Primepolar's adventure through hexapoda research

[gtAngel]

Well it depends. You could get markets (1 merchant specialist), runes of kilmorph temples (1 merchant specialist), AV temple (1 sage specialist) and I think either gambling houses or money changers give a merchant slot (1 merchant specialist.) This is on top of elder council (1 sage), mage guild (1 sage), and library (1 sage). If you manage to get an early Guild of Hammers that's also forges in every city (1 engineer)

So you could get 8 specialist slots, for a total requirement of 16 surplus food. Although a lot of this comes throughout the game, and doesn't work until your cities have a decent amount of infrastructure. Realistically I think most cities are going to stick with up to three slots for most of the game until you get scholarship or guilds.

I don't think you'll reach guilds this game, but I do want to say that guilds is an awesome tech if you manage to reach it. It gives unlimited specialist slots, which means food turns into literally everything at an amazing conversion rate. It isn't as tech heavy as scholarship, but it's much better for everything else. Also it's right next to mercantilism on the tech tree, which is a pretty good tech for you as well (the civic gives +2 specialists in every city and +1gold per specialist, although it takes away agrarianism and foreign trade routes.)

Liberty is unlocked at the same time, which gives +1 free specialist in every city and is a government civic I believe, meaning it replaces aristocracy (which is fine at that point in the game.)

I would like to caution though - this is an end game tech around the same level as something like Animal Mastery, and doesn't give nearly any combat bonuses. It's great if you can get there because it turns your economy into overdrive mode, but focusing too heavily in that direction leaves you weak.

[Ellimist]

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

----------------

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.

Those civics are quite powerful to pair together to deal with blight or for fast expansion. Small cities are able to grow up VERY quickly, and if you're in aristocracy as well they can be affordable. For established cities, you would have a few options once you reach your happiness cap:
1) Build workers/settlers. Never stop expanding.
2) Run lots specialists and feed the city with only a few farms.
3) Work mines and pave over some farms with workshops.
4) You can just use it temporarily for 10 turns worth of super-growth. This is probably only worthwhile if you're spiritual.

For the Sidar, it could be very good if happiness isn't a problem, but the civ tends to encourage vertical expansion(better cities) more than horizontal expansion(more cities.)

The main reason that I probably wouldn't use Sacrifice the Weak for the Sidar, however, is because I'd want to utilize Order to some degree. Order gives a lot of happiness boosts and has a lot of synergy with vertical expansion. Confessors, the Order priest, also start with the spirit guide promotion. If you want to get wanes, a passive strategy isn't going to be good enough. There has to be some combat, and you get more experience from the riskier battles. Confessors are a decent combat unit and spirit guide helps to "hedge your bets" when you're risking experienced priests on the front lines.

AV and Order don't totally exclude each other, but you don't want to have both in the same city, so it limits your options.

It's too bad the Sidar don't have a spiritual leader. They can dabble with a religion long enough build the hero(s) and wane them, then move on to a different religion. They can even wane the religious archmages(Hemah, Gibbon), and their shade won't abandon you if you change religions. It keeps the promotions and spells that it had, but can't take any additional ones. There's no rule saying you MUST settle a shade as a great specialist, so you can keep a Gibbon/Hemah shade as an archmage for the rest of the game.

[Primepolar]

Sorry for not updating this sooner, but pretty much nothing has happened. So far we have played turn 0 twice, and somehow the save is getting lost. Which is a bummer.

[spellman]

We alive?

[Qgqqqqq]

No, gtangel took over and started a new thread.

[HidingKneel]

Which also died...

[gtAngel]

I'm alive! Just lazy :P