I decided that even though they seem a bit bland [Edit: that is, with respect to special fantasy-world gewgaws - the Bannor background is fine and flavorful], that I needed to work on a strategy for them. They don't seem to have any substantial changes pending for Shadow, so hopefully, a strat will remain operable even after it comes out.

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My first concept is the "Bannor Divination Strategy."

Since their melee units get the Guardsman promotion, that means they can guard their weaker spellcasters against marksman and such. Teaming melee guards with good spellcasters should be obvious.

So, why Divination? Bannnor starts with Law and Spirit, which are both under Div. Getting 1-2 more to build the Tower of Divination for the free tech is easy. Also, with Spirit and Mind you can build Mages to station in cities and provide Hope and Inspiration. Divination happens to be one of the pre-reqs for Sorcery, so that fits nicely as well. Finally, if you get a pesky dragon next door you have Courage units that can fight him and if Hyborem spawns near you, there are courage troops and Sanctifying Adepts/Mages.

Later you can pick up an offensive magic school and send your guarded mages or conjurers wandering about. Or just Confessors if you follow the Order.

The basics are pretty simple (assumptions are a normal map [the shuffle selections], Monarch, standard size, normal speed).

Tech: Basic worker and econ techs as appropriate to the terrain ->Bronze -> KoE -> Div -> Metal Casting -> Backfill as appropriate (you'll need a few cats to bomb) and use the Tower of Divination to pop Mithril Working very early. If you're going strong on research, you may be able to divert and pick up either RoK or Order. In one game that went really well, I was able to research Mithril Working and use the Tower to Pop Mithril Weapons - nothing like Mithril Spartatoi fighting Iron Axemen...

Expand. You need to cover lots of ground to try to have mithril pop inside your borders. An early rush with Bronzed Axes is usually feasible. Station adepts in your larger cities and give them Mind and Spirit. Load all your troops up with courage and loyalty. Once mithril pops, you should be in a good position to roll over your most troublesome neighbor.

I prefer the Sabathiel with Chm/Org for this strat. Mages promoting with fewer XP is obviously nice and an extra promotion here or there can really boost an early rush. Later on, Command Posts for extra melee xp and production is great, not to mention cheap courthouses. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a better combo with free leader selection, but something with Arcane and an offensive option (aggressive or raider) might be good as well.

I'm still working out more detailed tech and build orders. I'll come back and post them once I've played more games and feel like I have them down.

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An alternate for Capria as leader would be to only run down the metal techs far enough to get the cheap forges from her Industrious trait, then run down the religious paths to get the disciple benefits from Spiritual and the Flagbearer/Donal Lugh options from Fanaticism. Industrious could be useful for picking up the Tower a bit later as well. Fanaticism followed by a tower pop for Righteousness might be effective for throwing out early Paladins.

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What other Bannor strats are out there?

I'd write in more detail, if I had time. Of course, I would MUCH rather right one only if I see others write articles about other civs first, so I know my entry won't be ignored, and that I have a ready template/format for me to follow rather than trying to structure my ideas by scratch. If you find this useful, please, PLEASE tidy it up for me before posting it anywhere significant. I do not like being caught writing in bad English.:mad:

Whether you like it or not, the Bannor and The Order are like Ljosalfar and FoL, don't go home without them. You could go RoK, but then any civ could as it's such a generalist religion.

Leader: Sabethiel for sure. Capria's not weak, but she plays a lot like Cassiel, and the latter's just better at it.

Basic worker techs, rush AI with warriors, but don't overstretch yourself; at this point, not having enough cottages means that even the city states civic won't save your finances. Mining, copper weapons, go smack whoever has copper. Mysticism: pagan temple and prophet. Keep him asleep for the next 300 years. Make a detour to bronze working and training-yards, and start cranking out axeman before going for the order. You need them for nationalism hapiness and experience (you're running pacifism as the Bannor are you?!), as you skipped calendar, and axeman with bronze weapons, as enemies might start hitting you with early heroes or religious units.

For a late religion, going off-path for bronze working won't slow you down too much, unlike the 3 early ones. Resist the temptation for popping prophet for philosophy unless you're sure you can make another one. Once the order is founded, immediately build the holy shrine. As a "late religion", spreading speed is already fast, and the free acolyte you get for every successful conversion, and the holy shrine, it will spread very fast, helping your finances along the way. What you do now is to scout and spread, but not to all cities. Look for cities with acceptable production or a bunch of awesome wonders, and avoid the rest. You'll raze the rest later.

Stick on the metals path. Look around and trade for other helpful techs, like writing, calendar or festivals. Or maybe the tech "trade", which unlike alphabet in Civ4 proper, the AI values it a lot less. Meanwhile, with axeman, keep pumping and attacking the nearby vulnerable civs, hopefully finishing the first civ that you went to war with, and found new cities on their former lands on high-production cities. Notice that I didn't speak much of infrastructure or setting up a GP farm: if you really want to, build a forge and give it one engineer. The one Great Engineer you get would pop Smelting or metal casting. What you do NOT do is ruin your chances of getting GE's by setting up a GS farm and popping your way up the arcane path, which looks cool until you realize you have no use for archmages without the proper support. Let the Amurites do their Govannon skeleton-horde assult.

Stay focused on metal path: the one wonder you'll really want is the Caminus Aureus. Get it at all costs. After having access to mithril weapon maceman, start building a couple siege workshops and start building catapults. Give it bombarding promos, you will not be suiciding them, as you won't have many of them. You should have not just maceman, but catapults, confessor (not acolytes) and settlers. Confessors are way more useful than adapts anyway, and incense is easier to get than reagents

Once you have courthouses in all your cities (you've been expanding right?) declare war and start researching fanaticism for the crusade unique civic. After that, it's currency --> unquestioning obedience --> taxation --> astronomy. Forget about assassins or magic pounding on you: nothing stands in the way of strength 10 maceman and magic resistant, and when you keep your high-production cities or raze them and found one nearby, use your confessor to build a temple immediately and followed up by courthouse and basilca, under the organized trait. Why currency before unquestioning obedience? Bazaar of Mammon in your holy city helps with your finances more than courthouses and basilcas can early on when your maintenace is still not devastating yet.

To hell with the armageddon counter: you're "good" and hell terrain doesn't spread to you, just rebuild the farms and plantations at AC 40 (and you're less dependent on plantations for hapiness too). For whoever thinks the crusade civic is mediocre, witness the power of perpetual warfare and demagogs. If you don't need taxation or astronomy, go for warfare and military strategy so you can have the military discipline tech. Last time I checked -75% from crusade and -25% from military discipline means no war wariness ever, without stupid hammer-consuming dungeons either. Also, go military state and start drafting - as you're organized, high upkeep won't hurt you so much. You won't be lacking hapiness either, as large land means more happy resources.

Don't fear the Beast of Agares, vampires or armageddon barbarian units. Nothing beats a good stack of strength 10 mithril maceman, ever. Forget about myth units, heroes or magic. Solid, disciplined might rules supreme, and you really won't need anything else besides maceman, catapults and confessors. Don't get distracted by researching techs just to get Valin Phanuel, Donal Lugh or even Sphener: Saverous, Hemah, Yvain or even Kael Colbane will trash them utterly. If you happen to come across a couple arcane techs, don't use anything more than haste and blades of fury, and forget about using spells that adapts can't cast. You don't need them. If you haven't won conquest or domination yet, your next target will be "pass through the ether" for the nexus, most likely via the tower of divination. Now move your troops straight to the front. Alternatively, get engineering for +1 road movement, or pop it with a GE if you get another one.

As fun, cool and entertaining the Ashen Veil is, I'm tired of everyone calling them so powerful that it's "overpowered". Please give the Bannor, and The Order a try.

Sabathiel is definitely better with the Order with a giant empire, but Capria as Runes is amazing for smaller empires.

Capria can pump out the wonders quickly, and spread runes really early and really quickly, becoming the Pope type leader of the dominant world religion. And guardsmen and Runes have great synergy.

Sabathiel does seem to do very well against the AI with melee and Order units. I take a similar metals path to the OP (although I will stop with mithril working and build a couple of weaponsmiths or iron working if nearby AIs are weak) followed by religious techs if I have incense near.

I usually add a valor casting mage to my fireball/haste mages if possible. Haste if mana is available, fireballs for cultural defences, and ring of fire to knock down enemy defenders. I skip the arcane path without reagents and 2 or 3 nearby mana nodes. Catapults can keep up with an unhasted stack so body and fire are needed to increase the stacks effective movement. It should be pretty clear whether you need a node for water to counter blight before you starting rolling up a large empire.

A couple of heavily promoted maces for the top defenders and disciple units against the rest. The maces aren't even necessary after inquisitors and paladins arrive. The bonus experience from valor and charismatic are really nice for quickly leveling confessors into priors or inquisitors and crusaders into paladins. Its pretty hard to get enough great priests to build a high level Altar after ignoring religion in the early game but Sabathiel can still play a disciple army with valor accelerating the promotions.

Its a bit slow to get moving but self sustaining. A stream of replacement confessors can spread the religion and generate free crusaders for garrisons. The units captured by the inquisitors provide fodder to weaken the few really nasty units you meet and RoF makes all other units pushovers. Every city can start producing disciple units after a quick courthouse and just bury any other civs.

Crusade with Capria!
I prefer Sabathiel too, because a Bannor/Order game has to be amilitaristic conquest against all the heretics, just for flavor. an Sabathiel is the by far better warmonger for big empires.
But one thing i suppose is really better doable with Capria: Make actually use of the crusade civic! I have only used crusade once and realized it is absolutely suicidal because of three problems:
1. anarchy: you will suffer way to many turns of anarchy for a big empire, if not in Golden Age or spiritual
2. reduced building choices: your conquest will ruin your empire, because your new cities won't be able to build the needed things: Courthouse, temples, monuments. Even your old developed cities won't develop further.
3. diplomacy: no peace and no negotiations unless you abandon this civic, which means anarchy again and all your demagogs will leave your army.
So Sabathiel should never switch to Crusade, unless you have two Golden Ages ready to get him out when needed or always war is the way to go for the rest of the game. But with spiritual Capria a Crusade might be doable.
A no anarchy switch to crusade and wartime civics, cast your world spell and go for total war. Always send your demagogs on suicide attacks, because they are only available during your crusade. Use regular troops for save battles.
So in my opinion especially Capria is designed to make full use of the Bannor special civic and world spell.

Crusade is perfect for the late-game long ultimate war against everibody under any religion. When your cities are mainly built and you do not plan to capture foreign cities - only raze. And do not stop until victory (either conquest or Altar). Then Order is not completely necessary. Tower of Divination also good to get Omniscience for the final Altar. If i go for altar with Bannor i do not take Mithril and Machinery - waste of time.

As was told Capria with her spiritual is good for non-ultimate wars and for disciple emphasis - maybe with Runes and Spiritual Hammer. That is Altar again.

Also Bannor are in good sinergy with military magic as they can protect mages with guardsmen.

Concerning Crusade: Crusade is pretty strong, if you you aim for a consequent CE!

Imho you dont have to wait for champions, demagogs will do it. I tried some games (and was quite succesful) just with heavy cottage spamming, bronze and then straight to fanatism...chosse your victim and crusade him...no world spell if you manage to do without...kill first victim, change civics (ok, one GA really helps, if you are Sabathiel, my preferred leader of the Bannor) build up your army again (and of course some supplementary research), second war, world spell and rush, rush, rush...the world spell gave me about 30-50 demagogs on standard, landbased maps, enough to kill EVERYTHING!

RoK is quite good, espcially for Capria, as the Mines of Gal-Dur grant iron weapons...wiht Bambur and Iron weapon demagogs the Bannor can inflict heavy damage in the midgame...

Since their melee units get the Guardsman promotion, that means they can guard their weaker spellcasters against marksman and such. Teaming melee guards with good spellcasters should be obvious.

Not really. This means that they will continuosly die if you stack them with non melee units. Do not stack them with non melee or watch them dying.
Really bad implementation that I hope is gonna be updated soon.

Not really. This means that they will continuosly die if you stack them with non melee units. Do not stack them with non melee or watch them dying.
Really bad implementation that I hope is gonna be updated soon.

That's the point though, isn't it? Lose the melee, not the Archmage you've spent all game building up?

Not really. This means that they will continuosly die if you stack them with non melee units. Do not stack them with non melee or watch them dying.
Really bad implementation that I hope is gonna be updated soon.

I can't tell what "they" and "them" refers to in most of your post, so I'm not sure what you mean.

My best guess is that you're getting at the fact that if you had non-melee units that were tougher than your melee Guardsman units, you'd want the non-melee/non-Guardsman units to defend. In that case Guardsman would force a weaker unit to defend. That's true enough, however, the strategy is built around maxing out melee units. There won't be non-Guardsman units with higher strength.

Or... maybe you mean something different and I just can't figure it out.

I used to prefer Sabathiel for much of the reasons others here listed, but lately I find Capria much stronger. Only get the metals line up to bronze working (for chopping), and focus on the religious line. The bonus move for disciple units is pretty amazing, considering that they typically will have march also. It's also far less common to see anti-disciple promos than Shock/Shock2.

The power of the Spiritual trait I feel is also often undervalued. No anarchy saves TONS of research and hammers otherwise lost. I typically change my civics every 30 turns or so, and not losing a turn's production/research really adds up in the later game.

As far as religion goes, I typically go RoK and THEN Order. Why? Mining is a fairly staple early tech to get, and it takes a fair amount more time to get the Order. Getting both also means more gold to fund your armies :)

I can't tell what "they" and "them" refers to in most of your post, so I'm not sure what you mean.

My best guess is that you're getting at the fact that if you had non-melee units that were tougher than your melee Guardsman units, you'd want the non-melee/non-Guardsman units to defend. In that case Guardsman would force a weaker unit to defend. That's true enough, however, the strategy is built around maxing out melee units. There won't be non-Guardsman units with higher strength.

Or... maybe you mean something different and I just can't figure it out.


it's not that simple. Melee units with guardsman will defend even when badly injured. You can't even have a mixed stack to defend your cities because that will only result in your melee units dying, wasting production and all the xp. It's really not working any good. Should work only vs units with marksmen abilities.

Cottages, cottages, cottages, and support a few more cites than you normally would with the money the produce

Let the cottages grow into towns

Cast world spell

Win

Haven't played the Bannor yet but that's my gameplan when I do so.

Got to agree with Onedreamer.....Guardsman means a 10xp melee unit...even combat 2 and defensive jumps in front of a city garrison 3 archer. Means you lose your offensive defenders before your defensive ones.

I know.... the next post will be.....

But whats Bannor doing with achers anyway :)

The thing to think about when talking about guardsman is what the other contents of your stack will be. on the offensive, you stacks will consist of catapults, priests and mages. now you wouldn't want those to risk themselves on hte defense would you? on defense, you shouldn't have any melee units defending cities anyway if you have archers to spare. and guardsman increases your strength by a precent for determining who defends, so if you have other guardsman units that aren't injured, then the uninjured ones will still defend first.

they will die to large stacks.
And no, even in my attack stacks I got defensive units, which won't defend and let guardsmen die. Also, melee units are OFFENSIVE units, so I want them to promote them with offensive promotions. I could also build melee units specifically with defensive promotions, but they will never be as effective as real defensive units. So the promotion remains more a problem than it is an advantage.

I am currently trying the crusade strategy with Capria. I handselected my enemies: only evil civs for the real crusade feelings. Crusade is incredibly strong. About 3 to 5 Demagogs are spawning every round in my area, i didn't build yet a single one nor use the Bannor world spell, allthough my developed cottage economy is waiting for it. So i have now an army of 63 or so Demagogs alone and that is where problems begin. The unit support is extremly high. I am building wealth in my best production cities to keep research at 20%. But there aren't any other useful things to build at the moment. More units? No, no, no! i can't afford a single further Champion and i don't need them. Only useful thing could be catapults, but mostly i don't care for 40% defense. 20 Demagogs on suicide attack will take everything. I am not even using my heroes and old high experienced units anymore.
I am crushing through the Sheaim and Illian lands in no time.
The second problem is: you should raze most cities or it will cripple your economy. It results in a very high AC always between 25 and 39. This makes Sphener the most important hero at all. Not for fighting, but he can use the sancitify(?) spell on city ruins. This lowers the AC and keeps you under 40. Doviello are already dead, Balseraph got killed by Barbatos in turn 4. Only the Svartalfar will remain in a few turns, but they are on an isolated island far away.
The game is getting boring and the logistics of the 70 demagogs and the current spawning of new ones is a bit tedious. So i probably won't complete it. But it works!

Are you using Military State? Extra free military support should help at least a bit. And maybe Crusade civic should have + Free military support as well

Actually I always play with the 'No City razing' Option. It makes for interesting games, you should try it one day or the other. In this scenario you constantly gift cities to other civs :) :).

But back to topic.
In your case you naturally should delete newly spawned Demagogs or at least keep them in your territory. Normally you should have 2 effective armies that are balanced into offensive, support and defensive. These 2 armies do not stress your clicking abilities to much. I normally group the units of each army into these three groups which makes moving and logistics easier. ( I basically move only 3 groups for each army. And do the required actions, like hasting etc when I activate the respective group (support in this case) )

Balanced armies also need less units therefore your economy is not going for a toss. You honestly do not need 70 units on the move. A balanced army with appr. 15 units WILL be able to take on ANY challenge (around 8 units for offensive, 5 units for support and 2 for defense - please notice that defensive units for Bannor are Melee Units as well, but with defensive promotions like woodman, hill defense, first strike etc. - Guardsman , you know).

That means that currently you currently move 40 units too much in hostile lands. THAT will drain your money. Just do it like the real generals did. Only send an elaborate force into enemy lands and keep reserves in strategic border cities. Take 3 workers with you in the Army itself. These three workers will constantly build roads. Therefore you can always restock your Army with the reserves. If you sacrifice 20 demagogs on one attack, plan accordingly to restock 20 units afterwards. (In this case you only move 1 army with 30 units around the land.)

I am currently trying the crusade strategy with Capria. I handselected my enemies: only evil civs for the real crusade feelings. Crusade is incredibly strong. About 3 to 5 Demagogs are spawning every round in my area, i didn't build yet a single one nor use the Bannor world spell, allthough my developed cottage economy is waiting for it. So i have now an army of 63 or so Demagogs alone and that is where problems begin. The unit support is extremly high. I am building wealth in my best production cities to keep research at 20%. But there aren't any other useful things to build at the moment. More units? No, no, no! i can't afford a single further Champion and i don't need them. Only useful thing could be catapults, but mostly i don't care for 40% defense. 20 Demagogs on suicide attack will take everything. I am not even using my heroes and old high experienced units anymore.
I am crushing through the Sheaim and Illian lands in no time.
The second problem is: you should raze most cities or it will cripple your economy. It results in a very high AC always between 25 and 39. This makes Sphener the most important hero at all. Not for fighting, but he can use the sancitify(?) spell on city ruins. This lowers the AC and keeps you under 40. Doviello are already dead, Balseraph got killed by Barbatos in turn 4. Only the Svartalfar will remain in a few turns, but they are on an isolated island far away.
The game is getting boring and the logistics of the 70 demagogs and the current spawning of new ones is a bit tedious. So i probably won't complete it. But it works!

What religion are you using?

with Capria you should only keep a few good cities and build lots of wonders, choose Runes religion and go for elite troops rather than massed and spread your religion around everywhere (youll get more than enough gold)

for what youre doing tho youd be better off with Sabathiel/Order, and then you won't have many money problems and can keep all the cities you capture

What religion are you using?

with Capria you should only keep a few good cities and build lots of wonders, choose Runes religion and go for elite troops rather than massed and spread your religion around everywhere (youll get more than enough gold)

for what youre doing tho youd be better off with Sabathiel/Order, and then you won't have many money problems and can keep all the cities you capture
I am also doing a bit of role playing. That means its Bannor as The Order against the evil rest of the world. Runes haven't been founded yet. The Illians founded Leaves, Overlords, Veil and Council of Esus in these stages. Illians were surprisingly strong in general, befor eliminated them. All other civs were evil and have all adopted leaves, because it spreaded early.
You are probably right that Runes would allow a much better economy. But there is only one true god and the Bannor won't follow Kilmorph. Sorry! But i hope you will understand this.
I selected capria because i planned more switches between war civics, including crusade and some turns of peaceful build up and economic recovery.
Now it seems that a return to a peaceful game isn't necessary, so i didn't use the spiritual trait as much as planned.
I am using military state, thats already reducing upkeep for a big amount.
Thanks for all your comments.

I started my first bannor game at the weekend, took Sabathiel with the plan to go all warlike aggressive with swarms of melee troops. It didn't go anything like that in the end, i started on an island pretty heavily blocked off (2nd city was right up against another civ's cultural zone), I was on the coast surrounded by forest, and now well past turn 400 I still don't have iron, gunpowder or mithril, despite earth mana and having beelined for the metal techs to hopefully pop them as quickly as possible. My main neighbour (after i bashed through the first one) and for most of the game points leader was Charadon, so I didn't feel very inclined to try to bash through him without upgrades and a much smaller army. We were on very good relations until i recently attacked, so I was able to mostly sit, finish off a weaker civ he was fighting and populate some islands.

So, instead, I went the magic path. Organised and charismatic work very well together - command post and reduced xp targets. I have gone Apprenticeship throughout and built Form of the Titan, so it doesn't take too much to get sorcerers or conjurers. Confessors and priors are useful offensive priest units, and the Social Order civic makes happiness very easy to maintain.

Due to my failure to metal up, I now have a full complement of priors, archmages, summoners and liches, and have started blasting my way through Charadon, adopting Crusade and casting Rally for the grunts required to support my mages. I'm part way through building the T4 melee units, phalanxes, beserkers and war chariots (no paladins as no iron), and they provide useful melee support along with the Donal and Sphener. As long as I can weather the initial storm of chariots it should be an easy walk through, I have heaps of T2 spellcasters to complement my power units, and the healing Sphener and the Priors provide really means you can keep going without slowing down too much.

Has anyone ever done a comparison of time to reach sorceror with Arcane and Charismatic respectively? In combination with other xp boosters I wouldnt'b e surprised to find that charismatic is better for reach level 4 at least, and certainly in combination with battle to level them up it becomes comparable at the higher levels. Having softened up defenders with lvl 3 spells its easy to use T3 casters as frontline troops :)

Actually the Divine Units are pretty mean.

Inquisitors with str. 9 anyone ?

Even Confessors with access to City Attack 3 and Combat 1-5 and March can be a force to recon with. What I mean to say is that if you run an army even with only 5 Confessors and additional 5 Battle (Fireball) Mages (and additional 3-5 Support Mages for Haste, Regeneration, Valor, Dancing Blade etc) then nothing will stop you.

The 5 Fireball Mages can bring down any defense in one turn. The Confessors will cast 5 times ring of flames which leads to opponent units who have a maximum strength of 50 %. Then the Confessors attack and afterwards the Mages attack for the measly rest.

As all the BattleMages (Fireball) will have Combat 5 pretty soon and the Confessors will have Combat5, City Attack 3 quite quick as well you effectivly attack with str. 10-15 units against str. 5-8 units all the time .. Sphener and Inquisitors (and this Order Knight Hero Valin , who can get Blitz after Drill 4) are there to handle some special opponents but for the average defender your Confessors are all you need.

(btw. as your Confessors stay with you even when you switch Religion you might even power your Divine Army a little more by trying to aim for Stonewardens. But on the other hand .. you do not really need them .. )

But apart from all this. How comes that you do not have access to Iron and Mithril despite being on quite a rampaging way already ?? I mean there has to be Iron somewhere, isnt it ?

you'd think so, and there was iron, just not anywhere near me

I think a good strategy for traitors like thou would be to renounce to your heathen faith, and recognize once again Bhaal has the One Almighty Goddess, or your fate will be worse than the one of Brigit, forever imprisonned so that she can medidate on the consequences of her actions.

More seriously, I think guardsman promotion should be tweaked to work only against marksman, for the moment it is far too easy to crush Bannor people.

More seriously, I think guardsman promotion should be tweaked to work only against marksman, for the moment it is far too easy to crush Bannor people.
Either that, or marksman mechanic should be changed somehow.

Just an idea as a follow up to TheJopas post.....

Make it so that with marksman you can select a target in a stack and guardsman having a chance to intercept.