Aristrakh issues

[Icezera]

I've been playing the Aristrakh to get a feel for them and I'm not sure about this civ.

First, they spread wasteland which is cool. On the other hand, defilers can only be built on natural resources which are your only source of wood, leather, and seeds. And until they upgrade, they provide only 1 each. You'll be lucky to get many workable ones because of how resources are placed randomly. This dictates where you build your cities more than anything. You almost have to give up on building anything that requires wood or seeds which limits not only your cities but also mana generation which you absolutely need for summons because of your base undead units.

Their undead units are piss poor since they don't even get bonuses from tech. They aren't even stronger than comparable units of tech level to compensate. This means that until they get to late game with immortality-level tech, they have no units that scale.

The fact that they don't get exp is something I can work with since they are cheap and you have more of them, but they need to be more hordelike with cheaper costs and more unit support or let them get tech bonuses. As they are, aristrakh cities are forever stuck replacing units and falling behind in infrastructure. So we have a civ that relies on summoned units until late game but can't get many summons because their cities don't provide enough mana because they can't build those mana generating buildings.

Then we get to the Vampire Palace vs Necropolis choice, which isn't even a choice. Vampire Palace gives you access to 5-6 different end game units. The Necropolis gives you access to one and it isn't even good. The dracolich gets no tech bonuses, it's unique aura and traits cannot make up for 5-6 different units, and finally, blocks access to Nikephoros who has the same unique aura. Necropolis should not block construction of the vampire palace since you can only have 1.

Finally, this may have just been an issue for me, but I can't build the tomb lord. I researched the spell required for the tomb lord, and I still couldn't ever build it.

Aristrakh need fixes.

 

[esvath]

Re: Aristarkh
Definitely needs some rework, especially for boring early game. Keep on posting your suggestion here and we'll see what I can do to make them more interesting.

 

[Icezera]

Thanks esvath. Is there any way to check the tomb lord issue I came across?

Personally I am in favor of merging the Calabim and Aristrakh into one race and having the ritual that transforms calabim into aristrakh be available earlier in the game.

The reason being that calabim early game is rather boring because your only units until focused discipline are moroi and bloodpets + any religion or guild. The aristrakh early game is also boring. If we combine the two, it will be a more flavor ful civ that is all about raising undead supported by key vampire units in the early game while also eliminating the boring early game issues of calabim and the early game weakness of aristrakh. Then the ritual choice sometime in mid game which designates which path you are taking. This allows aristrakh to escape the crippling early game part while still having access to all their flavorful units and buildings in midgame and allows calabim to have an easier and more enjoyable transition into their late game. Aristrakh would have had a reasonable yield surplus built up which can jump start their transition into full aristrakh.

Also have one question. Can aristrakh even get archmages equivalents? The civpedia lists them as needing to be upgraded from earlier units but as we know, undead don't gain exp. I never got far enough to get archmages in aristrakh so I have no idea on this.

 

[esvath]

Is there any way to check the tomb lord issue I came across?

Did you have enough soul to build the Tomb Lord? I tried running an Aristarkh game and I can build them just fine.

 

[Ombatur]

Did you have enough soul to build the Tomb Lord? I tried running an Aristarkh game and I can build them just fine.

I had the same issue, when playing Aristarkh. I couldn't build tomb lords, even with the required techs and enough souls, unless i missed something. Maybe it's related to the leader you chose, when it works sometimes and sometimes not?

 

[esvath]

I can build Tomb Lord when I have the necessary spell research and soul in the vault using the latest build (5.2). Could you try that and see if the bug has been fixed?

Maybe try a clean installation of MoM, and cleaning your game cache first might help?

 

[Alexej]

Please where can I read more about Soul Vault/generation/consumption catalysts circle of despair/blood and generally tactics/guides ?

Found this so far its good: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?PHPSESSID=cd69fc7264ada853c78a6db9512fe218&topic=135889.0

After playing 370 turns I am convinced Aristrakh are boring and extremely struggling with defense of their land in EARLY game. Only units usable to actively defend cities are 3 Tomb Lords (2from warrior caste and one as Local Legend and of course Nofuos and thats it. Its bit better after Summon Skeleton Warrior but that I managed only on turn 430 and all my leveling units are melees no cavalry no disciple no recon nor caster, that really adds to increase boredom. I am afraid when I reach juicy units game will be allmost won :-/

After turn 840 and some cheating with guilds I am finally STRONG and maybe discovered why they are weak and boring in early game, suggested few changes to esvath via pm, we`ll see if that will help them.

 

[stillmind]

Greetings to everyone of the forum. I guess this is the best place to post any suggestions on Aristrakh. My idea is to make the undead path (Necropolis) of Aristrakh at least as playable as the vampire one:

(1) Awakened Defiler generates 1 Death Mana, which is made available by Restored Defiler, 50 turns after a Latent Defiler is built under City Governours (what else do you expect dark rituals to give you?). My only concern: could AI understand the Death Mana would be available at Restored Defiler, or it does not have the patience and just build nodes?
(2) Skeleton warriors/archers/horsemen/scouts have +1 affinity to Death Mana (they still get no xp, no +2 from techs). So it is possible to get rid of vampires and work with mere skeletons; even if vampires are preferred, the transition is much smoother in military power. Also, a late game showdown with Dracoliches is possible (maybe more tech prerequisites are needed for Dracoliches so it's really only available in late game).
(3) Tomb Lords remain the same, but cannot be built. Second tier skeleton warriors/archers/horsemen/scouts have 5% chance to become a tomb lord, third tier skeleton warriors/archers/horsemen/scouts have 10% chance so. This is to avoid a heavy reliance on Tomb Lords when available (why not? +2 affinity and access to xp make them better than anyone else), and reward a skeleton horde. Maybe there could be a high-level aura promotion for Tomb Lord to increase the chance of gaining Tomb Lords, and a high-level promotion to vastly increase aura target number based on a likely ratio between the lords and the horde.
(4) Mages and archmages can gain xp.
(5) Some tweaks in unit strengths.
(6) Some buildings giving outputs with Death Mana need to be modified to meet the number of Death Mana they have, e.g. Sacrificial Pit.

I made changes to my XML files (hope you don't mind, esvath!) based on (1)-(5) and tried the early game in giant map, normal speed, immortal setting, and it seems less painful thanks to Death Mana affinity of the undead army. Actually I haven't try chance-generated Tomb Lords, intelligent Mages, powerful Dracoliches nor AI performance yet. If anyone's interested to try mid/late game performance or build on these ideas, I could upload my related XML files. Thanks!

 

[Vital Brasil]

I don't play Aristrakh because they are not my cup of tea, but everytime i had an Aristrakh civ in my games i got really annoyed because i couldn't find a way to revert the wastlands into the original terrains. So i always destroy them as fast as possible when they are my neighours (which, by coincidence happens all the fudging time).

So i would like to ask, am i missing something or its impossible to make wastelands tiles useful again, after you conquer/destroy them ?

It would be nice if wastlands tiles reverted back to original terrains with the time, just like hostile terraform enchantments do.