[SPOILERS] Fall From Heaven II PBEM V Lurker's Exclusive Thread

[Bobchillingworth]

Here ya go, Lurkers. Discuss your lil' hearts out

[Tatan]

Question to someone who has actually played as them: do the Sidar suck? Or what?

I mean, their gimmick seems to be specialists, who get a little extra yield. Only, Sandalphon isn't philosophical, so they are no more ahead in Great People than usual, and in addition the tile yields are waaaaay better on Aristofarms [far more food and usually about just as much commerce].

Oh, but I mustn't forget: the Sidar also get the ability to Wane! Which means all those units you worked hard to get to level 6 can turn into [wait for it] ...specialists! Which is *especially* great considering that Sandalphon's traits provide no boost whatsoever to xp gain!

Which brings me to another point: Sandalphon is completely sucky. Defender has quite literally about 1/3 the value of Protective, and Industrious is no shining star in a game where wonders are relatively uncommon. I mean, I guess there is the advantage of more wonders => more GPP => more great specialists, but, c'mon, really? The Sidar would be served far better by Charismatic, Arcane, Philisophical, Spiritual... the list goes on. Sandalphon wouldn't be a total game-stopper if the Sidar themselves were awesome, but they kind of aren't. At all.

One thing the Sidar do have going for them is their wordspell, Into the Mist, which makes all their guys invisible until the engage in combat. But ItM's best use seems like it would be for a rush of some sort, which goes completely against builder-oriented specialist bonuses.

So, to summarize: the Sidar can get better cities by sacrificing your favorite units, grant a bonus to all the normal specialists you don't want to run, and have a worldspell that urges you to ignore all that and do a typical ax rush or something. Oh, and they have Sandalphon, lord of losers.


Please tell me I'm missing something.

[Sciz]

Yeah they aren't one of the best civs, and Sandalphon's traits are pretty useless

but i like them

I've a hard time playing them though because I hate to give up high levelled units for waning

[Selrahc]

Please tell me I'm missing something.

Passive xp gain, coupled with experience boosters mean you can get units to wane without having to get into combat.

Trouble is, it is a long wait before you start seeing results. As in around the T200 mark or later. After that you start to mass wane for Gspecialists and the game starts to be interesting. In the early to mid game you have to fight and die for every pitiful wane.

I don't think it is a multiplayer civ. Especially not under Sandalphon. In order to be even a little bit competitive they need a charismatic, arcane or spiritual leader. Varn would be great for them in an unrestricted leaders game.

[darrelljs]

They do suck, but I've always wanted to see their world spell used in an MP environment. They are going to seriously hurt someone I bet.

Darrell

[Sciz]

Passive xp gain, coupled with experience boosters mean you can get units to wane without having to get into combat.

Trouble is, it is a long wait before you start seeing results. As in around the T200 mark or later. After that you start to mass wane for Gspecialists and the game starts to be interesting. In the early to mid game you have to fight and die for every pitiful wane.

I don't think it is a multiplayer civ. Especially not under Sandalphon. In order to be even a little bit competitive they need a charismatic, arcane or spiritual leader. Varn would be great for them in an unrestricted leaders game.

I was heavily considering going Varn Gosam of the Sidar in the PBEM4 game

dunno why i didn't tbh

Edit: and going spiritual/charismatic

[darrelljs]

I'd say SPI/PHI would be pretty good too. They get +1 for each specialist. If you build the Great Library and run the right civics a single grassland tile can generate 2C, 6 GPP, 12 beakers, and 4 culture.

Varn and Cardith should probably be banned for unrestricted leaders .

Darrell

[Sciz]

Why those two but not Cassiel? He's Phil/Ind/Adaptive iirc

[darrelljs]

Yeah him too. I guess you could say Cardith/Cassiel have Sprawling/Agnostic to gimp them a bit. But Varn is just ridiculous. He even starts with a good initial trait as his adaptive one.

Edit: I forgot Agnostic was moved to a civilization trait.

DoubeEdit: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=256478. Those were the days for the Grigori .

Darrell

[The Reverend Doctor]

Wonder produces 3-5 random effects a turn, so 6-10 with two puppets out. I could get cast something awesome like snowfall or pillar of fire or summon a Balor or Treant or whatever. Or I could get a bunch of lame spirit spells and vitalize the enemy’s fields. It’s all a huge gamble, and honestly that’s half the appeal. I’m strongly leaning towards this option- besides, in my tests I typically summoned at least a somewhat useful creature every time I used the spell. It’s not optimal by any means, but it’s certainly silly & irreverent enough to be in character for the Balz, and it should make for great lurker reading.

This plan did sound like a lot of fun so I tested it out a bit....

Works well enough (and perhaps better against humans that won't have the same large garrisons as Immortal AIs) but there are some crazy effects I don't think he's considered.

For example. The first spell/effect cast being 'escape' puts the puppet back in the capital and then he casts the rest. Some spell made the 3x3 square around my capital hell terrain.

He's not wrong in that it'll be lots of fun for the lurkers, can't wait to find out what other craziness comes from Wonder.