Newbie questions about armageddon and such

[WarKirby]

I'm a few hours into my first game as an evil civ, chose Calabim. I've just founded Ashen Veil, and converting to it seemed like a good idea at the time. But after all my farms and villages turned red, I'm starting to have some second thoughts.

My main concern, is that this religion seems to have so many ways of increasing the armageddon counter. Hell, I already incresed it by 5 building Stigmata on the Unborn. And I can't see any benefits to increasing this. As far as I understand from the encyclopaedia, it causes hell terrain to spawn everywhere and makes land useless. Why would anyone want that? What benefit could there be to making it happen?

I like the looks of the nice research bonuses, but increasing the armageddon counter has me worried. Is ashen veil a good choice for an evil civ? I want to rule the world, not destroy it...

[Guale]

A high AC is only good for Shiem and Infernals for the most part. Shiem's planar gates spawn units more frequently the higher the AC is and the Infernal units get a bonus to attack and defense on hell terrain. It is also somewhat benificial for barb trait civs who still have peace with barbs once the horsemen are summoned since they are barbarians.

[WarKirby]

Does this mean Ashen Veil is a bad choice? Is it feasible to have without using the AC raising things like building heroes ? Is it worth it, instead of say, Octopus Overlords ?

[Annex]

Since you have the Ashen Veil holy city, and have built the stigmata on the unborn (which can be built only in the holy city, I dont know why you said you built five of them) then yes, it is a good idea to keep using it. As the ashen veil, you can build two heros (if you get to them before other ashen veil civs) as well as the meshabber of dis (with enough turns and a high enough Armageddon counter.) Also, if you have the stigmata, you get one research for every av city there is in the world. Putting the crown of akarien (sp?) in that city will give you a huge research boost. Each unit you make in the city that has the stigmata gives that unit a stigmata promotion, which gives that unit strength equal to half the Armageddon counter. Having ashen veil as a religion also gives you the ability to research infernal pact, which lets you build the quite powerful beast of agares units, and allows you to build the infernal grimoire (if you beat the other av civs to it) which gives you a free technology.

There are other benefits to it as well, along with some drawbacks.

[Blakmane]

The Ashen veil gives the most advantages for a religion, but also has the most drawbacks. It can be great for the calabim because the civic- sacrifice the weak - allows you to grow mega-cities for slave production and vampire feasting. Their priests have access to the ring of flames spell, which is arguably the most powerful standard priest spell.

If you research the infernal pact, hyborem will spawn in the world and you have the option of taking control of him. The infernals gain many advantages from increased armageddon counter.

[DemonMaster]

You should also adopt "Sacrifice the Weak" civic, if the hell terrain has come to your lands, it makes it a little bit easier to live there.

If you are AV (and thus can adopt Sacrifice the Weak) then you have an easier time living on such lands than other civs that do not have that civic (because they aren't AV) and hell terrain eventually comes (depending on AC) to all evil lands and neutral lands.

I do not usually go with AV unless I am Sheaim (Sp?), but one of my recent games was with the Amurites and it just happen to be one of those AV games. Strategy then became to increase AC so more than me will suffer, but not spill it over to high (Apocalypse).

[zup]

If you disable hell terrain or enforce compact, you get all the benefits of AV and none of the drawbacks. Sure Horsemen (equipment delivery boys) and Avatar will spawn, and Armageddon will hit (hurts AI way more) but I hardly consider it a disadvantage. Also, Hyborem is probably the easiest leader to get permanent alliance with, without having to adopt some silly state religion. (FoL + no elf = wtf)

[lordrune]

Originally Posted by zup

If you disable hell terrain or enforce compact, you get all the benefits of AV and none of the drawbacks. Sure Horsemen (equipment delivery boys) and Avatar will spawn, and Armageddon will hit (hurts AI way more) but I hardly consider it a disadvantage. Also, Hyborem is probably the easiest leader to get permanent alliance with, without having to adopt some silly state religion. (FoL + no elf = wtf)

I thought about disabling hell terrain once, but I don't in principle like making changes that disrupt game balance. Sacrifice the Weak is pure awesome, in an evil kind of way, and there is no other civic that has its power. That alone more than makes up for every disadvantage that Ashen Veil brings. The heroes are pretty good, and the introduction of Hyborem brings an interesting dimension to any game - although I've never played a successful game as Hyborem - by the time I bring him in to the world, the civ I did it with is almost always a powerhouse, and I'm not comfortable with playing a game from that far behind, when my cities can't even grow normally.

[[to_xp]Gekko]

keep in mind that's entirely possible to be evil AV and have no hell terrain. you just need Life Mana.

[cIV_khanh93]

Originally Posted by lordrune

I thought about disabling hell terrain once, but I don't in principle like making changes that disrupt game balance. Sacrifice the Weak is pure awesome, in an evil kind of way, and there is no other civic that has its power. That alone more than makes up for every disadvantage that Ashen Veil brings. The heroes are pretty good, and the introduction of Hyborem brings an interesting dimension to any game - although I've never played a successful game as Hyborem - by the time I bring him in to the world, the civ I did it with is almost always a powerhouse, and I'm not comfortable with playing a game from that far behind, when my cities can't even grow normally.

You could, of course, spread AV like mad before summoning Hyborem, then use some extra cash/techs from your old civ to start some wars with AV civs against each other (before Infernal Pact) to rack up some serious manes. Hybbie gets all the techs that you had when you summoned him, plus fallow and barbarian allows him to settle rapidly when needed.

You could also do the exploity thing and leave yourself with no way to avoid an invasion from an 11 strength hero, 2 champions, 2 longbows, and a demon adept all with mobility and iron weapons...

[Annex]

Originally Posted by [to_xp]Gekko

keep in mind that's entirely possible to be evil AV and have no hell terrain. you just need Life Mana.

But its a workout, and very annoying as you have to continuously micro

[Micky Onimusha]

I find AV to be a fun Religion, and I'd call it my most used. As others have stated, Sacrifice the Weak is a very awesome Civic. 1 Food per Pop lets you grow some really sizey cities, especially if you can keep up with the happy cap (or in the case of the Calabim, don't care since you're going to eat them). You also get +10% coin, and while losing out on some GPP hurts a little, I find the health bonus to not be a big deal.

As has also been mentioned, the Infernal Grimoire wonder can nab you a free tech. Usually around the time I build it I use it to pop one of those super-expensive techs (around the 8K beaker mark, like Pass Through the Ether), but even earlier you have plenty of pricey and useful techs that you can pick up for free out of it. Never really found myself using it as a worthwhile piece of equipment but you also have the option of that.

As mentioned earlier, AV Priests rock. Ring of Flames is awesome, provided you keep your units inside the stack of doom or well away from the flames. However, I can't say I've ever found their UU, Diseased Corpses, of any use (although I've seen others mention curing their disease and using them like Champions - without disease, 6 Str + Metal Proms at 90 Hammers is nice if you can handle the micromanagement of disease curing them).

As the others have said, they have two pretty good heroes. Rosier can go running around as a lone skirmisher quite comfortably. If you ever pick up Orthus' Axe, feel free to fork it over to him and let him rack up some easy kills as he picks off random weak folk (whenever I use Rosier I tend to get him Mob I+II and Commando and let him play like a lone Hippus raider). Can't say I've got around to using Madero all that much though but he looks pretty solid to me.

As for hell terrain... well, that all depends. I usually play Small Maps, so the AC is slightly skewed in my favour. I can imagine the AC being quite the pain on Large/Huge maps where you have more Civs to contend with. I usually find that I don't get to spread the Veil around all that much (especially compared to RoK, which I can have half the world worshipping easily through trade-routes alone), so that doesn't rack up the AC. Even if it does spread about, you could war with your own evil kind. Evil cities and AV cities getting raised brings the AC down, doesn't it? (I'm sure it does but someone correct me if I'm wrong)

Avoid the Prophecy of Ragnarok if you aren't the Sheaim, Infernal or a Barb-friendly civ, since that'll help the AC on its way up. I wouldn't vote against building the Stigmata on the Unborn though. Free beakers, free Entropy Mana and a little Stigmata promo for all the units born there is worth the 5 AC point trade off in my opinion.

If Hell terrain becomes a real problem, then I suppose you always have the option of switching religions. RoK (or Emp) will turn you neutral, which'll slow down Hell terrain from entering your borders (HT won't enter neutral lands until AC 75). A religion switch hurts a bit but so long as you haven't built your strategy too much around the civic/heroes, you can get by, provided you've got the religion firmly spread about to keep the pop happy. The Priests stay too, which is an added bonus and means you won't put too big a dent in your military.

All in all... is the AV worth it? In my mind, hell yes!

[Thunder_Gr]

As far as I know, only razing the AV holy city reduces the AV, not any evil city or city with AV.

[BlackArchon]

Every city with AV increases the AC by 1, and so destroying such a city lowers it by 1.

[Thunder_Gr]

Yes, but I think that you also get the AC increase for razing a city, so I do not think that it actually lowers the AC.

Completing purge the unfaithfull or casting inquisition is the best way to lower AC for having a city with AV.

[mahazel]

If you raze the city with AV you don`t have "+1 to AC from razing a city", only "-1 from razing a city with AV"

[lordrune]

Originally Posted by cIV_khanh93

You could also do the exploity thing and leave yourself with no way to avoid an invasion from an 11 strength hero, 2 champions, 2 longbows, and a demon adept all with mobility and iron weapons...

Yep, could sort of explain it away as a faction of the AV inner circle, in the madness of their pact with darkness, betraying their own country and people in their desire to bring destruction and terror upon the world