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

[Kyan]

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.

Ok, i've thought about this... and i absolutely LOVE it. We get to abuse him for vitalize whilst we get the required techs to re-form him as a combat-based behemoth. But, lurkers, anyone, is this possible?

[Kyan]

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

Fair enough. Was worth considering briefly anyhoo and good to know that it's doable.

[Kyan]

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.

Don't be afraid to speak up mate, both me and Krill are new to the mod also. I don't quite understand your idea. I thought slaves were worse versions of workers?

If this is feasible, then it would be nice in combination for our other reason for buying slaves- happiness! From what i understand, we can cage one of each type of humanoid for an extra happy per city? For anyones that we don't want (duplicates), we can throw them in the arena to see if we can get a useful unit out of it.

Such a shame that we can't upgrade freaks to adepts. Lurkers- do you know of any other way to get adepts xp any faster that we could abuse here? Form of the titan and milking goblin forts are about all i can think of currently

[Bobchillingworth]

Outside of combat, three civics give +2 exp each, the Titan gives +2, and Command Posts another +2 (you can get one via the free Great Commander from Military Strategy, and possibly more from GP points from the Command Post / Titan / some other stuff). So you can theoretically get +10 to start (as in, instant mages), although it'll require a lot of tech and some special buildings and potentially otherwise lousy civics.


Milking goblin forts / other lairs will be pretty unreliable, since they tend to spawn stuff rarely toward the late game. There are ways to produce more barb units, but I can't think of any at the moment that are at all practical for you.


There are other ways to get exp, but discussing them gets more into "direct strategy" territory, so I'll leave them to you to figure out for now

[Kyan]

There are other ways to get exp, but discussing them gets more into "direct strategy" territory, so I'll leave them to you to figure out for now

Bah and to think i handpicked you as my lurker! :neenernee

I suggested to Krill that maybe we could come up with a mutual xp farming plan with someone like the Sheaim (since they'll have skeleton summons) but he thought this was too cheesy...

[Bobchillingworth]

I suggested to Krill that maybe we could come up with a mutual xp farming plan with someone like the Sheaim (since they'll have skeleton summons) but he thought this was too cheesy...

Aaaand yeah this is basically what I was alluding to. Easily the best way to get mass exp on units like adepts quickly, and totally exploitive. Works even better if you have a spare Great Commander to pop on and off adepts, since he'll boost their combat exp.

[Kyan]

Aaaand yeah this is basically what I was alluding to. Easily the best way to get mass exp on units like adepts quickly, and totally exploitive. Works even better if you have a spare Great Commander to pop on and off adepts, since he'll boost their combat exp.

Would you personally use it in a game, if the diplomatic side of things can be arranged?

[Bobchillingworth]

Yes. There's a measure of risk involved (the other person could betray you and try to kill your adepts, and if it's mutual levelling you'll be making him stronger as well), and I don't think that it's much different from declaring on an AI in SP for the explicit purpose of levelling up on their wandering stacks, something I do in most of my SP games. Just because it's exploitive doesn't mean that it's bad- your building / retiring / building again Gibbon plan clearly exploits game mechanics too, but it's also quite clever and I doubt that anyone would morally object to it.

[Kyan]

Yes. There's a measure of risk involved (the other person could betray you and try to kill your adepts, and if it's mutual levelling you'll be making him stronger as well), and I don't think that it's much different from declaring on an AI in SP for the explicit purpose of levelling up on their wandering stacks, something I do in most of my SP games. Just because it's exploitive doesn't mean that it's bad- your building / retiring / building again Gibbon plan clearly exploits game mechanics too, but it's also quite clever and I doubt that anyone would morally object to it.

Good man. 2 votes to 1 then :neenernee

This could all be totally unreasonable if i can't pull off the diplo though. Sheaim would be, by far, the best person to do this with, but i'd feel far safer with Brian or Rawkking. We'll see.

[Krill]

Ok, i've thought about this... and i absolutely LOVE it. We get to abuse him for vitalize whilst we get the required techs to re-form him as a combat-based behemoth. But, lurkers, anyone, is this possible?

I just tested. Gibbon can be rebuilt after he deserts us for leaving CoE.

As to a way to get a lot of mages, eh...I think the only way to deal with that is to build a shitload and let them mature. I still don't see the point in helping someone else in the game militarily by improving their adepts: Nicolae doesn't need us and knows we are the big dog. Brian would have a damned big flank to attack us over later on.

I just think we could go with massed water summons and some real units as honour guard etc with Gibbon as the central theme of the army. The front line adepts will mature naturally, if we get them to 6XP from a GC/FotT/Apprenticeship. Theocracy means we can't use Aristocracy (boo, but hell we could easily use the double golden age to swap in and out of that civic) to get to 8XP for adepts in 1 city. I think we can get FotT if we risk using a good lizard to kill the hill giants (maybe using a patented warriorpult to help out) or maybe those griffons will get us close enough we won't need them, and we are in the tech lead now, and will have the highest undisputed bpt in 10 turns.

I think 8XP on adepts, even if built from one city (at 1 adept a turn) would be enough for the war mages, plus others from other cities at 6XP.