Primepolar's adventure through hexapoda research

[Primepolar]

Well, going philosophical, will hopefully let me tech quicker in the beginning, being able to bust out Great sages earlier, which lets me builb KOTE, which then lets me run more sages. I'm still planning on going mostly recon units for the early game, and possibly mid as well. If I can get 3-4 satyrs up and a few invis ghosts for vision/destroying cities one by one it will be good. I should have a pretty decent movement rate with divided soul. Its going to sort of be a one trick pony, since I will only be able to stealth non ghosts once, but if I can get it out before someone has vision I should be able to do some pretty severe damage. I would love to take some elven town/ancient forests if possible, but I would have a hard time holding any town I took, since my units aren't going to be particularly strong, just very agile. I'm hoping that if I can get enough recon units up early enough that I could put some serious hurt on the sheim if they chose to attack me early. as long as I have units that can win individual battles I should be good, since I can attack and then run away 2-3 spaces, so that zombie collateral doesn't murder me. As long as the elves don't run away economically, or whosit gets archmages I think hope to do Ok.

[Qgqqqqq]

My problem I suppose arises because of the games diplo aspect - due to diplo the warmongering you'll need to have awesome (non-passive xp) units like satyrs will be harder.
I don't see that much synergy between sidar and recon anyway - its only a pair of UU, and I feel the sidar focus is on economy which (for me at least) means you should be looking at powerful units that want a bunch of techs - i.e archmages.

[gtAngel]

On the AV/FoL debate, there are a couple other things to point out.

First, Guardian of Nature is an economy civic. This means it's in the same branch as Agrarianism, which is extremely useful for you. Sacrifice the Weak is part of cultural values, which isn't a very important branch for you (mostly minor bonuses except for Scholarship, which comes very late.)

As for the Scholarship idea, I don't like it very much. It's decent for Shekinah and if you were playing a super builder heavy game, but as Sandy in a more standard game I think it has too many flaws. I really prefer Ashen Veil to Mages as well. Consider this: AV takes a grand total of two techs (Corruption of Spirit, Infernal Pact) which amounts to 3466 beakers. Going for Scholarship takes three extra techs as well (Elementalism, Sorcery, Arcane Lore) which is 7210 beakers.

In fact, AV is even nicer because you get access to the Infernal Grimoire, which gives you a free tech. Arcane Lore gives a Great Sage, but that won't be as useful given the situation. If you're just looking for time to collateral, AV wins that again. One tech (Corruption of Spirit, 1733 beakers) compared to two techs (Elementalism, Sorcery, 3050 beakers.)

AV is just more efficient than Mages. You need to invest into religion to solve your culture issues, and FoL synergizes so well that there is very little reason to leave the tech branch, and AV just naturally flows from the FoL investment. Overally I don't really like the arcane branch for Sandalphon - I feel like he would always rather go Religion (for standard games) or Economy (for builder games), rather than Arcane. If he had better palace mana maybe, but all three spell spheres are very supportive. Enchantment is awful for you (benefits to melee and archery, woo), Shadow isn't worth investing for (the T2 spell is utter crap), and Spirit isn't that amazing (Courage requires literally a single adept for all of your needs, and Hope isn't terribly powerful unless you're spamming adepts for another reason.)

[Primepolar]

Thats all good points. I can't run GON if I am not FOL religion, and I'm pretty sure sacrifice the weak requires ashen vale. Unless you mean that I'm going to be wanting to be running agrenarism instead of GON, which in that case that makes sense. I'm not sure if its a bug, but after attacking with ghosts in singleplayer they remain hidden, but in the description it says hidden is removed after combat, is this a bug, or is intended feature? I guess I could always cast hidden at the end of turn so it doesn't really matter, but Ghosts are really strong if they don't have detection, like holy shit, especially if I get the archrons chozen, with the 2 unholy bonus, and 20 percent heal after combat

[gtAngel]

Yeah, my point was that Agrarianism is often your civic of choice. The extra food is extremely powerful, and it synergizes so well with Aristocracy that it's very hard to justify leaving.

Also, at least from what I've seen, ghosts in single player lose hidden after your turn. So the enemy gets at least one turn to attack them before they can re-stealth. (Although you can always divide soul away )

[Qgqqqqq]

Eh, agarianism AND STW is a not excessive if not vamps - I d say conquest is a better civic to combo.

[gtAngel]

Yeah, that's a benefit though, because once against Guardian of Nature stops you from using Conquest (so no turning farms into production.)

[Qgqqqqq]

Yeah I agree StW>GoN, I just don't see why you feel the need for so much food - StW is excessive unless you also go slavery.

[gtAngel]

I am probably putting too much emphasis on food :P

Also Conquest>Slavery for turning food into production for any unit production needs at least. Really though, I don't think StW is terribly important, just that it's something to consider as the game rolls later and later and you get more specialist slots. Turning a 4/0/3 farm into food for three specialists is pretty nice.

[Qgqqqqq]

Yeah until scholarship you only need ~6 food surplus max.