Altar win and Grigori?

I've finished the scenarios and so I'm now slowly trying out different civs and victory conditions. I finished up Tower of Mastery with Amurites, so naturally I moved on next to an Altar victory with the Grigori (seemed appropriate, at least from a lore perspective).

I'm really struggling with the Grigori's lack of prophet specialists though. I thought at first that I'd be able to upgrade my Adventurers to Luonnator(druids), via Adventurer->Ranger->Luonnatar. I've finally finished getting all the techs to be able to do so, and I now have 3 Luonnatar Heroes (and the Worldspell is still available)... but I can't seem to found the Altar

Was that removed? Has it been changed so that you can only use Great Prophets to build the first 6 stages of the Altar? I should have all the techs for building the first 6 stages of the Altar (just missing Omniscience)

Also, how do most people approach it, using Grigori? I noticed that I pretty much have no choice but to change to Theocracy civic, have farms everywhere, and run tons of Prophet specialists. And yet, I need to research a *lot*. How do you balance the requirements of needing farms (to run Prophet specialists) with the demand of needing lots of tech (which would imply Cottages)?

Do you do all your tech'ing first (including Omni), and then switch to Theocracy + Farms + Prophet Specialists followed by popping your Worldspell?

Finally, what is the earliest unit that can heal for the Grigori? Is it the Grigori Medic? Having no disciple units seems like a real downer.

I've also been playing around with the Grigori, but only seem able to get the aggressive wins. The culture win is pretty tough to get due to the lack of religion, which also makes managing happiness harder than health. There's a thread out there that recounts a culture victory with the Grigori.

You are right, the luonnotar units can no longer build the AotL. I haven't been playing long, and don't really know the ins and outs of the Lore here, so can't speak much for whether or not that makes sense in a broad sense, but to me it doesn't. It's the Alter of the LUONNOTAR isn't it? But there's already a thread I've seen that discusses that topic...

The thing you CAN do to get the prophets is to switch to Caste System (unlimited prophet specialists) and then cast your world spell. You'll be able to quickly pump out enough prophets to build the first few. After Omniscience you can build Birthright Regained and cast your world spell again to pick up any other prophets you need.

I've found that picking up an early Life man source for regeneration is very helpful. There's also the occassional disciple that pops from a dungeon to provide a little healing. They can also be upgraded to Luonnotar later on, and keep their healing and spells.

Luonnotars can't be used to build Altar stages. It is possible to get enough Great Prophets, but planning is important.

Emptiness said:

The key was to use Theocracy to enable Priest specialists, and then cast Ardor to make enough Great Prophets:

Spoiler Ardor's reward :

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Corwyn said:

I noticed that I pretty much have no choice but to change to Theocracy civic, have farms everywhere, and run tons of Prophet specialists. And yet, I need to research a *lot*. How do you balance the requirements of needing farms (to run Prophet specialists) with the demand of needing lots of tech (which would imply Cottages)?

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Aristocracy + Agrarian is the usual course when many farms are needed without sacrificing commerce. You may not need to run a huge number of Priest specialists, however, if you plan the casting of your worldspell carefully and avoid pollution as much as possible.

Corwyn said:

Do you do all your tech'ing first (including Omni), and then switch to Theocracy + Farms + Prophet Specialists followed by popping your Worldspell?

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I believe that it is best to be working on the Great Prophets as you go, rather than doing a ton of teching and then trying to accumulate a ton of points. Also, the altar stages allow Priest specialist slots themselves. Finally, you are able to build Empyrean temples even though you are agnostic, which can allow you to start working on points. There are some wonders that offer Great Prophet points, they can provide the first stage of the Altar. Then a Priest slot will be available to accelerate the next Great Prophet. Waiting for Theocracy, or even worse Omniscience will slow down your overall progress.

Corwyn said:

Finally, what is the earliest unit that can heal for the Grigori? Is it the Grigori Medic? Having no disciple units seems like a real downer.

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The Grigori can research Honor, build Empyrean Temples, and train Ecclesiastics. Not on par with what other civs can muster (re: healing), but it's better than nothing. That will give you one Ecclesiastic with Medic I, which you could stick with your main attack force to speed healing slightly. I also recommend Body mana for Regeneration, which makes healers seem pointless (other than Cure Disease, of course).

Weird Double Post.

Emptiness said:

The Grigori can research Honor, build Empyrean Temples, and train Ecclesiastics. Not on par with what other civs can muster (re: healing), but it's better than nothing. I also recommend Body mana for Regeneration, which makes healers seem pointless (other than Cure Disease, of course).

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They CAN build Empyrean Temples? Now I can't wait to get home to check THAT one out

Does Life mana also have regeneration, or am I just mistaken?

Regeneration is Body II. Life has Sanctify, Destroy Undead, and Resurrection.

If the Grigori are agnostic, why are they able to build empy temples and train empy disciples?

Have only played grigori once or twice, and I was just curious...

There's a discussion of that in this thread: Grigori & The Altar of the Luonnotar

I suggested splitting Honor and Deception each into two techs, one for the religion and one for the other things (council, et c.), with agnostic civs banned from researching the religion techs.

Thanks for the help! And I had no idea they could build Empyrean temples -- I'll have to try that!

I've updated the wiki about the Luonnatar not building the Altar, and once I confirm building Empyrean temples I'll update that for the Grigori as well, as well as adding some of the useful recent tips.

Emptiness said:

There's a discussion of that in this thread: Grigori & The Altar of the Luonnotar

I suggested splitting Honor and Deception each into two techs, one for the religion and one for the other things (council, et c.), with agnostic civs banned from researching the religion techs.

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Under & Overcouncil user to be enabled by Way of the Wise/Wicked. It was changed because the councils were comming into play too early, but I would rather have it set batk to Way of the Wise/Wicked and just increase the tech cost of each.

So I researched Honor, and was even the first to do so and therefore I got the Holy City

I see an option to build an Ecclesiastic, which is currently grayed out and states that I need a Temple of the Empyrean as a pre-requisite.

However, I don't have an option to build an Empyrean Temple

According to the Pedia, all I should need to build an Empyrean Temple is Honor and the religion in the city.

Perhaps if I use a Great Prophet to found Deis Deiei, then I'll be able to build an Ecclesiastic?

Strange. None of the temples appear in the tech tree, either. Maybe a change has been made to directly block them from building the temples, or perhaps I'm remembering incorrectly. Sorry about the misinformation. (Building Dies Diei won't allow you to build the temples either. It will give you +2 toward a Great Prophet plus a Priest slot, so it's a step in the right direction as long as you can get the first Great Prophet to build it.)

About the Lunnotar. I'm not sure exactly what state they are in right now, but I know that recently it worked that you needed to get level 1 of the altar normally, and then you would be able to build all the following stages with Lunnotar. I am not however sure what the current state of things is.

-Colin

The Grigori are directly blocked from building temples of all religions. This is because if you build the Eyes and Ears network(or are on a team) you can obtain the religious techs, which would in turn allow you to build temples. Personally I think it's stupid, because freedom of religon =/= no temples allowed... but whatever.

Your best bet is to rush for the religious wonders that allow priest slots, and when you get Theocracy run it. Don't build Great Person buildings(inc. adventurers) in any non-capitol city. Engineers can be OKAY though, since they help you build the Altar faster. Once you can run 6+ priests in several of your cities that don't have polluted GP pools, hit Ardor.

The grigory don't have freedom OF religion, they have freedom FROM (the world's main) religions...

...and since you're not going to spread religion with your acolytes, the Grigori are especially well suited to Esus. Because you can declare nationality on that first unit and then spread the religion over and over again with that unit, building Nox Noctis for the cash becomes very appealing. It's the only religion that the Grigori can actually spread on their own.

The invisible units at home trait then becomes just a handy side-effect instead of the main reason for going after the tech.

Also, Gibbon Goeta rocks your face.


...nevermind about Gibbon Goeta. I somehow forgot that you have to actually adopt a religion in order to get its religious heroes.

Gavinfoxx said:

The grigory don't have freedom OF religion, they have freedom FROM (the world's main) religions...

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Actually, no. They have freedom OF religion. Every Grigori is free to practice his own faith as long as he does not impose that faith upon others.

Korias said:

Actually, no. They have freedom OF religion. Every Grigori is free to practice his own faith as long as he does not impose that faith upon others.

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...and as long as he doesn't want to build a temple or become a priest or acolyte of a religion.

popejubal said:

...and as long as he doesn't want to build a temple or become a priest or acolyte of a religion.

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Which is the act of imposing the religion upon the people. A missionary preaches, a Temple advocates and becomes a social center which propogates the community values. Keep in mind that the "Temple" is often a lot larger than you think, IIRC from the pedia entry where the Stonewarden casts Create Temple. So yes, those are actions that impose the religion upon others and therefore against Grigori ideals.

quoted from MC:


The Luonnatar worship the one true god, and reject all the angels/gods are petulant children. They are right, but this seems to just be a lucky guess. They have no supernatural ability, although their faith protects them from the supernatural. (Originally the story that justifies their magic immunity is was just explained as Junil not wanting to hurt them for fear that their presence meant The One had returned and was unhappy, but I prefer to think that The Compact protects them from any god, angel, or demon.)

So imo it's not that wrong that luonnatars can't build the altar.