[spoilers] Dragon Slayers and Warrior Knights, Oh my!

[nabaxo]

Like you get THREE traits, odds are two of those three traits at any one point being good is quite high I'd say.

[Merovech]

Expansive/Raiders/Barbarian Clowns.

Isn't Furia Cha/Rai/Bar?

[Commodore]

She is! So much the better.

[WarriorKnight]

I've done a dozen or so SP culture games ever since I came up with the idea of going for culture, and I've come to the conclusion that Thessalonica is superior to Cassiel for t0 culture victories. PHI and Ardor can't make up for the fact that you can run Sacrifice the Weak, temples, no adventurer pollution and Sanctuary. So, since I don't really want to play as Thessalonica, I'm going to scrap my t0 culture plans. A little disheartening, but probably the right thing to do. I would like to see it done sometime though, my record is t154 for a pure builder game (I'll admit at noble with blessing of amathon) but that can almost certainly be topped in SP. In MP, maybe there's some delay but proper timing of Sanctuary can almost certainly remove the enemy factor completely.

Anyway, that means I need a new plan. Still putting Cassiel first, but now I'm probably going to play a more normalish game. Probably more likely to go down horses path, but arcane is the other option. Have to try playing some more normal games.

Furia sucks, she is essentially a vastly weaker version of the Clan (who I don't even have a clue how to play as). Your going to have to do better then that to convince me to pick her over Perpy (who almost certainly will be my 3rd choice).

[Ranamar]

3. Archmages - rush to Strength of Will via method described previously (research/bulb? sorcery, research/bulb arcane lore, ToD SoW), own with early heroic archmages, exit strategy via ToM. Takes quite a while to get everything, but is probably the strongest plan overall. I'm not looking to accomplish this strategy, but its strong enough to probably happen regardless.

I just had a massive "Aha!" moment when you said Tower of Divination for Strength of Will. One of the things that always killed me trying to get from mages to archmages was those last two techs, and you just pointed out a way to turn hammers into something like 8,000 beakers. It's really dependent on having a lot of mana nodes available, though, and, if you don't, you probably don't want to bother with mages anyway.

Out of curiosity, why do you find Thessalonica as superior, to, say, Einon Logos for an Elohim culture win? I do think she's the best leader for the Elohim, but that's mostly because she has good traits for general execution, not for capitalizing on lots of bards.

[WarriorKnight]

Out of curiosity, why do you find Thessalonica as superior, to, say, Einon Logos for an Elohim culture win? I do think she's the best leader for the Elohim, but that's mostly because she has good traits for general execution, not for capitalizing on lots of bards.

Simply put, SPI + IND is better then PHI alone (CHA does nothing for culture).

IND is good because you need to build at least Dream Theatre and Hall of Kings, and the lyre is also useful. You probably want some other wonders along the way (dreptus, NE, HE, maybe others), not to mention the worker boost. SPI is good because you can make more civic/religion switches then usual (and you will want to, for forcing temples with different priests and creating ideal conditions for late game death camps), and the cheap temples are very useful since each provides +20% culture.

PHI is useful due to half price libraries and faster GP, but if played properly you only need to spend 15-20 turns working nothing but bards, that isn't enough time to justify PHI over getting prepared for the mass bard killings sooner.

[teleh]

Your going to have to do better then that to convince me to pick her over Perpy (who almost certainly will be my 3rd choice).

The Chaotic Evil dude sounds good! If for purely aesthetic reasons at this end Justifiably takes all conscience out of diplo, anyway.

[WarriorKnight]

Since there's nothing better to do while waiting for the map, and subsequently my civ-pick, I'm going to go over the Grigori mechanics. Hopefully I do get them, otherwise I will have to write another one for whatever civ I do end up getting.

First off, here's our glorious leader:



Summary of lore backstory, if it's your thing:

He's the former archangel of Dadga, the angel of Balance. He fell after the Compact was signed, believing that it did not go far enough and that the Gods should let men lead their own lives instead of fighting the Godswar through men. Since then he's been the leader of the Grigori, although all he effectively does is teach people to ignore the will of the Gods and to live their own lives, not wanting to use his power over other men and turn himself into a God to the Grigori.

More relevant to this game though, he's Phi/Ada(Org). Philosophical is a very good trait. I believe that doubled GP is slightly better in FFH then in base civ, due to less available specialist slots, less GPP modifiers and higher Great People costs, although I'm not 100% sure on the math of that. Still useful to get GP faster and more of them in total then others. Phi also gives 2 cheap buildings, both of which are useful. Elder Councils are available very early at Mysticism, and since they cost 20 hammers each they should be very easy to build even in new cities. Libraries are a bit later, but they are the only science modifier building available early on, which is the only time it matters. Writing is a key tech to get those Libraries up ASAP.

His other trait is Adaptive. This is very cool, as you can change traits every 75 turns beginning t70. Unfortunately we start the game as Organized, which is quite possibly one of the worst traits early game. I can't think of a single advantage of it in the early turns, aside from perhaps 1-2gpt saved just before t70. His original IND trait is much more useful even without the worker boost, but alas it's not to be. This really needs to be fixed in future EitB patches though. Anyway, at t70, I'll be able to pick a new trait. Which trait exactly will depend, I'll go into more detail when I talk about my strategy.

Cassiel isn't technically Agnostic, but since the Grigori are, I'll discuss it here. Simply, it prevents me from researching the religious technologies, and just for the redundancy factor the Grigori are blocked from building all the religious temples as well. While it doesn't provide any noticeable advantage, it is not as bad as people think. The thing about religion is most of the time, unless you have a civ that revolves around religious mechanics or have a specific plan for religion, it can be a shiny that you're better off delaying/avoiding and is by no means essential. Perhaps the biggest downside of Agnostic is that I'll be unable to use Religion civic effectively, meaning that early-mid game I'll have more happy issues then usual, and will need to look at other options for happiness. The good thing about Agnostic is that by removing the religious/disciple line it makes decision making easier, any good FFH player knows that you have to be disciplined and not go after everything at once since there's far too much to go for in a single game. Less decisions can be a good thing in FFH, since focus is key.


Now, for the actual civ:

The Grigori Palace is certainly one of the better palaces. Enchantment mana gives +1 happy to help offset Agnostic and a semi-decent adept spell, Spirit mana gives a slight GPP boost helpful from t1 and Water mana has one of the most useful adept spells in Spring. It also provides Adventurer GPP points from t1 and a slight GPP boost, so I'll definitely be getting some adventurer's early.

The Worldspell is Ardor, which resets the GPP counter. This is one of the better Worldpells in the game, not necessarily game changing but can certainly have its uses. If your careful with GPP management in cities with small amounts of GPP points (which, I'll admit, I need to pay extra attention to since it's not my strongest point ), you can manipulate which GP types are born, and almost all can are useful.

Grigori get 2 UB's, but since the Grigori Tavern is late and not that great, I will be focusing on the Adventurer's Guild. This is a solid building, giving unit experience in a game without a barracks equivalent, while also providing another source of Adventurer points and slightly boosting the GPP rate. Currency is a tech I'll want early, and this gives me another reason to go for it.


Grigori have 4 UU's, I'll go into each one separately:

First is the Adventurer. They are a type of Great Person unique to the Grigori, although it is possible for anyone to get one from exploring a lair. At first glance, these are what make the Grigori, and can indeed be quite powerful. However, 1 unit by itself isn't going to do much, so you have to do some planning to ensure that they are used to their maximum potential. The first way is to use them as guaranteed archmages. This is certainly powerful, and this might be the only time Twincast is feasible for non-Keelyn, so late-game adventurers will almost certainly be archmages. Another way to use them is to get promotions that are generally unfeasible/difficult to get. In a rough ordering of usefulness:

Bounty Hunter
Guardsmen
Blitz
March
Aeron's Chosen

Bounty Hunter is only worthwhile if there are a TON of barbs, which non-raging emperor barbs are not. Guardsmen is useful to defend from Assassins, although that's really more mid-game and depends on others using assassins in the first place. Blitz certainly has uses but you need to ensure that you can actually kill more then one unit on the offensively at a time, since it's so expensive (needs Drill I-IV). March is underrated, and especially useful for early rushing but eventually becomes obsoleted by Medics. Finally Aeron's chosen is a effect promotion that triggers on the first assassin to reach level 6 and gives +2str amongst other things, a good reason to research poisons and deadly if I combine it with some other promotions (blitz in particular comes to mind, much like Thoth's Valen in XI).

Another thing Adventurers do is that they make me eligible for Form of the Titan very easily, I shall have to research Warfare reasonably early to build it.

The last thing to do with Adventurers is a early rush, promote to mob/shock2/lots of combats/march? and enjoy the carnage. However it isn't good enough to kill an opponent alone, it needs support with a regular stack so in reality it doesn't provide much that other civs couldn't do, aside from perhaps killing the strongest defender much easier.


The other good UU is the Grigori Medic. These guys are awesome because they have all 3 medic promotions, the third one in particular is most important since it is the only unit in the game that can get it in a reasonable time frame (only very late game religious heroes and High Priests, neither of which show up that often in RB FHH games, also have it). The reason it's so good is that Medic 3 provides a spell allowing midturn healing, this is extremely useful and opens all sorts of tactical possibilities. It is also the unit the Grigori have that have Medic promotions due to lack of disciples, aside from the late Luonnotar. The downside is that I have to research a tech that is otherwise ignored (Medicine), build a building that is otherwise completely ignored (Infirmary) and they are 50% more expensive then standard Tier III units, but it's all worth it in the late game.

The other 2 UU's aren't as impressive. The first is the Luonnotar, a Druid replacement at Strength of Will. Their main selling point is that they are Magic Immune, but unless opponents are using a lot of non-summoning enemy effect magic, it just doesn't give a noticeable effect. 4 str10 units with no other abilities just isn't enough to cut it late game even if they are heroic and the enemy doesn't have any non-magic collateral, especially considering that the same tech unlocks the far more useful heroic archmages. Dragon Slayers are champion replacements with 2 free promotions, however one of those promotions is useless 99.9% of the time (Dragon Slayer) and the other is easily obtainable through my Palace mana anyway (Courage), so it's essentially no different from a regular champion.


That should be enough for a while. I probably won't go into details about my game plan until I know I'm playing Grigori for sure, but who knows? Happy to answer any specific questions about my plan or Grigori mechanics though, it's one way to keep this thread going.

[Ranamar]

One combo that is usable in EitB and the Grigori have more incentive to get than anyone else is that, if you're pushing for Archmages and get medicine, you'll have access to Mary Morbius along the way. (Off the top of my head, she requires an Alchemy Lab and Medicine.) She's not great, but, since nobody else is likely to go for it, you've got a good chance of being able to build her. At that point, you have a Str10 (before weapons, IIRC) melee unit which can cast plague, which is a crappy strength debuff that sometimes transmits on contact. Fortunately, you'll also be able to have a medic along to cure your stack at the end of your turn! She doesn't get the hero promotion, though...

Speaking of twincast, 100xp is just enough to get 9 promotions, which is Twincast plus one L3 summon. The free promotions from each stage of being a spellcaster can get you a little more, as can some careful mana node shuffling. Twincast water elementals are kind of entertaining with their multiplicative nature but aren't useful until Archmages. Personally, I'd advocate getting a L2 summon also, but there aren't many and fire has its own weaknesses. (The collateral is nice, on the other hand.)

I think the Luonnotar's magic immunity also gives them resistance to elemental damage, too, fwiw. That will give them an advantage against most summons.

[WarriorKnight]

One combo that is usable in EitB and the Grigori have more incentive to get than anyone else is that, if you're pushing for Archmages and get medicine, you'll have access to Mary Morbius along the way. (Off the top of my head, she requires an Alchemy Lab and Medicine.) She's not great, but, since nobody else is likely to go for it, you've got a good chance of being able to build her. At that point, you have a Str10 (before weapons, IIRC) melee unit which can cast plague, which is a crappy strength debuff that sometimes transmits on contact. Fortunately, you'll also be able to have a medic along to cure your stack at the end of your turn! She doesn't get the hero promotion, though...

I forgot about Mary. OTOH, she isn't exactly that great either. She's str8 before metals, and a number of things resist/immune poison damage. She does give a collateral spell that doesn't affect my units and has 2 moves, but I can't rely on 1 unit for collateral so she might just supplement my forces. Alchemy Lab + 237 hammers to build her is fairly expensive though.

Speaking of twincast, 100xp is just enough to get 9 promotions, which is Twincast plus one L3 summon. The free promotions from each stage of being a spellcaster can get you a little more, as can some careful mana node shuffling. Twincast water elementals are kind of entertaining with their multiplicative nature but aren't useful until Archmages. Personally, I'd advocate getting a L2 summon also, but there aren't many and fire has its own weaknesses. (The collateral is nice, on the other hand.)

The problem with Twincast is that it requires 6 non-magic promotions to get, which is extremely expensive and most of the time you won't reach it before the game is over. I'll also probably want Mobility and Spell Extension 1&2 in there somewhere, although I can get most of the spell spheres for free with proper switching. Only adventurers who have sitting around for some 50-60 turns even have a chance of getting all the promotions in time which, if I combine it with a switch to CHA, is certainly possible.

Mage summons are nice, but not strong enough to carry the field of battle unless massed, which I won't be able to do easily since I don't plan on being Arcane. I will most likely ignore sorcery until I'm aiming for Strength of Will, using other T3 units instead.

As for the summon, Water Elementals are at their best on the defense, since 1 body can turn into at least 3, and attacking with a split unit is usually not going to work (split elementals start at 25% str). There are plenty of decent choices when deciding which elemental to use, I will have to make a decision closer later on.

I think the Luonnotar's magic immunity also gives them resistance to elemental damage, too, fwiw. That will give them an advantage against most summons.

The problem is, most summons have part of their strength as elemental damage and part as normal damage. Elemental damage is only reduced by 50%, and doesn't include Holy/Unholy/Poison damage. It is not useless, and could definitely prove useful against someone using fireballs/mass affinity spectres, but most archmage summons have too much base str for Luonnotars to prove that effective, and archmages are generally a better strategy to go for outside of this specific situation.