Whosit Clowns Around in EitB PBEM XXVI [SPOILERS!]

[Brian Shanahan]

Oh, yes, I suppose it was you bringing up a few points in that thread, though from the sound of it you agreed with most of the main points, but perhaps you were being reserved?

As for the joke, don't feel bad--it's my fault for falling for it in the first place, and for immediately jumping to the conclusion that I needed to clean up my thread. I still have all the pictures so I'll probably reproduce it sooner or later.

Mechanics questions, though, I do have one: Adepts/Mages. I've been playing around with Arcane units in my SP game and for the life of me I don't quite understand them. How does their XP gain work? Most of my adepts have been gaining XP but none have actually fought (I can tell you don't want them fighting since their strength is so low). Additionally, is it possible to upgrade an Adept to a Mage while the Adept still has available promotions? Either you can't do it, or I just couldn't find the upgrade option under all the promotions that were available. I ask because I wonder if it's possible to "save" a 5th level promotion for after they are upgraded.

Speaking of that, is there any reason to have more than one type of a mana node if you're not summoning units with an affinity for that type of Mana?

Something I am glad that I realized is that Balseraphs starts with Air, which means I will have access to a 2nd Tier Collateral magic, so I do not need to invest in Catapults (though I may still want to, EitB Catapults are hilarious). I also learned that Maelstrom will hurt ANY unit in a 2 tile radius, even friendly ones. But, yeah, figuring out the right balance between guys with swords and guys with magic will be tricky. And because there's someone playing Sheaim, I wonder if it's worth investing in Life magic to deal with the undead summons I may face.

Adepts and XP
Adepts get a random chance every turn to gain 1 xp point in addition to any they gain from combat. There is a ceiling at the number of xp they can gain this way, similar to the 100 heroic xp but lower, but is enough to get the unit high enough to upgrade (and then some). The chance % and the xp ceiling rise when you upgrade your units, so that Mages and Archmages can get more promotions just by sitting around scratching their rear ends.

Arcane civs get an extra promotion on their arcane units, which gives higher % rates and ceilings at each level. Promotions are saved on upgrade, in some SP games I've 48/10 xp arcane units running around before I get around to Sorcery.

This is all due to the fact that arcane units are glass cannons, unable to stand up to a pounding. If they were strong enough to melee other units in their era, nobody would build anything else.

Mana nodes
Each additional node gives a free promotion of x-1 of the same affinity to built or upgraded arcane unit which is allowed to take that level of spell. To illustrate, you've the Pyre of the Seraphic, and two built fire nodes, giving three total, each adept after built after this will get free Fire 1 (scorch) out the gate, any adepts promoted to mages after will get free Fire 1 and Fire 2 (fireball) out the gate, and any mages promoted to Archmage will get free Fire 1 and Fire 2 out the gate. Units built or upgraded before the nodes are online (built and connected by trade route) do not get these promotions, and for the Archmage to get free Fire 3 (fire elemental) you would need a 4th fire node.

It brings strategic depth to what way you want nodes upgraded, e.g. 2 body mana nodes gives free Fast spell allowing 1 extra move point on every living unit, but if you're going for a ToM win is one less node you can use for a tower.

Life magic

It is worth thinking about, but on the other hand it hurts your undead-summons too (skelly spamming) so you have to be very careful where you use it.

[Brian Shanahan]

P.S. I'm 5 hours ahead of you Whosit, on GMT, so if it comes to late afternoon/early evening and you find yourself snowed under with work &c. most evenings I'll be able to sub in if needed.

Tuesday nights are my only real issue atm, I'm doing a TEFL course atm.

[Whosit]

Thanks for the explanations guys. I had figured some of that out the other night since I played around more in my SP game and focused on adepts/mages (it just so happens that my traits include Aggressive, Spiritual, and Arcane, and haven't changed for a while), so lucky me I got potency on most of my dudes. However, your explanations make things a whole lot clearer. I had ended up grabbing a total of 3 Death Mana nodes (2 nodes, 1 from Tower of Necromancy) so I did notice all my Mages got their second tier summon for free.

In the actual game here, deciding what nodes to build is going to be tricky. Your point about Life damaging my own undead, Brian, is of note. Is Undead summoning powerful enough that I'll want at least some Death mana regardless? From my very limited playing so far, though, I did see some of the potential for mass summoning a bunch of Spectors (which I believe got their strength boosted by all my death mana), buffing them (I had Blur and Dance of Blades available) and then throwing them at an enemy stack before I sent in my actual units. Life mana wouldn't do much against those one-turn summons anyway, right?

But, yeah, it's going to be interesting trying to build my army, and strategy, around my traits. This also brings up the question about how valuable it is to go for Iron weapons, and eventually Mithral weapons. I did notice that getting the two Mithral techs was very, very expensive (in my SP, I decided to tech for Archmages since I'm still Arcane).

I have also not touched Divine casters yet at all because I don't know what I'm doing in that regard yet. My religion is also Fellowship of Leaves because that's what my neighbor got. And I captured the holy city. But I think that something like Octopus Overlords would be a lot more thematically appropriate. I can't quite tell if the in-game benefit is better, though.

Oh, and I founded Council of Erus, but the game crashed when I tried to build the shrine. Is this a known issue?

Finally, Brian, thanks for the offer to sub! I'll probably be able to get to the save most days, but I'll let you know if I can't.

Finally finally, because this has been a lot of words already, I'm gonna think about my general opening plans (which will surely change when I see the start). I hope I get some kinda farmable resource. Because I start with Agri, is going for that Agrarianism + Aristocracy civics combo something I should think about? In my SP game, I started out doing cottages before switching strategies.

Actually, speaking of that, one even bigger question I have! Food! You can get a lot of food, but not a lot of ways to "spend" it, since Slavery isn't on a direct tech route in EitB compared to BtS, and it's not a no-brainer civic, I think? Heck, Granaries build so slow that my cities are usually maxed out before they even finish! I know the happy cap might improve later, but it still seems kind of silly. How does one manage large food surpluses in this game? Later on, specialists seem quite plausible, but I won't have many specialist slots early.

Okay, actually gonna stop here. Lots of questions already, so don't want to overwhelm my little helpers.

[Mardoc]

Woohoo, another clown!

I tend to think the Balseraphs are one of the top tier civs, but since their benefits come in a lot of little things rather than one big thing, it takes some doing to make them really shine.

In the actual game here, deciding what nodes to build is going to be tricky. Your point about Life damaging my own undead, Brian, is of note. Is Undead summoning powerful enough that I'll want at least some Death mana regardless? From my very limited playing so far, though, I did see some of the potential for mass summoning a bunch of Spectors (which I believe got their strength boosted by all my death mana), buffing them (I had Blur and Dance of Blades available) and then throwing them at an enemy stack before I sent in my actual units

Like all strategies, "It Depends". But summons are generally very strong. Other summons of note are Hosts of the Einherjar (Law 2), Pit Beasts (Entropy 2) and Fireballs (Fire 2) - pick whichever one counters your opponents' stack.

Life mana wouldn't do much against those one-turn summons anyway, right?

Right. Well - it makes it harder to play defense, but you've got Puppets, which helps.

I have also not touched Divine casters yet at all because I don't know what I'm doing in that regard yet. My religion is also Fellowship of Leaves because that's what my neighbor got. And I captured the holy city. But I think that something like Octopus Overlords would be a lot more thematically appropriate. I can't quite tell if the in-game benefit is better, though.

It depends.

Quick summary of religions:
Early:
Kilmorph - handy for gold, buffs your army, not much else. No culture!
Leaves - good for culture, good if you've got forests you want to keep, awesome for elves
OO - good for culture, awesome for navies

Other:
All good for culture except Esus
Ashen Veil: Still probably strongest war religion
Order: boosts your armies, minor econ boosts
Empyrean: Counters Esus, Blinding Light is handy
Esus: Haven't figured out yet if it's balanced. Used to be worth having just for Nox. Easiest way to get an Archmage.

Oh, and I founded Council of Erus, but the game crashed when I tried to build the shrine. Is this a known issue?

Yes, and Sareln's even released a fix, and it'll be included in v10.
http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthrea...#pid315500

Finally finally, because this has been a lot of words already, I'm gonna think about my general opening plans (which will surely change when I see the start). I hope I get some kinda farmable resource. Because I start with Agri, is going for that Agrarianism + Aristocracy civics combo something I should think about? In my SP game, I started out doing cottages before switching strategies.

It depends on how long the game goes, really. Aristrograrianism is the most powerful early commerce, bar none, but cottages can now overtake it in late game. Plus it's not really either-or, you can start with aristocracy and later transition to cottages once you have excess food.

Actually, speaking of that, one even bigger question I have! Food! You can get a lot of food, but not a lot of ways to "spend" it, since Slavery isn't on a direct tech route in EitB compared to BtS, and it's not a no-brainer civic, I think? Heck, Granaries build so slow that my cities are usually maxed out before they even finish! I know the happy cap might improve later, but it still seems kind of silly. How does one manage large food surpluses in this game? Later on, specialists seem quite plausible, but I won't have many specialist slots early.

In my experience - build more settlers . Also, the Conquest civic can use your food usefully. Slavery - in base FFH it was pretty bad, I wonder if it still is or if that's just habit. Although part of the problem is yes, that granaries and smokehouses are more expensive and worse.

[Whosit]

Lots of good stuff there, Mardoc. I was wondering about Aristocracy vs. Cottages in the long-term, so that answers my questions somewhat. I guess the trick there is figuring out when to transition to cottages, since they do take time to outpace the +2 commerce Farms. Also, thanks for reminding me about Conquest. I used it a few times in SP, but didn't really think of it as "early game civic to help me put big food surpluses to use."

Oh, and thanks for the link to the fixed dll. I believe I got that installed correctly.

You listed Fireballs as a summon. Was that a mistake or are you just being a joker?

Looping back to the beginning, your point that the Balseraph get lots of little things instead of one big thing is something that I think I was starting to piece together myself. There's the Vampires who get Vampires (glad we don't have them in this game), Hippus apparently have super horses (we do have a Hippus), and I could list off a few of the other civs I know that have some single big thing that may dictate their strategy. That the Balseraph don't is both good and bad for me, I think. Bad because I don't have something to strategize around, but good because I may have a fallback when my strategies inevitably fail! I think I'll want to get to Festivals fairly quickly for the Freaks and Carnivals. Mimics seem like they have the potential to be interesting (but seem like a strong unit regardless). I haven't played around with Taskmasters or Courtesans yet.

Of course, all this assumes I don't pop a lair next to my capital and spawn a hundred skeletons. (Though I think I've learned not to explore any lair even remotely close to my lands without adequate preparation.)

[Brian Shanahan]

Yes fireballs are a summon. They're a throwaway unit, pretty much a poor man's catapult. Their main use being that their summoner is far more versatile than a catapult.

Freaks are really powerful actually, good promotions are kept for upgrading and bad promotions for running arena battles for the extra happy.

The best use I've seen for slavery has been to go evil, get AV and Sacrifice of the Weak, run the AC to 30 for the plague and whip your cities down into a big army and attack the others before they recover (granted this is in SP, but a dedicated AC rush is a valid strategy in MP, and is somewhat thematic for Perpy, turn the rest of the world as mad as you).

Overall the best religion IMO is still AV, strong priests, good heroes, the Dogs and diseased corpses make for a very strong rolling army.


Sorry for the random thought dump, eating my dinner (bacon and cabbage, yum!) and watching a very bad rugby match (France vs Wales, thought I'd never see the day).

Edit: my clown avatar:



Click image for why.

[Whosit]

For some reason I thought fireballs were a blasty thing, like Maelstrom, but now I know! Chances are I'll stick with the Air powers since I start with that, but as has been said, it all depends.

Freaks obviously also make Freak Shows. They cost the same as Monuments, but also provide +1 happy (and some GPP, I may try that Bard bulbs the Theatre tech for another Bard thing). I think I'd favor making a Freak Show first. The only problem I see with the Arena Battles is that you can run out of Freaks to sacrifice pretty quickly if your luck goes bad.

I'll look into AV stuff, though. Maybe start a new SP game to figure out a good way to get there. It certainly does seem thematically appropriate, though that means I'll also have to figure out how to deal with Hell Terrain and other junk! I recently read Ravus Sol's attempt to burn the world as the Orcs. Sadly that didn't go as well as he'd hoped. I certainly wouldn't want to get the AC all the way up, but hopefully I wouldn't make a huge target of myself for spreading AV around.

Anyway, enjoy your dinner and the game as best you can. Thanks for the input!

[Qgqqqqq]

Slavery sucks IMO.
One thing to remember about air nages. is that they tend to level off - after the first 5 or so the rest won't have an affect, so you should plan to switch to summons eventually regardless.
You should also plan around an earlier religion for culture IMO.
Leaves is pretty weak and requires a bunch of techs.

[Brian Shanahan]

Leaves is pretty weak and requires a bunch of techs.

Leaves are only really any good if you're an elf. Kilimorph is a good early religion for tech purposes, the extra gold on the temples really pushes the tech rate. OO is the culture religion, and also good for seaborne invasions, but the Lanun are by far the best civ for them.

Oh with AV priests you can focus your mages completely on summons, and not worry about any collateral.

[Whosit]

It's starting to sound like I might want to get Kilimorph to improve my tech rate so I can get AV faster. I probably don't need religion for culture since I'll have Freak Shows, yes? I'd say that I'm creative, but chances are my traits will switch before I even found my second city.

Of course, this brings up another point: Techs are much more specialized in EitB. How much do I want to generalize, and how much do I want to drill down a tech line? This is as much me wondering aloud as it is an actual question. Land will dictate that somewhat. Festivals is probably going to be an early target, anyway, since the earlier I can start building Freaks the better, I'm sure. And how early do I want to gun for stuff like Catapults and Iron Weapons as opposed to magic? Probably depends on my traits, too. Ho ho ho.

Edit: That Dr. Whiteface sounds like an o.k. fellow!