Khazad are tough to play

Wow, the KHazad is totally crippled. I can't find one redeeming quality.

No mages, no hunters, no longbows, no horsearchers? And to keep your people happy, you need a ridiculous amount of gold on hand if you have a civ of any significant size. Kind of make domination a PITA.

I understand the benefits of an active defense (rather than depending on longbows), but when you've got your stack on the offensive, you need to feel confident that your home cities have *some* protection from a counterattack. Once your stack is deep into enemy territory, there's no coming back to defend. Am I just suppose to garrison cities with champions?

Not to mention that lugging around those siege weapons with no Raider attribute is SLLLOOOOWWWW. And haste doesn't work on siege weapons. I was really starting to enjoy stacks of fireball mages w/ haste and everyone promoted with Mobility.

And the world spell just gives more gold and less food. What's the point?

Melee units are the best, so who cares?

You should always pick Kandros Fir. Financial alone makes him better. Go Aristocracy/Agrarianism as its the best fit for a Financial leader who will have less cities than others. Get Kilmorph early and build your Temples, Markets and anything that gives you hard gold/raises max population. Religion civic gives good happiness. Don't let your Dwarvern Vault give worse than +1 Unhappiness. This may cause you to put hammers into axemen as a production flywheel, so be sure to raid your neighbours to avoid too much standing military costs.

In the middle of the game you need to do a few odd things to make you stand out. First is the timing of the Worldspell. I like to use it as my 3 core cities hit their 4th/3rd culture expansions, assuming they bring a lot of hills in my influence. To contribute to motherlode mines don't need to be in the fat cross. Dwarvern workers are 20% faster so its no bother at all to mine all the extra hills.

Turn off the Science for a while. The hammer bonus from an Overflowing vault is too good to pass up. If you're having trouble rationalising it, ask yourself if you would pay a similar beaker cost for a technology that would get you the same results. Consumption and Money Changers often useful about this time.

Guild of Hammers is a good fit for Khazad. Dwarvern Forges are expensive. This is one worth spamming Soldiers of Kilmorph to transfer production with. If you've built the Heroic Epic already you should have stockpiled a few just as you're finishing Engineering.

Bambur and Arthendain aren't actually that good. Once you've got Stonewardens and temples give consideration to switching away from RoK. You'll probably be late to the religion party, so you may have to make do with whatevers left. Chalid is a good reason to go Empyrean. Ashen Veil somewhat fits as Sacrifice the Weak lets you have bigger populations in your fewer cities. If you can steal the Infernal Grimoire to give you Mithril Working or other Tier 4 its a good choice.
A personal favorite of mine is Council of Esus. Gibbon Goetia is a good complement to your magic deficient units, I'll frequently just load him up with lots of mid level spells noone else can cast. Dwarvern Shadows cause collateral damage and are an early Tier 4 unit. Sneak Attacks let you haul your siege equipment up to everyones doorstep before attacking. Cheap Gambling Houses are an excellent source of happiness. It keeps you neutral, and gives eight Str13 National Units with Warhorses tech.

A big consideration with religions is how it changes your alignment as Khazad should think carefully about which Tier 4 units they're going for. Dwarvern Druids are a reason to go up the Recon line of techs on their own, being one of the best units in the game. That a small diversion gives you the excellent Beastmasters is a bonus.

Regarding military, if you don't have twice the number of fodder units than anyone else then you're doing it wrong.

I still don't see the particular advantage of the Khazad here. Seems like everything you mention is sort of a work around for the handicaps. And would work just as well for ANY civ. Khazad offensive stacks are STILL painfully slow. Even if you can sneak up to their cities, you still have that long slog from city to city, especially since siege weapons can't bombard and move in the same turn (I hate this!). This means you have to keep some units behind to defend the siege weapons after taking a city. Not to mention that trebucets are particularly vulnerable to assassins, especially after they've been weakened trying trying to soften up a stack.. I lost every single one of my trebs very quickly into my first major offensive. I probably should have waited another 10 turns for cannons, but I got bored.

And domination is still a problem because every city you take increases the amount you need to keep in your vault.

I guess I'm just so used to Fire II/Extension II mages bombarding the next city without even having to move from teh city just taken. Even without the Raiders trait, offensives are so much faster with just about any other civ.

I also like to use hunters for long range scouting and keeping an eye on rivals. Why don't Khazad have hunters? Why have hawks without the hunters?

Pardon me, I wasn't thinking clearly. I was just saying what I like to do with the Khazad, rather than why they are good.

There is a very easy answer to this. Overflowing Dwarvern vault is +40% hammers. Dwarvern Forge with Copper and Iron is +40% hammers.

Does that help?

Edit: I wouldn't bother with Domination. By the time you're in Tier 4 you should be in the Great March of Slaughter where you can probably raze every city in the world faster than waiting the 12 turns of disorder and 30 turns of building Culture.

I'm new to playing FFH and have only played the Khazad afew times. Unfortunately I played them like a Civ4 nation, unlike Senethro's informative post above.
With Khazad, I immediately dropped the science slider to 80%, but still REX'ed to land grab and block off rivals. I collasped my economy down to 30-40% science and then consolidated and built my breadbasket up. I don't let the Vault go below 'low'. Everything recovers and the science and the gold quickly build up. I suppose the extent of the land grab is entirely dependent on terrain features.
I find their potential hammer output is totally unmatched. Their work-rate and affinity for hill's is very handy. Their Druids and Shadows easily make up for what they lose. After I established my springboard, the Khazad just took off and grind the slower spreading civ's down with their pure hammer spamming. I'm only playing Monarchy level though, while I learn...

I will try Senethro's tactic of not REX'ing and building up the dosh early to see if the Vault hammer bonus gives me a faster springboard effect from the critical start of the game!

Razing the cities isn't the problem. Getting the siege weapons there (and protecting them along the way) in a reasonable amount of time is the problem. I guess that's my biggest complaint. +80% hammers doesn't do me much good mid to late game... by which time I should hope to already have my killer stacks on the move. I can't be waiting around for reinforcements to make their way across the map.

Maybe it isn't Khazad that I don't like. It is just siege weapons. Something I never realized until I was forced to use mages because a civ I was playing couldn't build workshops.

I still REX because I'm a compulsive REXer, I just stop one or two cities earlier. Try thinking in terms of making the very best cities possible. Whereas with other civs I'll try to fit as many cities as possible into the grassland/plains I have available, with the Khazad I'll try to place cities that have as many resources in their fat cross as possible. Its inefficient in terms of land usage until your cities are at 20 population, but makes it easier to get that 500/city.

Edit: You don't have to siege everything to 0% defense then collateral with the siege. Tier 4 units should be able to kill longbowmen without too much trouble. Dwarvern Druids have Crush spell and Dwarvern Shadows cause collateral damage. Either of those should be enough to turn the odds in your favour.

One odd thing about FFH is the importance of XP. Since units gain XP so fast there is an argument to be made that Level 2 units should be sent in if the fight is 60% or better. If they win they'll gain enough XP that they'll go to level 4, which can be a further +40% strength or +70%, depending on how you promote them.

If you only attack at 99% or better your XP will dribble in in 1s and 2s. Its better to spend average units to make great units. Once enough XP has been gathered you won't need to siege.

"Maybe it isn't Khazad that I don't like. It is just siege weapons."
* March
* Guardsman
* Repair!!

The Khazad rule. Kandros is the man.

Senethro said:

Edit: You don't have to siege everything to 0% defense then collateral with the siege. Tier 4 units should be able to kill longbowmen without too much trouble. Dwarvern Druids have Crush spell and Dwarvern Shadows cause collateral damage. Either of those should be enough to turn the odds in your favour.

One odd thing about FFH is the importance of XP. Since units gain XP so fast there is an argument to be made that Level 2 units should be sent in if the fight is 60% or better. If they win they'll gain enough XP that they'll go to level 4, which can be a further +40% strength or +70%, depending on how you promote them.

If you only attack at 99% or better your XP will dribble in in 1s and 2s. Its better to spend average units to make great units. Once enough XP has been gathered you won't need to siege.

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QFT. I personally only build siege engines as pro-active defence units, never on the offence. Early-mid game, just get some high-exp units and you're set. Late game, the khazad have so much additional collateral damage UU's, you don't need their trebuchets or dwarven cannons. Only exeption here is a naval landing party, since it negates any movement difficulties.

The true benefits of the Khazad to exploit are:
Kandros's traits
Movement bonus through hills
Dwarven Vault
Dwarven Smithies (through guild of hammers)
Dwarven Druids
Myconids

The noob-trappish unique features to ignore are:
Siege replacements
World spell

With aggressive, extra happiness from starting gold + turning off research for a few turns for a better vault, and a movement bonus to early melee units through hills, the Khazad are about the best civ to win a war with before siege, mages, and such even enter the picture. The shots of gold you get from capturing cities keep your vaults in good shape in the short run, and rushing either city states or aristocracy keeps your economy strong.

Do all this, and you don't have much reason to even attack during the midgame. Just expand into the cleared out land, build up a decent army, tech to commune with nature for the druids (pretty short road with financial + your early conquests + vault bonuses), and go on a rampage once you have 4 of them out.

In short, the Khazad don't like missing out on mages, but what mages do for most civs, aggressive + hill movement + a strong economy does before that point. Lategame, they have something much better than archmages.

Oh, as for religion I like Octopus Overlords for them. Aggressive + OO's upgraded melee line is a good synergy, you can get a super-archmage with it, and if you insist on fighting in the midgame, cultists will somewhat help fill the void left by not having mages. (Their spells are great, but can only be cast on the right terrain, etc.)

Its probably also worth pointing out that Ingenious is a lot of fun. I've managed to bait attacks in multiplayer through sitting warriors in border cities who can be upgraded to axemen. Don't Khazad have some kind of unique city defense bonus? Its fun to watch stacks implode into your cities.

They get +20% defense in all cites, yeah. Useless when everyone has the tools to bombard it all away, but it can be pretty sweet early on.

Senethro said:

I still REX because I'm a compulsive REXer, I just stop one or two cities earlier.

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Sweet, I'm a compulsive REX'er too! Gobble up the choicest spots first, back fill at leisure. Whew! I'm not playing them completely backwards then...

Senethro said:

One odd thing about FFH is the importance of XP. Since units gain XP so fast there is an argument to be made that Level 2 units should be sent in if the fight is 60% or better. If they win they'll gain enough XP that they'll go to level 4, which can be a further +40% strength or +70%, depending on how you promote them.

If you only attack at 99% or better your XP will dribble in in 1s and 2s. Its better to spend average units to make great units. Once enough XP has been gathered you won't need to siege.

Click to expand...

Wow, I did not see that in the FFH manual! I had a problem with an open border agreement allowing the Clan of Embers to have afew Goblins loiter around my cities, who would immediately move into a city that just built a Privateer and instantly kill it. They must have been XP'ing off the scale!!!

Yep, its all about the hammers. You could be easily churning out a champion/1-2 turns in your major cities with high vaults and the dwarven forge.

Early on you could simply overpower defenders with overwhelming numbers due to your production rate. And assuming you went RoK, you could always complete the Mines if you find yourself lacking iron.
Trebs are awesome collateral damagers early on, being 6 compared to the usual 4 cats.

Later on, if you value unit speeds more, you could just send huge stacks of iron champions to suicide on tough defenders, then using your higher promoted units to "clean up".
As mentioned in previous posts, the Khazad has access to awesome dwarven UUs -- the Druid and the Shadow.
Druids get crush--highly mobile siege units which pass thru terrain!
Shadows do collateral damage, so you could just suicide a couple of champions on the defending stack to create weakened units, then mop up with shadows to collateral the rest. (Shadows only need Esus in your city to build, doesnt need you to follow it)

crashing boats aren't that great exp gains as far as i know. Taking down tough defenders (expecially heroes) however is. In my current OCC game i've got a few shadow riders which can take down 4 arquebusiers (sp, the T4 musketmen) per turn, healing only once every 2-3 turns. Their exp is shooting through the roof!

Jet said:

"Maybe it isn't Khazad that I don't like. It is just siege weapons."
* March
* Guardsman
* Repair!!

The Khazad rule. Kandros is the man.

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Siege weapons are still slow as molasses. I refuse to use them for offensive stacks for that very reason. NOt only are they slow, but they can't move after bombarding. Which is a a double whammy. It means you have to split your stack between defending the newly taken city and defending your siege weapons.

Compared to a stack of fireballing mages... well, there's just no comparison, really. The ability to do damage to an enemy stack from 4 tiles away is just too awesome. A lot of times when invading you don't even have to take them out of the city you've just taken. You can reduce the defenses of the next city to 0% before your stack even gets there.

You shouldn't compare catapults to mages. Catapults are often used much earlier.

I'm forced to compare them when, in mid-game, I have no good alternative to mages. Seems like Khazad are really weak mid-game. The really good UU's don't come until much later. And none of them really replace a group of 5 or more fireballing mages.

Chalid, Gibbon Goeta, Ashen Veil priests.

thats true, midgame many other civs are stronger than Khazad. But I think that's only fair given all the advantages they have early and late game. You could try to capture an enemy mage, though the AI often don't use them. Mages aren't that strong though. It only takes a few assasins and they are gone.