Flesh Golems Rock!

I was never quite sold on the idea of flesh golems, but in my recent game I found a tremendous (almost unfair) use for them. I'm sure there are many other combinations that work well, and I invite others to share their experiences.

I used Graft Flesh to combine heavy crossbowmen and archmages (with Law III) to create city defenders that eliminate all unhappiness in the city. Keeping my early warriors upgraded to archers I ended up with heavily promoted heavy crossbowmen (combat V, gurilla II, city defence III, etc.). My early adepts were upgraded to archmages with Law III which I like due to its ability to eliminate unhappiness in a city. When combined I had strengh 8 flesh golems that can both defend the city and cast spells to enhance the city (one of them also had spirit mana to cast hope). Creating the flesh golem freed up a slot for another archmage to be promoted.

Unfortunately I did not have very many adept units built (planning to have a limit of three archmages and a few extras). In my next game I will create a lot of adepts so that they are ready to promote to archmages as soon as I create a golem. With luck I will have a golem in each city to defend it and keep the plebs from revolting as my farms ramp up the size of all my cities.

Please share any creative uses of flesh golems that you have come up with.

Like I said in the Super Mages thread, Vampires+Werewolves=Vampiric Werewolves decimating cities with contagion then feeding on the populace. Fun! I would say throw in Council of Esus, but you don't get werewolves then and all you have is a hidden nationality Vampire essentially...

combine archmages and druids makes super-er-er-er mages

or Archmages and Summoners, I've done that once every single magical promotion I had plus all the combats.

i prefer archmages and druids because druids are scorcery-summonin-divine casters plus a fire 3 mage with other stuff makes something really powerfull and you can make as many as you want

even better- play as a good or neutral civ then adopt oo and graft a druid and hemah with twincast and fire 3 together and you get a even beter er er er mage

once again i will give my opinion ....

if your playing with flesh golems , go back and increase the level of difficulty.

take all opinions for what they are worth ....

GrandSultan said:

Like I said in the Super Mages thread, Vampires+Werewolves=Vampiric Werewolves decimating cities with contagion then feeding on the populace. Fun! I would say throw in Council of Esus, but you don't get werewolves then and all you have is a hidden nationality Vampire essentially...

Click to expand...

I'm confused here, i thought golems couldn't get experience,(wiki), if thats the case, whats the point in feeding on the population with a vampire-werewolf flesh golem?

daladinn said:

once again i will give my opinion ....

if your playing with flesh golems , go back and increase the level of difficulty.

take all opinions for what they are worth ....

Click to expand...

I'm not really sure what the difficulty level has to do with the use of flesh golems. They are not available until the late game, and if the game is too easy then they would not be very useful (as victory would be at hand).

I play between prince and monarch difficulty, and find that when my empire gets large in the late game it becomes difficult to keep my cities happy while waging war with several AI civs. Having city defenders that keep the masses happy and also free up Archmages to accompany my army on its conquest is a great benefit during a tough game. On easier difficulty levels it would just be unnecessary overkill.

Mesix said:

I'm not really sure what the difficulty level has to do with the use of flesh golems. They are not available until the late game, and if the game is too easy then they would not be very useful (as victory would be at hand).

I play between prince and monarch difficulty, and find that when my empire gets large in the late game it becomes difficult to keep my cities happy while waging war with several AI civs. Having city defenders that keep the masses happy and also free up Archmages to accompany my army on its conquest is a great benefit during a tough game. On easier difficulty levels it would just be unnecessary overkill.

Click to expand...

i completely understand your sentiment here. i typically play on a huge map with default settings. I also play on diety difficulty. honestly the only time i get a chance to use flesh golems is when i am "toying" around.

question for ya though , how big of an army are you using? typically my armies are only 4 units big and move from city to city with and expanding supply train.

I ususally have two or three stacks of about 6 or 8 units each when I declare war. Less if I am counterattacking on an opponent. At least two of the units in the stack are usually defenders (they don;t attack, they sit at full strength so that if the enemy counterattacks they can take the hit). If possible the defender units have healing promotions.

While my armies are attacking, I try to have some strong units with mobility in my homelands to stop the enemy from piliging all my improvements.

This is, of course, the ideal situation. Many times I find myself in a less than ideal situation, especially if the AI declares war and has allies who dogpile me. That is when the game becomes the most fun though!

Calabim Baron and overlords inquisitor, attacking Acheron = Mutant vampire werewolf dragon golem. Love to see the expressions on the defenders' faces when that monstrosity rolls up to the gates

GeeJo said:

Calabim Baron and overlords inquisitor, attacking Acheron = Mutant vampire werewolf dragon golem. Love to see the expressions on the defenders' faces when that monstrosity rolls up to the gates

Click to expand...

Probably somewhere along the lines of... "WTH HAX!" Or the classic.. "What the hell is that..."

Nimai_R said:

Probably somewhere along the lines of... "WTH HAX!" Or the classic.. "What the hell is that..."

Click to expand...

My... my God! Run, children, it's Rosie O'Donnel!

Graft a Patriarch into a golem and you can frequently change reigions, while always having the patriarch. My favorate is a Vampire Patrarch Dragon golem.

I was mucking around and came up with.....
Royal Guard, promoted to war chariot, upgrade with mithral spliced with a Blessed heavy crossbowman with enchanted weapon, Not the heavy magic user mesix makes but they provide happiness and have a strenght of 20

Playing as the Khazad i found that if i grafted a Dwarven Druid (Summoning + Sorcery) with a High Priest Runes (Divine + Summoning) my Khazad got access to the Sorcery spells of the Rune priest spheres Body, Enchantment, and Life (already have Earth). The significant thing about this is Khazad cannot ever get Mages or Archmages so other than Dwarven Druids who only have access to Earth they have no Sorcery spells.

Sorcery spells gained by the graft...
Body = Haste, Regeneration, Stoneskin
Enchantment = Enchant Blade, Enchant Arrows, Spellstaff
Life = Sanctify, Destroy Undead, Resurection

Some nice buffing spells.

- feydras

Idiot question, but how do you get access to this flesh golem spell/ability?

The Divine Body III spell, generally learned by high priests of kilmorph.

Currently I keep sacrificing Losha in mokka's cauldron for a str 12 flesh golem. No promotions at all, but hefty defender... Then send her out to squash a barbarian to make her immortal again and get another big defender. As soon as I get a Body III Divine unit, I plan on trying out the graft spells. The wait until level 6 is annoying, but after that the sky is the limit!

Edit, this looks to be a cool ability, but is it overpowered? Any more than the Baron?

MagisterCultuum said:

The Divine Body III spell, generally learned by high priests of kilmorph.

Click to expand...

Also by OO High Priests & Inq.

The latter get the advantage that you can use a Kraken as a free STR 10 "other half" for a golem.