Guide: Gath - The last of the Giants

[P3D]

I played Gath recently a lot in SP, and I decided to get a guide for it. Part of it appeared in another thread, but I made some omissions there (like missing the better part of the national summons ).

What stands for these giants? 1200 and 1400gold fortresses outside forest (1000) and swamp (800) - partially compensated by the higher administrative ratings and great defensiveness. Expensive 800gp temples, this would require good scales.
Luckily, troops and starting army is good, so one can take a dormant preteder to offset this disadvantage. Besides having everywhere recruitable sacred, that is. H3 casters in the capital, Sabbath-capable H2 priests recruitable anywhere. Combined with death mages and penetration aids you can deal with the undead hordes of Ermor and C'tis with ease. You also have recruitable remote site searchers for everything save Air and Water.
Your starting army is fine, would take out medium-strength provinces with some minor reinforcements.

PROVINCE DEFENSE
Does not have giant troops, but still surprisingly effective against small attacks.
Gittite commander
Napthtali Spearman and Zebulunite Spearman, 1 each/PD points
20+:
Levite Zealot - 1/PD over 20
Levite Priest - to bless Levite Zealots

TROOPS
Most of them has wasteland survival, some have fire resistance.

Reubenite archer - standard shortbow archer, needs 7 resources so difficult to mass. But has a mapmove of 2. I'd recruit him instead of the slingers.
Benjaminite Slinger - with a precision of 12 roughly archer-equivalent. Has two shortswords but this units should not get into melee. Same protection as the archer, but more expensive. Would be great unit if sacred, but not in current form.
Naphtali spearman - Light infantry (prot 9, def 13) with javelins and shields. Your PD. In CBM it cost 1r more than an indie javeliner with only Wasteland Survival as extra.
Zebulunite Soldier: Light-medium infantry with spears only, great (13) morale, attack (11) defense (14). Honestly, no reason to recruit them, but in the PD they are decent.
Hornblower - buy a few of them if you have a lot of non-sacred infantry - or your Levites face awe/fearful troops.
Gadite - Heavy infantry (prot 16) with shortsword and Javelin. Mapmove 2, fire resistance, wasteland survival, 11 morale, 11 strength. You'd recruit them if they were not 27 resource or you'd not have Levites. Still, if you picked up a production scale, good way to burn available resources.
Asherite - Broadsword heavies but with the same damage as the Gadite, for longer sword and one higher attack. Javelin traded for a Tower Shield, but no reason to buy them, especially as they are your only troops with a mapmove of 1.
Levite - A mediocre medium infantry, but being sacred it is not a bad unit. Great morale (14 without bless). The main reason to recruit them is the reduced upkeep cost, and with your H3 priests they are almost always blessed in combat. Your main priority to buy in secondary castles - decent sized army without crippling maintenance costs. But need other units to do the slaughter itself unless one choose a minor blood/fire bless to help them out. As a bonus, good patroller.
Gittite - 30g/25r giant medium infantry with Javelins and spear, 15 strength for 18 damage, and attack of 11 and 13 protection. If you have gold, better than than the other javelineers but about three times as expensive to maintain. With their higher strength they are better against heavily protected troops of LA, and their higher HP means that they would survive to gain experience. They also have more action points. Fire resistance.
Gibbor - 75g/39r sacred giant. 38HP size 4, so you should try mix them with size 2 troops, especially if they are on 'Hold/attack'. Magic sword to damage enemy SCs who thought etherealness had been a good idea - attack of 13 and 27 damage is good to finish heavy infantry with one blow. And has 2.5gold maintenace vs. 2 of a Gittite. Their price seems high, but actually they can be recruited in numbers if you did not take sloth scales. Their main disadvantage is mediocre protection (13). I recruit them in the capital until I have resources are out, then switch to levites. Will accumulate 2 stars in no time. Has Gluttony so prepare to buy Bags of Wine, Cauldrons and Summer Swords if you have a lot of them.

COMMANDERS
Iassacharite scout -Has a shortbow. The only such unit of yours would be the one you start with.
Iassacharite sage - One of the main strength of Gath if played correctly. 50GP for 3RP (plus 10% FES) would not be bad if the unit would not be sacred to top it. Granted, you need an overpriced 800GP temple to recruit them, but the reduced army maintenance from your sacred army leaves you some gold. Can be recruited without a lab if you are content to walk them 2-3 provinces to start researching. With Magic-1 you get 2.4RP for 1 gold maintenance. Perfect option to spend your leftover money at the end of turn. 10%FES. They are also of old age.
Sybil - S1N1 with some fortune telling (5) for 80gold, not sacred. 2 mapmove as all of your units (save one). Buy them if you need a guaranteed S1 caster in the next turn for arcane probing or to throw curses. If you took Misfortune, you'll recruit more of them, they are 80g cheaper than the Kohens and cost a mere 0.3gp/turn more to maintain. They are also recruitable without the expensive temples, they'll be your main researchers.
Gittite Commander - 27hp, 12MR, 12 precision and 40 leadership - the most you could get outside of your capital on a national recruit. Buy them if you haven't built a lab/temple yet in the castle.
Abba - A giant N2+100%FES mage for 120gp. Decent stealth (10), heretic - the latter is a small annoyance if you keep them in your own domain to remove afflictions (heal 30) from your sacred troops. Unfortunately has no leadership to lead stealthy troops without items, might want to kit them up and send deep into the enemy provinces to raid weak PD. Recruit some early for manual site-searching and Haruspex, and to heal the afflictions accumulated by your Gibbors. S1N2 can make moonvine bracelets and provide access to higher level nature spells. F1N2 ones can start making fever fetishes, you might even hang it on your giant researchers. They could even be healed by another 4 Abba set to heal in a neighboring castle in order to save some micromanagement. After they are not disease-ridden, send them back to start production. Or use Gittite commanders for it.
Yeddeoni - 1D1E+100%FESD in four flavors, your general battle mage with some of the most useful random picks for forging. Your main commander to lead your undeads and demons into combat (undead leadership 30 or 60). With Twiceborn you could make them undead. All can cast Dark Knowledge. Thuggable, but unfortunately not sacred.
E1D2: skullstaff, skull mentor, Dust-to-Dust, Shadow Bolt, Soul Vortex (with booster), Summon Earthpower with boots), skellispam, so could make a decent thug and great undead counter. Besides starting point on the Death Magic ladder.
E2D1: the usual earth battlefield (esp. with boots and bloodstone) boosts and evocations, plus Dust-to-Dust, Gnome Lore. Blade Wind and Earthquake against chaff.
FED: Dust-to-Dust, Magma bolts, Magma Eruption (boots, bloodstone, Earthpower). Can make Flaming Skulls.
ESD: Dust-to-Dust, Nether Bolt, communion with their kind or Kohen Gadols
Kohen - B1H2+100%FES for 150g. Better researchers than the sage, less upkeep than your other cheap mages, and later you can use them for several purposes. They benefit from bless, the F randoms are mainly blood hunters, the E and S ones have limited self-bluffing capacity (Stone/Iron Skin or Body ethereal/luck/twist fate). In CBM, the SB ones can call lesser horror. Also sabbath slaves to Kohen Gadols. They are also available to lead your small Gibbor expansion parties.
Seren - 200gp equipped sacred thug (100gp in CBM), 42HP, 18 defence and 17 protection with magic sword, unfortunately 73resources. However, you are better buying Gibbors for expansion, and you need to recruit mages early to start research as your pretender is dormant. You might buy them if you have no money left for a Kohen Gadol to get a ready-to-use thug.
Kohen Gadols - B2H3+210%FES for 400g and 31r. You only commander with decent leadership, they will lead your armies and cast Divine Blessing on your sacreds. Rare cross-path randoms allow to forge some crucial items without expensive empowering. Three misc slots which comes handy for boosters, and has great synergy with E9 bless.
S2B2 ones can Call Lesser Horror to clean up indies and weak PD on their own, and make skullcaps to Send Lesser Horror.
E2B2 would make blood stones after B empowerment/boost. Might want to empower one to Astral if you did not get a cross-path random for Crystal Coins. Earth battlespells with sabbath/communion.
F2B2 ones can build up your devil armies. Two blood empowerment for 105 slaves to forge Brazen Vessel/Armor of Souls/Soul contract for freespawn devils. Also, a recruitable thug/SC chassis if you have a lot of gems/items.

Your Kohen Gadols and Serens eat population, but it is unnoticable with some growth scales, and they don't cause unrest unlike their EA ancestors.

NATIONAL SUMMONS
Some national summons have the great disadvantage of being castable only in wastelands. So counting them on before game start might not work well.
Se'irim - 28HP sacred demons with 3 natural attacks for 16 damage each, 8 for 33 slaves, Blood 3. All your Gadols can cast it. They definitely deserve bless and boosts to unleash havoc on the unsuspecting. No wonder some people (like Baalz) loves them. Wasteland summon so might not want to build your strategy on them.
Shedim - lighting-throwing flying non-sacred demons, 3 for 24. Needs B3A1, thus empowerment if you find enough air gems or air indies/illusionists, or a pretender built such. Wasteland summon.
Fossil Warriors - Memories of Stone, E2D1 Ench-5 so any Yeddeoni can cast it with Boots. Wasteland summon, 5+ for 10 gems. 17HP giant longdeads with MR 15, attack 12, and damage 26.

Plus some of the Ashdod national summons (check that guide), with the following notes:
Mazzikim
Malik
Lilot
Hashmal - Needs either a lucky Gadol or empowerment (+booster) for S3F1, Conj-6, 25 gem. Flying H2 inquisitor, ethereal, awe +4 thug
Arel - needs 3 Astral boosters on a S1N2 Abba (or nature empowerment on a S2 Kohen Gadol) 39 astral gem.N3H3 caster, thug, healer, awe.
Ophan - 5S2F, so your F1S2B2 Kohen Gadol can cast it with rings of Wizardry, skullcap and a crystal coin.
Chayot - 7S3F, so if you do not have an Astral-Fire pretender you need further empowerments to cast it.

HEROES
Sybil - S3N4 mage
Nabi - H2 human priest, superfluous with all your Kohen masses

PRETENDER DESIGN
You have anti-SC giants, curse-spamming sibyls for deterrence, H3 priests and sacred troops. You do not need much help in research either. So the obvious choice is an imprisoned pretender with some bless and good scales.
Scales
Order: obvious for the gold. T1 is a possibility, though, if you take H1-L3.
Sloth - S1, neutral or P1. If you take more than one slot, you will have difficulties recruiting both a Kohen Gadol (31r) and more that two Gibbors each turn. If you take neutral scale or even P1, however, you could mass Gibbors from turn-4 onward. With your generally high scales you should be able to afford it. Also, you would be able to recruit 5-6 of them AND a Kohen Gadol later.
Heat: H1 is preferable, you should take H3 for points. Save the levites, the troops you'd be recruiting have fire resistance, so do the Seren and Kohen Gadols
Growth: G3 is good for gold later (even if only comes with O1 or O2), and it is needed to balance the supply loss from heat scale - Gibbors are gluttons. Also good for your old-age Sages.
Luck: I'd prefer L1, combined with M1 for the random gems.
Magic: with cheap sacred researchers it is either M1 or M3 (you can afford both).

Dominion
You can blood sacrifice and have H3 priests so a low-to-medium-strength dominion (5-7) should be fine, you won't have resources for more Gibbors anyways.

Magic Paths and Blesses
Now depending on the mods and whatever chassis you choose, you have several bless options. I'd pick N4 for regen and reduced affliction chance, E4 for small reinvig (although with E2 casters one might drop it) the rest is IMHO optional - whatever you want or the pretender chassis has for cheap. A rainbow would allow four or five minor blesses.
Optional minor blesses: F4 for the Levites and She'ir, A4 for boosters and air access, W4 for water access and defense, S4 for MR (as you have magic scales) and late-game summons, B4 for extra damage.
With rainbow pick A and W 1-2 to get some limited water access.
Possible Major blesses with moderate scales:
E9N4 with the cyclops, will give your recruitable sacreds a protection of 17, but the She'irim won't benefit from the protection bonus of the Earth bless.
F9 is great for the She'irim to hit ethereal, but IMHO a minor blood/fire bless is better - your Gibbors can hit Ethereals anyways. With the single attack of your recruitables it is not optimal.
W9 is IMHO too expensive due to the lack of suitable pretender chassis - only the Rainbow Frost Father has it.
A9 if you are facing several archers/air nations
S9 for MR and twist fate, less than optimal for your giant troops, but good for endgame summons, and the extra Magic Resistance benefits everyone

Pretender Examples:
Sphynx F3E4S9N4, 5 dominion, O1P0H3G3L1M1, that could cast the high-end national summons without empowerment. In CBM the same chassis allows F4E4S9N4 and 6 dominion.
Imprisoned Lord of Rebirth with E4D3N4, one additional minor bless and great scales. In CBM comes with 2N2D gem income to balance the lack of gems in Late Age.
Imprisoned Master Druid with E9S4N4+2 picks, O3P0H3G3MF2M1 and Dom 5, able to forge Rings.

Example Strategy

With Gibbors+Levites+Kohens you have expansions parties out every turn.

Get the Druid just above with F1W1. Your low Dom5 will be maintained by preaching H2 priests and blood sacrifice. The druid can forge RoS/RoW. With a Water Bracelet and a Robe of the Sea can summon Naiads for clamming.
Forge a Flaming Skull with one of the FED Yeddeoni, give it to a F2B2 Kohen Gadol who with RoW can make a Fire Helm.
With a Fetish factory (just a single FN2 Abba with hammer) you should have the 30F gems to empower your druid to F2. Fire Helm+RoW+Robe of the Sea+Water Bracelet allows you to forge Elemental Staff.
Trade for just a single air booster, empower an E2B2 to A1, A1+RoW+Elemental Staff+Booster= A4. With 3 misc slot you have A5, further blood empowerment gets you Robe of the Magi.
Most probably you'll lose the artifact race, but you can afford to spend death gems on skull mentors - or Lanterns if you have Fire gems to catch up with research.

[Endoperez]

Not bad! In multiplayer, you probably can't afford to let Kohen Gadol lead your armies. Three indy commanders (40 leadership each) also only take one turn, lets you recruit a researcher and are less vulnerable to spells like Mind Hunt. It takes more micromanagement, but it's very widespread in MP.

[P3D]

You need the Kohen Gadols for the Divine bless.
You could replace them by Kohens casting Blesses instead, of course. You most probably won't have standalone 800 gold temples to recruit indie priests instead of just more Kohens.
Further Alternatives are a Kohen with Crystal Shield or four-six Kohens with communion/Sabbath instead, buy that might not be economical at all compared to having even two Kohen Gadols for safety. Two Kohens has 10 RP total compared to 7 of a Kohen Gadol (with Magic-1).

[Shangrila00]

So, massive necro, but I figure better than making my own thread, and this forum isn't exactly active anyway.

I've been looking over Gath, though only in SP so far, and reached some similar and some different conclusions from those here, perhaps because of CBM.

It strikes me that Gath is actually the strongest of the Jewish giants.

Your giants are admittedly the weakest, but they are also the cheapest, making them far more versatile. Ashdod for instance, especially with the CBM nerfing, has sacred giants that aren't useable without a massive E bless. Hinnom's sacred giants are even worse, with their unrest raising. In both cases, either you make the sacrifices to go full on bless giant rush, or you don't even bother, going scales/SCs instead. Gath, on the other hand, in addition to the above 2 options, also has the option of a minor bless and combined arms with your excellent humans plus sacred giants for their magic swords, or an offensive bless mainly for Se'irim.

You have the weakest magic and weakest SC chasis, but it's the LA where few have much better magic and nobody else has serious recruitable SCs at all. In exchange, on top of strong priests, you have the best magic diversity, 6 paths all at 2+, especially in CBM where the removal of SDRs means that nations like Hinnom with only access to B1s (outside massively unrest causing pop eaters) stop being serious blood nations.

On commanders, Gath, strangely for giants, actually has cost efficient researchers, more than one even. The sage is one of the most cost efficient researchers in the game, on par with the ridiculous Mictlan priest with magic scale, and buildable without a lab. However, upon consideration, I feel the sage is a trap. It's low research/high efficiency, which is synergistic with numerous forts and temples. Too bad you're Gath where unless you start in a swamp (and is completely screwed because of that), your forts are either crazy expensive or still expensive and also complete crap, and your temples are double priced. That's all made up for by their efficiency, except sages have absolutely no combat capability. The sibyl is better. It's still efficient, though not especially so, can be built without a temple, and has useful amounts of fortunetelling as a bonus. And if you ever need for them to fight, Gath suddenly becomes a communion nation on par with Arco. Your other mages as communion/sabbath/crystal masters can toss all the F/E/S/N/D spells you could want. Or, you could do reverse communion with POTS+LOTNS and spam Stellar Cascades. Or the same with POTS+Strength of Gaia from an Abba and toss nature spells. The variety there isn't great, but with precision boosted by eagle eye, tangle vines is surprisingly effective, at least in Growth 3 which you'd want anyway. Later, spamming panic on top of rain of blood can destroy entire armies combined with using astral Kohen Gadols sending lesser horrors to cut off retreat, and having hornblowers and naturally high morale troops means you aren't really afraid of it backfiring. Too bad storm of thorns is so late, or Gath might actually be the strongest communion nation in the game. As a further bonus, 5 sibyls equals a bag of wine, quite helpful with your gluttonous giants.

On scales, Turmoil Luck doesn't work, despite it's synergy with blood hunting. Gath is way too gold hungry during the setup phase, and pretty gold hungry afterwards as well. Plus, Gath isn't going to be challenging Mictlan anyway in blood, not with their most effective initial blood hunter being a 400g cap only SC chasis. Blood as a sideline, enough to blood sac as a replacement for building many temples, and some minor forging/summoning national demons is probably enough. Gath's heroes are also completely worthless, and fortunetelling on a mage that you'd recruit tons of regardless makes misfortune easier to accept.

Despite, or perhaps because of having H3 priests and blood sac, I think a high dom is necessary. With few temples, and limited blood income, you want maximum efficiency blood sac. If as all giant nations want, you get gift of health, high dom everywhere you need to fight is decisive, and it's also helpful for horror sending/army routing. Plus, while Gath isn't the best at outright domkill, it's always nice to have the option. So no lower than 8.

The Cyclops, Lord of Fertility, and Lord of Rebirth strikes me as the best pretenders. The Cyclops is obviously for the full E9+/N bless rush. The Lord of Fertility can very cheaply get a N8 bless, maybe with an E4, for use by SCs and Se'irim who get 5 hp regen, and being size 2, can be iron warriored in large numbers. Being a gem-gen, the Lord of Rebirth is a bit different in that it's really inefficient to take him imprisoned. A sleeping Lord of Rebirth can be taken with E4N6, dom 9, and +2 scales, like O3H3G3L-2M1. A reasonably better SC than your recruitables in dom, and helpfully jumpstarting your income in E/D/N. It's not enough of a bless for a real rush, but sacred giants are still useable as a supplement to humans. The lack of rush ability does hurt though, since the pretender can cast lamia queens to get water, fairy queens to get air, and gift of health, all of it eating nature, and it'd be really nice to start next to Pangaea and have the ability to immediately rob them of their gems.

Any thoughts on why the general feeling seems to be that Gath is weaker than the other giants?

[Slobby]

Personally I prefer the Lord of the Desert Sun, with F6N9B4. It's all about the human sacreds for Gath and swarm tactics with them imo. So the bless is designed to make them into little killing machines. It also makes the sacred giants killing machines, as well as the seir'im.

A large E bless I feel is pointless as the human sacreds stat wise are not good enough to compete with hvy infantry, and you realistically won't have that many sacred giants except for the commanders and they can have reinvg gear so total waste.

[tenuki]

N9 with sacred mages? Dunno. Opponent drops Earthquake in round 2, Kohen Gadols go berserk unbuffed (or worse, equipped as battle casters), good night.

[Shangrila00]

Originally Posted by tenuki

N9 with sacred mages? Dunno. Opponent drops Earthquake in round 2, Kohen Gadols go berserk unbuffed (or worse, equipped as battle casters), good night.

It's not a huge deal really. Kohen Gadols aren't any good as battle casters, and neither are Kohens. As Thugs/SCs, you just need to save the bless for the end of the buff cycle, and include a bit more reinvigoration. Gath can be pretty interesting with a F9/N9 bless, and the Lord of the Desert Sun as the ideal chasis for it. The sacred giant troops are pretty worthless with that, but Levites, while still nothing special become plenty good enough for expansion. You'd focus a lot more on the blood economy and get to Se'irim soonest. Se'irim with F9/N9 are absolute murder machines, with 9 high strength attacks per square. Berserk+7 on top of the fire bless means all those attacks are going to hit, and hit incredibly hard, and post berserk protection plus high hp, the regen, and 3 per square means they are unlikely to die before slaughtering everything in front of them.

[Slobby]

Originally Posted by Shangrila00

It's not a huge deal really. Kohen Gadols aren't any good as battle casters, and neither are Kohens. As Thugs/SCs, you just need to save the bless for the end of the buff cycle, and include a bit more reinvigoration. Gath can be pretty interesting with a F9/N9 bless, and the Lord of the Desert Sun as the ideal chasis for it. The sacred giant troops are pretty worthless with that, but Levites, while still nothing special become plenty good enough for expansion. You'd focus a lot more on the blood economy and get to Se'irim soonest. Se'irim with F9/N9 are absolute murder machines, with 9 high strength attacks per square. Berserk+7 on top of the fire bless means all those attacks are going to hit, and hit incredibly hard, and post berserk protection plus high hp, the regen, and 3 per square means they are unlikely to die before slaughtering everything in front of them.

Quite right, but I still prefer the B4 to the F9. Sure the F9 has more punch, but the B4 has longevity. Not much to be done with an F9N9 mid/late game. Atleast with the B4 you can make all the blood boosters, get blood vines for arrow catchers, cast rain of toads, have a chance to get the unique devils, forge soul contracts, etc.

With the F6N9B4 Gath sort of becomes a combo between mictlan/abysia play wise.

Oh and it goes without saying those S pick kohen gadols are to be kept nice and safe to summon horrors either remotely or up close and personal (followed by a quick retreat).