What is a golem?

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Wauthan said:
I wonder if Golem Cult works in conjunction with the global spell "Mechanical Militia"? Both of them give you a solid defence (which is the best kind of offence) so if they work together your opponent would pay dearly for every province he invades inside your dominion. I can see Iron Faith Ulm being particularly strong in this strategy since their priests get the inquisition bonus.

Golem Cult requires a magic scale, Iron Faith requires drain. You can't pick more than one theme anyway.

[Wauthan]

Nagot Gick Fel said:

Golem Cult requires a magic scale, Iron Faith requires drain. You can't pick more than one theme anyway.

Doh! Never post until you checked the facts first. I'm writing this at work so my mind was a bit distracted.

Then what faction would make best use of Golem Cult? Vanheim perhaps? Marignon are the best Dominion pushers but they don't get good access to the magic needed. Vanheim got fairly durable priests and the dwarves can pump out even the higher tier golems. I know I've used Claymen en masse as Atlantis but Lumber Constructs are not interesting enough to sacrifice nature gems for.

More research into the nature of what is a "golem" seems to be needed. Seems Rylen hit a nugget.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Wauthan said:
Then what faction would make best use of Golem Cult? Vanheim perhaps?

Vanheim, Arco, Machaka. These are my Favorites Golem Cult candidates. I also got surprisingly good results with R'lyeh the one time I picked Golem Cult, based on the premise that many constructs can go wet, and often are either mindless or magic or both (all of these being good things for the squids).

[Endoperez]

Interesting thread. I'll be trying W9E4 Cyclops with Vanheim Golem Cult when I have time!

[Cainehill]

Wauthan said:
Then what faction would make best use of Golem Cult? Vanheim perhaps? Marignon are the best Dominion pushers but they don't get good access to the magic needed. Vanheim got fairly durable priests and the dwarves can pump out even the higher tier golems. I know I've used Claymen en masse as Atlantis but Lumber Constructs are not interesting enough to sacrifice nature gems for.

Pangaea and Man might also, given cheap temples that allow them to build their dominion quite well. A bit harder to mass the mages required to do the castings though, I think.

[Endoperez]

Naah, Cyclops was too expensive. I would have to take Cold 2 or 3, and that would put the Cyclops at disadvantage. Production AND Magic severely limit the scales you can take down. Dragon was somewhat cheaper, and immune to cold, but it was hard to expand rapidly and research fast when your only ressearcher is a dragon... and I had to dump Earth 4, so the Vanir took hit from cold instead.

I tried Caelum, and they have Son of Niefel. He seems to be best chassis for Water9-Earth4. Temple Guards rock, a frontline of 7 of them held heavy cavalry of the first farmlands I took, and I think they even killed most of them. Unfortunately, my prophet was on 'hold' rather 'hold and cast', so they weren't blessed... I lost 2.

Still, Claymen are quite weak as they have bad def and even less prot I thought. 25 hps don't help much. I don't think W9E4 for claymen and uber-Temple Guards are competitive enough in serious multiplayer. If I could take him with Vanheim it could be worth it... Anything with W9 and Vanir can't totally suck!

[archaeolept]

meh. even though it sounds cool, 50 pts for golem cult and forced production scales hardly seems worth it; especially since the real gain occurs only on defense.

on the positive side, having wasted all those points, you have a better chance of needing them defensively...

[Nagot Gick Fel]

archaeolept said:
meh. even though it sounds cool, 50 pts for golem cult and forced production scales hardly seems worth it; especially since the real gain occurs only on defense.

Not only in defense. A teleporting Golem, a squad of flying Iron Dragons will still have increased hitpoints when they land in enemy territory. It take several turns for their hitpoints to go down to normal in enemy dominion.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Endoperez said:
Anything with W9 and Vanir can't totally suck!

When trying Golem Cult with Vanheim I'd rather take advantage of the required high production to use Einheriar instead of Vans as my main shock troops. They're truly awesome troops, especially when you have mages who can enhance their lethality even further with spells like Weapons of Sharpness, Strength of Giants, etc. And don't forget to give each army commander his Staff of Storms. W9 isn't a requirement, what you really need is a strong econ to push the research fast, and preferably a high dominion strength.

[Wauthan]

Endoperez said:
Naah, Cyclops was too expensive. I would have to take Cold 2 or 3, and that would put the Cyclops at disadvantage. Production AND Magic severely limit the scales you can take down. Dragon was somewhat cheaper, and immune to cold, but it was hard to expand rapidly and research fast when your only ressearcher is a dragon... and I had to dump Earth 4, so the Vanir took hit from cold instead.

I tried Caelum, and they have Son of Niefel. He seems to be best chassis for Water9-Earth4. Temple Guards rock, a frontline of 7 of them held heavy cavalry of the first farmlands I took, and I think they even killed most of them. Unfortunately, my prophet was on 'hold' rather 'hold and cast', so they weren't blessed... I lost 2.

Still, Claymen are quite weak as they have bad def and even less prot I thought. 25 hps don't help much. I don't think W9E4 for claymen and uber-Temple Guards are competitive enough in serious multiplayer. If I could take him with Vanheim it could be worth it... Anything with W9 and Vanir can't totally suck!

If you are going Clayman you're better of with Atlantis-Nereid with Water9. Earth sites are suprisingly common underwater and you just need 50 of them for her to start cranking them out by the dozen.

In the MP game where I went "clay" I had two armies with about 400 Claymen in each. Sadly I didn't use Golem Cult and the small force (around 80 Claymen and 20 casters) in my capitol didn't Last against the massive amount of undead the Orchish Empire threw against me. With twice the HP (dom 10 in HQ) and with a few other "golemish" bodyguards things would have been different.