First off let me say I love this mod, Kael and co have done an incredible job!

I decided to do some experimenting with Doviello so I started a series of games with Charadon and the following options

+Monarch
+Pangaea
+Temperate
+Large map

Unless you have Raging Barbarians turned on the Barbarous trait of Charadon doesn’t really allow you to expand any earlier than any other civ. With 3 beastmen, and an Aggressive trait, barbarians aren’t going to be a problem when it comes to expanding. Any forces you lose early are most likely going to be due to animals or hill giants. In fact, the traits Barbarous and Aggressive don’t seem to harmonize well. With Combat I your beastmen are most likely going to win fights against barbarians anyway and you are simply missing out on an opportunity to gain xp.

Not having a free starting tech, I have found it rather difficult to found a religion even bee lining one. Usually I go for RoK but baring lucky results from raiding “goodie huts” I’m usually too late. I’ve tried going the Mysticism->Elder Building->Sage route, I’ve tried going the Education->Cottage route, I simply can’t get the required tech’s fast enough to found a religion, and Charadon’s negative beakers aren’t helping any.

I am going to start another series of games this week with Mahala and see if I can do any better.

Comments? Advice? Criticism?

I find it nearly impossible to miss a religion on immortal if i really want one so your problems might lay with your early development.. That civ screams warrior rush to me though. Just churn out 3-4 warriors, 1 AI down rinse repeat. With education you get access to apprenticeship which means you get +80% attacking other civs(shock combat 1 and the inherit +20% against cities). Religion is for more civilized people. The barbarian trait means you can leave your city completely undefended though it might be an idea to have a unit there for happiness issues.

You don't have to found a religion to get it, as long as you get the tech you get a Disciple, which can spread the religion, and I don't think the first one can fail.

And yeah, don't go for religions early. Go for conquest. And by conquest I don't necessarily mean the tech. ;)

To support a large empire and many troops go for festivals and code of laws.

I reported this balance issue but mentioning the Clan, in the balance thread. It is indeed a balance issue, because in no way the Barbarian trait can balance the fact that elven civs can easily accumulate more than TWICE the research points of Doviello and Clan. Let's not even mention that Mahala doesn't even have the Barbarian trait but suffers the same penalty (the real penalty is not being able to build libraries).

I find it nearly impossible to miss a religion on immortal if i really want one so your problems might lay with your early development.. That civ screams warrior rush to me though. Just churn out 3-4 warriors, 1 AI down rinse repeat. With education you get access to apprenticeship which means you get +80% attacking other civs(shock combat 1 and the inherit +20% against cities). Religion is for more civilized people. The barbarian trait means you can leave your city completely undefended though it might be an idea to have a unit there for happiness issues.

This is simply wrong because Doviello warriors don't have any different trait than other civs. So if this civ SCREAMS for warrior rush, any civ does.

This is simply wrong because Doviello warriors don't have any different trait than other civs. So if this civ SCREAMS for warrior rush, any civ does.

Yes they do, they got +25% city attack. And the civ start with 3 extra or so.

starts with 2 extra, if this justifies a scream, it's only a frustration one :P

Well I've used those to my advantage before. The trick is to declare war early and stop the AI's expansion while you prepare an invasion force.

I'm not saying you can't do it. I'm saying you can do it with any civ. You'll just need about one more warrior per city.

having the +25% to city attack rather than defence is a very big difference. Without it it is very difficult to warrior rush anyone, unless you really swarm them with heaps of troops. That advantage lets you take out cities before the cultural defence builds up

having the +25% to city attack rather than defence is a very big difference. Without it it is very difficult to warrior rush anyone, unless you really swarm them with heaps of troops. That advantage lets you take out cities before the cultural defence builds up

Actually it is quite easy to warrior rush as most civs on most difficulties... Playing as the aggressive dovillo leader is the easiest in the game though, they do get +25% city defense and it is only +20% city attack but every thing counts.. The point is as Dovillo not warrior rushing is stupid since it cost you nothing and you get a free extra capital or two.

tip with the doviello: pick mahala. Due to the -10 research, charadon is considerably weaker.

tip with the doviello: pick mahala. Due to the -10 research, charadon is considerably weaker.

I have to agree that Mahala is the better leader overall. But Charadon has his advantages. Aggressive is underrated, starting with Combat I is a real good advantage, especially if you get some XP as you build your units. (Raiders is better overall cause you end up with higher level units, but Aggressive make for better rushing)

Aggressive with aprentice ship is pretty brutal(shock).. Charadon really should have a second trait(another agg/raider leader(there are 2 already...) would probably fit him and go well with the beastmen). Shock beastmen are monsters in the early game...

Yeah, Aggressive/Raiders does seem most appropriate for Charadon, more so than for Tasunke or Basium. I was actually thinking that Charismatic would be better instead of Aggressive for Tasunke (although you could argue that double the xp gain plus lower xp requirements might be overpowered), and I personally think that Hyborem and Basium should have several more traits than the other players to make up for their late starts. (Why does Hyborem have Expansive anyway? It is useless for him. )

Raiders = +1 xp gain, not DOUBLE xp gain.

Since many people avoid any fight under 99% it is basically double, till 100 mark on barb.

In order to reach 99% chances you should have passed a few battles at lower odds. In any case, it's not double xp gain, heh.

As far as I know, the Doviello and the Clan are the best civs for REXing. The 2 major adavantages of starting with 3 warriors and 1 scout is that you can start building a worker right away, and you can scope out new city sites faster.

Look for a city site with lots of spots for farms (ideally grassland, floodplains and farm resources). Research Agriculture while building a worker first. Once worker+agriculture is finished farm like crazy and adopt agriculture. When your pop reaches max, just keep churning out settlers one after another.
Next research your way to Mysticism. Stick Elder Council+sage in every new city you build, they'll provide for your research till you get cottages running. Don't bother with obelisk. After awhile you'll get your great sage, I usually bulb knowledge of the ether for adepts with haste, maybe settling him down as a specialist works too but I've haven't tested that yet.
Next research is Education. Adopt city states+apprenticeship and start building cottages. You're going to need alot of cottages to make up for lack of libraries.


The key here is that you can start building settlers faster than any other civs, since you don't need to build as many warriors for defence early on. Therefore your capital should be all farms and churn out settlers. Your other cities provide everything else.

Grey Fox pretty much pinned down the big difference between Charadon and Mahala. Charadon sucks if you don't have anything around to conquer. That's why Mahala tends to be better, since he's she's abit more flexible.

She is more flexible. Mahala is a woman, and is named after Kael's wife (well, her World of Warcraft character)

She is more flexible. Mahala is a woman, and is named after Kael's wife (well, her World of Warcraft character)

Really?! It would help if there was a pedia entry for her...
-_-'

As far as I know, the Doviello and the Clan are the best civs for REXing. The 2 major adavantages of starting with 3 warriors and 1 scout is that you can start building a worker right away, and you can scope out new city sites faster.

Clan doesn't start with 3 warriors



Look for a city site with lots of spots for farms (ideally grassland, floodplains and farm resources). Research Agriculture while building a worker first. Once worker+agriculture is finished farm like crazy and adopt agriculture. When your pop reaches max, just keep churning out settlers one after another.
Next research your way to Mysticism. Stick Elder Council+sage in every new city you build, they'll provide for your research till you get cottages running. Don't bother with obelisk. After awhile you'll get your great sage, I usually bulb knowledge of the ether for adepts with haste, maybe settling him down as a specialist works too but I've haven't tested that yet.
Next research is Education. Adopt city states+apprenticeship and start building cottages. You're going to need alot of cottages to make up for lack of libraries.


-_-"
Applicable to ANY civ. With the difference that the other civs will do this faster and better.


The key here is that you can start building settlers faster than any other civs, since you don't need to build as many warriors for defence early on. Therefore your capital should be all farms and churn out settlers. Your other cities provide everything else.

I strongly disagree. Some civs will start with agriculture and the others will research faster. Building 1-2 warriors while you increase the city pop is normal, I doubt Doviello has an edge on this, maybe a coupla turns ? That's not an advantage to compensate for their crappy research skills.

Grey Fox pretty much pinned down the big difference between Charadon and Mahala. Charadon sucks if you don't have anything around to conquer. That's why Mahala tends to be better, since he's she's abit more flexible.

The problem is that they both suck, compared to other civs potentially. Of course you can do good with them, or the AI can do good, depends on the usual numbers of factors... but the point is that potentially, they aren't at the level of other civs, because the used-to-be-early-advantages have vanished without anything else added to compensate.

onedreamer, I think I may have expressed myself badly...

I know the Clan don't start with 3 warriors, I was talking about Clan and Doviello in relation to REXing. As for the 3 warriors, I was only referring to Doviello.

Also, I did not argue the fact that the Doviello are indeed inferior to the other races. Since the OP wanted to play Doviello, instead of just telling him they suck, etc... I was trying to tell him how to play them to their potential so he could enjoy his game more. I agree they aren't as good as other civs, but that doesn't mean you can't have alot of fun with them. The OP plays on monarch, the Doviello makes the game abit harder but are perfectly fine at that difficulty.

Since the OP plays on a large pangaea, he has to REX like mad at the beginning, and yes I still think that barbarian civs are better at REXing although their bad research catches up with them as the game progresses. They don't have to worry about skeletons, lizardmen, etc. Essentially one doesn't have to worry about anything that enters borders. That lets you concentrate on settlers and workers. You can get away with having the bare minimum number of military units for city happiness, plus a couple to escort settlers out to new city sites.