How do I make use of Loki? I've parked him in another civ's city and after 15 turns nothing seems to have happened? You would think that by now I would have gotten a hit on a 15% chance for unrest.

According to the Wiki it says he may flip a city with less than 1 culture. I guess that means zero, which does not seem very likely to come up. If the city is generating any culture at all, a -1 deduction is not going to bring it to zero.

It also says the culture drain doubles after 1000 years. A thousand? Can that be right?

Finally, if he can't attack and defends only weakly, how are people getting him EPs? And if he had some, what good would that be?

his main use is exploring rivals territory with whom you don't have open borders.

his culture flipping is only really good in new cities that don't yet generate culture.

The only use I found for him is to use his spell to delay enemy attacks. Possibly you can use him to scout enemy lands because he wont die doing so.

I can see some ways to get him XP, although there is no point in rising his combat promotions. But, on the other hand, maybe you can get him new spells, and there are movement, visibility range, medic and maybe some others which are sometimes useful.
The first way to get him XP - and which will probably never happen - is to have him enter huts and hoping the villagers give him XP. Then there are units (priests), who can sacrifice half their XP to other units in their stack when dying. Finally, if you can get hold of a vampire, you could turn him into one, and then sucking a city dry to get him XP is no problem at all (it requires of course Calabim enemies and someone on your side with a domination spell to steal a vampire).

In my opinion he is a waste of time, as are the gipsy wagons, unless I miss something there (I didnt get any gold from parking them in other peoples cities).

Its not hard to get him xp, but why would you want to? He is not in any unit class, which mean that there re no promotions available for him to get with that xp.

his main use is exploring rivals territory with whom you don't have open borders.

his culture flipping is only really good in new cities that don't yet generate culture.

But wouldn't gyspy wagons be an easier option than Loki if it is mainly just a way to explore rival territory?

The main strength of Loki is that he cannot be killed (unless completely surrounded he will always withdraw; I believe I heard that he was still withdrawing even then, although not supposed to). If you are playing with "require complete kills" and only allow conquest victory, then this means you cannot be loose (although it doesn't really help really you win, and you would certainly get too board to continue)

Train him early and he can take over newly founded enemy cities without declarations of war like taking candy from a baby - I've played Balseraph games where half my core empire was nabbed from the AI by Loki. You don't even need your own culture in the tile since theirs will be negative and thus lower than your 0. Also, charm person is really handy for neutralising tough enemies (well, restricting them to pillaging anyhow) and buying you time - Orthus in particular is a good target for it.

When playing against Loki, I found him impossible to kill. Not only would he escape when totally surrounded, he once escaped when I surrounded the city he was in with units two tiles deep. Agh! I finally killed him when I took out the last Balseraph city, taking them out of the game. Otherwise, I couldn't kill him.

When playing as the Balseraphs, I parked him in enemy cities on my border and used him to wage culture/pillage wars. Every few turns the city he was in would experience unrest. When that happened, and the city's culture radius went to zero, I would rush units in and pillage improvements in what would otherwise be enemy territory, without having to declare war.

As I suspected. The Balseraphs have turned out to be a disappointment. Apart from the Taskmaster, this civ has little to offer. Weak leaders. Weak heroes. And Bards, Bards, Bards.

Of course, their druids (upgraded from Harlequins) can use all mind and chaos spells in addition to the normal nature magic. Extra pit beasts are always nice. Of course, switching to the Runes to be able to build them does seem out of character for them.

each AI unit can only attack once (unless it has blitz). so if Loki is infront of your attack stack then they'll attack him first, using up their attack for the turn, and so not attacking your stack, leaving you with the initiative to cast some spells and then strike first. a great detour in an offencive military campain!

I seem to recall a fellow player using Loki in a multi-player game a while back and using him quite effectively to bolster my stacks since we were allied. I believe it was dance of blades that they kept using to give my entire stack an additional first strike chance. That coupled with the fact that the stack was loaded with expendable skeletons meant no city stood a chance. This of course is in version 23c.

It seems Loki could slow the efforts of a settlement spammer in a MP game. Also, his ability to freely explore a rival's territory in the very early game shouldn't be underestimated. Finally, having your stacks enabled with Dance of Blades in the very early game is quite a help, moreso if you spam and rush low-level units.

Its not hard to get him xp, but why would you want to? He is not in any unit class, which mean that there re no promotions available for him to get with that xp.Rather than rack my brain trying to figure this out, could you tell me how to give xp to Loki? ;)

Also, I don't understand the mechanics of the Charm Person spell, but I assume that it is more effective when cast by a high-level unit. If that's the case, then there is plenty of motivation to power-up Loki.

This thread inspired me to finally give the Balseraphs a try. I rushed Loki out straight away and he was a help in charming an early invasion of barbarian lizardmen. Then, as I was running him towards my first victim, I experimented by attempting to charm a random scout who came into sight. But the humble scout resisted the spell!

The value of Loki is probably heavily dependent upon the reliability of his charm, in my opinion. Any help? :confused:

Edit: Aw man! Now it's twice in a row Loki failed to charm a scout (with Combat II promotion).

Edit: Now three times in a row. Maybe the spell only works on beligerants.

How do I make use of Loki?

Playing as Balseraphs on Emperor, Loki really saved my bacon when the Elves declared war on me.

First of all, the Elves were going through the Malakim lands to get to me. Loki was a good forward scout to tell me when the next stack of theirs had arrived.

Second, when the stack did arrive, I would park Loki on an empty plains spot, and let the enemy attack him. They would oblige me, putting all their forces there (early game, so about five or six units), thus allowing me to take them out without the +50% defense bonus they get for staying in the forests all the time. The only danger with this strategy is that you want to take out whoever hurt Loki the next turn, since they earned some XP doing that.

On counterattack, he was helpful in that the next turn, he'd be able to cast Dance Of Blades on whoever was around. Since I only had one Adept at the time, Loki was like a second Adept with Mobility promotion.

Later in the game, he would mostly go out to the lands beyond and report back with news such as: "I met Hyborem, and he's really pissed off that you burnt down the Ashen Veil holy city. Apparently, saying that it didn't fit your dotmap was not a good enough reason for him". :rolleyes:

I'm pretty sure Loki gains xp just like any other unit when he is attached and wins (you could also try cheating, by giving him the hero promotion or just by giving him more xp directly), but it is completely useless to him. There are no promotions available to him, so he will never be able to gain a level.

I'm pretty sure Loki gains xp just like any other unit when he is attached and wins (you could also try cheating, by giving him the hero promotion or just by giving him more xp directly), but it is completely useless to him. There are no promotions available to him, so he will never be able to gain a level.

Don't additional spells count as promotions? I would think that he could learn any spells you had access to through your mana resources. I have not used him myself, but I would think he could pick up more magic through leveling.

Nope. The level II and II spell sphere promotions are available to all classes of units, but not to units who don't fall into any class at all. Birds, Workers, Settlers, Great People, Work Boats, Gypsy Wagons, Loki, Skeletons, Treants, and possibly a few more summons that I don't remember at the moment are never able to purchase promotions no matter how much xp they acquire.

OK. Thanks Magister. Getting back to my second question: Do you understand how the Charm Person spell works? Is its effectiveness related to the XP--or specific promotions--of the caster?

I'm pretty sure Loki gains xp just like any other unit when he is attached and wins (you could also try cheating, by giving him the hero promotion or just by giving him more xp directly), but it is completely useless to him. There are no promotions available to him, so he will never be able to gain a level.

yes, he gains xp in combat like any other unit. although I’d say the situation would be more when he attacks and wins. generally he won't win many defensive battles when defending against units 3 times his strength, but he can easily pick up xp from attacking wounded units, normally I never attack unwounded units, after my fireballs and skeleton strikes most of the enemy units are at about 0.5 strength, free xp for Loki and adepts.

I'm just getting more confused. I don't think Loki can attack. Can he?

I didn't think so (thats why I said when he is attacked instead of attacks), but I guess I could be wrong. I still don't see why you would try to get Loki more xp. Its completely useless, and deprives your other units of xp that could actually be used for something.

I think that the charm person spell does take the combat promotions of the caster in to account when deciding if it will work, but there is no way (without cheating) to make Loki any better at casting it.

An early Loki is a devastating tool against any civ you happen to decide to apply pressure to in a marathon/epic game. A new city or even an old city with 0 culture that you find spend some turns in their city bringing it to negative culture so it has no workable tiles and it's essentially turned into a useless cash drain of a city until it builds a monument unless it's on a plains hill that is going to be a long time depending on your speed settings. Loki is far more deadly in a marathon/epic game than on quick/normal. Plus he gives you a huge meta gaming advantage...you can see what the city is building, as well as all the knowledge from the city building view (gpt, science %, etc) as well as giving you knowledge of what they're researching. This is some pretty valuable knowledge for a tech trading strat for such an early time period. Lots of Artists, yes...so lots of culture bombs and settled artists to make a culture victory quite easy with what is the single most culutrally oriented civ in FFH2. Double the options for cages makes for a substantial amount of base culture which is otherwise quite difficult to get in FFH2 without building lots of wonders, along with tons of happiness, may as well go Leaves to make HUGE cities, seeing as the Leaves Religious Wonder requries an Artist to build, I guess you're all set. I think the Balseraphs are arguably one of the most powerful starting civs around.

An early Loki is a devastating tool against any civ you happen to decide to apply pressure to in a marathon/epic game. A new city or even an old city with 0 culture that you find spend some turns in their city bringing it to negative culture so it has no workable tiles and it's essentially turned into a useless cash drain of a city until it builds a monument unless it's on a plains hill that is going to be a long time depending on your speed settings. Loki is far more deadly in a marathon/epic game than on quick/normal. Plus he gives you a huge meta gaming advantage...you can see what the city is building, as well as all the knowledge from the city building view (gpt, science %, etc) as well as giving you knowledge of what they're researching. This is some pretty valuable knowledge for a tech trading strat for such an early time period. Lots of Artists, yes...so lots of culture bombs and settled artists to make a culture victory quite easy with what is the single most culutrally oriented civ in FFH2. Double the options for cages makes for a substantial amount of base culture which is otherwise quite difficult to get in FFH2 without building lots of wonders, along with tons of happiness, may as well go Leaves to make HUGE cities, seeing as the Leaves Religious Wonder requries an Artist to build, I guess you're all set. I think the Balseraphs are arguably one of the most powerful starting civs around.

That’s right. Not always, but usually, when I am playing Balseraphs, Loki captures me more cites than I build at the start and of course He is Very useful if you want to destroy this small town which your “friends” build in heart of you empire.

Also, I didn’t see it in the forum and maybe it was there, but I’ll write it here:

“small notes about cultural wars”: As I found game don’t reconsider cultural border every turn, but make check if one of the cites grow on culture or person (great bard, prophet etc) sacrificed to add culture for the city. Also, this check is never negative, so if add culture to your city his cultural borders would never fade but grow or stay still (if foreign city have Really STRONG culture counter).
So adding 3-5 prophets to the city could move you cultural borders with rather unnatural power. (I think it is a spoiler, because prophets (and similar units) utilizing same game mechanics as Great Bards)

So is it just me or is loki almost useless in mp(cept for the spells). Same for gypsy wagons.. Won't they just be guarded off by warriors after declaring war(he can't attack and don't have strength for it anyways...).

So is it just me or is loki almost useless in mp(cept for the spells). Same for gypsy wagons.. Won't they just be guarded off by warriors after declaring war(he can't attack and don't have strength for it anyways...).

Well he got Charm Person, Dance of Blades and Dispel Magic, and can't be killed (except if stationed in cities or cornered).

And if you delete him, or get him killed you can build an early Shrine of the Champion. Which gives your city +5 Culture, +3 Prophet GPP, +1 Free promotion on units built in the city. Sure you can do this with other heroes, but since Loki can't attack, this is a valid option.

You should try to rush Loki, so when the time you get Loki, your closest enemies still are building settlers, wait and follow the settler that comes and when settler makes city, if no cultural leader = you will get the city before enemy builds any other buildings.

But aren't he like the big thing for balseraphs so they are rather useless in mp? It seems to me the only thing they can do are AI exploits... They get a spellcaster that can't be killed(though not with too good spells) and the harlequin...

Nah, I think Balseraph work fine without ever using Loki.

The freaks, Insane trait (nice early mages if Perpentachs traits doesn't change too early), Summoner Keelyn. Best Cultural civ. Bard spam is fun.

Isn't cultural also rather useless in mp though? Anyone worth their salt will notice it and attack the person going for it no? I guess i overlooked freaks. What exactly is so good about them?

They start mutated. Which means they can get many good promotions if you're lucky. And they upgrade to both the melee and recon line.

And culture is nice for land grab and defense in MP.

Loki is useless in MP (unless you consider an adept who cannot get xp with 2 movement to be a useful hero). How an AI allows him to sit in a city and does not declare war to kick him out is beyond me.

However:

Freak (mutated for str, mobility, etc, etc, etc)
+
Arena for 5-10xp
+
Upgraded to harl
+
Upgraded to druid
=
Mutated Druid with 5-10xp able to summon pit beast and cast dominate after 2 promos each mana. And, of course, nature spells. And, perhaps, with song (nature for affinity).
+
Kithra
+
Yvain
=
ftw

Oh yea, and
+3 taskmasters, +3-6 harls for casting charm, dispel, and blade and serving as an alarm/fodder

I use Kandros with Bals (unrestricted leaders).
Tech path: education\writing\festivals\mystic\fellowship\bron ze\hidden\commune\poisons (upgrade taskmasters from scouts who have survived the arena a couple times)
Everyone promotes mobility to move 3 - kithra, yvain, druids, baron, harls, tasks
Note: bards can lightbulb hidden before and commune after drama, and create song

I never play civ multiplayer, but against the cpu Loki is crazy powerful. I actually get this sick sense of glee watching him spread his madness from city to city. Leaving the residents with fever dreams and begging for more. The true art of conquest: making your enemies long to be you.

Would it be possible to mod Loki to be able to enter Barbarian cities?

Would it be possible to mod Loki to be able to enter Barbarian cities?

You could use unrestricted leaders Jonas or the Dov guy (sorry name eludes me).

My Loki was killed by a Gorilla last night. Lame.

I did here of a really useful use for loki. Though I'm not sure it hasn't been fixed.

Assuming you can keep loki alive til then, find Acheron and with his 100% withdrawl chance use him to pull said dragon into neighbouring players heartland. It really does fit Loki's flavour!

Edit: It could also work with Orthus, which I think is a lot more viable, if less impressive. It also guarantees you the axe grab when Big O pans.

Acheron cannot move anymore, so it doesn't work on him.

Loki is definitely useful even for MP. An invincible scout is definitely a menace, since you can essentially build whatever units counter your enemy's. And since MP games are about building an effective stack in a short time, you have to gear your entire economy towards that purpose, which means you can't switch even if you know your enemy saw everything.

Plus, there's always the culture drain irritation. Chopping obliesks and/or getting a missionary to follow every settler for the religious culture is lots of wasted hammers.

And the only counter to having to do that is to DoW on the Balseraph, but maintaining a war all game long can hurt your happiness :)

Double Posted

Be nice if Loki were counted as invisible. Then you could ever move on people at War with you (like Barbarians)

In my opinion he is a waste of time, as are the gipsy wagons, unless I miss something there (I didnt get any gold from parking them in other peoples cities).

I think gypsy wagons can reduce enemy cities commerce and GPP. Back to the point, i use Loki by using him as an escort for workers and settlers. He just keeps withdrawing lol.

A unit withdrawing and bringing the entire stack with him is a bug though, so be careful when the finally fix it.

That said...

DAMN! WIsh I had thought of that one! ;)

In my last game, Loki single-handedly ENDED Kardath Lorda. The Kuriotates can only build three cities (but can build the third ring), and after that only make settlements which don't EVER GET PAST level 1.

Loki flips them in like three turns! I never needed Settlers after that point!

Why did everybody forget about the mutation? He's a walking glowing stick of radioactive insanity. I've tried the Balseraphs on Deity about 10 times befoer I figured the best strategy: I started a city amid a lot of forests, so it could grow and get production without needing workers. My build queue was Loki, warriors until I had about 10. By that time I've captured 4 shiny new settlements the AI was kind enough to gift me. In the early game, even if the AI has Ancient Chants it takes around 30 turns to biuld an obelisk, plenty of time to capture it. With 5 cities and a host of warriors, I declared war and mutated the entire stack like a beautiful Chernobyl of promotions :nuke::nuke::nuke:. About 3-4 warriors turned out good enough to take the closest civ's capital (and only city, since the rest have been Lokified). By the time the other civs were warming up, I had 2 big cities, 4 small ones over the area reserved for 2 civs, 2 super warriors to take other cities and 6 others to defend the cities, and not a turn wasted on workers/settlers. Recon with Loki is nice, but I prefer to keep him close to mutate my troops (a warrior costs about 30% of a freak) and take any cities the AI tries to spawn near my lands.

I will now sacrifice a goat at Loki's altar.

The main strength of Loki is that he cannot be killed (unless completely surrounded he will always withdraw; I believe I heard that he was still withdrawing even then, although not supposed to). If you are playing with "require complete kills" and only allow conquest victory, then this means you cannot be loose (although it doesn't really help really you win, and you would certainly get too board to continue)

This seems to still be a problem, i managed to corner him in hte last patch, and he pushed one of my swordman off his tile when he withdrew. Aslo, I think their is a problem with his withdwarl. over several turns, I was able to chase him down, damage him a bit, and kill him. All of this happened in the open.

withdrawal happens after first strikes. Since loki isn't immune to first strikes (he should be though), first strikes can kill him.

As I suspected. The Balseraphs have turned out to be a disappointment. Apart from the Taskmaster, this civ has little to offer. Weak leaders. Weak heroes. And Bards, Bards, Bards.

Well, there is actually a good deal to them that I think you may be missing.

1) Build Loki early on, maybe even your first unit. Scout out the closest rival, and plop loki into any new cities they build. This will convert them giving you the option of disbanding or taking control of the city (Takes a random while, won't work on creative leaders).

2) Perpentach is a great leader. He isn't consistently one way or another, but three traits is still 50% better than anyone else, even if sometimes they aren't the best three. Occasionally, though, you get Financial, aggressive, raider, and go to town on the world. Also, he starts off creative, which is rare in FFH, and the fact it can change away from that later in the game, is like getting (sometimes) the best of both worlds.


The general name of the game for the Belseraphs is to get early civ expansion via Loki subversion, and then tech up to either slaver style assassin's, or mind controlling druids. Both routes offer there own perks.

Loki in early game in my opinon is mainly for culture flipping and exploration. He comes with a bunch of useful spells like mutation.

Use mutation on your early game warriors to get your 6 str (or 7 str swordsman). It's not difficult to get strong on your warriors. Leave the crappy mutated ones to garrison while sending all your strong one to rape the cities. Loki can act as an advance scout since he has 2 movement and cannot die. You can also use him to lure units out of ai cities.

Late game, he is pretty much useless. You can simply delete him. Then you can build shrine of the champion to get a free promotion for all your new units built.

Another style of playing Loki is mutated mimics. Mimics are in fact the strongest (champion level unit) melee unit around even though they have 1 str less than normal champions. They have this insane ability to steal promotion. Mutate the mimics, send the good ones out to attack. Everytime the mimic wins combats (either defending or attacking), it will STEAL a promotion it does not have, eg combat 3. Usually you can afford to promote new mimics with mobility, and mutate them then use them to attack. They can usually get a free combat promotion. You can even steal the hero promotion.

If you go ashen veil and get ritualists, you can build up a really powerful army at a cheap cost (mimics cost 80, same str as ranger with iron working), coupled with ritualist pillar of fire to damage the enemy. You might not have any uber hero units, but because of steal promotion/mutation, you are guaranteed to have a lot of mimics with 5-6 promotions at level 3 which can easily clear units of the same class, especially with pillar of fire. If you are lucky with mutation to get strong promotion and use your mimic to kill a hero and steal hero promotion, you are on your way to victory.

I am quite sure you can execute this strategy way before you can get druids or archmages. Iron working/priesthood is way in front of the tech tree compared to strength of will or the druid tech. I usually ignore taskmasters as the tech is out of the way. Besides, taskmasters have an attack str of 7, same as mimic with iron working, but cannot steal promotion, cannot upgrade to mith weapon and cost more to build. Although they can create slaves, you can do that too by running slavery civic together with STW. I have won AI on immortal levels using the strat

The best part is that you can upgrade your mimics to phalanax in late game. My level 10 mimic with hero promotion (and at least 15 other promotions) upgraded into a 16 str phalanax with like 130+% str, mobility and commando.

Only Chalid Astrakan (The Malakim Hero) can use Pillar of Fire. Ritualist get Ring of Flames, which damages ALL agasant units.

sorry ring of flames. :)

Is there any way to know what promotions won't have any effect? I attacked a city until there were only catapults left defending, then waited a turn and got all my best mimics (ones with over 12 promotions already :) ) Barrage 1. However, it doesn't seem to have any effect. Should it?

Barrage increases the Bombardment damage cap, so if you cannot bombard already it is useless.

stealing promotions like life 1 will not give your mimics ability to cast spells.

Unless you also get channeling I or II. I usually end up with some mimics with marksmen, which makes it easy to later pick out the mages with them to get a large assortment of spells. (Having enchanted blade is nice when you accidently steal rust)

A Mimic can also pick up Hidden Nationality, which opens up a lot of interesting possibilities.

On the topic - Loki loses Mutation in .33 (.33 changelog) , which will decrease his potential by far. No more early mutations for your Warriors.
OTOH he gains some interesting abilities to use in rival cities.

I'm curious what do you guys think will change in using Loki.

Well, he said that the Create Puppet ability will create a unit with the casting abilities of the summoner. He said that Loki can now cast spells which accomplish his standard tasks (disrupting cities). This means you now get 2 Loki's for the price of 1, as long as the Puppet is also able to enter Rival Territory (or you have Open Borders)

in other words: you'll need mutation or freaks again (which have been made easier accessible due to the change of the freak shows), but you'll practically double his city stealing abilities

As well as getting a convenient source of happiness as a stopgap measure.

As I said in the Lore thread, shame about loss of Mutation though. Getting 5/4 Cannibal Blitz warriors on turn 1 was always fun.

Well, we all love him for the city stealing, no? If the AIs are fighting each other but they all like you, he can take over whole continents.

Getting 5/4 Cannibal Blitz warriors on turn 1 was always fun.

On turn 1? How??
Unless Advanced Start of course.


Loss of Mutation of Loki will make us use Freaks again, which is a good thing.
Loki was a bit overpowered in early game. But so much fun... :crazyeye:

On turn 1? How??
Unless Advanced Start of course.


Loss of Mutation of Loki will make us use Freaks again, which is a good thing.
Loki was a bit overpowered in early game. But so much fun... :crazyeye:

Yeah, advanced start. First 50-100 turns or so on Epic drag out really badly.

Still, Loki was quite overpowered early game. Even more so recently with Inspiration instead of Charm Person. Most of my Balseraph games Loki never leaves my borders, unless there's a nearby AI that's being particularly annoying. Then Loki gets to go have some fun :D

Bals are one of my favorite three civs and I never build Loki except to delete him for the shrine.

On immortal, it doesn't seem he can flip a city. His immortality doesn't do me much good - if I wanted a scout, I'd build one for 16 hammers (instead of 100s) and let him die.

I don't mean to be a stick-in-the-mud, but I play balseraph alot and never build him. There's always something better to build than a 200 hammer adept (unless I want the shrine).

He is expensive.
But I don't play MP and play mostly for fun, so I use him anyway.

I like to delude enemy troops by making them follow Loki and go in circles. Very much in character, though probably unusable against human opponent.

Actually deleting Loki and getting the shrine is a very decent strategy. Since he is such an early hero and not really that useful in war you can get the upper edge on your enemies with the Shrine. Getting a free promotion and the gpp rate and whatever else the shrine does (just culture right? I forget) is just awesome.

On immortal, it doesn't seem he can flip a city.


Flipping cities has absolutely nothing to do with the difficulty level, just stick him in any city that doesn't generate any culture at all (newly built/conquered, not a creative opponent) and wait without moving for a few turns. An obelisk in a newly founded city has to take at least 15 turns, plenty of time to flip (You have about 10% revolt chance per turn after the second turn Loki is immobile in a city). Later tonight I'll post the main overview of my first win with Perp on deity against 20 civs on huge. I never settled a city after Jubilee, I just had Loki follow an army of Sheaim invading their neighbors and flipped more than 10 freshly conquered cities, plus another 10 they built to replace them.

The thing is, at immortal level, the AI can (pretty much) instantly build a monument in new cities. Also, if you spend 200+ hammers building Loki in the early game, you will get overrun by a couple warrior/scout stacks or even axe if you build a couple cities before him.

Making units chase him around does sound pretty fun though :)

Well, he has new powers in .33

I never settled a city after Jubilee, I just had Loki follow an army of Sheaim invading their neighbors and flipped more than 10 freshly conquered cities, plus another 10 they built to replace them.

And you do not find this to be an exploit?

Exploit? Of course it is. It's pretty hard to win on Deity without them and that's why my first try was with the Balseraphs after I spent a while studying all their exploits carefully. I almost felt ashamed but then I remembered I'm a crazy clown king and felt much better :p

So, with Keelyn using Loki, you could just have him conjure a puppet each turn. Then have the Puppet Disrupt in an enemy city, meaning once you get all 3 of them in the city you are sapping 3-9 :culture: per turn. Or you could cast entertain and pull 1.5x the population of the City worth of gold out of their coffers and into yours.

Should you not want to let Loki be placed at risk (which he isn't really since he has 3 Puppets there to help guard him even!), you can keep him in your own city casting Entertain with 3 puppets to gain +3 :) in the city of your choice.



Yeah, Loki is better now :)

Nevermind, that all applies only if Loki's spellcasting is based on Promotions.

The thing is, at immortal level, the AI can (pretty much) instantly build a monument in new cities.

Well, that isn't true at all. Just send Loki out to say the capital, and wait for Settlers to leave it, and be waiting. Once you get -1 culture in a city, it's radius drops to 0, meaning it often can't work many useful tiles to build said obelisk.

I'm not sure off the top of my head what the conversion chance is, but any time he would cause unrest in a city with negative culture, you get the option of taking that city.

Note that since you'll start accruing culture negatively Pre obelisk, even after it is built you'll still have a period of time when the culture is still negative.

Difficulty level has no bearing in how often it occurs, but it is a quasi random event, meaning that you occasionally just get unlucky.

The odds per turn of a revolt in a city in which the other civ has negative culture is 15% according to the manual. That's about right as I had to wait 4-5 turns on average in a freshly conquered/built city (85% to the fourth ~= 50%). That's even quicker than chopping 3 trees.

Flipping cities has absolutely nothing to do with the difficulty level, just stick him in any city that doesn't generate any culture at all (newly built/conquered, not a creative opponent) and wait without moving for a few turns. An obelisk in a newly founded city has to take at least 15 turns, plenty of time to flip (You have about 10% revolt chance per turn after the second turn Loki is immobile in a city). Later tonight I'll post the main overview of my first win with Perp on deity against 20 civs on huge. I never settled a city after Jubilee, I just had Loki follow an army of Sheaim invading their neighbors and flipped more than 10 freshly conquered cities, plus another 10 they built to replace them.

Just out of curiosity, what did you do with those 20 cities? How could you defend them? Why didn't maintenance costs eat you alive?

I have all the details in the thread "Winning on Deity" with the entire story of the game. As for maintenance I beelined to education (not a lot of line :) ), switched to city states and never changed it. As for defence, I worked hard to be friends with everybody and had only a warrior in each. When the war with Tebryn finally happened he took 4 or 5 of them while I just took the entire defence to 2-3 important cities. Still, it was worth it. I got plenty of cash from cottaging all those cities, and then more when plundering them after he retook the cities.

Can you win deity exploiting any other game mechanic? Please tell if so :)

If you have an idea then that's the other thread is the place for it. I'm currently trying some new ideas.