Are the Khazad abysmal defenders?

Note: I run an up-to-date copy of Fall from Heaven, but I boot my iMac into Windows to play and into Mac OS X to do everything else. Whenever I quote figures they came from the manual, which isn't up-to-date.

I've just come away from Against the Wall with a surprising conclusion about the Khazad. As much as the scenario itself was quite difficult, it strikes me that the Khazad are fundamentally bad at defence. Given that they're the only civ with a truly defensive hero (Maros with 6/12 and +50% city defence) and they strike me as the type to be strong as defence, it comes as a surprise to me.

In case it's not obvious why I think they're poor at defence or if you want some meat on the bones, let me elaborate. Once we're through the warrior stage of the game, the principal early defender is the archer. 3/5 , +25% city defence, +25% hill defence, 1 first strike and 20% at 10% defensive strike. The Khazad have the dwarven slinger, who is almost identical to the archer except for one key difference.

The dwarven slinger doesn't improve with bronze and iron weapons. The archer does. The Khazad do fine in the early stages when you defend with warriors or basic archers, but later on they start to lag.

An iron-upgraded archer has 7 on the defence, or 10.5 in a city on a hill. A basic archer has 5 , or 7.5 in a city on a hill. The iron-upgraded archer will eat champions: the dwarven slinger will not. When you hit the era that your defenders want about 12 , the Khazad start to lag a lot.

To be fair, surely the Luchuirp lag at this point too? Well yes, they do. But the situation only grows worse for the Khazad, because they don't get longbowmen. The longbowman seems to be absolutely vital to protecting your cities starting at mid game and then through to the end. With 8 (with iron) and plenty of bonuses when defending a city on a hill, they're the main part of any late game city defence and can at a pinch stop an eidolon or paladin even after bombardment.

The Khazad don't get longbowmen. The Luchuirp, however, have gargoyles. Gargoyles are a little bit difficult to judge. Their 8 base is deceptive and is really only equal to the longbowman who will probably have iron. When mythril comes along, the gargoyle falls behind. They give up the +25% on a hill, but get the Defensive promotion automatically. They come out about equal to the longbowman, with the Golem promotion being a mixed blessing or a minor advantage if you add in someone to use Repair, and the increased cost being the final disadvantage.

Without longbowmen at all, I'm at a loss for what the Khazad are supposed to use to actually defend. They need something that can have about 16.4 in a city on a hill. That's an iron longbowman, fully fortified and with City Garrison I.

The champion, perhaps? It's better than the dwarven slinger on defence, but it's no longbowman. It will come in at 10.8 with iron, when fortified and with Combat I. It can't take City Garrison I, it doesn't have the +25% to city defence or +25% to hill defence, and all in all a champion will never replace a longbowman in city defence.

If the champion can't defend the Khazad's cities and borders, what can? We'll assume that it can't be a national unit – the crossbowman is out. Strangely, where I'd expect to see a unique Khazad unit coming in to defend them, they instead have the myconid, the dwarven cannon, the dwarven druid and the dwarven shadow. They're all pretty good and I could definitely accept the Khazad only being 'average' at defence given these advantages, but they're not 'average' – they're at 10.8 instead of 16.4 .

I think the longbowman should remain banned to them, but they should have a unique unit that can fill the same place. Thematically it would be either a mêlée type that was just better at defence (the basic unit for which Maros is a hero – perhaps a Dwarven Stalwart, taking after Battle for Wesnoth), or a type of crossbowman that could be mass produced.

All in all, I don't think I'd play the Khazad as they are. They lack mages. They lack rangers (the most important part of the recon line to me). They lack good defenders. They lack non-national, good cavalry. Even though they get brilliant leaders (Aggressive + Financial + Ingenuity, Industrious + Ingenuity + Organised) and can potentially have +65% over other cities, the lack of defence seems to ruin it. Lack of mages, rangers and non-national, good cavalry would balance their advantages. Needing to use champions to defend cities and borders seems too far.

So, thank you for reading. I'm still new to Fall from Heaven so I hope you read my tone as anything but arrogant. I'd appropriate your input.

Personally I think the Dwarven promotion should provide a defensive (and maybe also attack) bonus from hills, not just double movement.


Also, the defensive trait would make much more sense for a Khazad leader than for the Luchuirp. Garrim is likely the worst leader in the game, since the bulk of his army is usually made of Golems who get no benefit from this trait whatsoever. He should really regain the Arcane trait he had before the move to BtS, as in the lore he is a mage and golem armies run much better with lots of strong dwarven adepts providing support and repairs.




I tend to think that the archer line should be broken up a bit. Historically, the big advantage of crossbows was that it didn't take long to learn to use them well, and they could be mass produced if you had the equipment. It makes no sense for them to be national units. I would rather make Longbowmen (who historically were often more effective but needed years or decades of training) be stronger and more expensive (hammer-wise) than Crossbowmen, not upgrade to them. They should instead upgrade to Marksmen, with a minimum level requirement. Longbowmen and Marksmen should not require any resources, and should not get metal weapons. Crossbowmen should be cheaper than Longbowmen and get metal weapons, but also require metal and a building like a forge. They should probably upgrade to Arquebuses.


Ranged attacks for archery and siege units help.


I would have all the archer units have ranged attacks, but Crossbowmen and Arquebuses deal less damage to more unit while Longbowmen and Marksmen deal more damage to fewer units (I'd make Marksmen only damage 1 unit at range, but be the only unit in the game that can kill with ranged attacks). The Khazad should not have access to Longbowmen. I'd consider giving them a Rifleman Marksman UU, which would be built directly instead of having a level requirement but would require gunpowder and maybe a special building (it might be a good idea to add a Gunsmith building prereq for Arquebuses too).

Would the longbowman and crossbowman rival each other, or would the longbowman be the ultimate unlimited defender and the crossbowman be a tier below? If the latter there's going to be a problem if the crossbowman can benefit from metal and the longbowman can't – the lower tier crossbowman could potentially get better.

I think both using metal weapons is fine. The longbowman is just using bronze, iron or mythril for the arrowhead, but that makes sense. I agree with you that the crossbowman as a national unit doesn't work very well given that the point of the crossbow was that it was easy to use.

I'd say have the longbowman and crossbowman rival each other, and have the longbowman be the best city defender in overall strength. However, make the crossbowman a little more effective at attacking and perhaps even give it a little bit of collateral damage, just to distinguish it from the longbowman. As you said, let the longbowman upgrade to the marksman (at a high level) and let the crossbowman upgrade to the arquebusier (at any level).

The Khazad would probably be better with a Dwarven Stalwart than an unlimited crossbowman. I'm thinking that rather than be bad at defence they should be average at it, or perhaps just a little bit good at it in an interesting way. A Dwarven Stalwart that was about equal to the longbowman at defence would do that. Their little advantage would be that it would be a mêlée unit, so anyone who had given Cover promotions would be at a disadvantage. Then again, City Raider III's +20% mélêe would make that… not so good.

Edit: Of course, if you're not a ranged or disciple unit you won't get City Garrison. Making an exception to that would be a lot of work. If they were to have a Dwarven Stalwart or similar, they'd need to have a Maros-like design: a big bonus to city defence and probably a very high defensive strength.

Personally I think the Dwarven promotion should provide a defensive (and maybe also attack) bonus from hills, not just double movement.

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I forgot to respond to this part before. I agree, although when I was thinking about it potentially providing an attack bonus earlier it occurred to me that there was a better way of doing it, if it would be easy to code.

Dwarves should have an attack bonus when attacking from a hill, to any flat land. I think the reason they don't get an attack bonus in hills is that it doesn't make much sense to, but attacking from a hill down would give you an advantage.

Archers don't benefit from Bronze or Iron weapons either.

The Khazad lack of good defenders encourages them to be aggressive, and defend by attacking aggressors rather than waiting in their cities. Whether this matches the intended flavor of the Khazad I cannot say.

Gargoyles don't fall behind Longbowmen when access to Mithril is gained, because Longbowmen can't use Mithril weapons. The disadvantage of Gargoyles is their inability to gain promotions. Whether that makes them worse is a different topic.

The Khazad have a lot of incentive to try to research Blasting Powerder as soon as possible. Access to decent defenders is part of that incentive.

Recently I tried out Khazad following the Cult of Essus (and liked the combination). I ended up defending my cities with Nightwatch until I had access to Arquebusiers, which worked out well. Longbowmen are better defenders (bonus in cities and on hills), but the Nightwatch are almost as good, and definitely better than Slingers.

Shouldn't the Khazad's other strengths be taken into account rather than primarily focusing on what kind of defender they lack or should be allowed? If a civ is lacking, like the Khazad are, a route to the expensive tech leading to longbowmen, but instead have large production boosts, unique buildings and units (like the Dwarven druid), shouldn't that be considered also as some compensation? Other civs, like the Elves, can't build siegecraft or chariots or arquebusiers, but they have their compensations - enough that having Elven cannon AND those compensations would be unfair. I don't recall my Ljosalfar archers getting metal upgrades, now that you mention it!

Anyway, I'm just asking, I'm no expert, but maybe the question is: Do the Khazad have anything that compensates them for not having longbowmen or other non-permitted units?

'Cause if the answer is no, then it's so unfair to our hairy brothers.

I would say that the Archer line should split into Longbowmen and Crossbowmen, which should be of the same tier but have different specialties.



I'm not sure if the attack bonuses count the attacker's or defender's tile's terrain, which is why I'm not sure about giving them an attack bonus from hills. I don't think it would be possible (without rather tough C++ coding) to make the bonus only apply if the defender was on flat land and the attacker on a hill.



I see no reason why the Khaad should have another Melee unit. Also, if you did give them such a UU you could still make it start with the City Garrison I promotion, and could them open up City Garrison II and III to all unitcombats without letting any unit but this and those upgraded from it get the bonus.


I have however considered giving the Khazad (or maybe the Kilmorph Religion) an Umberguard unit, a UU that replaces nothing and has a national limit of one. This would basically be a copy of Maros, minus the hero promotion. Although the details haven't really been explained, it is implied that this the rank of the greatest champion of the Khazad (or maybe of the Kilmorph, that isn't clear since for most its history the religion and the people have been so inseparable), and is probably a hereditary position. Maros was the Umberguard, but is considered a disgrace because when his people made a treaty with demons he abandoned them and their goddess to live with the Bannor and join The Order so that he could continue to fight the forces of darkness.



If this was FF, you could make the Dwarven promotion allow access to promotions like City Garrison I-III and Guerrilla I-II regardless of unitcombat. You could also make Longbowmen get more free xp passively.

instead of archers, the khazad have a stronger version of the catapult, the trebuchet. Use this to your advantage by having your siege weapons hit an enemy stack as they approach your cities. From that point on, your axemen/champions should do the defending job just fine (remember, they gain an additional 20% defence in their cities).

Other than that, the khazad have the strongest shadows and druids ingame, and in troop training are second only to the clan. Your units may have less defensive power, but when you outnumber your opponent, that problem is quickly compensated for.

Emptiness said:

Archers don't benefit from Bronze or Iron weapons either.

The Khazad lack of good defenders encourages them to be aggressive, and defend by attacking aggressors rather than waiting in their cities. Whether this matches the intended flavor of the Khazad I cannot say.

Gargoyles don't fall behind Longbowmen when access to Mithril is gained, because Longbowmen can't use Mithril weapons. The disadvantage of Gargoyles is their inability to gain promotions. Whether that makes them worse is a different topic.

The Khazad have a lot of incentive to try to research Blasting Powerder as soon as possible. Access to decent defenders is part of that incentive.

Recently I tried out Khazad following the Cult of Essus (and liked the combination). I ended up defending my cities with Nightwatch until I had access to Arquebusiers, which worked out well. Longbowmen are better defenders (bonus in cities and on hills), but the Nightwatch are almost as good, and definitely better than Slingers.

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Thanks for the reply. I was certain that I was too new to Fall from Heaven to make a post of that length without a key error, and it seems it was about the archers and metal weapons. Alas, the manual I cling to when I'm not actually in the game doesn't mention the ability to use metal weapons, and I couldn't remember offhand. I knew the longbowman definitely did get the benefit, and assumed that applied to the archer as well.

The longbowman can't use mythril weapons? Strangely, I checked the Wiki for that part of my post (I was unreasonably 'sure' about the archer part). It probably should be updated, as it says they do benefit from them.

Blasting Powder does eventually give them an alternative, though I'm not a big fan of the arquebusier. 10 is good but they don't have a first strike or +50% when defending a city on a hill. They're also 50% more expensive. They're a strange unit, and I suppose their biggest advantage is that they're quite good on the attack as well. I've actually only unlocked Blasting Powder once so far, and I only trained Teutorix to have him finish off the last enemy unit in a game for the hell of it.

The nightwatch seems like an okay alternative to the longbowman, and it didn't come to mind when I was typing up this thread. (I was actually looking at the paramander instead.) They're obviously not quite as good, and that might better in some cases.

As for defending by attacking aggressors, it seems to me that it doesn't suit the Khazad very well either thematically or mechanically, in my opinion. I can't say much about thematically. Mechanically, proactive defending (which can be a very good tactic) requires high attackers with high – high seems necessary, otherwise you won't be able to cover enough territory or escape back to your city. The Hippus seem very good at it, and even having rangers would make the Khazad better at it.

As they are, the dwarven unique units are very late in the game and they lack the horse archer which would be handiest for proactive defence at the stage that you're missing longbowmen. I'm sure they can patch something together, but then we're patching something together that is itself patching together their ability to defend. Hopefully that made sense!

JonathanStrange said:

Shouldn't the Khazad's other strengths be taken into account rather than primarily focusing on what kind of defender they lack or should be allowed? If a civ is lacking, like the Khazad are, a route to the expensive tech leading to longbowmen, but instead have large production boosts, unique buildings and units (like the Dwarven druid), shouldn't that be considered also as some compensation? Other civs, like the Elves, can't build siegecraft or chariots or arquebusiers, but they have their compensations - enough that having Elven cannon AND those compensations would be unfair. I don't recall my Ljosalfar archers getting metal upgrades, now that you mention it!

Anyway, I'm just asking, I'm no expert, but maybe the question is: Do the Khazad have anything that compensates them for not having longbowmen or other non-permitted units?

'Cause if the answer is no, then it's so unfair to our hairy brothers.

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This is the part of the discussion I was trying to cover at the end of my first post. My impression so far is that if they had longbowman (ignore flavour here), they'd be balanced.

Advantages:
1. Their leaders have 3 real, fairly good traits each.
2. If they jump through some reasonably easy hoops, their production is very good.
3. Other benefits of a high vault.
3. They can bombard better. That's more about the battering ram than the dwarven cannon, though.
4. The dwarven druid and myconid are kinda' cool.
5. The dwarven shadow is brilliant.

Disadvantages:
1. They have no mages. Or one, depending on the religion you take. This is huge in my opinion.
2. They don't have horse archers or rangers. This further restricts them in the most important tier of units. When you should be fielding horse archers, rangers, longbowmen, mages and champions, they're fielding… champions.
3. The dwarven vault requirement tends to restrict how many cities they can have.
4. They don't have longbowmen, and so are at quite a disadvantage in defence.

I reckon every civ should come off better than a hypothetical, completely neutral civ. To be balanced with the Luchuirp I wouldn't expect the Khazad to have disadvantage 4, which seems like a major one to me.

So my impression is:

1. Their lack of defence is quite serious, and is a major disadvantage when playing them.
2. I don't think they need another disadvantage on top of the ones they have.
3. I don't think it makes sense thematically for the Khazad, of all nations, to be rubbish at protecting their cities and territory.

I'm of the impression that the Khazad are already one of the better civs....the leaders rock, their production is unmatched, they get some very good units, and they already have the best defensive hero in the game.

Anything more would very likely push them into being overpowered IMO. If they were given comparable defenders, they're only downfall would be no mages, which can be relatively easy to overcome by using various priests.

Perhaps giving the dwarven promotion a +30% defense on hills would be ok, but even that seems like too much to me.

For the Khazad, overwhelming numbers should be their defense IMO, as they are pretty much unmatched in their production.

Perhaps I need to play them more to get a picture of how their lack of defence isn't a problem in power. I'm still not sure how it's not a problem in theme. It seems to go against everything you'd expect of dwarves, and everything that I'd expect of the Khazad from Fall from Heaven lore. They absolutely should not be the civ scrambling to work out how to compensate for their lack of a core defender unit – whether or not they can manage to compensate, or whether or not they need to for them to be balanced.

At the moment I'm suspicious about them having overwhelming numbers. They and the Clan both still have unit upkeep, so typically they will both produce faster and recover faster from losses, but they shouldn't have overwhelming numerical advantages unless they commit technologically suicide.

On top of that, their biggest advantage is the Dwarven Vault, and trying to keep it at Abundant or higher throughout the game is going to require having fewer cities. That will mean that your high production in your cities is balanced by not having as many cities, which will not just affect your overall production but also your research and income. It also has another disadvantage when you're invading, as you have to think before taking an enemy city and will probably have to raze or gift them more than other nations.

I don't know about them being one of the stronger nations already. I haven't played them all yet. From the ones I've played I think the Hippus, Bannor, Ljosalfar, Svartalfar, Sheaim and Luchuirp are quite a bit better. The two I've played that I think still manage not to be as good are the Kuriotates and the Elohim.

On paper I'd expect the Amurites, Calabim, Grigori and Lanun to all fit into the list I have in the last paragraph, which is what I see as a broad balanced tier. I've no idea where I'll find the Balseraphs, Doviello, Illians or Sidar lie.

Balance aside, I'm unsure why the Khazad have that disadvantage in defence. It's a different question, of course, to why they don't have longbowmen in particular (which is easier to answer).

Demus said:

instead of archers, the khazad have a stronger version of the catapult, the trebuchet. Use this to your advantage by having your siege weapons hit an enemy stack as they approach your cities. From that point on, your axemen/champions should do the defending job just fine (remember, they gain an additional 20% defence in their cities).

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I hadn't thought of that. I'll see how much of a difference it makes – using a trebuchet to defend as compared to a catapult in particular. I suspect they still come off weak in defence, and to reiterate I don't think that thematically makes much sense.

Bootsiuv is right, they are one of the most powerful civs in the mod. Attack, attack, attack, win. Lack of advanced magic and sub-par defenders are only minor inconveniences when you don't need advanced magic and your foes rarely reach your cities alive.

Lack of Horse Archers doesn't limit their ability to use a proactive defense, because they do have access to Chariots, which are better for that use anyway. They use metal weapons, and thus are potentially stronger on the attack, and their lower defense doesn't matter if they attack out of a city and then return to safety on the same turn. Attacking stacks should be softened with Trebuchets (like Demus said) and then finished off with Chariots.

Bowyers is a badly overpriced tech. This fact makes iron longbowmen not so great for defense, since iron champions, while not as good as defending, are so much easier to get. It's worth it for a couple civs (Amurites, Lanun, Ljosalfar... and those guys want to use archery for offense as well as defense, utterly supplanting melee) but the Khazad don't have such an exception.

The Khazad get the bread and butter mounted unit of the middle ages: Chariots. Faster and cheaper than rangers, harder hitting than horse archers, and easier to tech to than both, those bad boys should be the mobile part of the army of all non-Svart civs 90% of the time. The Khazad still get hunters to carry your hawks. They don't really mourn the loss of rangers and horse archers.

Similarly they lack the crappy kind of magic but can still have the good kind: Divine. Disciples have stronger attack spells than mages, medic promotions, an array of utility spells which aren't as good as what mages get but are still useful, and can be directly built. Adepts with their enchanting, hasting, blurring, etc. are still needed to make the most out of the army, but the Khazad can have those.

I would disagree with Emptiness's assessment that you don't need advanced magic to succeed (you do), but that magic is found with the gods, not the wizards.

Monkeyfinger said:

I would disagree with Emptiness's assessment that you don't need advanced magic to succeed (you do), but that magic is found with the gods, not the wizards.

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You are correct, of course. I was thinking only of Arcane magic, since it is that to which the Khazad do not have full access.

Elyssaen said:

Perhaps I need to play them more to get a picture of how their lack of defence isn't a problem in power. I'm still not sure how it's not a problem in theme. It seems to go against everything you'd expect of dwarves, and everything that I'd expect of the Khazad from Fall from Heaven lore. They absolutely should not be the civ scrambling to work out how to compensate for their lack of a core defender unit – whether or not they can manage to compensate, or whether or not they need to for them to be balanced..

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Hmmm, I'll agree when looking at it from a standpoint of FFH lore....you would think that a civ that was underground for an entire age would be quite defensive and isolated.

Elyssaen said:

At the moment I'm suspicious about them having overwhelming numbers. They and the Clan both still have unit upkeep, so typically they will both produce faster and recover faster from losses, but they shouldn't have overwhelming numerical advantages unless they commit technologically suicide.

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Have to disagree here....RoK Khazad led by Andros Fir should have no problem building just about any unit in 1 turn in their core cities (usually 3-4), and that's on normal speed. Building Bambur/Mardero in a few turns is also full of win.

Elyssaen said:

On top of that, their biggest advantage is the Dwarven Vault, and trying to keep it at Abundant or higher throughout the game is going to require having fewer cities. That will mean that your high production in your cities is balanced by not having as many cities, which will not just affect your overall production but also your research and income. It also has another disadvantage when you're invading, as you have to think before taking an enemy city and will probably have to raze or gift them more than other nations.

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Hmmm, again, I disagree. I will agree that Khazad do grow more slowly, but it isn't a requirement to keep your vaults overflowing for the entire game, just steer clear of empty and you receive no penalties. No one said you had to enjoy +3 happ and +25% production in every city for the entire game. It does make an enormous difference when you have it in the late game though.

Elyssaen said:

I don't know about them being one of the stronger nations already. I haven't played them all yet. From the ones I've played I think the Hippus, Bannor, Ljosalfar, Svartalfar, Sheaim and Luchuirp are quite a bit better. The two I've played that I think still manage not to be as good are the Kuriotates and the Elohim.

On paper I'd expect the Amurites, Calabim, Grigori and Lanun to all fit into the list I have in the last paragraph, which is what I see as a broad balanced tier. I've no idea where I'll find the Balseraphs, Doviello, Illians or Sidar lie.

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Hmmm, more of a matter of opinion here, I suppose. I will say Khazad under Kandros Fir and worshipping Kilmorph certainly has a lot of synergy, and therefore a lot of potential. Financial is far and away the best trait in the game IMO, and ingenuity makes it all the better.

Elyssaen said:

Balance aside, I'm unsure why the Khazad have that disadvantage in defence. It's a different question, of course, to why they don't have longbowmen in particular (which is easier to answer).

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I don't really know either, although I've always seen dwarves as attackers and elves as defenders really, at least in the Tolkien world (which all fantasy games very often draw a lot of inspiration from).

These are all only my opinion, so take what I say with a grain of salt....an interesting discussion nonetheless.

EDIT: Obviously I meant Kandros when I said Andros.

This is an interesting thread. When I play the Ljosalfars, which I usually do, I often think "What a mediocre set of troops my Ljos field! If I could only get some Dwarven chariots and trebuchets, then I'd show them! I'd show them all!"

But of course, I keep those thoughts to myself and order, "Lieutenant, signal the Deer Archers and fauns to unleash heck on my command!"

just finished a Khazad game on immortal and was delightfully surprised by them. i usually play svarts so this was a big change for me. with RoK it is easy to keep the vaults nice and full. champions are quick and numerous, and their heroes are straight up SOLID. they don't need anything else because they are great at what they do. Multiply and Conquer! i didnt notice the lack of mages so much because their trebs are so powerful and they still have access to all the level one spells; haste and skeletons being a few of my favorites. in the mid game i had about 12 cities and never went below overflowing vaults. i kept the research at 80 most of the game and had big names on the pangea map: tsunke, Aulric, Faeryl, almanchier. all of these are tough nuts to crack, and i cracked all their nuts (except for Faeryl maybe) . Khazad are great at early game dominating, and sometimes that's all you need.

20% City Defense

Combat I unless you play the useless leader

Melee units may choose Guerilla

Yeah, people are forgetting that Khazad have a unique city defense bonus. They also have Earth mana at the palace so there may be Walls of Stone to deal with as well. Theres no reason to play Arturus Thorne, so all units will have combat 1. Attacking stacks will get trebbed at least twice.

They don't look bad on the defense to me.

I like the Khazad for how narrow I can tech with them. A little up the religion line, a little up the trade line, and then everything else into Melee units, with the financial research bonus as well.

I'll start out by saying that when I play as the dwarves, I'll research archery, but I'll never build archers. Why? Because I can get so much more use out of an axman.

Comparatively, an axman requires iron and a 120% strength bonus to equal an archer defending a hill, or iron and a 70% strength bonus to equal an archer not on a hill (note, for both of these, it is counting the archer getting the same strength bonus). As the best way for the dwarves to run the early game is to run RoK, you will most likely get early iron from the mines of gal-dur.

The other important point to note is that every archer I build is then a city defender for life, I cannot use it for anything else. On the other hand, an axman I build for defense now can be used for offense in 10 turns, or 50 turns, or whenever I want. However, the most important thing to remember about the dwarves is that the best defense is a good offense. An archer is a strength 3 attacker, and always will be. Aka, an archer is a useless attacker. On the other hand, an axman is a strength 4-6 attacker, and while strength 4 isn't much, strength 6 is, especially when you send in a few trebuchets to soften them up first. Another thing to note is that trebuchets are strength 6 attackers, not strength 4, making them able to successfully attack combat promoted bronze axmen, and also still be useful even when champions come out.

So for early game, the khazid aren't missing any teir 2 units except the the horsemen. Midgame is when the khazid get choked off unitwise. The khazid don't get longbowmen, horse archers, rangers, or mages. That leaves just religious units, assasins (i can't remember whether or not they get these) and champions as buildable units. As the khazid probably aren't going to be following OO, that means that champions are going to be their mainstay, with religious units functioning in support, and the continued use of trebuchets to soften stacks. Having a few adepts with enchantment 1 allows the instantaneous repairing of your trebuchets, and having stonewardens allows significantly faster healing of your champions. Your army won't be as mobile as a hippus or elven one, but your enemies WILL know when you arrive. So that leaves defense as a problem. An iron champion is strength 8, and gets +25% vs melee units, but is a melee unit itself. An iron longbowman is strength 7/8, and gets 25% city and hill defense. The khazid have nothing to match that defensive strength. On the other hand, the khazid can almost get 2 champions for the same production that another civ would get 1 longbowman.

Midgame, the khazids benifit isn't from diversity of units, its from numbers of units. They get this in two ways. First, the dwarven forge. The forge gives a base +20% hammers, but then another 10% each for copper, iron, and mithril. Midgame, that is a 40% production bonus. Second, the dwarven vault, which gives +40% production with 500 gold per city, 25% production with 400 gold per city, and 10% for 300 gold per city, not counting happies. By midgame, I usually have full to overflowing vaults (and only have full after a conquest spree usually), which means that every city will have 65% to 80% production bonus, as opposed to any other races 25%.

Lategame, their options open up significantly, but lategame you should have already won, and is mostly there for faster mopping up.

Now, as to how I play them. There are two ways that I will play the dwarves.

The first way is super-city, fortress mode. When playing like this, I only put cities in good spots, never in mediocre unless I really need a resource from that spot. Then I use the happiness and production bonuses from the dwarven vaults to allow myself to match any other civ's research and unitcount. This gives a few cities, but each city tends to be VERY strong, with me easily getting cities size 20+ by midgame, while still having the largest army on the map. Early game it isn't quite as strong, but the whole goal of this mode is to come out on top in the mid/lategame.

The second way is city spam. The big idea here isn't to play to the dwarven strengths of large, high production cities, it is to play to the strength of ingenuity. This method works best when trying to win in the early game. The key things to note here is that it costs 38 gold on normal speed to upgrade a warrior to an axman, and you can build warriors for as long as you don't build an archery range AND a training yard in a city. This method is best played with Kandros Fir, as the financial trait is very useful. Arturus Thorne can use it as well (and is actually better at it once you get to midgame), but for the early game financial is a huge boost. The idea is to get the capital and 1-3 other major cities, following the super-fortress idea, but then to also get as many little cities as possible (spam like you're playing the jotnar if FF, each city focusing only on working their first ring of tiles). Each major city builds training yards, archery ranges (if needed), and produces things like trebuchets, adepts, and religious units. Each of the minor cities builds ToK, gambling house, market, and elder council, then proceeds to spam warriors (other buildings can be built, but those are the vital ones). Each little city can spam a warrior in a turn or two, as opposed to 5 turns it would take to build an axman. Each major city will be able to build an axman or trebuchet in a turn or two. Warriors congregate in the major cities and get upgraded to axmen, allowing a massive army to be quickly created. Early game, Kandros Fir is the best, running aristocracy and using the financial trait to get the necessary gold. Midgame, Arturus Thorne becomes more powerful, when you switch to order to build basilica's, because the organized trait reduces the cost of civic maintenence, while courthouses and basilica's almost eliminate city maintenence.

Sorry for the wall of text, but I hope that it answers some questions. In case you are wondering, for me, I can win with the dwarves on deity, something that I can only accomplish with them and the calibam, and even with better AI's (like wild mana's), I can still win on emperor, and be strong on immortal, something I can't do even with the Calibam.

-Colin

Well said.

One suspicions that readercolin has commanded the Khazad more than a few games - note you should check out his Top Ten Tips on the Khazad in the Top Ten list - so I, for one, pay attention to his exposition.

BTW: I do think a basic dwarven crossbowmen unit - and not that upper level XBowmen with a limit of 4 - would be a cool addition, even if the effect were only graphical (and then we get the "we're trying to keep the unit distinctions without a difference to a minimum" argument, which in a game filled with atmosphere and flavor, I don't find too persuasive, but wth, I rarely play Khazad anyway.)