Luchuirp bafflement

I haven't got far with any luchuirp games I tried (4 or 5). It seems to me there's too many goals in the early game and I get nowhere trying to chase them all. I get frustrated and start over with a more manageable civ like the Elohim or Amurites.

I love the idea, the background of the civ but I haven't seen their strength yet so here I am asking all the grizzled veterans here about the way to go with those guys...

Specific questions:

Techs? You need adept to take are of your golems, you need golems, ideally you need a religion ... and cottages and worke... ahem mud golem techs ... How do you prioritize? This is my main problem with them... I can't get a working opening tech path that bring me to a state where I consider the early stage a success. What are the short term goals?

Religion? All the religions are far from the construction/machinery tech path so it seems like a big detour to fetch RoK or anything... hopeless if the Khazad are around. Maybe Empyrean? Is there any good synergies between any religion and the Lurchuip?

Golems golems... tactically how do you go about using them? The lack of XP makes me all weird inside... normally it's a big part of every game. With what do you complement them. How do you go about leveling up Barnaxus. Is there a list somewhere of the buildings that boost golems? Sifting through the civilopedia each time I wonder what to research next gets a bit tiresome.

Gift of Nantosuelta... How early? A big boost in your first city, three city? Wait till you have your empire core? For combat or for engineers?

The Luchuirp can go the full magic path right? Is it worth it?

And last but not least: what victory should the alert and informed Luchuirp player be aiming at?

(BTW: I play at prince I love my game on the easy side and am more the builder type.)

Thanks!

I usually focus on magic with the Luchuip. The Gridlines and Blasting workshops (which give city garrison 1 and fire 2, respectively, to all golems built in the city) require Divination and Elementalism, respectively. Also, arcane units with enchantment magic can repair your injured golems.


Honestly, the best religious synergies for the Luchuirp were nerfed by .31. I haven't played them since then. RoK priests with your racial promotion could repair your golems. OO or RoK priests used to be able to summon Flesh Golems (which is now an arcane spell), which get the free empower promotions from Barnaxus just like other golems. AV worked well because most Armageddon events aren't so bad for non-living units. Also, they are not effected by the disease from their diseased corpses, which used to be hard to cure. AV probably still fits pretty them well strategically though, but of course is is thematically off.


I usually put off golems (including Barnaxus) until I have plenty of Blasting workshops and Gridlines.


I prefer to use their world spell for free great engineers very early in the game--but only in Advanced Start games where I've bought several cities and a few settlers if some good spots are inaccessible.


I never really play with anything but conquest, regardless the civ.

MC is right about AV being a great religion for the Luchuirp. Since their golems aren't killed by Armageddon, they make a great civ to rush to 100 AC. They'll be mostly untouched in terms of military while the rest of the world is hit terribly hard by the event. Then just sweep out and wipe all the other civs off the map.

After getting the initial techs required to work my capital's land well (particularly as you can train the mud golem at no growth cost), I go straight for Construction to get wood golems and barnaxus (if i remember correctly as to his tech req?). Its good to get barnaxus early so that yuo can level him up against barbarians, animals and the like. Once he has a couple of promotions (and especially if he has 5), wood golems are awesome value. And with Construction catapults are available if you want to expand via conquest prior to getting blasting workshops and leaving the bombardment to your golems.

I aim to get to 3 or 4 cities as quickly as possible and then cast Gifts, giving a boost to 3 or 4 cities early is a great launching ground for your game. I tend not to expand past that for a while. Once the great Engineers start coming in they really take off and you can look at expanding again. If affordable possibly go for Pacifism once you cast Gifts to get a round of Great Engineers in more quickly.

I quite like RoK for them - to make the Luch work well I think they need to be production kings, so arete (apprenticeship is near useless for you anyway), Mines of Gal-Dur (for the 3 engineers) and extra earth mana (if you build tablets) are a plus. Bambur is awesome for repairing your golems. Ok you won't get much value out of bronze working, which is why I will go this path only after I have gotten construction. That may mean you don't get the holy city, but hey that's just giving you a first target if nearby

Once you have these elements I recommend beelining engineering, guild of hammers certainly cements them as big producers. Golem units are very strong, you just need enough hammers to push them out.

my tactics are extremely straight forward.

pop the gift on turn 1 for your engineer. this greatly increases your hammers off the bat and gets that mud golem out alot faster.

then i rush for wood golems and barny

then its off for writing

then its elementalism for the blasting workshop.

at this point all of your golems have fireballs and your making them really fast. so feel free to head for engineering and such. pick your next golem type and head that way, or get gridlines or whatnot. but you should get the fireball throwing wood golems ASAP , honestly its easy to get.

A lot of good options here. Will make sure to consider all that in my future plays. You all provide good takes on the opening path and general strategy of the Luchuirp.

Just after posting here I started a game to have a last chance at discovering by myself the Lurchuip before my views were forever tainted by all you veterans.

After playing this way and that and exploring around the tech tree, I'm at turn 270, sorcery is in, I have a combat 5 Barnaxus and a bunch of hard to stop wood golem. Founded RoK in the face of the Khazad (easier now in 31) a fair number of cities (7) and my economy is rocking. I also won the race to the Drama great bard cause I needed it to keep Kandros in his place. I'm gonna start over because the AC is way high (almost 60) Acheron is messing my plan and the Calabims have something like triple my score and are about to win they have the bannor, the sheams and Hyborem as vassals.. I should have been more agressive and should have got to that point way earlier.

With the cues provided here I feel I'm getting somewhere at last. Thanks!

I like to convert to OO before I build bambur but after founding RoK so I can build druids. The Creation mapscript seems to like putting Luchy's in desert. Although I guess its just as easy to stay good and use water and spring rather then going for druids but i just like druids lol

If you want to rush with them...

Pick up the bare minimum worker techs - just what you can use immediately. Beeline for Construction and expand to 3 cities. Build cats and golems while you research econ techs and go on a rampage. Take Barnaxus with you to pick off wounded defenders and level up to Combat V quickly.

Nonobots said:

A lot of good options here. Will make sure to consider all that in my future plays. You all provide good takes on the opening path and general strategy of the Luchuirp.

Just after posting here I started a game to have a last chance at discovering by myself the Lurchuip before my views were forever tainted by all you veterans.

After playing this way and that and exploring around the tech tree, I'm at turn 270, sorcery is in, I have a combat 5 Barnaxus and a bunch of hard to stop wood golem. Founded RoK in the face of the Khazad (easier now in 31) a fair number of cities (7) and my economy is rocking. I also won the race to the Drama great bard cause I needed it to keep Kandros in his place. I'm gonna start over because the AC is way high (almost 60) Acheron is messing my plan and the Calabims have something like triple my score and are about to win they have the bannor, the sheams and Hyborem as vassals.. I should have been more agressive and should have got to that point way earlier.

With the cues provided here I feel I'm getting somewhere at last. Thanks!

Click to expand...

Just a note, if you only have 7 cities on turn 7, you aren't building enough settlers (Unless it's a very small map, but I'm guessing that isn't the case).

Don't forget that expanding is *always* important. If you adopt runes of kilmorph, you can do a fair deal of early expansionist strategies powered by it's gold income.

In general in FFH, don't focus to much on getting 'everything', just get a few super important techs fairly early on. Iron Working+Iron Golems, for instance, is an amazingly powerful fighting force, even without barnaxus to help. (10 strength is 10 strength is 10 strength). Sometimes letting someone else get Drama, or found Runes of Kilmorph is okay if you can create a powerful army, or secure an otherwise strategic advantage.

If I have 7 cities on turn 7... I'm cheating!

You could be just be using Advanced Starts; of course, the reference to settlers make no sense then.

I assume the second 7 was a type.

So do I, but it is a funny typo none-the-less

Real bafflement here. I have four warriors carrying Golden Hammers in my capital city. How do I get those hammers into Engineers?

Edit: Nevermind. I just deleted all the units carrying hammers, and lo, there they were, waiting to settle.

Was expecting a different mechanism.

Nefelia said:

Real bafflement here. I have four warriors carrying Golden Hammers in my capital city. How do I get those hammers into Engineers?

Edit: Nevermind. I just deleted all the units carrying hammers, and lo, there they were, waiting to settle.

Was expecting a different mechanism.

Click to expand...

I like holding off on the World Spell until RoK is in (I almost have to go RoK for thematic purposes), and then using Soldiers of Kilmorph to drag them all to the capital. With 6-8 cities at epic, thats (6-8)*67 hammers, near insta-built TGL in my current game, and then all those GE's easy-mode'd my builder tendencies, allowing me to focus on warring.

Calbrenar said:

I like to convert to OO before I build bambur but after founding RoK so I can build druids.

Click to expand...

I agree with this. The path to druids is a really long trek down a line that the Luchuirp stink at...but man, they are SO worth it. A dwarven druid is almost as powerful as Chalid with their Crush spell, and there's four of them. AND unlike Chalid's Pillar of Flame, Crush does physical damage, meaning that Dragons/Horsemen/Avatars and other big nasties that shrug off most magic can be hurt by them.

No, OO doesn't have any other particular synergies with the Luchuirp, but neither does any other religion IMO. Go for druids!

no offense, but did you guys notice the timestamp on the original? And post #13?

-Colin

Haha, nope.

cabbagemeister said:

No, OO doesn't have any other particular synergies with the Luchuirp, but neither does any other religion IMO. Go for druids!

Click to expand...

An actual melee line for your strong early warriors to upgrade down.
A major hero on the arcane line, which is the luchuirp's top priority.
Drawback free asylums (because golems can't be crazed.)
Early tower of complacency due to all the GEs.

OO has killer synergy with the luchuirp.

Fireball Golems, Fireball Golems, Fireball Golems. Fireball Golems win the game. Rush for those.

Monkeyfinger said:

An actual melee line for your strong early warriors to upgrade down.
A major hero on the arcane line, which is the luchuirp's top priority.
Drawback free asylums (because golems can't be crazed.)
Early tower of complacency due to all the GEs.

OO has killer synergy with the luchuirp.

Click to expand...

the first point is a good one. after killing (rushing) a neighbour you have a lot of highly promoted warriors. what to do with them? kilmorphs are only a replacement, not an upgrade path