Bearing the flag proudly, Sabathiel of the Bannors [SPOILERS]

[Mr. Yellow]

First of all, if you are one of the players here then i will humbly ask you to turn around and leave. You may come back once the game is over.
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Well, pretty excited now. My first ever PBEM ever so this will hopefully be a wonderful experience. Although i have a basic plan on how to approach this, i could certainly use a dedicated lurker for some assistance.
Anyway, lets see how far i can advance with the crusaders.

[Mr. Yellow]

I'll first talk a little about the Bannors and basically why i went with Sabathiel.

Now, i wanted to go with a rather straightforward civ with a fun mechanic for this game and the Bannors fits that pretty well.
They are considered to be an all-around militaristic civ that is easy to get familiar with, since there aren't as drastically different as many other civs are. So you get a pretty flexible approach to what you want to focus on (although there are a certain few branches you should always focus on however).

However, they would look pretty underwhelming compared to the rest, as well as not very interresting if it wasn't for a pretty fun gimmick. The reason why you would pick the Bannors in the first place.
Which is the ability to launch huge, glorious, devastating (and possibly wacky) [SIZE="5"]CRUSADES![/SIZE]

Crusades in the game comes as a civic that’s accesible through the Cultural values branch. Accesible once you research Fanaticism and are exclusive only to the Bannors.



What the civic nets you is:
- a HUGE reduction in war weariness (-75%).
- Lots of free upkeep for units, way more than the military state civic.
- Several more happy faces in cities with state religion (2+).
- Units trained in cities with state religion are trained faster (+25%).

And finally, the big star of them all. There is a 20% chance every turn that a free unit (Demagog) will spawn in your towns (Will demote it to a village).

This alone makes the Bannor a very threatening civ in a war, being able to rally troops at a devastatingly fast rate and to win almost all wars of attrition thanks to the heavy reductions in war weariness.
However, launching crusades comes with noticable prize and that is:
- You must be in a war before you can change to the crusader civic.
- Being unable to conduct diplomacy with any civilization at war with you.
- It gives you 3 turns of anarchy (should try to mix in a GA)
- Being unable to produce most of the commercial infrastructure in cities, so you are more or less limited to the militaristic and religious building. In addition you are also unable to train workboats, workers and settlers!

So this isn’t something you can activate at every time you’re involved in a war. This is something that should only be used for the very big and game changing wars. The fact that you cannot conduct diplomacy (not sure if you can recieve proposals though) with your opponents means you are pretty much going all-in and won’t stop till your opponents are defeated. In addition it leaves you pretty drained once it’s over.

There are several more stuff connected the crusades and the first of them are the unique units, both which only can be trained during a crusade.



The Demagog are basically champions with one less strength. What sets them apart however are the halved production costs and that there’s no upkeep to support it. However the most important thing to remember about them is that once a crusade is done, they will leave your army!



The Flagbearers are simple support units that gives small benefits to your army. They are pretty insignificant on their own, but they have the ability to ”cast” the ”spell” morale, which gives every unit in the stack 10% strength and 10% city attack strength. Pretty small, but still handy for a large army. Unlike the demagogs though, they stay ingame even after the crusade is over.

Finally we have the Bannors worldspell, Rally.
This basically amplifies the crusader civic in that it instantly assembles a demagog in every town you got (still demotes them to villages). If you have a lot of towns, then just one click and BAM! Instant humongous power increase and lots and lots of infantry units popping up all over your empire, ready to join the crusade.

Now over the non-crusade bits.



The Bannor hero is Donal Lugh. A 7 strength melee unit availible midgame that comes with 3 additional abilities.
First of them is that he’s equipped with the Empty Bier, an artifact that increases the units defensive strength by 2 and doubles it’s fortifaction bonus (from 25% to 50%), making the unit equipped with it pretty efficent for city defence.
The 2nd is the ability to recruit units (1 for every 3 population in a city), exactly the same as the great commanders. However, Donal Lugh does not disappear when using it, though he must kill an undead or demonic unit to be able to cast it again. This makes me consider keeping a barrow around for skeleton harvest to regularily refill the ability. However, the units you gain are pretty random (recon, mounted, melee) and they do not gain any starting experience if you have the civics (or buildings) for that.
Finally he can cast the spell Hope (Spirit 2). A city improvement spell that gives 4+ culture, a happy face and the promotion courage for every units recruited there. Could be handy in a few situations, like border pops for mid-late game new cities.

Now the leaders. The Bannor have access to 3 of them; Sabathiel, Capria and Decius. I eventually decided to pick Sabathiel.



His traits are pretty neat for warmongering (even though Capria are better at initiating crusades due to Spiritual). The charismatic and organized traits actually synergizes quite well and allows for a heavily promoted army with the right civics and buildings.

Both traits are more or less the same as in CIV4. With charismatic netting me +1 happy face (giving me slightly but significant bigger cities early on) and of course, -25% reduction for requirred XP between each levels, which is way more important in this mod.
Organized gives the typical -50% reduction in civic upkeep and double production speed for lighthouses and courthouses. However, what really made me decide to pick the shadow dictator was that the trait also lets you construct those sweet sweet Command Posts. Which otherwise are only availible through using Great Commanders.

Command posts are fairly expensive buidlings that gives units trained in the city +2 XP, as well as an increase in miliary production (20%) and 1 commander GPP.
This is what makes him able to easily train units up to the sweet spot of +8 XP and 3 promotions. Even better, i don’t have to wait for adepts to mature before being upgraded to mages and can instantly upgrade them once trained.
To do that though i have to adopt the Theocracy, Apprenticeship and Conquest civics (all 2 XP each) to get the necessary experience points for that. Which could hurt me if i stick to it on the long run.
Because of that, i will see if i can get an oppurtunity to construct the Form of the Titan (also gives 2 XP) to ease on the requirements.

Finally the Bannors have a civilization trait called Guardsman, which gives the guardsman promotion to every archer and melee units. This effectively makes Bannor armies immune to assassins and every other unit with the marksman promotion, since those with Guardsman will protect the more vulnerable targets, making it easier to guard mages in the field.

Oh and yes, the palace. It gives earth, law and spirit mana. As well as a further -10% decrease in war weariness. Nothing significant, altough it nicely stacks with the crusader civic and courthouses.

I’ll post my thoughts on the opponents and what kind of approach i’ll do next.

(Btw, does anyone know of a pretty kickass image of crusaders marching/warring? Couldn't find one i liked.)

[Square Leg]

Thanks for your overview of the Bannor. I haven't played against them or as them before so they are a complete mystery to me!

[Mr. Yellow]

Apprechiate it SL.

Anyway, i got 3 goals to follow here.
1: Reach Fanaticism and still have a foot in the game.
[SIZE="3"]2: CRUSADE![/SIZE]
3: Win either through domination or religion

While the Bannors are militaristic, they don't start to shine untill midgame once Fanaticism (located in the middle of the religious branch) has been researched. Untill then, my focus will be to grab as much land as possible and build up a very large cottage economy, which i am pretty much forced to considering that's how i can get an instant power increase. Of course, the rest of the players know that and will certainly try to stall or even eliminate me before i reach that stage.

As for the army, my ideal scenario here is to have lots of well equipped rookies (Demagogs), a core of elite footmen, a fair amount of supportive mages and confessors and a small division of cavalry for pillaging purposes. I might also go for siege weapons should it be needed as well.



Now while the traits i have don't give me any direct benefits towards expansion, i have a few indirect ones in form of slightly larger cities early game and being able to handle maintanence costs more easily.
First objective will be to grab whatever worker/infrastructure technologies i need and eventually, get cottages and the civic city states.
In addition i will be focusing a bit on farms (and agrianism) early on for faster city growth, so that i can eventually work more cottage tiles.
If the situation calls for it, i will also grab Mysticism early on for God king, to get the first few settlers out faster.

Once i've researched Education, i will try to gain a few military and economic techs and to grab a religion. The one i will be focusing on is Order, mainly cause i doubt the other players will grab it, it's easily the fastest spreading religion and gives me access to a few handy units and buildings as well, mainly the confessors and the basillica. There aren't any good long term benefits to it though, but it should do nicely once i get Fanaticism.

I might however, take a detour to the Runes of Kilmorph. Mainly for some economic benefits, considering i will be on an expanding spree, though maybe markets do well enough on their own. Also a few stonewardens wouldn't hurt and would even help me if i end up building catapults.

In addition i'll try to research up to mages for supportive roles. I will mainly be using Air and Fire for collateral purposes, as well as get a few body mages for haste and regeneration. There are other handy manas to grab as well should it be needed.

Finally, the metal branch will be pretty important as well. So i'm gonna grab iron before eventually go for fanaticism (or after, we'll see how it goes).



If i'm still alive and kicking after reseaching, then heck, time to have some fun! This is the moment were i'll be truly aggressive and seek out oppurtunites to fight. It doesn't necessarily mean i'll instantly go for CRUSADES though (it's an all-in mechanic remember).
Considering that religious victory are one of my possible goals i might even force players with the threat of CRUSADES to convert over to Order and then eliminate the remains of other religions through inquisition.
There are a few certain techs i'd like as well from here such as Religious law (of not already researched), Righteousness and Mithril Working (the latter 2 can easily be gained through the tower of divination), but that's far into the game and the situation could easily call for something else, so we'll see how it goes.

So anyway in short, i'll be the goddamn templars of this game!

[Mr. Yellow]

5 opponents. Of those i presume WarriorKnight and Irgy will be the ones to look out for. Not sure what to say regarding the other 3 though.

[SIZE="4"]Irgy/Tebryn Arbandi of the Sheaim (Arcane, Summoner)[/SIZE]
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By far the civ i would look out for the most. If there’s 3 things they are known for, it's armageddon, summoning and zombies on fire.
A pyre zombie rush can be simply described as nasty. The explosion forces everyone to take them on 1:1 if the stack is big enough. So i will have to prepare myself with catapults and enough manpower of warriors, if i’m unfortunate to have them as my neighbours.

Secondly they are a society of mages that specalizes in summons. Both of Tebryns traits are exclusively for mages, with arcane giving promotions more frequently and summoner making the summons last extra long (3 turns). Irgy will undoubtably go for the death summons, so life mages are gonna be extra important, as well as units with holy type damage.

Finally, they want to cause armageddon, being the only civ that actually benefits from it (untill the Infernals come into play).
They have a unique building called the planar gates, which has a random chance of spawning a special unit exclusive to the sheaim. Both the chance happening and the limit of units gained are tied to the armageddon counter. Increasing in frequency the bigger it is (4 ”levels”; 0-49, 50-74,75-99 and 100). In addition there are 2 wonders Irgy will most certainly pursue. The 1st is the AV’s holy shrine, which gives units built in the city the ”stigmata” promotion. The 2nd is Prophecy of Ragnarok, which gives units built there the ”Prophecy mark” promotion, which effecticely raises the AC counter by 1 for each (and decreases back again once the unit is killed).
Also to help increasing the AC counter, they got a repeatable ritual that increases the counter by 5 everytime it’s done.
Then there’s their worldspell Worldbreak, which i don’t want to happen if the AC counter is big enough. Nasty stuff.

On the other hand, no other civs wants armageddon. So the Sheaim will get the most flak in this game and most certainly be the 1st target to pile on. That would also benefit me, as it will throw off heat in my quest for fanaticism and CRUSADES.

[SIZE="4"]WarriorKnight/Einion Logos of the Elohim (Defender, Philosophical, Tolerant)[/SIZE]
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Om the other end of the alignment spectrum we find the Elohim, keepers of the world and the very opposite of the sheaim, being the best civ when it comes to keeping the AC counter down.

WK has chosen Einion Logos of the 2 availible, which i presume means he’s going for a scientific approach (Philosophical doubles production speed of Elder Councils and Libraries, in addition to +100% GPP) and i wonder if he is going for the Altar victory.
Elohim also have the tolerant trait (well, their leaders), which lets them build the unique units and building of other civs cities that’s been conquered. That could give them additional benefits if they decide to move on aggressively.

Anyway, this is a civ i’d prefer to be a neighbour of and friendly with, at least in the early game. They are a nice counterbalance to the Sheaim (unless there are other motives WK has in mind) and can be quite hard to crack due to their additional defensive bonuses as well as having a worldspell and a hero that can hold off an enemy for quite some time.
Also the fact that he didn’t choose Ethne (has creative instead of philosophical) means land won’t be as contested.

For religion, i presume he’s gonna continue the ”sunny” theme from PBEM8 and go for Empyrean. It’s also more or less the religion best suited for Elohim i guess.

I’ll cover the other 3 next time.

[Mr. Yellow]

[SIZE="3"]Mardoc/Hannah the Irin of the Lanun (Financial, Raiders)[/SIZE]
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Undoubtably the best techer of the 6 and has the best navy. Since we’re playing on continents (Erebus) there is little doubt that navies are gonna have some significance here and should be cautios of that, as well as Raiders. Pretty sure he’s gonna go for OO too.
Wonder if i should try to deny coastal expansions if we’re neighbours.
Also, possible CRUSADE target?


[SIZE="3"]Nyktorion/Thessa of the Ljosalfar (Expansive, Arcane)[/SIZE]
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Expansive, hmm? Not good if we’re neighbours trying to grab the best land. Then there’s arcane which will boost mages and diciples, an army of archers and mages/PoL perhaps?
Anyway, the elves are another civ that i want to be on friendly terms with initially. A defence of archers combined with FoL are very hard to crack.


[SIZE="3"]Thoth/Varn Gosam of the Malakim (Spiritual, Creative/Adaptive)[/SIZE]
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Finally we have the nomads. Not sure what to say of them, Thoth could go in any direction, though it’s most certainly that diciples will be a main part of his game, possibly Empyrean too. The initial creative trait will also help him a fair bit in the early game.



And that’s all my opponents covered. For threat level i would put the Sheaim by far on the very top and the Elohim on the bottom, with the other 3 civs close to the latter.

By the way, if you have questions regarding certain mechanics of FFH or if there’s something you wonder about regarding my approach to this game, feel free to post.

Also, I would still like a dedicated lurker, since again. It will be my first ever multiplayer experience in CIV4 and could certainly need some help.

[Mr. Yellow]

And we're finally off!

Loading up the turn i find myself in a pretty nice position. Corn and plain river gems to the left and lots of hills for production, majority of them with a forest. There was also whales and fish up north, but those resources isn't as important and they are too far away at the moment. Moving my scout east (named Dirk the Daring) i spot sheep, not bad. Question then if i should settle a bit more to the right or on the tile south, but decided to settle in place.


Sorry for the small pick. Will try to make future screens bigger eventually

So my first plan is to research [agriculture->ancient chants->mysticism] to get some nice food up and to make good use of the forested (and plains) hills for early production once i've revolted to god king.

Will be making a worker first that once ready, will farm the 4 availible spots, then be used to road to eventuall city sites. The warrior (Cadet Birger) will do some minor scouting before returning to the capital. While Dirk shall continue exploring till he's eaten by a spider.

Looking at the scores, i see that WK hasn't settled yet. Maybe he has seen that one of the big 3 features are located nearby and is using the starting settler bonus to quickly settle there.

[Mr. Yellow]

2nd turn goes off as expected, dull and uninterresting.

At least i found a hut in the east though.



A thing i'm curious about though is how WK got 11 more points than everyone else, got no experience in the number crunching department so i have little idea what it is. A tech?



Then there's the 18 GNP shown in the demographics. Pretty sure it's Thoth, thanks to creative. But what tiles is he working on?
Amusingly, someone has lost their scout already (1000 soldiers right?).


Finally, does someone here have experience using Photobucket? Everytime i upload, i get images way smaller than usual and when i try to enlarge it, it blurs and becomes unreadable.

[Ravus Sol]

The Pictures look good enough to see what's going on, don't worry too much about it at the moment.

Did you make any final decisions on whether to detour to Runes of Kilmorph? If you are going for a fast grab of all the land available then it's a worthwhile risk... and to be honest the fact that you can build the mines of Gal-Dur and get lots of Iron early on has allways been appealing to me. Not sure what additional effects it would have in a multiplayer game though. The Trading power of holding so many Irons could be a blessing or a curse.

Your summery of the Bannor seems very good. They really are about the overwhelming Crusading Army! I do, however, completly support singling the pirates out first to crusade against. As a Raiders Nation they are technically the ones that could do the most damage to your Town Economy/Military.

Are you definatly set on the Order as the final Religion? The Religion really just adds more of what the Bannor does allready. I can see the potential if the Sheaim manage to get some Apocalypse fury going... especially if they tempt the Malakim to go evil too... they would get the most out of supporting evil for those lovely Ritualists. Order is one of the best counters to a run-away AC counter.

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Pretty good starting position. That Free Mana node is really tempting you to make collateral warfare based on magic instead of Catapults.

[Mr. Yellow]

Have not made any final decisions yet regarding Runes of Kilmorph, it depends how the game evolves.

Reason why i want to go with Order in the end are mainly 2 reasons. 1st is that it hasn't really been showcased yet in RB and 2nd is that it's more or less an uncontested religion.

It may do more of what the Bannor already does, but it also piles on it.
Confessor will instantly boost strength of our units. Basillica with the combination of courthouses and a few law nodes will basically eliminate maintanence. It’s the fastest spreading religion that can also net us units in a succesfull spread (acolyte pre-fanaticism, crusader post). Finally if happiness resources are scarce we could switch civics to what is basically Hereditary rule (Social Order).

1st hero can be an incredible beast when it comes to harrasment (well both Rosier and Kithra can that as well). Add 2 movement promos, all combats and commando, any poorly protected cities in an opponents backlines are suddenly very vulnerable. Especially if we’re lucky to get Orthus to visit (now blitz too!). Sphener ain’t bad as well if we get that far.

There’s also some possible diplomatic value to it too. Sheaim are most likely considered the biggest threat by most civs right now and if we establish ourself as the civ with the means to stop them and possibly other AV civs, they might consider befriending us. There’s also some value to it against OO as well.