[SPOILERS] Balseraphs: A Guide to Mis-Management (by Kyan and TT)

[darrelljs]

I'm addicted to taming Archeron, but honestly its rarely worth the trouble.

Darrell

[uberfish]

Need Animal Mastery tech and a VERY strong army to tame Acheron. Since the idiotic sons of the inferno were put in, generally by the time you can defeat Acheron the game's decided

[Krill]

MANA RESOURCE!

Send lizard, griffon and warrior next to the orc fort to go settle for that mana resource.

[Krill]

What's the plan to get vitalize?

Can we get the mana from allies? Personally, my preference for promos on gibbon would be:

Get t3 summon for free via nodes if possible, combat 5, twincast, vitalize

Would you agree?

We get a free nature 1 from the two very easy mana trades that we have lined up already. We also get a free air 1 from said trade sand our palace. There are up to 3 water mana to trade for and one to get from the OO shrine that we could fairly easily get at least some of IMO. We can see and settle 5 mana nodes, and have the possibility of trading for another nature mana res depending on how Gaspar turns out. We can get 1 free promo from the Shrine of the Champion, and yes, Loki is going to get deleted as you know.

That means we only need 26XP for Twincast. We don't want too many water mana or the water elementals will be too strong and won't lose and hence won't split, so I think we're actually reaching the point where it's feasible to turn some of the mana res into nature mana.

There are a lot of adept level spells that we can get with, well, adepts (Haste, Spring if you do decide water elementals aren't the way to go, Inspiration, Dance of Blades, Rust, Summon Skeleton, Fire1 to burn down jungle), and there aren't any other level 2 spells that are really awesome. So long as we leave 1 mana open for when we get Sourcery to get Metamagic and that lets us rejig the mana as needed...the only thing stopping us from using nature mana is that we have to tech something else, but is it worth teching a 500 beaker tech that would let us get an easy 200 food per turn?

[Krill]

You know, it's slightly depressing that puppets can't use spellstaffs. It would have been so awesome to have 28 strong water elementals (plus the 56 normal and 112 weak...)

[Kiech]

I am a bit of a newb to FFH2, so you probably already know this. Enabling slaves via the Undercouncil, then tossing them into the Arena nets you a LOT of boosted warriors quickly. Great compliment/replacement for Guild of 9 if you can make it happen. I also like to have a mutation mage on standby - with a priest to remove the sickness promotions. Ideal for replenishing your army quickly.

Takes a lot of cash, but you shouldn't have a problem with that at that stage of the game. Essentially cost of 60 per (30 each but 50% die) plus 195 to upgrade to Mimic - total 255. Guild of 9 charges you 180 for a comparable, but non-upgradeable unit that has no promotions.

[Kyan]

Hitting end turn, as well as completing the settler and education, gave me a LOT of pop-ups:



so... Orthus spawned:



boring location. Easy for Nicolae to collect a free axe.

[Krill]

Something for the lurkers to think about...

(4:54:40 PM) Krill: well
(4:54:54 PM) Krill: I do think you should settle city 5 for that eastern mana
(4:54:59 PM) Kyan: he spawns on nicolae's border
(4:55:08 PM) Kyan: i can have that discussion with rawkking
(4:55:21 PM) Kyan: but it would break the NAP to settle there without checking, most likely
(4:55:33 PM) Krill: where was the NAP in the thread?
(4:55:38 PM) Kyan: if nothing else, i'd like to check with him regardless
(4:55:51 PM) Kyan: its in the diplo summary page that i forgot to ever do, obviously
(5:01:02 PM) Krill: You know, I'm kinda regreetting asking you to post that chat now
(5:01:06 PM) Krill: it's not well formatted
(5:03:01 PM) Krill: fwiw
(5:03:14 PM) Krill: that mana is pretty damned nice
(5:03:20 PM) Krill: 5 mana res...
(5:04:00 PM) Krill: if you did found OO, and traded for 1 water mana, you could turn 2 mana to water, two to nature, leave hte fifth for metamagic later on, and get nature3/Water3 for free
(5:04:33 PM) Krill: I was testing to see what an enchanted spellstaff would do with puppets...allowing them to cast twice in one turn would have been uber
(5:06:40 PM) Kyan: hmm, i will see what i can do
(5:06:45 PM) Kyan: one thought i've had though
(5:06:52 PM) Kyan: is that if we delay gibbon too much to get techs for mana etc
(5:06:57 PM) Kyan: someone might beat us to him
(5:07:18 PM) Krill: As I see it, there is no point getting Gibbon unless we get a summon on him
(5:07:20 PM) Kyan: yeah, ok, we switch to hemah then, but still, it's an annoyin delay
(5:07:32 PM) Krill: that means we need 1 tech for mana
(5:07:41 PM) Krill: Founding OO, that's another 1 tech
(5:07:57 PM) Krill: that's not actually necessary
(5:08:03 PM) Krill: but an option depending on our tech speed
(5:08:17 PM) Krill: we are, what, 10 turns max from Aristo?
(5:09:23 PM) Krill: the other point
(5:09:33 PM) Krill: you need a city to have CoE to build Gibbon
(5:09:37 PM) Krill: if we found CoE
(5:09:44 PM) Krill: it can't spread
(5:09:55 PM) Krill: no one can build Gibbon
(5:10:14 PM) Krill: That suggests to me a rush to Deception.
(5:10:19 PM) Krill: but not a rush to Gibbon
(5:10:29 PM) Krill: and frankly, yes, we could push Gibbon out earlier then withouth te promos
(5:10:38 PM) Krill: but it would take longer to get all fo hte promotions on him that are wanted
(5:11:23 PM) Kyan: ah i see
(5:11:28 PM) Kyan: though i think thats wrong
(5:11:35 PM) Krill: Hell, after CoL, what are the options? We want Fishing for a nice fish city to the south
(5:11:37 PM) Kyan: if they get deception, they get a nightwatch
(5:11:38 PM) Krill: no
(5:11:40 PM) Kyan: so they can spread it
(5:11:44 PM) Krill: that's the problem Bob has in PBEM5
(5:11:50 PM) Krill: ah, true
(5:11:54 PM) Krill: still
(5:12:04 PM) Kyan: yeah
(5:12:05 PM) Krill: well
(5:12:07 PM) Kyan: i agree with you
(5:12:13 PM) Krill: true for the religions
(5:12:17 PM) Krill: not sure for CoE
(5:12:19 PM) Krill: best ask Bob
(5:12:50 PM) Kyan: im pretty sure
(5:12:59 PM) Kyan: from the other games, people got a free nightwatch
(5:13:19 PM) Krill: I think after CoL Sailing is a good aim, so we can trade for fire mana with Nic, get that on an adept (OK we therefore need KotE), burn down that jungle and hook the gems
(5:13:56 PM) Kyan: yeah, i sent him an email about orthus
(5:14:07 PM) Kyan: he'd see on his turn anyhow
(5:21:08 PM) Krill: you know...there would be a rather sick way to stop someone else building Gibbon
(5:21:12 PM) Krill: build him yourself
(5:21:25 PM) Kyan: two turns of anarchy...
(5:21:27 PM) Krill: then revolt out of CoE so he leaves you when you are almost ready to build him again
(5:21:30 PM) Kyan: i see your plan
(5:21:32 PM) Krill: yeah
(5:21:41 PM) Krill: oh, and guess what the world spell is?
(5:21:45 PM) Kyan: haha
(5:22:00 PM) Kyan: thats the most nuts plan
(5:22:07 PM) Kyan: i wish i didnt really like it
(5:23:55 PM) Kyan: gotta shoot... but, bah, i hate your plans. or rather, i hate that i love your plans haha

[Xenoborg]

Hahah that is great.

How exactly does disbanding/rebuilding heroes work anyway?

[Krill]

Well, I assume if you disband a hero you can't build him again. That's why the world spell would let us have the double length golden age, and within that period we could revolt to another religion, build whatever, reconfigure the mana nodes to whatever we want, call in whatever deals we need (and remember, the other players won't think we're going to rebuild Gibbon, after we've already built him and gotten whatever promotions on him), and then 10 turns later, revolt back to CoE and build Gibbon, and bang, we've just gotten a billion promotions on him and we can go rape people after building up a huge army during the GA.

Really. What's not to like? It would mean we wouldn't even need water mana until the second time around: we could just tech Alteration for nature nodes for vitalize, trade for water mana so adepts can spring and the Gibbon puppets can vitalize to halve the time we need gibbon for terraforming, meaning we are quicker to Deception so others can't steal Gibbon, and quicker to vitalize. Then we tech whatever we need (Sourcery+Elementalism?), dispel the nodes, reconfigure then, call in the water and air mana trades, and pop Gibbon out with W3 and A3 for free. If we'd need vitalize later on, well, a druid can do that for us, but the core will already be green, green grasslands.