Elohim - How don't they suck?

or just try a non-restricted leader game with alemalchier (sp) the elven leader as leader of the hippus (atleast i thought he was defender+raider), and watch all your 100% withdrawal horsemen pummel down a city. No need for siege equipment of any kind, just be sure to get a safe zone within movement reach for them to heal up (cities are ideal, else a forested hill with some stack protecters+healer).

FYI, no unit can get 100% withdraw.

10% defender, 10% hippus stable, 35% from themselves, 20% flanking 1, 20% flanking 2, 10% flanking 3. total of 105%. Even without unrestricted leaders, magnadine always gets 100% withdrawal in my games.

Apparently there's a cap on it for 90% withdrawal rate.

ah well, i wouldn't know tbh . But we're getting seriously off-topic here. Anyone got something to add on the elohim?

It would be nice if someone could write an Elohim guide. I'd do it if I had the time...

EverNoob said:

Zechnophobe, what I was trying to say was that you should compare leaders+civ vs another leader+civ, as a whole. Because every civ is so different in FfH. In vanilla you can compared trait vs trait because every civ is very similar. But in FfH, there are too many difference between civs. There are world spells, heroes, unique buildings/units, banned buildings/units, etc.

Sure the defender trait isn't quite as good as aggressive. But that doesn't necessarily make playing a defender leader worse. Because there are other factors to balance it out.

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Alright, then. What factors do the Elohim have to balance out their Defender trait? Okay, their worldspell is really good, but I don't think they've got much else going for them.

Now, if they were back to having Spiritual in addition to their other two traits...

The special feature thing is unreliable but really powerful if it ends up mattering at all. Rushing for the Remnants of Patria or the Sun Mirror is sick as hell, if one of them is close enough.

Monks are great. Strong, mobile medics that are attached to an important tech.

Archmages and by extension Corlindale are nerfed but still quite good.

One of them's creative. That trait rocks. It + Defender is probably better than a pair of average traits. Life sucks for the philosophical one though.

I mostly play Einion Logos (philosophical), and I find being philosophical and starting with ancient chants is a big advantage. You just go straight to mysticism for god king + great priest to support early expansion. You also have elder council to help out research. As Sarasin pointed out, Einion Logos is great at the Altar victory. Or you can use the GP to bulb to priesthood for early Monks if you want to play abit more aggressively.

The chancel of guardians is good for extra defense, especially since cultural defense has been reduced. I wish it bestowed the defensive promotion consistently but that feature is still nice.

The reliquary produces culture, which is important when you play mostly peacefully. The spirit guide promotion is cool but not great, since you don't really want your units to die.

The hallowing of the elohim lets you lower the AC without leaving the comfort of your home.

It's alot of small things that add up to make a peaceful builder game easier. On high difficulty levels I've had an easier time playing the elohim than say the balseraphs or calabim, and few people complain about their leader traits. I've never played a complete game with Ethne (creative), so most of what I say comes from my experience with Einion. Though from what I've seen Ethne plays as easily as Einion, just differently.

EverNoob said:

I mostly play Einion Logos (philosophical), and I find being philosophical and starting with ancient chants is a big advantage. You just go straight to mysticism for god king + great priest to support early expansion. You also have elder council to help out research. As Sarasin pointed out, Einion Logos is great at the Altar victory. Or you can use the GP to bulb to priesthood for early Monks if you want to play abit more aggressively.

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Right, all of that is true of ANY leader that starts with ancient chants. This isn't civ specific at all.

The chancel of guardians is good for extra defense, especially since cultural defense has been reduced. I wish it bestowed the defensive promotion consistently but that feature is still nice.

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Defense categorically cannot win a game unless it enables a strategy you otherwise couldn't do.

The reliquary produces culture, which is important when you play mostly peacefully. The spirit guide promotion is cool but not great, since you don't really want your units to die.

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This is about the only thing of theirs that's cool and interesting, though as you point out, not horribly effective because it is only useful when your units die. Still, the GPP points is an advantage. If this was a structure you could build earlier in the game, I think I'd be more impressed.

The hallowing of the elohim lets you lower the AC without leaving the comfort of your home.

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Yeah, that is what it does... and it does so for a HUGE amount of production. By far one of the most overcosted effects in the game. It also doesn't even really have a solidly good effect. The small decrease in the AC very likely will have no effect on the game because the Elohim have no particular advantage with a low AC compared to a high one.

It's alot of small things that add up to make a peaceful builder game easier. On high difficulty levels I've had an easier time playing the elohim than say the balseraphs or calabim, and few people complain about their leader traits. I've never played a complete game with Ethne (creative), so most of what I say comes from my experience with Einion. Though from what I've seen Ethne plays as easily as Einion, just differently.

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These are all mostly irrelevent to gameplay. The Monks I'd say are their strongest advantage, and they aren't exactly HorseLords, and don't even have any strict synergy with the Elohim strategy.

I'd really like to see their palace cause their priests to give +1 food.

Zechnophobe said:

Right, all of that is true of ANY leader that starts with ancient chants. This isn't civ specific at all.

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Only 2 leaders from 2 civs can have the combination of philosophical+ancient chants. Einion and Dain. Varn could sort of count as well after 100 turn of play. Having ancient chants alone isn't at all the same as combining it with philosophical.

It might be more productive to discuss what type of general strategy you've been using that has resulted in your current opinions about the Elohim. I'm trying to understand what specific gameplay difficulties you've encountered that makes you believe they are underpowered.

IMO +1 food to priest would make the god king+great priest combo too strong IMO.

EverNoob said:

Only 2 leaders from 2 civs can have the combination of philosophical+ancient chants. Einion and Dain. Varn could sort of count as well after 100 turn of play. Having ancient chants alone isn't at all the same as combining it with philosophical.

It might be more productive to discuss what type of general strategy you've been using that has resulted in your current opinions about the Elohim. I'm trying to understand what specific gameplay difficulties you've encountered that makes you believe they are underpowered.

IMO +1 food to priest would make the god king+great priest combo too strong IMO.

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I believe they are underpowered compared to other civ's. I don't play against myself, obviously, but they do not work AS WELL as other civilizations. So when I play the Clan and can clean off continents really fast, I can't do that as Elohim. When I play Calabim and can quickly and economically get a bevvy of level 12+ units, I can't get that with Elohim. When I Get an army of Mages with the Amurites, an early game contingent of heros with the Grigori, or a flourishing sea based economy with the Lanun, I want to look to the Elohim and find out what I get with them instead.

If the sum total of the answer to that question is nothing greater than 'well, they have monks, oh oh, and their primary tech is kinda cool' than I label them as both weaker and less fun to play because of it.

I can win with the Elohim, there is not problem with that per se. I can just WIN BETTER with pretty much everyone else.

Zechnophobe said:

I believe they are underpowered compared to other civ's. I don't play against myself, obviously, but they do not work AS WELL as other civilizations. So when I play the Clan and can clean off continents really fast, I can't do that as Elohim. When I play Calabim and can quickly and economically get a bevvy of level 12+ units, I can't get that with Elohim. When I Get an army of Mages with the Amurites, an early game contingent of heros with the Grigori, or a flourishing sea based economy with the Lanun, I want to look to the Elohim and find out what I get with them instead.

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All the civs you've mentioned above usually win the game through aggressive means. On the other hand the elohim are supposed to win the game peacefully, focusing on diplomacy and fighting the occasional defensive war. That usually requires an early religion to spread to neighbours to encourage peace. Ancient chants + mysticism + good early economy all help you grab that early religion. If all goes well, you barely even need Monks.

I've never felt the game to be more difficult with the Elohim. It's true that I'll tend to have a lower score, but that's a normal consequence of playing peacefully at high difficulty levels. At those levels, the only way to get ahead in score is through war. Winning with a lower score doesn't necessarily mean the game was harder.

I can just WIN BETTER with pretty much everyone else.

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What exactly do you mean by winning better?

A specialist priest economy is where Enion shines.

There's a strategy guide from a while back called "The Order Strategem" or something very similar that is a priest economy powering disciple units. Also, if you search the vanilla archives, there are several examples of priest specialist economies there, with one of the first being something like "Great Prophets (Profits)". Briefly...

Ancient chants for Pagan Temple/Priest and Elder Councils.
RoK for gold and (importantly) Stonewardens.
Beeline for Priesthood.
Fill in econ techs.

Create a wave of Monks with Spiritual Hammer (+1S) from the Stonewardens for a fast, S5-6, rapidly healing army. Meanwhile, you've popped a Great Prophet or two for the Altar and with the appropriate civics, you're cranking out Disciple units with 6 or 8 xp.

Is that a game-breaking military? Well, probably not, but it is a decent rush and will serve very admirably defensively. An army of Monks, Crusaders, and Confessors (all buffed by Spiritual Hammer) is going to be strong until quite late in the game. If you work it right, you may have 1-2 RoK Inquisitors running around with your Order High Priests and Inqs.

Meanwhile, you're still cranking out Great Prophets. If you beeline and only divert for the bare minimum, you can usually get RoK and the Order even on pretty high difficulty levels. 2 Shrines will keep your economy running high and the Altar gives bonus production to all the priests.

...Spiritual hammer doesn't exist anymore...

Why does it seem that everyone seems to recommend the Order for the Elohim? The Empyrean fits them so much better, both thematically and mechanically. Since the Spirit Guide promotion is given too all of your units built in cities with Reliquaries, Confessors free promotion doesn't help out very much. The Dies Diei also gives free disciple xp. Of course, having all the Good religions could be useful too.


(I'm not sure I like how you can exploit switching religions to let you use priests of multiple religions together. I think I change it so that Priests can all be built in cities with the proper temples, regardless of state religion, but so that their spells all require the appropriate state religion in order to be cast. I'll probably at least double the number of priests spells, but add some other prereqs (level, combat promotions, techs, etc). High Priests will still require the state religion. Cure Disease and Heal will still be available to all of them, but require Medic 2/3 instead of Divine and channeling 2/3, since it doesn't make sense for Grigori Medics to have their current promotions and since the mouseover for Divine is getting huge.)


I do think that +1 food for priest specialists could be really good, but probably too good. Maybe if it were only in cities with a certain building, like Chancel of the Guardians? Or some new UB? After all, Monasteries often do require the monks to do their own farming.

+1 food would be insane. They're already getting the bonusses from the altar, and +1 food +3 hammers +1 gold +3 GPP's is simply unbalancing.

MagisterCultuum said:

Why does it seem that everyone seems to recommend the Order for the Elohim? The Empyrean fits them so much better, both thematically and mechanically. Since the Spirit Guide promotion is given too all of your units built in cities with Reliquaries, Confessors free promotion doesn't help out very much. The Dies Diei also gives free disciple xp. Of course, having all the Good religions could be useful too.

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Also, the huge diplomatic bonus and various resolutions from the overcouncil fit the elohim very well.

I do think that +1 food for priest specialists could be really good, but probably too good. Maybe if it were only in cities with a certain building, like Chancel of the Guardians? Or some new UB? After all, Monasteries often do require the monks to do their own farming.

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I feel the chancel of guardians needs to be improved somehow to give it more flavour. The 20% chance of bestowing defensive can't be relied upon. The +25% city defense is nice for border cities, but it's not good enough as unique building I think. +1 food, even restricted to 1 city is probably too powerful, because it allows for more priests specialists, which leads to more great priests, etc... +1 production might be a more balanced alternative.

Order v Empyrean: No real reason to stick with Order from my perspective. It's just a habit from pre-Empyrean play. The main advantage would be the free Disciple units when the cities convert but without Spiritual trait and Spiritual Hammer, that's less appealing.

Spiritual Hammer: Hmm... I missed that. I only played on RoK game since that was changed and I used Arcane units for my beef on that one. In any case, Monks are still S6, require no resources, and are relatively quick with respect to the beakers needed to make them available, making them a decent rush option.

I have to admit, though, in light of the changes, I'm struggling to see a powerful Elohim-specific synergy.

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Priests: +1 Food is a bad, bad idea. There would never be a reason to run any other specialist, barring trying to manipulate your GP output. Even then, Prophets are among the most useful - good settlement option, Shrines, Altar. Unlimited priests in a GP farm at 1 food each would be insane.

Unless Fend for Themselves changed the food req, any cities could go entirely food-free (1 food to maintain the pop/priest, +1 food from priest = 0 net). Keep a few pop working the most profitable food tiles to grow the city to the happiness cap and then run them all as priests. Stockpile Prophets, then switch to another religion and sweep the Altar construction to win.

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Edit: Okay, I tested several game starts (Emperor, normal speed, standard size, shuffle, No AI Building Reqs) and I have to admit that without access to Spiritual Hammer it is very hard to get the Priesthood beeline to do much.

Good point about Sacrifice the weak. Consider the +1 food idea benched. Making Ashenveil + Theocracy their best strat would be just... weird.

I've been thinking about another interesting 'thing' for them to do.

What if they got better use out of the Wonder Improvements? Other than just knowing where they are, actually having some benefit for access to them?

Logistics: Make each of these a bonus resource like Yggdrasil, and have an Elohim only national wonder that has a resource requirement for each.

These National Wonders would be *very* strong, strong enough to make the Elohim actively want to settle near to these resources, perhaps quasi aggressively, and then DEFEND THEM to the death! (Gasp, defensiveness being good?) A short war to grab a resource, and then a rock hard defense of that resource would seem thematically reasonable, and then they build up some strong wonder based up that resource.

Example:

Shrine of the Fruit
Requires Fruit of Yggdrassil
300 cost
Gives every of your cities +2 Food and +2 Science.



Last thought: Elohim only victory condition ala tower of mastery that requires all shrines to be built? (Doable? Are some of the unique improvements not always made?)