OK, Vehem, you did it again!
Honestly, after a few hundred turns playing the Dural, I thought, what a lousy civ. It doesn't fit my style at all. I like to found a lot of religions, build the special holy wonders, and send out the disciples, etc.
Well, I was pissed that I couldn't even build temples. Not even a Pagan Temple! I had Gems and Incense and I founded every religion but AV.
I even had problems spreading the religion I adopted - ROK. I had 3 cities. I got it in 2 as I got a free Thane (?). But, I couldn't figure out a way to spread the religion using the Students of Kilmorph.
In fact, the first Student of OO (Zealot equivalent, I guess) got the Enraged promotion and went barbarian the next turn. I still can't figure than one out as I didn't have Chaos mana.
I couldn't generate any Great Prophet pts and those GPs are mostly necessary to get those holy wonders. Also, you can forget about an Altar Victory with this civ! I did get quite a few Sages though - love the Adaptive trait which I used for Philosophical.
Anyway, I was doing OK and ahead, but, what a blah civ.
Then, around turn 400 (I play on Epic speed) the various statues started becoming available. These are one of the coolest features in FFH2 that I have seen! It really made my game interesting and, naturally, the Dural are doing a lot better now - I think I built 5 of the 7 so far. The units I am building with a free promotion, Loyalty, and Courage are great.
So, I'm glad I stayed with it as the Dural civ certainly doesn't disappoint.
Hopefully, no new patches that will break save games. I think I could run the table with this civ as the ai, including the hopeless Archos, are weak, but I want to play it out the full 991 turns and see what happens. AV has been founded and I would expect to see Hyborem soon. The counter is only around 25, though now. My next big decision might be whether or not to try and build the Mercurian gate and see how the Dural do with Basium as an ally.
Thanks for 2 great civs to play with...can't wait to try the Archos next game.