Flesh Golems

For a long time, I have thought that Body Mana sucked. And as a result, I REALLY have missed out... seriously... even the rank 1 body spell (what name I have forgotten), is REALLY good!! Double speed for most melee units... wow.

So I continued on. And then, when I got to Body III, I made 2 flesh golems. 1 of them fought a war against the Sidar, and was on the same continent,
and this is it's story.

Firstly, I created a Mutation shrine. It was rather basic... 1 Wizard with Mutation, Fireball, and Enchantment I, on a hill, with a Ancient Forest. I had a hunter that had already been mutated (and was quite strong as well), and 1 un-mutated champion, 1 tile away.

If I got enraged, or crazed, I would send it to the desert, 2 tiles away, wait for it to become enraged, and then disband it. Then it would pop up, 1 tile off to the left as a barbarian, and then my hunter / champion combo would kill it (for free experiance)

As a result, I got some pretty trippy promotions. I killed ALOT of primitive units (mostly warriors, and 1 champion to pump up its power). Finally, I killed of a lizardman, who I don't think I could promote (and, quite honestly, I didn't want to). However, this lizardman was special, and gave the most promotions of anyone...



I just killed him for the combat V, and the Poisoned Blade promotions. So, with all that out of the way, here is my proud flesh golem!!




And it's stats:

15/17 unit, 4 (!) movement.

Blitz (Can attack multiple times per turn)
Cannablize (+10% heal after combat)
That rank 2 spell casting promotion (Reduces the chance that it will defend the stack, slightly)
City Raider I (+30% city attack)
Combat I-V (+100% strength). That was one of the things that I killed my best scout for
Cover I (+40% strength vs. Archery Units)
Empower I (+10% strength)
Golem (Racial promotion, which gives a slight healing penalty, and prevents it from getting promotions of it's own)
That spell that gives +1 movement. It wears of after the end of turn. I think it is called "Hasted" This is not counted for the final stats, as it wears off after end of turn.
Heroic Defence I (+1 defence)
Heroic Strength I (+1 attack)
Iron weapons (+2/+2 strength, slight weakness vs. lightning damage)
Light (-20% strength, +1 movement)
Resists Lightning (+50% defence vs. Lightning)
Marksman (Attacks weakest unit in the stack)
Mobility II (+2 movement)
Nether Blade (Equipment, gives +80% vs. Heroes, and +1 Death strength)
Poisoned Blade (+1 Poison Strength)
Rod of Winds (+1 Affinity for Air mana (I have 1))
That meteor rod (+1 Affinity for Fire mana (I have 1))
Shock I (+40% vs. melee)
Stoneskin (+1 defence, 3 first strikes, prevents the next 3 strikes of damage, wears off after combat. As it wears off, it is not counted in the final tally.)
Subdue Animal (+25% vs. Animal, converts animal units)
Woodsman I (+30% Forest / Jungle / Ancient Forest strength)

And I am STILL not finished... I still need to try and graft flying (+1 movement, and can move over impassable terrain), and Guardsman (Defends against enemy marksman strikes)

That would mean I could grab a tiny mage contingent, and just waltz around with my god-like mega Golem!

Has anyone else had simlar super-strong golems? Or am I the first to come across this method? Or is it an exploit of sorts??

OK,so it took a sizable hammer cost... but it was worth it. I would like to see you try and kill that unit... I think this is stronger than all other units, except Auric Ascended, I think...

But I am quick proud of the Mobility / Flight / Light / Blitz / Marksman combo. This guy (since he can't be effected by Hasted), can attack 5 times, each turn. And with it healing 10% after each attack, it could just keep on attacking, and attacking, and attacking, and ...

Oh, and it doesn't have the city weakness, like most assassins have That city weakness isn't attached to the marksman promotion (which surprised me!!)

Yeah, you are still far from the really cool munchkin. Some comments.
- Flying is not always good as it prevents you from using roads. Commando is much better.
- I don't see bronze weapon... Main exploit of FG is that it can use bronze, iron and mithril weapons simultaneously.
- No Strong promo - you have good chance to get if from mutation.
- Enchanted blade and arrow (you said you have enchantment mana).
- Complete nature's revolt and have heroic att/def II from any summoned tiger (as you are FoL)
- Have woodsman II from any fawn.
- Medic II and march from a priest is must have because golem itself has bad healing.
- Build shadow and have hidden nationality.
well... what else?

And finally, all xp earned by your FG is useless (until you switch to Order, have spirit guide and ready to kill your nice FG to give some XP to, let us say, captured Acheron).

Also the Golem would have Empower V if the archmage who summoned it had all the combat promotions correct?

Mailbox said:

Also the Golem would have Empower V if the archmage who summoned it had all the combat promotions correct?

Click to expand...

Is that how it works?
Hmm, might start upgrading combat on some of my mages after all

Wow, damn, I forgot about 1/2 this stuff... good post!

Flying is really easy to give to Flesh Golems and is an excellent choice; +1 move and no terrain penalties is excellent. And I'm pretty sure flying units can still use roads... Even if they can't, it's still worth it. Make sure you get the golem the Empower line from somewhere, it's an extra 50% strength. Too bad you aren't the Calabim; they make the best Flesh Golems ever thanks to sacrificial Vampires.

...Oh, GOD. Something I have to try now. If you make an uber flesh golem and then sacrifice a Vampire Lord to it, would it be able to cast Lichdom? Sure, it would lose it's huge strength, but... it would have all those crazy promotions and be able to cast spells as an archmage. Plus since it had no use for XP before, any XP it gained would be able to be spent immediately. *imagines a Lich with every weapon promotion, flaming arrows, poisoned blade, enchanted weapons, flying, etc.* Meep.

Can you lichify units that aren't alive? That doesn't seem right....

I don't think that you can lichify (is that a word?) non-living units anymore.

I am about to get bronze weapons from my mines, when my borders pop over my vassals within a few turns, but I didn't know you could get them SIMULTANIOUSLY. Thats pretty epic. I don't think I have mithril nearby, however...

And unfortunatly, the only guys who ever got the Strong promotion (there were two), were also defective... one was also weak, and another was enraged.

Commando would be ineffective, without commando back-up troops (IE. Wizards), and I am not 100% sure that arcane units can even get commando... even if it is, then it's probably a waste of 4 promotions...

Flying is useful for the additional movement (IE. Additional Strike with Blitz), and the fact that, in the unlikely scenario where my flesh golem gets into a spot of trouble, can jump onto the nearest mountain tile, and heal (or hop from peak to peak, back home )

I will have to add Enchanted blade and arrow soon... I could probably add a few City Garrison promotions with the lucky archer that is chosen too

I have a Treant that I was planning to graft, but you are right, a Fawn is a better choice (I have a prime candidate). That said, Woodsman II is of marginal use, especially since flying negates the double movement, and it isn't going to be doing a whole amount of defending in forests (or fighting in forests, for that matter)

And medic II is something I must try too... I have a couple of half-decent Priests. I might actually try and grab Command IV as well, however, first. (For 80% of converting living units!!)

But I tried adding some spell-casting promotions (Specifically, my Unique hero casted "Learn Dance of Blades / Haste / Blaze"). Unfortunatly, my Golem couldn't learn them properly, and got the light promotion, as well as the tier 2 spell casting ability... so I think it is rather hard to get your Golems to learn to cast spells

Some promotions will probably have neglible effect (For example, I don't think it is worth my effort to get a Combat V spellcaster, just for an additional +30% strength... although such a unit isn't totally outside my grasp)

But seriously, you can abuse Flesh Golems, SO MUCH with this mod... Its so much fun!!

But there is nothing better than a Blitz, City raider, marksman without any city strength penalties... IMO. Especially a 5 movement one!

You can get empower V from summoned tiger - not a big problem to get combat V priest. And +30% strength is not so few... If I remember correctly, recon city attack penalty is just the same 30%. Trent is virtually not so good as you will gain also fire weakness... but practically it is no much effect.

Didn't get about "commando back-up troops". Ability to use enemy roads means more tactical freedom and usually more attacks on enemy territory. But of cause with flying it has no much sense (only 0-1 first strikes).

And yep, better then blitz can be only Orthus axe.

P.S. About Mutation shrine... there are also Balseraphs with their freaks.

If you were playing FF, your golem would be able to learn spells just fine. In vanilla FfH, you can't cast first level spells unless you have Channeling I, which I think Flesh Golems are barred from getting. You should be able to learn higher level spells, though.

I'm confused (as usual). I have not sculpted the flesh for some time, so maybe there has been a change, but I don't get what you are doing. Where are these Mutated units coming from? And where are you getting all these promotions?

And in the screenshot the Lizardman is being added to the Flesh Golem, but it is not on the same plot.

That's pretty good. I still like my demi-god unit from sometime in .33. I wish I knew what version letter it was, so I could go back and load the save with it... Oh well.

Anyway, it was an immortal, that had over 1,500 experience. Meaning it had EVERY promotion it could get. It also had Orthus's axe, the Netherblade, the Scorched Staff, The Infernal Grimoire (from which it became demonic and gained some more promotions than normally available... I still had a promotion or 2 worth of experience left after everything). Oh, and whatever weapon it is Hyborem has.

I think the best thing about it is... is it's the Warrior I started the game with, who got insanely lucky and beat Orthus on his own at my capital at turn ... 76, or 87. I forget which.

I have a mage (or to be more specific, a wizard, a UU for my civ), which has the Chaos II spell: Mutation. Casting this causes all units that haven't already been mutated to be mutated. There are ALOT of promotions you can get from them, and you get a random number from 0 - 4 (ish) promotions.

You can get good promotions (Blitz, Commando (Apparently, I haven't got it yet), Strong (+1/+1 strength), etc. etc.), and bad ones. About 40% of my mutations are throw-aways, as they have either crazed (Small chance of flipping to a barb, disappears after combat), or enraged (Randomly grants the crazed promotion). Other ones that are annoying are weak (-1/-1 strength), and withered (Although, AFAIK, priests can heal that...)

The crazed / enraged throwaways are cast into the desert, and killed the next turn (after chucking a fireball at it).

And I am nearly finished! I grafted a hawk (Flying), and a High Priest (For Medic II, Command III, and City Garrison I) Now all I need is a Guardsman (as those Vampiric Assassins killed my Hero!! Curse them ).

That said, slightly off topic, you can't feast upon civilisations, unless you are Calabim!! I have a Vampiric Champion (I killed a Vampire with my Golem, and Command III gave me control of him...), but I couldn't use him to feast upon my captured cities!!

But I can see how Vampires are REALLY strong I could imagine feasting on my conquered lands... But I might give vampirism to my golem (If only for the +10% strength, and increased heal rate)

[Edit]@Caradoc: Also, I have 2 flesh golems. The one you see in the screenshot with the lizardman, is the one I am ignoring. The strong one, is in the (long) list of units... it is the one on the very far left of the units.

Also, I am loving Command III + Flesh golem. You attack a UU with some special ability (Like the Gregori Dragon Slayers), and then capture them, and graft that promotion onto that unit.

I don't even think my hunk of pure power NEEDS any magical support (but it might, for tough places)... The list of promotions it has takes up 6 lines, from memory!! I might get City Raider III (Who, incedentally, also has resists fire!), and then try and take out an entire continent by itself!! Flying was good... I can hide on peaks, and take out 3~5 units, without fear of retribution (and with a +40% heal rate in enemy lands... who needs to fear damage!? Now I just need march )

Sadly, this means that I won't be able to free Brigit... My other, non-golem strong guy is MILES too weak...

It is insane -.- It just steamrolls more and more...

(Finally, with that wonder that gives Immortality to all living units... if that unit dies, does it retain all promotions? If that is the case, I might graft immortality to my golem, incase it has some mistake )[/Edit]

digitCruncher said:

(Finally, with that wonder that gives Immortality to all living units... if that unit dies, does it retain all promotions? If that is the case, I might graft immortality to my golem, incase it has some mistake )[/Edit]

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Immortal units do retain their promotions, but the Immortality from that Ritual is a one-time use, I'm afraid. You may want to build some weak, non-mutated and cheap units before you build the Ritual so you can keep re-grafting Immortality.

Re-grafting...

Immortality...

Wow I never thought of that...

Maybe making such a versitile unit is a small problem, it can get crazy powerful...

How many fleash golems can you summon?, I summoned one but I'm now unable to summon any others (I waited several turns), I only have one spellcaster who can summon them though.
With Tigers I found out that I can only have 3 of them summoned at any given time.

Edit: Found my answer in the manual, what is weird is that I only have 2 priest of leaves but I can have 3 tigers

Tigers and flesh golems are permanent summons.

You can only have as much summons as spellcasters wich are able to summon it.

So, if you have one spellcaster with body 3, you can summon one flesh golem, if you have three spellcasters with body 3, you can have three flesh golems and so on.

(And if you only have three priest/ highpriest of leaves you can only have three tigers, but if you build more priests, you can have more tigers)

digitCruncher said:

About 40% of my mutations are throw-aways, as they have either crazed (Small chance of flipping to a barb, disappears after combat), or enraged (Randomly grants the crazed promotion).[/Edit]

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It's actually the other way around - crazed randomly gives/removes enraged. But anyway, it can be a very good promotion. If you have law mana you can cast loyalty which is permanent and then your units will never turn barbs. So you'll end up with promtion that randomly gives you +1 movement and 20% strength.
Having loyalty also means you won't need to worry about Wrath event.

Thanks a lot for the answer someone67 XD