The Legion of D'Tesh (Civilization Module)

[WarKirby]

After building the Tower of Necromancy, Everything has just become incredible. My adepts are str 5, my warriors the same. Not even built any axemen yet, don't need them.

After an endless stalemate leading up to building the tower, I finally took that calabim city. They had a lot of bronze warriors mainly, and gave me a ton of slaves. That city basically grew my empire.

Also, my lv9 starting scout, upgraded to an assasin, just got something fun. Image attached.

 

[BenjaminEmbarec]

Why on earth would you build the tower of necromancy? The "Strong" addition to the skeletons is NOT worth it. You end up spending two mana, on entropy and chaos if I remember right, to get one back in death and the "strong" promotion for skeletons, when instead you could just get +2 to your Wretcheds and later mages. True your skeletons will be slightly stronger, but by the time you get necromancy you don't even really need them. Assassins to pick off lone units then warrior spam for the real battles and you are done! Especially if you happen to get copper.

 

[Milaga]

Since Valkrionn added this in FFPlus I decided to give them a try. Haven't read this whole thread (since some posts are a year old) so forgive me if this has already been mentioned. Played about 60 turns then realized watchers are not like the awakened. I should have sent my slaves to increase my city pop instead of leaving them out to slowly improve (and eventually escape.) Gonna give them another try but a few comments first.

* Watchers can't build camps. Is this by design? I started near an Elephant resource which I thought would make a nice tile for the Legion but I needed to use slaves to build the camps.
* Auto-scorching is kind of annoying. In no time all my nice plains were bogging down my scouts. Also, while mining a riverside forested hill scrubs appeared. That's a permanent -1 for that plot. Grr. Plus, scrubs on hills look awful.
* The Legion seems fairly helpless from the start. 1str+1death warriors are very, very weak. Especially if you happen to come under attack from something immune to death magic. I am pretty sure that a single Gargoyle in the first 100 turns would mean certain death.
* I played an Erebus Continent game and there were no ash resources on the map. I saw Patrian Artifacts and Camels, so FF and FF+ resources are there. I'll play a Pangaea next I guess.

Sounds like an interesting concept though. Growth by conquest! I'll report back when I've played more.

 

[Milaga]

That was fast. It was pretty fun running around with invisible scouts. By turn 27 I had popped two GP which got me a golden age and KotE, plus I had netted around 400 gold. I had just sprung the Pristin Guardians right by the Patrian capital (muhahaha!) when a fairly well promoted named spectre and his henchmen floated into my lands. My four warriors put up a fight, but I guess it was not meant to be.

KotE at turn 27! Blast it!

Oh, and still no ash resources.

 

[cyther]

I have greatly enjoyed this civ in FF so I have a minor request: Could I use this civ in Rise of Darkness?

 

[BenjaminEmbarec]

Oh, and still no ash resources.

You are suppossed to build pyres on organic resources to create ash. I THINK it's in the wiki, and I am fairly sure it's in here... It looks like the workshop's button so it's easy to miss.

And yeah, those scouts are BADASS. I popped KoTE, Writing, some other thing I forgot, bowyers, and alteration in the first hundred turns.. on marathon.

Edit: And PLEASE tell cyther yes PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE! Some of his combined spellphere spells would go GREAT with them! That and I can't WAIT to see the look on the Refugee's faces when my undead hoarde chomp them...

 

[Milaga]

You are suppossed to build pyres on organic resources to create ash. I THINK it's in the wiki, and I am fairly sure it's in here... It looks like the workshop's button so it's easy to miss.

Ahh. So it's good for start with a bunch of pigs and such around me. Health doesn't matter (and neither does happiness after KotE) ... so I guess I just burn all the resources and take a research boost for it. Nice.

Made it to turn 120 before I realized that this is definately not a builder civ. You really need to send out massive raiding parties to get slaves or you just stagnate. Bannor has an Bronze axemen SoD headed my way that I'm sure I won't survive. Time to start over again.

Oh, and blaze removes those annoying shrubberies err scrubberies er scrubs.

 

[WarKirby]

Why on earth would you build the tower of necromancy? The "Strong" addition to the skeletons is NOT worth it.

Strong applies to pretty much everything the civ has, including my archers, assasins, binders, etc. I think it even gives +1 str to my workers.

You end up spending two mana, on entropy and chaos if I remember right, to get one back in death and the "strong" promotion for skeletons,

Here you seem to be under the impression that chaos and entropy mana are a waste....

Skeleton spam is a lot more efficient when

1. Your enemy has no metal weapons (Rust)
2. All your expendable little minions have a free first strike, allowing them to do more damage before crumbling to dust. (Dance of Blades)

Also, I really can't imagine having a lich hero without Wither and Wonder. They're incredible spells.

It needed Dimensional mana too, which isn't quite as useful, but I feel it was worth it, especially to give extra strength to all the units that don't get death affinity.

Entropy mana's heal penalty for your enemies is a nice thing too.

 

[Valkrionn]

I recommend stealing some code from the scions for desert cottages.... No reason the D'tesh should be bothered by desert either.

if pPlayer.getCivilizationType() == gc.getInfoTypeForString('CIVILIZATION_SCIONS'):
	pPlot = CyMap().plot(iX, iY)
	if pPlot.getOwner() == iPlayer:
		if pPlot.isCity() == False:
			if pPlot.getImprovementType() != iCottage:
				if pPlot.getTerrainType() == iDesert:		
					iBuildSCottage = gc.getInfoTypeForString("BUILD_COTTAGE")
					if (iBuild == iBuildSCottage):
						return 1

 

[BenjaminEmbarec]

Strong applies to pretty much everything the civ has, including my archers, assasins, binders, etc. I think it even gives +1 str to my workers.

What? Really? 0.o I thought it was just for summoned undead. Well that's VERY useful then, my mistake.

Here you seem to be under the impression that chaos and entropy mana are a waste....

Oh nonononono. I don't consider it a complete waste. I just consider that warriors are cheaper to build, and easier to spam-per-turn in more smaller cites then the Adepts are, can use weaponry, can be upgraded, and for every death mana they get +1. So in my mind you can get +3 str from 3 death manas, as well as having higher death spells for free once you upgrade your adept backup, instead of just +2... but I didn't know that the +1 from the tower affected your other undead. Yeah, that's a much better deal, +3 either way and you get access to more spell spheres.

Personally though I still don't think they even NEED that. Just worker spam for deffense, then use assassins against the enemy. And since they can't attack your assassins unless they have the ability to see invissibility... you can attack without retaliation, then harrass the enemy the entire way to your base and your spammed warriors and HOPEFULLY archers. And by then you'll be collecting slaves like mad.... or if you are on a conquest mission, bring your watchers with you and just burn down their entire region slowly and assault any parties that come out to take those down for bonus slaves. By by production, food, commerce... unless they are all on rivers, but that's a different story.

Entropy is a good sphere, although I really don't like chaos. Wonder is too..... Hit or miss, and mutate? I allways get the negative promotions, never the good ones.

 

[Milaga]

Okay, how to counter burning sands?

I made it to turn 171 this time. I started relatively close to Brandaline's Well, which I thought was pretty good for the entropy mana. Unfortunately, it was on desert and therefore became burning sands. I couldn't get a route to it so I let it sit. Then the AC started cranking up. Hell terrain from the well started spreading rather quickly and before I knew it my outer cities were engulfed in flames, completely isolating them. It's now creeping into my capital and I'm probably only about 20-30 turns away from not being able to move in or out of any of my cities.

How do you counter that? I'm going to have to play the next game with no Hell Terrain. Either that or no AC (but that's no fun.)

 

[Valkrionn]

Maybe all legion units should get a promotion allowing them to move through flames? I believe that's done through fire resistance, not sure how much of a resistance would be required however.

 

[KillerClowns]

This managed to catch my attention. Fun game so far as them; I'm getting even with Keelyn for what she did to me last game (several turns from Ascension and... bang, 90% Hell!) and I'm loving their "slash and burn" play style. The Scions are an interesting subversion of the usual evil shambling undead horde, and I love them for that but... evil shambling undead hordes can be fun.
But I was always a bit iffy about using Doviello diplo music, and while playing my Soundtrack of Doom offered up something that, while pretty far opposite of the Doviello theme, might make good diplo music for them: Burning Man from the World of Goo soundtrack. (Attached in a .rar; use it or don't as you feel fit.)
EDIT: Alternatively, I'd suggest the Baator theme from Planescape: Torment (also attached). I like Burning Man for non-traditional-ness, but I figured it might be a bit too eclectic a choice.
And I modified their color scheme to Dark Lemon (chosen basically at random from unused colors) on account of not wanting to mistake my soldiers for wandering demons. Fiddle with the color schemes; if you don't change the main color from black, at least change the secondary from white.

 

[Valkrionn]

Black, and blood red.

 

[BenjaminEmbarec]

Better question why would you want to? Spam Juuust enough deffenses to handle rogue demons, then rush the Nexus. Get one small base out beyond the desserts then send a good number of troops over there. and... Bam you've got an impenetrable wall of fire! XD

 

[Milaga]

Better question why would you want to? Spam Juuust enough deffenses to handle rogue demons, then rush the Nexus. Get one small base out beyond the desserts then send a good number of troops over there. and... Bam you've got an impenetrable wall of fire! XD

Yeah, that leads me to believe that making all Legion units able to walk through fire is not a solution. Otherwise you are basically completely protected except from demons, angels and Pyre Zombies. Those were the only units I know of that can walk through fire.

Perhaps burning sands should extinguish themselves in Legion lands, although I can't for the life of me think of a plausible lore reason for that to happen except "it's magic!" Going to try another game this evening, no hell terrain!

 

[Mailbox]

Don't have too much time to respond (been real busy in real life) but here goes:

I'm able to build cottages in desert as the legion. If needed, I could give deserts a dummy + 1 food in order to make sure they can cottage them. See attachment.

Two, burning sands are a problem but I'm not quite sure how to handle them right now.

Three, the civilization colors and diplo music are in need of a change.

I have greatly enjoyed this civ in FF so I have a minor request: Could I use this civ in Rise of Darkness?

I'd be honored.

 

[Milaga]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=213919&d=1242006359

Happiness is a grassland Remnants of Patria in your starting cross.

So I had an idea while playing tonight. Two actually. The first is to change the terrain preferred by the Legion to Haunted Lands instead of desert. The second is, I think, better but considerably more complex.

Add a new feature for scorched lands. Ideally two will be needed. Whenever a terrain is scorched it will change terrain type temporarily.

Grassland -> Scorched Lands -> Plains
Plains -> Scorched Lands -> Desert
Forest/Jungle Grassland -> Burnt Lands -> Plains
Forest/Jungle Plains -> Burnt Lands -> Desert
Desert/Scrub Desert -> Scorched Lands -> Desert

Snow, Tundra and Marsh will be (conveniently) unaffected since scorching these lands is more about melting/evaporating water instead of burning flora. The transformation can be random much in the way the Riverside Desert -> Floodplains is done with setTempFeatureType().

Fire in tiles can also temporarily add a scorched feature type, allowing for a fire in your city plots to have a lasting effect on your economy even after they are extinguished.

Of course inside the Legion borders, the Scorched Land features never revert to the normal land types. The various scorched features will have negative yields to completely offset the terrains they are on. These negative yields will not apply to the Legion since they don't really care if their land is a wasteland.

And of course, since all their lands aren't desert, the burning sand problem is moot.

This has some other effects on the game:
* "Terraforming" is a bit slower of a process and has a temporary downside before you get the land you want. This probably effects Malakim+ the most. Recovery from forest/jungle clearing will also be slower.
* Fires have a greater visual impact and do considerably more damage. You might even be able to hurt someone's economy by continually scorching their lands.

This also opens up some possibilities:
* New creation/nature spells to restore scorched lands?
* Burning Horsemen! Have the Horsemen and the Avatar burn the lands they pass through.
* Fear the Volcano! Forget the wimpy volcano event. Now when a volcano appears it scorches all adjacent tiles! Pass the solarcaine.
* Bring back the burning fireballs! Be careful when casting fire elementals, they might just burn a plot to the ground. With scorching this can be done without actually setting the plot on fire.
* Some units might like a scorched earth and could get bonuses when attacking or defending from it.

Time to get some dinner. Let me know what you think, I might have time to work on this at the end of this week.

 

[KillerClowns]

Worldspell idea: Something akin to the Hippus Warcry worldspell, that gives all units a short-lasting promo that gives a 100% chance of taking slaves after combat.

 

[Valkrionn]

That would be useful actually.... And it's decent early on, but amazing if you hold out, as a good worldspell should be.