Disciples of Govannon

I had thought this would work for quite a while, but I recently had the chance to try it out. Forgive me if this is a bit elementary, but I was off the game for a long time and only recently downloaded 0.33 and haven't gotten back up to speed on all the developments.

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When Govannon trains a unit it gains Channeling I and Sphere I of whatever he teaches.

This is a nice boost for arcane units, as they don't have to use a promotion gaining the sphere. For other units it gives them a nice trick ability and with Death mana it provides a ton of slots for summoning a horde of skeletons.

However, it seems to me that by far the best use for Govannon's tutoring are disciple units. A priest has Channeling II. With Channeling I they gain full access to the arcane spell progression for the spheres they are taught and since High Priests pick up Channeling III, they get archmage level spells as well. You may lose some of the special Amurite XP bonuses for mages, but it's still a wickedly powerful path.

In addition to the straight disciple progression many priests have upgrade progressions to non-disciple units, giving access to Arcane units without weakness to those annoying assassins.

So, just some few ideas off the top of my head. I'd love to hear anyone else's recommendations as well.

Amurite Druids
If you never choose a religion that changes your alignment (which is most of them) then Druids make for a good long-term goal for Amurites. You will need Archery for Firebows, which means you're also starting down the recon/nature path. Regardless of how you choose to get to Druids, adding up to 5 spheres by Govannon is obviously nifty.

However, if you upgrade a priest to a Druid, you have the religion and Channeling III and Divine, which gives your Druid the special abilities of a High Priest of the religion, e.g. a Stonewarden upgraded to a Druid gains the Earthquake ability of a Runekeeper.

Most importantly, this is very fast as you don't have to wait for a unit to level up as you do with all the other Tier 4 spellcasters. All it takes is the time for Govannon to cast all the training. Build a priest, then upgrade to a Druid and have Govannon train him. You now have a Druid with up to 6 spheres and all the special abilities of a High Priest and you have yet to spend the first promotion. You may even have picked up the XP for a promotion or two just in the short time it took to do the training. These Druids make Balseraph Harlequin-Druids look like magical chumps.

Disciple Liches
Since Govannon can train Death sphere and Summon Skeleton is incredibly useful (especially with huge numbers of Death I slots for skeletons), it's a very common strategy to chase Death mana. Once you have a High Priest or Druid trained by Govannon up to Death III you can have them cast Lichedom to turn them into a Liche. They will lose some innate strength. However, they retain their former powers and open up the limited National Unit slots for more promoted disciple units.

Combat "Magi"
In my experience, Mages die horribly once the enemy sends out assassins. While not hugely more powerful against such things, priests are nonetheless a more durable spell platform. More importantly, they can immediately start buying Sphere II spells which is nice when you are replacing casualties during war. Of course, Amurites can often effectively produce Mages right out off the gate as well but the disciples are still tougher. Train Priests to send them out with combat stacks. Leave the Magi at home to buff cities and units and age into the Archmage slots.

Trained Priests may also be upgraded to Paladins and Eidelons. While you might not want to waste a promotion slot for one of these combat units on a spell, it might be worth it to have magi that can actually beat back an assassin. Firebows can provide plenty of fireballs on the offense, but having a Paladin that can drop Regeneration and Shadowwalk on the stack (along with the level 1 Haste that many units will be able to cast) can allow you to blitzkrieg the enemy territory without needing to stop for healing or to bombard cities.

Archmages Everywhere
By the time you add up Archmages, Druids, High Priests and Liches, Amurites have a massive 16 slots for Channeling III arcane spells. Admittedly, 4 are limited to the Govannon spheres, 4 to Govannon spheres plus Nature, and the Liches might be limited, based on the path chosen. However, the paths to choose from are pretty good and any limitation in path comes with the auxiliary powers of Tier 4 disciple units.

I'm sure the response here will be "yeah, but by the time you've got all that, you should be winning anyway." Well, maybe so. It's still fun to consider.

And, again, I really think the strength of it is via the Druid path where if you have the gold to do it, Priest/Druid/Liche upgrades can fill 8 national unit slots extremely quickly when you end up facing a late-game enemy who is also throwing a huge army into the fray.

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That's just my first think-through for the new edition and much of it is recycled from ideas from previous editions of FFH. However, with the changes to the magic system I thought it might be worth revisiting. I'd love to hear what others have come up with.

Also, one thing I'm not clear on is if Govannon can train allies' units. If so, that opens up a whole other set of strategies for vassals and such.

I think that perfectly fits the Amurites. Just a giant mage army coming to burn you alive (or turn you into undead minions )
Good ideas bro, I have to try this in my current Amurite game

Govannon can only train units owned by the same civ.


I am of the opinion that Disciples need to loose Channeling II and III in favor of Divine I and II promotions (combining Divine and Channeling II and Divine and Channeling III, receptively). There is no reason why disciples shouldn't be able to be trained like other units, but they shouldn't have such a special advantage.

I like it the way it is. It fits with the Amurite flavor its the only thing that really makes them unique.

Also, outside of direct combat (which casters really dont do anyhow), actual mages level much quicker now then Disciples, at least for either of the Amurite leaders.

Alright... so no claims I'm a complete moron yet.

I actually like the feel of this option for Amurites. It reminds me of old-school AD&D multiclassing. They don't have clerics, they have cleric-magic-users. There was even a class in an old Dragon magazine called the Paramander (I think) that was a Paladin that got magic user spells instead of cleric spells.

As noted, mages still have a very strong spot due to faster promotions. They're still the only way to build archmages.

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My next question is, are there other would-be Amurite pseudo-mages that I'm missing? Firebows and the Empyrean units get a sphere II ability, but they don't have Channeling II that would allow them to progress in spells. Are there any other units the Amurites can have that have Channeling II? Obviously, there is the occasional captured unit (my last Amurite game had a Cultist capturing a Ritualist) but that's not common enough to plan around.

Finally, are there other upgrade paths that can use similar kinds of techniques as the Govannon training for expanded arcane ability? The two I can think of are Balseraph Harlie-Druids with Chaos and Mind and Elohim Devouts that can pass long Channeling and Life when upgraded to priests (and from there to High Priests, Druids, Paladins and Eidelons), but that's it. Do others exist that I've missed?

Firebows get Channeling 2 & Fire 1 promotions (at least according to Xienwolf's manual), so they can become nice mages under Govannons tutelage. They don't gain any free XP, but they can be upgraded to crossbowmen, marksmen & arquebus and earn some in battle.

Archmage- or highpriest-heroes usually make very decent Liches for Amurites.

So Gibbon, Chalid, Hemmah (and others?) are really worth a little of Ganovans time. (The same if you can catch one of those...)
Very neat about those is that you can switch Religion easily after transformation and keep them (you "just" lose "their" special spells, they keep the rest of the powers.)
The archmage ones allso get all the free spheres you got the mana for. So it might be worth to delay their building somewhat before to snatch a nice free setup.
Yvain is no longer trainable since he turned into living wood i belive, so this one is out... (But he can resurect Ganovan allright so if you want to go that route he can deliver you 4 heroic Liches as well if you don't have the time / tech /nodes (which is rather unlikely the point were you can build him) for Life-Mana.)

Also Ganovan can turn himself into a Lich after some time (when the most important Training is done and you do consider to use him in another more "active role") and get resurected so basically as amurites most if not all of your Liches should perhaps be Heroes. Very in Line with the Civs flavor as well.

Also you whould't need Strength of Will researched for any of them. So an army of 4 heroic liches could be gained faster than even the grigori could set it up if you really singlemindedly aim for it.

And heroic twincasting Tier 3 casters with wonder do kick butt (they get Chaos 1 "for free" from Ganovan anyways. So not all that expensive to get Chaos 3. And they don't risk a bad mutation if they fire up a cast of mutate because they are no longer alive. But still well more or less. ). Rest assured. A little bit less than before the little nerf to wonder, but still.

Also mind on upgrade, that Liches do get all free Tier 1 spheres (sadly not Tier 2 and 3 it seems) you got the mana for if they don't have them allready. So a little bit of tinkering with the nodes might be in order before transformation. (But the first Tier 3 Caster is available at Deception usually so it shouldn't be to hard / late to tinker with the nodes in the first place.)


Oh and heroic Tier 3 casters with potency-promotion do level really really fast...



PS: I belive that liche is not what you mean but something funny in that context and rather unimpressive (might remember wrongly). Lich should do ok for a single one. (No offense ment, just mean to explain )

Hrmm gettin bored of the Elohim... I think the Amurites are up next for me The amurites were actually the first civ I ever played when I was learning the game.

On a partially side note, I really really hate the whole hero to lich + resurrect to clone the hero exploit.

I think that resurrection should destroy the lich if casted (or be unavaliable). I like the 1st option more like a way to get the hero back.

Also please comment on this:

And they don't risk a bad mutation if they fire up a cast of mutate because they are no longer alive.

Click to expand...

The problem is it wouldn't know which Lich to kill.


Undead units are not effected by Mutation. A Lich can safely cast in on a stack of cheap units (so you can easily get rid of the ones with bad promotions and keep/upgrade the new ones) without risking getting a negative promotion itself.

Well, then the code should be changed to allow "Govannon Lich"-type units (I mean they should retain their name; it could be tracked via "name" promotion).

That reminded me of a proposal I made a while back, when I had changed the prereq from Death III to the Staff of Souls and unitcombat_adept. I was thinking that you could add a lich-type unit as an unavailable UU for each arcane unit. Since they would be of the same unitcombat, they would still count against world and national limits. This would mean that heroes that cast lichdom would not be available for resurrection, and that casting lichdom would not get around the national unit limit on archmages. Liches would then gain other advantages, like Death Affinity.


You know, you could also just make the spell not convert the caster at all, but just give Undead (which would be made to change the units' graphics) and maybe some other advantages.

Deon said:

I think that resurrection should destroy the lich if casted (or be unavaliable). I like the 1st option more like a way to get the hero back.

Also please comment on this:

Click to expand...

If i understand you right, thats simple to explain.

If a mage casts mutate (chaos 2) he also mutates himself. Which can lead to rather unfavorable results. Won't happen to a lich casting mutate because he's not alive anymore. (which only effects Living units. But if you don't like that you better only do it after casting lichdom...)