I haven't played much with the Clan but they surprised the heck out of me when I drew them in a semi crappy tundra location under Jonas when playing a random leader. I decided despite the lousy start location and the fact I usually don't like playing Barb leaders because of the science penalty I'd give it a try.

I should mention this strat probably won't work nearly as well on anything faster than an Epic game. I pretty much always play Marathon and once in a while play a fast game like Epic :lol:

I used what I did know about the Clan to an early advantage: Goblin Scouts become Goblin Warg Riders when killing a wolf.

I spent about 8 turns finding a better location for my capital, I found a good river side location with 2 wines, a pig, reagents and a couple silk in forests. Exceptional location to help offset the -10% science rate and allow for a pretty good size capital early on. All while uncovering a nice chunk of the local map and finding quite a few goodie huts as targets for my goblins. This wasn't particularly important to the strat but it did perhaps help me support an extremely burdensome military cost while keeping a respectable tech rate down the line. The core idea behind this strat is stay small at the start, help the Barbs develop, less work for you to do when Rantine goes on a Barb city claiming spree, which will end suddenly with strong barbs coming at you when you tip the scales too far, of course Rantine will be at the tip of those scales, so you won't have much to worry about :king:

Your early Tech goals should be to obtain Trade & Bronzeworking Working ASAP, Cartography as soon as you get the chance to help boost relations with encountered civs (your map will be worth a lot, you'll be getting the short end of the deal but AI's will like you more because of it) maybe you'll get lucky and pop it in a hut, you will get tons of huts. Trade because you have a -10% science rate and trading for what you don't know will be easier than trying to fight the science penalty and it's the next step after Horseback Riding which you want for Mobility promos asap anyways so get it! Bronze Working because you want Rantine out and gaining level asap so he's strong when you start your conversion spree, which if things go as planned you're going to leave a whole slew of in your wake! Although particularly on Marathon games beelining this deep in two trees is going to take a long time. So do it in steps. Base it on your local resources, but if you want to build The Grand Menagerie get Animal Husbandry asap to start collecting your pets (you don't need to prioritize Festivals for this), you're also going to need your hidden nationality animals fast to soften up opponents cities letting barbs break through or leaving them entirely empty for the barbs to take, getting open border deals with these opponents is sweet as well, because then you can use their empty cities to heal up fast in ;p Despite the Clan being probably the best Civ that actually stands a good chance at building the Menagerie, animals are still time sensitive, especially those fragile panthers (although, with .23 panthers are gone, making it potentially easier, especially with the Clan).

The general idea here is pump out Goblin Scouts and send them to the Tundra's to become Warg Riders then scout out the whole map in record time so you know exactly where to send your animals to help keep AI's in the drak ages, with a few of these goblins you're going to want to get them Combat 1 & Subdue Animal (5 xp) BEFORE they kill any wolves so that you have a 3/3 Subduer that can also move 3 tiles per turn. Don't kill any animals other than the extremely common lions and wolves with your non subdue riders, presumably the non-subduers are the ones that will actually be clearing the fog of war uncovering the map as they were your first ones, but do make note of where you saw the more elusive animals you'll need for The Grand Menagerie. And send your Riders with Subdue after those particular animals. When you capture the ones you specifically need for the Menagerie first thing you do before ending your turn after you capture them is declare their nationality, this way they have a free walk home from wherever they are unless a civ decides to declare war on you, which is very unlikely at this early stage of the game. The next course of action is wrangle up an army of hidden national bears/spiders and tigers, spiders are tough to find as a barb civ as they won't attack you, so hopefully you can spot a couple of the baby spiders left over from scouts getting ate and give them time to grow or keep a couple Goblin Scouts posted near likely spots with your subduing cavalry nearby. You're going to want to get them Mobility promotions quickly but make sure they can break particularly tough warriors first, it won't matter too much about losing these animals but they're still a limited commodity and it would be nice to get them back to cage up in your secondary cities after they win you the early game ;p I know using spiders in such a way is thought to be a bit of an exploit, but the way I see it in this particular game is; I worked hard to actually find a couple spiders (most of the army was bears) and they were relatively easy to capture with a combat 5, 3 strength subduer I could have had as many as I wanted really, but I did delete any babies they produced, I was paying for my army of Riders too already, didn't need the extra babies laying around wasting cash.

So to sum it up, you want to as quickly as possible help the barbs take as many cities as possible by using strong hidden nationality animals to break open enemy civs cities. I would suggest leaving satellite cities that will be razed untouched give them a chance to grow a bit. The overiding theme of this strat is to let the AI's do as much of the improvement building and city building themselves while you develop the infrastructure to support a large empire in your small 3-5 city empire. The nice thing about Rantine is no buildings the Barbs built will be destroyed because they're giving them to you, so it'll be like opening up a pack of M:TG cards you'll find some nice surprises! Even sending some of your workers out help out a particularly nice barb city could even land you some academies or wonders as Barbs are quite fond of using specialists and trying to build wonders. When the time is right, ie: you have City States and some courthouses setup in your primary cities and feel you can support a large empire send a mobility promoted Rantine to go claim as much choice territory as you can before the barbs deicde to break their truce, at which point you have only to defend against some frightening stacks of barb units for some free promotions to move to the next stage of the game. While building up to this point you should have been able to significantly stunt most AI's growth to the point where you already have a tech lead and they're fighting for their lives against strong barbs with cities and culture to back them up...

Hopefully it's a new twist on playing the game. Comments/criticisms appreciated. Just don't wait until Barbs get longbows to send Rantine out on his claiming spree, I'm not sure how exactly his strength is compared to defenders to determine whether or not he can claim the city. I was hoping to find out if Rantine could take Orthus' Axe from him in a friendly way but Orthus had already died long before I got Rantine out, instead just after Cassiel got his first adventurer despite being on the other side of a huge map I took the Axe for myself with a pair of Warg riders and then wiped him out :P

I haven't played much with the Clan but they surprised the heck out of me when I drew them in a semi crappy tundra location under Jonas when playing a random leader. I decided despite the lousy start location and the fact I usually don't like playing Barb leaders because of the science penalty I'd give it a try.

-snip-



Great writeup!

I really enjoyed reading it because I am trying civs I never accepted before when the random generator picked one for me.

In .22 I played with Charadon who has the same Barbarian trait as Jonas.

I spent a lot of time managing that 50% cap on points so the barbs wouldn't declare war on me. You didn't mention how you managed that.

I have used a HN Spider Army in the past to soften up ai cities so the barbs could raise them.

In another thread I mentioned that I was finally able to build the Grand Menagerie. Were you able to get it? I like the idea of upgrading to Worg Riders with Subdue Animal.

Thanks for sharing your strategy!:goodjob:

Great writeup!
Thanks, I hope people try it out and see how it fares in some faster games, I'm not so sure it's quite as viable in quick or normal, as techs tend to fly by in those.

I spent a lot of time managing that 50% cap on points so the barbs wouldn't declare war on me. You didn't mention how you managed that.
I stayed small, I suggested 3-5, and I stayed at 4. Even with AI's having only 1-2 cities, we all stayed pretty close, even had the Kurio's ahead of me by a good 20% with just their 1 city, until I sent Rantine off to start snagging cities off the barbs, some of what I wrote I didn't do because I didn't have the foresight, such as get horseback riding...with mobility, I could have done all this soo much quicker and gotten soo many more cities off the barbs I think, which is why I suggest getting those asap. Of course this means I also didn't get trade which would have possibly made problems for me staying under the 50% cap (is it 40%? not really sure, I just knew it would happen sooner or later if I got too powerful compared to the rest).

In another thread I mentioned that I was finally able to build the Grand Menagerie. Were you able to get it? I like the idea of upgrading to Worg Riders with Subdue Animal.
Only time I've ever managed to get it :cool: That's sort of why I decided to write this topic actually, it's always been just out of reach, but in this game I had 3 cities that I could have built it in. Usually when I see some of the rarer animals they attack my guys and even if I win the combat, I lose the opporunity to get the animal later...whereas animals ignore the barbs, so I could walk right by them and come get them later when I was ready :lol:

I feel kind of bad, my initial goal this game was to found Ashen Veil and switch over to Hyborem which is exactly what I did, and I left a really powerful Jonas behind, I was trying not to get too attached to the civ I picked which is probably why I decided to play the game despite the crappy start. Guess I wasn't as successful at distancing myself from the civ however, because I saved it at the Hyborem coming into the world stage and have since played both sides of the coin through til the end.

Another thing you can do, if you stick to staying kinda smallish. Is found veil, build the prophecy of ragnarok, and up up up the Armageddon Counter. I'm not sure if you regain your peace by then with the barbs, but if you do, just look at the Horsemen and Avatar of Wrath bringing doom down upon the AI! :D

I decided to try this out, since my last game with Embers was on a small map and I didn't get to play the helping hand of the Barbs any.

So I started a large map game, on Monarch. 10 civs, all random. Got a pretty nice mix, 4 good, 3 evil and 3 neutral. Got open borders with most. Alexis already got Cartography so we traded maps and upped our standings quite a bit.

I managed to trade my nature mana for some wine from Varn, since we are connected with a river.


But the problem I see here is that the AI has been very succesful with their scouts. I see them running around with combat IV and combat V scouts at occasion. And animals seem very scarse. I've only seen 1 wolf, which died at the hands of an AI scout. 1 tiger, a couple of bears, 3 lion dens, but I only know that one still exists and one of the other 2 is definitely razed. I've seen a gorilla once, and I know of 2 spiders and 2 baby spiders in existance.

So this is looking grim... :/

The year is 76 and the I can see the barbarians have started spawning. Which means that no more animal spawns (except from the dens). So I really hope that tiger and gorilla are still alive...

Interesting write up. I think I might go try them now, heh. Particularly the idea of Subdue Animal Worg Riders has caught my eye.

But the problem I see here is that the AI has been very succesful with their scouts. I see them running around with combat IV and combat V scouts at occasion.

I remember seeing someone (MagisterCultuum?) state that the AI gets a really large combat bonus vs. Barbarians. That's likely part of the problem. Keelyn is the worst offender in this regard in my games; been playing one with the Ljosalfar and she had an endless supply of combat 3+ acrobats to harass me with.

I find that animals tend to be more common (and disappear slower) if you play Continents. YMMV, though.

To get closer to being on-topic, I haven't tried a game as the Clan yet, but this sounds like a fun thing to try when I do.

Ugh, barbs already up at turn 76? On Marathon they don't usually show their ugly heads until around turn 100ish or so. I'll admit I did wipe out Charadon early which I didn't mention, he was right next to me and I wiped him out for a dual purpose, he also being a barb AI I didn't want him having unchecked growth right next to me and I also wanted to keep that area clear for animal spawns, I was close to the tundra usually within 6-8 turns of being built my goblins were already Warg Riders my first one took the longest because animals hadn't even started spawning yet. I wish I could remember for certain whether or not I actually got Husbandry from a hut, because if I did I guess that could really make or break the idea of getting the menagerie with ease. Although it felt easy getting it this game as I also had a huge swathe of jungle just a little north of me and lots of gorillas and tigers spawned, panthers as usual were the rare ones, but I'm pretty sure gorillas and tigers got any AI scouts trying to come south as they generally already had some promos whenever I subdued them.

Perhaps there's something to be said about the continents having more populous animal life hypothesis, I usually play highlands maps...but this one was definately continents. I didn't notice particularly more wildlife than usual though and I'm pretty sure mine was also large instead of my usual huge maps. I hope you manage it Grey, it could be I got luckier than the norm with the animals. I'll try this strat again to see if I can duplicate the Menagerie part.

Well, I just played out a start using this strat and ran into a few problems, it wasn't as smooth as I hoped it went but maybe by noting these problems I can learn from them, heh.

Firstly, Clan of Embers do not get a starting tech. I was unaware of this and it took me surprise. Suffice to say, I felt a little crippled by this, the fact that I didn't pop a free tech from one of the many Goodie huts I ran by left me furtherly disappointed. Ultimately, I assume I was ahead in the tech race, but I still was a little bitter over lacking a starting tech to jump off of.

Workers can work easy :D It's quite nice to pop out a worker and not have his improvements pillaged by the black orc hordes. Once again, lacking a starting tech hurts the point of this a bit though, but once you pop your first improvement tech (I went straight for Agriculture) you can put it to use.

Without those Warriors dying, it's almost like you have too many free building turns. I'm serious, this may be a sign of novice-ness but after 5 or 6 Goblins and Warrior "Guards"*, I was running out of things to assign my cities to build (few buildings enabled by techs). After 3 Warriors per city I started making Settlers and Workers just to keep pop growth halted and try to avoid any unit cost.

*What a job eh? No war, no barbs, just sit back and drink whilst the civilians think they're being protected.

Getting Gobblers with Subdue Animal is kind of hard. Aside from Lions and Wolves, there isn't much they can take on early, and of course, if you take a Wolf you get a Worg Rider. I did manage to get 2 Worg Riders with Subdue Animal but it took a while to find the Lions to upgrade my Goblins with. One thing I tried, albeit a little too late, was to send Goblins in stacks of 2 so that they could take on the tougher animals. The Bear can slay one but the sacrificed Goblin weakens it enough for the second to get the kill.

Once you get over that part though, fun can start a bit. Dancing Bears are GLORIOUS in my opinion. My cities were reaching their happy cap quickly (especially with un-pillaged farms), and since I didn't beeline to Mysticism, my new cities needed culture. Dancing Bears did both without requiring Carnivals.

It's kind of hard keeping behind the AI on the scoreboards. :cringe: The reason I quit was because I couldn't keep my score down (curse of playing lower difficulty levels, I'm sure at Emperor and Immortal this isn't a problem).

There were things I didn't get to try though:

- Rantine :( By the time I was building him the Barbs turned.
- Strong Hidden Nationality Animals. The few I picked up (Bears) were sent to my cities. Spiders were hard to find with my Worg Riders (invisible right?) and aside from them, it's really just Bears and the odd Lion Pride. Sounds fun, but hard to do.
- The Grand Menagerie. Not enough 'pets' for it, heh.

Anyway, queries I picked up after playing through that a bit.

1) Wipe out AI neighbours if you can? I didn't bother because I feared my score rising up, but once you've got 2 or 3 Worg Riders with a possible Shock Promotion, it gets tempting.
2) Beeline for Mysticism or not? I went Agri > Ani Husb for the improvements and Subdue animal, maybe it was the wrong decision.
3) Beeline for Bronze Working? By the time I got Rantine the barbs had turned on me, maybe the story would be different if I went straight for him?
3) Expand to five cities quickly or slowly? As I said, I had pumped out Settlers because there was little else to build, and maybe that early Settler spread was the downfall of my 'alliance' with the Barbs.
4) Sheelba or Jonas? I ask because Agg doesn't affect Goblins (and the subsequent Worg Riders obtained through them) and Magic Resistance is rather useless versus the AI. Trading Combat I on other Melee units for Exp and Spi seems like it tilts in favour of Jonas, at least to me.

I'd quite like to see other people's takes on how they perform their CoE start, because they quite have my interest now. At least at the start, they seem to play so vastly differently to the other civs I've played (due to Barbarian). Particularly, tech priority. Since they don't begin with a free tech, choosing whether to run to Bronze Working or Trade or Mysticism at first is difficult, I'm curious as to what the OP and others see as the optimum tech priority.

Either way, they certainly provided a different experience, I found it almost ironic how 'opposite' they were to my other games. "Damn, there's not enough Lions and Wolves!" "Grr, I have too many Warriors!" "Eek, my score is getting too high!"

1) Wipe out AI neighbours if you can? I didn't bother because I feared my score rising up, but once you've got 2 or 3 Worg Riders with a possible Shock Promotion, it gets tempting.
I did, I didn't bring it up because I didn't think it would necessarily make much of a difference but it's very possibly a very big difference, seeing as that would be a lot of tiles animals couldn't spawn in.

2) Beeline for Mysticism or not? I went Agri > Ani Husb for the improvements and Subdue animal, maybe it was the wrong decision.
I beelined to Animal Husbandry, gives you the smokehouse and granary from agriculture to build, though as I've said I can't remember if I popped Husbandry from a goodie hut, and that would certainly make a large difference in capturing animals if I did.

3) Beeline for Bronze Working? By the time I got Rantine the barbs had turned on me, maybe the story would be different if I went straight for him?
Definately a difficulty level thing, but I also didn't build any extra cities until after the barbs started showing up and animals were done. I lost quite a few goblins trying to get them upgrades and even trying to kill wolves, I pretty much exclusively built goblins until the barbs started popping up instead of animals.

4) Expand to five cities quickly or slowly? As I said, I had pumped out Settlers because there was little else to build, and maybe that early Settler spread was the downfall of my 'alliance' with the Barbs.
At Prince I slowly expanded to 4 cities, I figured 3-5 was a decent number that shold keep you under the radar, but I guess difficulty level-wise it's variable.

5) Sheelba or Jonas? I ask because Agg doesn't affect Goblins (and the subsequent Worg Riders obtained through them) and Magic Resistance is rather useless versus the AI. Trading Combat I on other Melee units for Exp and Spi seems like it tilts in favour of Jonas, at least to me.
I had Jonas, spiritual/expansive. Had I had Sheelba I would have done the same thing, certainly Jonas's traits are better for this early strat but I think Sheelba would be better for a bit further into the game.

Many of the things you discovered about the Clan, is probably why they're not a commonly played civ, they have virtually no chance at founding an early religion unless their tech popping is spectacular, simply because of the -10% science penalty, forget the fact they don't even start with a tech! They can't expand through conquest, anything they take gets autorazed! The only thing about the Clan that is truly powerful for their start is the fact they can have a 3/3/3 unit within a very very short time...but even with this unit all they can do is raze cities :sad: Well also the fact they can expand freely without worrying about barbarian activity, which all things considered is pretty powerful in some circumstances.

deleted : wrong thread supposed to go in the newbie one

the AI gets up to +100% versus barbs on higher difficulties

my insight into the clan of embers.

sheelba is the weaker compared to jonas. but i will get into why in a while.

the very best tactic i have foudn with jonas is to go for the ashen veil. this requires having reagents or seeing reagents close by. the 2nd best route i have taken is the arcane route for summoners.

lets start with jonas the arcane.
1- build up as many cities as you can quickly. keep them close and tight with only 2 squares seperating them. NEVER build anything that is going to give you culture. you dont want it. this allows for cities to have 8 productive people , plus any specialists into overflow.
2- tech for writing as fast as you can. your going to live off having towns in every available square. once done with writing you need to head down the summoning path (KoTE ->necromancy -> conjurors). the reason for necromancy is multiple fold (skeles,specters,wraiths,barrows).
3- EVERY time you get a tech trade it away. EVERY TIME dont ever miss a beat. this keeps the AI loving you , and inderectly makes you stronger ....
4- once you have necromancy build barrows in any available square.
5- sit back and let the hoards of extra barbs slow down the enemies while your summoners provide all the military you need.

going for the AV is a bit more complicated but also just plain fun.
1- build your cities exactly as above
2- rush for mysticism ASAP. build both buildings and start making great people. wether you get a sage or a prophet wont matter at this point since your popping them for techs.research philosophy next then way of the wicked. by now you should have had a great person or 2 pop. if its a sage pop it for KOtE or save for the holy city. if its a prophet pop it for priesthood or any of the religious techs (the goal is highpriests)
3- once you found the religion you get access to disease corpses. immediately following you should have priesthood for ritualists. the next tech to research is the pact. DO not change to hyborem. build rosier, build the building for the tech, switch civics.
4- the goal here is to maintain peace with the barbs while clocking up the AC, force hyborem into as many wars as you can. remember kill off the other evil people first. the more the AV spreads the more hyborem will love you.
5- forgot , as soon as you get way of the wicked build the prophecy of ragnorok. in a quick game you can have the 4 horsmen in game as early as turn 150. getting them that early in the game makes them virtually unstoppable. and since you are at peace they wont attack you.
6- the goal here is to be the last man standing ... its a fine line but a total blast if you can pull it off.

hope this helps some people with playing the clan in a less mundane fashion.

Without those Warriors dying, it's almost like you have too many free building turns. I'm serious, this may be a sign of novice-ness but after 5 or 6 Goblins and Warrior "Guards"*, I was running out of things to assign my cities to build (few buildings enabled by techs). After 3 Warriors per city I started making Settlers and Workers just to keep pop growth halted and try to avoid any unit cost.I've noticed this as well, so I usually play the clan as barbarians--i.e., declare war as soon as I have more troops than I need. Doesn't always work out, but it's fun.

I tried this out again last night, after finally getting .23 installed. I went down a slightly different path this time because I only had reagents as a commerce bonus, so my teching was very slow. I killed off my local enemies (Rhoanna, Cardith) in rapid order with my Riders using wolves and lions to get some promotions for them making this overpoweringly easy. I also tried to take out Garrim but his defender got too well promoted, and he was stuck behind Auric borders unable to expland, just as Auric was stuck behind Garrim's unable to expland so I left them both alone. I later found Cahir Abbey further north under Barbarian control, I'd popped a hostile hut with 5 spearmen near there way earlier in the game, I presume he was a casualty of that hut :goodjob: So the smaller half of a huge Highlands was devoid of Civ AI life, left growing wildly for a long time, animals prospered. Without the need for panthers, it's made collecting animals for The Menagerie much easier, I have them all and could easily find about 3 more Tigers and Panthers to have my selection of where to build this, but I'm teetering on the edge of collapse as it is with my current hefty military costs, only capital razing funding is keeping me going this long!

It seems that barbs do not found cities in .23 the only ones they have, they captured off other civ's, this is disheartening for the Rantine half of the plan, there are no barbarian cities anywhere near me that would be at all useful to have Rantine convert! Ultimately this has led me to aim for an early conquest victory, my riders that survived are behemoths and I've gone around wiping all good the civs out. Sabathiel, Arendel and Varn have all fallen to my Riders, meanwhile the barbs seem to be taking care of the evil civs...as Keelyn, Faeryl, Auric have all met their untimely ends. I'm playing with Complete Kills, and despite having no capitals Einion, Garrim, Varn and Flauros are lingering on with individual units out in the wild...I have no idea where they are, fortunately there are no goodie huts left which they can found new capitals with! Garrim still holds the lead however (by 1 point over me) and if his unit dies I'll have to start slowing down my already slow growth curve to let Valledia catch up until I can get my units down to her.

Meanwhile the turn is around 241, the only remaining players with cities are Valledia and Mahala. Valledia prospers down south in some fertile lands her 3 cities are hemmed in behind jungle however so I don't expect she'll grow much more just yet. Mahala with 4 cities way up in the farthest north eatsern corner lies in the Tundra and isn't doing too badly considering the lousy start location...Orthus however will likely be about at Mahala's doorstep, unless he's gone after the much farther away Valledia, either way by the time he gets to whoever he's gone after he's going to be frightening indeed, he spawned at Cahir Abbey on my side of the map and has well over 90 tiles to travel to Mahala or closer to 120 to get to Valledia, I didn't count but he'll be combat 5 and probably heroic strength 2 when he gets there. I'd never thought of going for a conquest victory on a huge marathon highlands map using Riders but there ya have it. So much open space I should just starve my 2 cities down and let the barbs end it for me before they turn on me, the remaining civs are doomed, but will they die fast enough?! I've gone by some stacks of 15+ barbs. I fear the fact 4 civs linger on out in the wild, unless the barbs kill them quick, I have no idea where they are and I can't go finish off the other 2 while they're alive or suddenly I'll be the main barb target!

But I'm pretty much done with the game, The Menagerie is all but built and the game is pretty much over, even if it's quite possible I could lose just as easily as I could win this game.

my insight into the clan of embers.

sheelba is the weaker compared to jonas. but i will get into why in a while.

the very best tactic i have foudn with jonas is to go for the ashen veil. this requires having reagents or seeing reagents close by. the 2nd best route i have taken is the arcane route for summoners.

lets start with jonas the arcane.
1- build up as many cities as you can quickly. keep them close and tight with only 2 squares seperating them. NEVER build anything that is going to give you culture. you dont want it. this allows for cities to have 8 productive people , plus any specialists into overflow.
2- tech for writing as fast as you can. your going to live off having towns in every available square. once done with writing you need to head down the summoning path (KoTE ->necromancy -> conjurors). the reason for necromancy is multiple fold (skeles,specters,wraiths,barrows).
3- EVERY time you get a tech trade it away. EVERY TIME dont ever miss a beat. this keeps the AI loving you , and inderectly makes you stronger ....
4- once you have necromancy build barrows in any available square.
5- sit back and let the hoards of extra barbs slow down the enemies while your summoners provide all the military you need.

going for the AV is a bit more complicated but also just plain fun.
1- build your cities exactly as above
2- rush for mysticism ASAP. build both buildings and start making great people. wether you get a sage or a prophet wont matter at this point since your popping them for techs.research philosophy next then way of the wicked. by now you should have had a great person or 2 pop. if its a sage pop it for KOtE or save for the holy city. if its a prophet pop it for priesthood or any of the religious techs (the goal is highpriests)
3- once you found the religion you get access to disease corpses. immediately following you should have priesthood for ritualists. the next tech to research is the pact. DO not change to hyborem. build rosier, build the building for the tech, switch civics.
4- the goal here is to maintain peace with the barbs while clocking up the AC, force hyborem into as many wars as you can. remember kill off the other evil people first. the more the AV spreads the more hyborem will love you.
5- forgot , as soon as you get way of the wicked build the prophecy of ragnorok. in a quick game you can have the 4 horsmen in game as early as turn 150. getting them that early in the game makes them virtually unstoppable. and since you are at peace they wont attack you.
6- the goal here is to be the last man standing ... its a fine line but a total blast if you can pull it off.

hope this helps some people with playing the clan in a less mundane fashion.

I'm trying your strategies in my current game, and the first surprise I got is that I couldn't build barrows outside my territory. I've only got 2 so far, and they haven't spawned anything yet, but I had to cancel my open borders with some civ out of fear they would destroy my barrows.

I've followed your Arcane route, but I think I should have rushed AV instead, and I think I might do so now that I have KoTE. I haven't started making any great people but I think I might do so now.

I'm playing on Emperor, and most of my cities are size 4 after I built the Pagan Temple, so I do have room for some Barrows (except, there are some forests I cant cut yet taking up room). But since I built tightly like you said, with no culture buildings once the cities will grow to size 8 and above, there won't be many tiles for the citizens to work, or for me to place barrows in. What's the plan here, keep the cities small or build more farms so they can be specialists? (Atm I've been concentrating on cottages)

keep the cities small for specialists.

you will not see anything spawning on the barrows. the "barbarians" will not enter your territory , you dont have open borders with them i guess. once they spawn the immediately pop outside jsut as if you canceled open borders.

if you want a rough idea of spawn rate and want to really mes with people land lock a small area so taht no one can get in or out and its not controlled. you will start seeing a build up of units. then when your ready build a city on top of them. they will be forced out to run amok (but there will be ALOT at one time).

have you been giving away the techs? the "barbarian" state gains xp based on the number of people with any given tech. Due to this you must spead the wealth. the good part is that everyone will like you for sharing.

if you have not checked the pedia on barrows yet you can check it to see the spawn table. iirc its skeles , diseased corpses , then wraiths

now what i cant remember is the "hellfire" spell. only AV highpriests and inquisitors can cast it , but it creates a hellfire tile. this in turn gives more units to either the barbs or to hyborem (so much of hellfire has been altered). but i am not even sure this works anymore.

as a side note, do you know if chaos mauraders revolt at this time?(i get confused). one thing i used to do is make a HUGE stack and summon the chaos maurqaders every turn. then they would revolt , pop outside my territory, and rampage.

well .... GL and enjoy.

have you been giving away the techs? the "barbarian" state gains xp based on the number of people with any given tech. Due to this you must spead the wealth. the good part is that everyone will like you for sharing.

No one has Trade yet. That game was on Epic speed. I started a new game on Normal speed and I've built the Prophecy of Ragnarök and I'm about to found Veil. After I get Hyborem into the game I will start building barrows, and continue increasing the AC.

as a side note, do you know if chaos mauraders revolt at this time?(i get confused). one thing i used to do is make a HUGE stack and summon the chaos maurqaders every turn. then they would revolt , pop outside my territory, and rampage.

I'm not sure, there used to be a bug where they always revolted, now I think it's working correctly with a 50% chance or something like that.


It seems that Animals are almost extinct in my games, at least by the time I am able to capture them. I only saw 2 wolves in my game (packs) and they never spawned a single wolf.

Chaos marauders will turn barbarian 20% of the time (I think, not quite sure about the number), but only when they have the summoned1 promotion (otherwise the Sheaim would be screwed)

Why is it so important to keep your cities so close together? You could just assign the specialists manually, if you don't mind a little micromanagement. Also, more territory means more space for barrows.

I'm pretty sure that (at least in .22) only the Infernals can cast the Hellfire spell, which also requires Entropy III divine. It gives the units to Hyborem if he is still in the game and the Barbs otherwise (I think there is a minimum AC requirement for the demon spawning). I'm not sure what happens if there are some hellfire tiles around before Hyborem enters the game (but I don't think that the AC alone causes hellfire to spawn anymore, so you would probably need to cheat to test it)

Why is it so important to keep your cities so close together? You could just assign the specialists manually, if you don't mind a little micromanagement. Also, more territory means more space for barrows.

1) Score. Keeps it down
2) More cities in less territory == more cities with AV religion == higher AC.
3) Leaves more territory for the barbarians
4) More elder councils, etc (and more easily specialists)
5) You use most terrain for a longer time, at the higher difficulties you will have size 3-4 cities for a pretty long time if you don't get lucky with the resources (but that still requires techs). And once you get religion, you might only get size 8-12 cities anyhow

just FYI , bringing hyborem into the world will push you into wars much much faster. i personally dont reccomend doing it until you have a patriarch and/or mardero.

also bringing in hyborem also brings in the other guy(wow memory blank).

something i learned recently (cant believe i did not know before). if you build the spiral tower you will gain 1 coin for every temple and every altar in every city. thats 2 coin per city additional income.

It seems that the using the Chaos III Sorcery spell to turn rival units into barbarians DOES NOT START A WAR, even without HN. (note that I had modded my version significantly, but I don't think I did anything that would stop the spell from declaring war if it did in the normal version). This is almost certainly a bug, but a very useful one for the Clan. It isn't really a early game strategy, but turning every one of your rivals' units into a barbarian before (of instead of) declaring war on them is really powerful. Unfortunately, the newly barbarian units don't seem to attack very often, even if several of them are right next to a completely unguarded city.

my insight into the clan of embers.

sheelba is the weaker compared to jonas. but i will get into why in a while.

the very best tactic i have foudn with jonas is to go for the ashen veil. this requires having reagents or seeing reagents close by. the 2nd best route i have taken is the arcane route for summoners.

lets start with jonas the arcane.
1- build up as many cities as you can quickly. keep them close and tight with only 2 squares seperating them. NEVER build anything that is going to give you culture. you dont want it. this allows for cities to have 8 productive people , plus any specialists into overflow.
2- tech for writing as fast as you can. your going to live off having towns in every available square. once done with writing you need to head down the summoning path (KoTE ->necromancy -> conjurors). the reason for necromancy is multiple fold (skeles,specters,wraiths,barrows).
3- EVERY time you get a tech trade it away. EVERY TIME dont ever miss a beat. this keeps the AI loving you , and inderectly makes you stronger ....
4- once you have necromancy build barrows in any available square.
5- sit back and let the hoards of extra barbs slow down the enemies while your summoners provide all the military you need.

going for the AV is a bit more complicated but also just plain fun.
1- build your cities exactly as above
2- rush for mysticism ASAP. build both buildings and start making great people. wether you get a sage or a prophet wont matter at this point since your popping them for techs.research philosophy next then way of the wicked. by now you should have had a great person or 2 pop. if its a sage pop it for KOtE or save for the holy city. if its a prophet pop it for priesthood or any of the religious techs (the goal is highpriests)
3- once you found the religion you get access to disease corpses. immediately following you should have priesthood for ritualists. the next tech to research is the pact. DO not change to hyborem. build rosier, build the building for the tech, switch civics.
4- the goal here is to maintain peace with the barbs while clocking up the AC, force hyborem into as many wars as you can. remember kill off the other evil people first. the more the AV spreads the more hyborem will love you.
5- forgot , as soon as you get way of the wicked build the prophecy of ragnorok. in a quick game you can have the 4 horsmen in game as early as turn 150. getting them that early in the game makes them virtually unstoppable. and since you are at peace they wont attack you.
6- the goal here is to be the last man standing ... its a fine line but a total blast if you can pull it off.

hope this helps some people with playing the clan in a less mundane fashion.
Unless you object, I'll put this into the wiki.

I played a clan game trying to use the horsemen and avatar as weapons. Much to my dismay, three horsemen and the avatar were trapped behind my lines with Acheron. They can't cross my territory and I can't build a city there to pop them out because of Acheron's city. Oh well.

I used a different strategy than outlined above. I was playing on Emperor, so the top scores have stayed ahead of me and I haven't been at risk of loosing barb. I went for AV priests as the primary weapon, but let my cities grow big with farms. I used STW for extra food and whatever civic it is that allows military production with food. It was easier than having to worry every few turns about going in to sacrifice, but still produced units quickly. Even without as many specialists and great people, I have managed to catch up techwise with the other civs. Otherwise, I have had good success with the outlined strategy.

jwin , you do know that you can kill the dragon and still have peace with the barbs? the only thing that will break peace with the barbs iirc is having too many points (which is why i limit cultural growth). after you remove the dragon and claim all that territory all those barbs with "pop" outside and start attack others.

I take it then that Acheron is an animal, so you can attack him like any other animal? I did not realize that. I think that might change some things a little.


edit: I went back and tried to attack him. All I did was move peacefully onto his city.

edit2: And casting ring of fire breaks the peace too. That really pissed them off.

Acheron is not an animal, he is a beast. You could kill him with HN units. You could take over Acheron's city without a fight using Rantine, but I think you may have to cheat to get his strength high enough for this to work.

Using the avatar as a weapon... now that's very cruel. Only way to take that thing down is to have tons of units with lots of first strikes. Is the AI programmed to deal with this meance though? If not then that's surely an exploit.

I doubt it's viable as an MP tactic though, because you still need the techs to expand to enough cities so you can support 90 warriors (90 counters). Although I would be very interested to see if a human player could build an empire and field an army in 300 turns that could take the Avatar of Wrath down.

Just one question here...

Building the Grand Menagerie was mentioned, but the last time I checked, you needed gorilla cages for that, and until patch 3.13 you can't do that. I even recall Kael mentioning fixing gorilla cages in his 0.25 changelog, but again it isn't in game until patch 3.13, so how are you guys building the Grand Menagerie if you can't actually build the pre-req buildings?

If I manage to subdue a gorilla and get it back to a city, then I simply delete the gorilla and world build my gorilla cage. I am just curious if there is another way to do this that I'm not aware of as the 0.25 changelog seems to indicate there isn't.

Simple answer: cheating.

Of course, it would not be difficult just to fix the problem yourself in the xml file/excel file editor. Just go the the unit section and put BUILDING_GORILLA_CAGE in the first building types section of the Building section under the Gorilla unit.

Also, the Menagerie is still working in ht pre-BtS versions