think Thoth should have figured out the upcoming dogpile and I agree that he won't be focusing on you.
His main access to your cities are via the sea and to churn out water walking or naval units just to get you isn't profitable business at all.
The city maintenance would hurt him and razing your cities only give him some pathetic gold which he doesn't need.
Not to mention that Lanun could possibly sink him with their worldspell.
Imo I would rather you get some semi decent land units while keeping some ships around. As for the AC... give up on it lol. No one will be razing any cities and the cities which are most likely to be gone happen to be yours.
Stygians and Cultists are indeed the proposed "land units" you refer to. Stygians are Demon class, not vulnerable to Destroy Undead like D.Corpses are. I can still get Ritualists out now for stack AoE on land. AV provides no solution to the problem of buildable staple land units--ritualists aren't gonna cut it in the long run against champion tiered units.
Hemah is just a plus in the long run. Not of an immediate concern. Unless of course I perform the Grimoire > A.Lore bulb, which I haven't yet decided if it's worth the effort.
Koenigsegg Wrote:Imo I would rather you get some semi decent land units while keeping some ships around. As for the AC... give up on it lol. No one will be razing any cities and the cities which are most likely to be gone happen to be yours.
There is at least one way to raise the AC without spreading AV or razing cities, anyway. (Frankly, unless you're trying to wipe someone out or have a lot of cities to convert, they aren't very effective anyway.)
Apologies in advance for having a bunch of strong opinions even after I've handed over...
You're not going to win the game by building the same units as everyone else (i.e. OO units) in a smaller empire.
Stygians are 8 strength, but 1 movement. They can't be hasted, so it's at most 2 with the mobility promotion, which you won't have immediate access to without making a sarifice elsewhere in civics. I cannot stress enough how important mobility is in this game, especially as the game goes on and more spells are available.
The best chance you've got is to play to your strength, and that's spectres.
With death mana from Nyktorion & WarriorKnight, 2 nodes, palace mana and the Tower of Necromancy, by the time you're using them spectres will be strength 10, and 15 with +50% between combat 1 from summoning and another 30% from combat 3 on the summoners, which you can get by level 4 if the spell promotions come for free from mana. But more importantly, 4 movement. Not to mention the 3 movement of the summoning unit, and two moves from lasting two turns. That's a boatload better than Stygians.
Witches can provide some support, but they're limited in number, poorly promoted for their level and slow to produce. You pay 201 hammers for a gate, you could build 3 adepts for less than that. You need a few gates for utility units like Revelers, Succubi and the odd Witch with an unusual spell sphere, but spamming them is simply not hammer efficient until the AC turns up a lot higher. And as you've noticed yourself, it's simply impractical at this stage to raise it sufficiently in anything but the medium to long term. You simply can't spare the hammers for the Prophecy wonder at this stage, although you should build it eventually.
So, I'd highly recommend Necromancy->Sorcery, delayed at most by the suggestion to research most but not all of Infernal Pact to mitigate the risk of Thoth grabbing it opportunistically. Getting the Grimoire is as much about denying it to the runaway as getting it yourself at this stage.
As far as Hemah goes, I think you're very unlikely to get him. The only situation you might is if the bulbed Arcane Lore -> Grimoired Strength of Will slingshot comes off. And then you've got archmages anyway. Taking Arcane Lore from the Grimoire is a fairly desperate move, given that you should have two Great Sages to bulb it with in time to do so. Although it's hard to say how much pressure Thoth might put you under on that front. Switching to OO for Hemah is a reasonable option, but don't discount the benefits that Sacrifice the Weak is going to have on your overall production (via the whip).
