How to play High Men?

[Anskiy]

I've tried several games with them and they seem quite weak honestly. They have a huge variety of units on paper, however in practice there's only three units worth making in 90% of all situations I've seen: Pikemen for high offensive output, Crusaders for sustaining armies, and Knights for speedy field armies. Paladins cost way too much for what they offer and in the end are little better than Knights barring special circumstances like Night Stalkers. They also seem to have incredibly weak economies, with their innately high unrest leading to much less taxpayers per city and forcing either tons more soldiers as a garrison, or religious buildings which both eat into your income. About the only advantage they actually have is that they can build almost everything except Fantastic Stables, so eventually you can build up to some formidable strongholds.. in theory. How do I play this race more effectively?

[massone]

HM are probably one of the most difficult races to play well. Their early game is militarily very bad, but they can develop cities pretty quick. Thanks to a horrific unrest table, you don't benefit as much from conquering most other races compared to building up your own.

A good strategy would make use of HM's unique strengths. -15% build cost on everything is huge, especially when the race can build all the buildings, and it applies to direct production and buying buildings. It is arguably the best economy race in the game. You can build up faster than anyone body else, and you also get the maximum bonuses to production, gold, food, because you have access to Mechanicians', Merchants', and Animists' Guilds, plus Engineers for roads. Even worthless 0 pop cities can become useful because you could make enough gold to just buy all the buildings that give non-pop scaling bonuses, especially the critical Amplifying Tower, and your ROI is better than any other race.

HM enjoy high figure counts on Magicians too. Compared to Elf or Halfing Magicians who get +10% Hit on a base 30%, +2 extra figures on base 4-figures is actually an even bigger boost, especially when buffed or with orihalcon. Not only do they have more total attack power, they also have extra HP to survive longer. You also get them way earlier because your pop growth is better and Wizard's Guilds cost less.

The Crusaders and Pikemen with their 8 figures are also meant to be buffed. You can do that with either Life (the best fit for HM), Chaos, minerals, or just by building War Colleges. Buffed Pikemen can destroy Very Rare summons, and Crusaders are an incredible healing tank unit. The ability to cast a heal spell without using up your combat cast for the turn, and have it on a durable unit unlike races that are limited to shamans, is extremely useful.

The key to HM is buffing and growing the economy as fast as possible, while surviving the early weakness. Alchemy is key to this. Use spearmen to garrison for unrest. Buy buildings. HM's not very good at attacking lairs, but you do at least get cavalry, and your magicians are decent with buffs.

Another interesting build option for HM is the Guardian retort. Both HM and Guardian benefit from focusing exclusively on home-race cities, and Guardian definitely helps protect towns in the early game, and continues to make a huge difference on your high figure buffed units later. The +6 to max pop is also great for making use of those spots nobody else can, especially the mountain areas that have a huge prod bonus, so you can instantly get decent production after buying sawmill and stables regardless of your pop.

[jhsidi]

One more good fit for high men is Death + Omniscient. So the HM get their -15% discount, then a 16 - 47% boost from the Death bonus. Add on a good terrain bonus and you'll have cities that can churn out units like no other race. Or go with Life + Death: one book in Death gets you the production bonus, the ones in Life get you a gold bonus, and later on you'll be able to cast Inspirations for that additional 100% bonus.

As Massone says, the unit you really want is magicians. They are, in my opinion, the strongest ranged unit in the game. For my Death games, I like to make them undead with focus magic, so they use syphon life to raise undead and heal themselves, and then that massively strong magical attack to obliterate whatever's left. Get a soul linker hero and they can wipe out pretty much anything. As for the other HM units, I use crusaders but not knights, paladins sparingly, and priests only if I need resistance buffs. But the variety is nice.

In short, they're quite strong as a race; I usually either use them or start with halflings then search out high men to conquer. But this game is really about what playstyle clicks with you. For instance, Seravy loves nomads, but I despise their crippled population sizes and food shortages; so, I just don't use them.

[Anskiy]

Thanks for the tips, both of you. I have to get used to turtling and striking at the right moment with the High Men then. One issue with playing pure Life is that my attack garrisions get bogged down holding captured cities, as otherwise they would just be leaving them open to the enemy afterwards. This gets further exasperated with low speed races like the High Men since it takes a while for reinforcements to arrive, and the captured towns require some investment before they can make worthwhile garrisons.