Lords of Civilization

[MaxWilson]

I think of EA Agartha as a giant race because they have sacred, recruitable-anywhere giant Ancient Ones and commanders (and troglodyte thugs) such that I have trouble imaging why you'd recruit normal Pale Ones except as chaff to screen for your battlemages.

-Max

[Taqwus]

The chariots are fairly slow -- they can trample fairly big units and do considerable damage, but against hordes of individually modest units one might be better off with 'normal' chariots with more AP.

Thugs are nasty, expensive, and pop-eating. The sacred units are much the same way, which means massing them is going to be ugly if you're playing a slow, huge-map game where pop might matter more, or if you simply like playing the vaguely benevolent ruler. OTOH, you do get astral, so you can Shroud your non-sacred random-2 mages if you took a relevant bless. You can get E2, so boots and hammers are accessible. N2 will help with the supply issues, but not the pop-eating.

Keep these units in top shape with a recruit-anywhere Healer(50) N2. Handy.

Heroes are fairly nasty -- children of the Lords of Civilization.

Haven't played around much with the proto-cavemen yet. Decent environmental resistances and constitution, darkvision 50, unremarkable skills and equipment.

Weak access to most paths (water and death excluded), usually 2s, strong in blood.

...oh, and if you do get death and start reanimating, the longdead you get include longdead Nephilim and so forth.

[Aezeal]

I really think that healer is a bit to much.

[hunt11]

it would make more sense to keep the actual mage but have him lose the healing, because they really need nature magic

[MaxWilson]

The healer seems fine to me, but as I said, Hinnom is a bit "meh" in my eyes. Let's wait and see whether it's a problem in MP.

-Max

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Late Age, dash of Middle Age.
Has anyone tried/formed an opinion on Gath's "Memories of Stone", and "Strange Fire".

Memories of Stone is a really beefed up version of reanimate dead, but isn't super combatant or anything... 17 hitpoint, 22 strength, 25 protection, 15 resist skeletons, 5+ per 10 gems. Banishment may prove difficult, but

Strange Fire seems incredibly difficult to cast with your nation's mages. I'm not sure why its there.

[Lingchih]

Oh my god. The Rephaite and Nephilim eat everyone in a province. I mean it's bad. Might not be so bad in your cap, with a high Growth, but I'm sieging an enemy castle right now with several of them (one Nephilim hero and several Rephaite commanders), and they are eating 500 people a turn. The province will be empty by the time I get the walls down. And my sieging troops keep starving, cause the Giants are eating all the farmers.

I think there is a big challenge to playing this nation in MP. It will take some good planning and commander deployment, to avoid eating all your peoples. And this in not a death nation... they need people in the provinces.

Playing EA Hinnom, btw, in case you had not guessed. I have found that if you send enough healers into the province you are sieging, they can heal most of the troops of their starving afflictions, and beef up supplies too. Still, tough going.

[MaxWilson]

Heh heh heh. 500 people a turn? That's very thematic.

[MaxWilson]

Azeral said:
Also, I semi-rescind my notion of the case being absolutely clear-cut, because it appears that summoning a Chayot automatically comes with 4 non-commander Ophanim. At 59 gems a piece and able to solo ridiculous numbers of things each, the loss of two misc slots hurts a little but...uh...flying and map move 5, I'm pretty much just throwing them under the flying/6 Chayot and going wild. If nature blessing bypasses lifelessness, I think I have a new favorite strategy.

I just checked and it does not bypass lifelessness. I'm not sure it matters, though. Either you're taking damage (probably from spells) or you're not.

-Max

[Aezeal]

it's almost the strongest healer in teh game.. for a nation with giants...