Hybo - More Fun the Second Time Around

[Yashkaf]

Seeing as we have a long holiday weekend in Israel, I've decided to take a break from my usual pastimes and apply my mental faculties towards bringing about the end of the world. I was just going to summon Hybo the red-faced toad-licker next turn when I've decided to read some literature concerning the civilization of infernal disposition. (Said literature not to be confused with the Infernal Grimoire, which I read only on Wednesdays). Leafing (clicking) through Xienwolf's wonderful manual I came across the following piece of info:

•Infernal Civilization loses all Leader Traits except Fallow upon Death of Hyborem.

How horrible, I mused, to lay bereft of all that makes your civ what it is, leaving it without identity and special powers, at the mercy of those pesky Bannor bandits on my border. And then I suddenly thought, is it really so bad?

The Infernals have 3 traits besides "fallow" that they lose when Hybo kicks it the first time:

The Good - Summoner. True, not having to renew those wraiths and spectres every turn is nice, but how good is it really? It doesn't make your summons thrice as strong, and you don't have to send them that far afield because your mages will probably traveling with the main army anyway. The Infernals have enough cool military units not to rely exclusively on mages for war, and you don't even get death mana from your palace like the Sheaim do for those extra strong wraiths. It's cute, but if you're summoning mostly fireballs it's quite expendable.

The Bad - Barbarian. In the game of civilization I friggin hate being a barbarian. There, I said it. The bad news: your research sucks. The worse news: you don't get to fight those yummy barbs for free XP and most importantly: free cities. With Hybo your first order of bussiness is usually to rush your nearest evil neighbor, assuming you spawned early enough (if you weren't, you're toast anyway). How annoying is it to have a barb city with two warriors defending hogging up an iron resource in the middle of your new, evil empire. The really bad news: you can fight the orcs but guess what - your research still sucks.

The Ugly - Expansive. I just don't get it. I really don't. You get free health that is meaningless for demonic citizens. You get faster granaries that you can't build. You get free compassion civics only you're sacrificing the weak for no cost at all anyways. Giving Hybo expansive seems like a strange joke to me.

To put an end to this horrible rambling post - are any synergies with the Infernals' traits that I'm stupidly missing? Or is it better to let Hybo die once (knocking out that pesky archer in the hill-top city), embrace your quicker research and keep having fun?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

No, the traits are pretty much all bad. I usually give them a lot of extra traits, like Aggressive, Arcane, Charismatic, Raiders, Ingenuity, and Spiritual.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

actually hyborem lost expansive and gained spiritual in 0.33.

but yeah, I hate the barbarian trait for exactly the same reasons you've said. barbs are ALWAYS my public enemy number one. that's why I love Mahala, barbarian civ without barbarian trait = lots of fun

 

[Yashkaf]

I've just noticed they became spiritual. I think it still might be worth to kill Hybo off once. Three more things:

1. If I select him and hit "delete", will Hybo die? Can I use this to teleport immortals to my capital?

2. Going back to the summoner trait, what does it actually give you? It seems a bit underpowered from here.

3. Congrats on 1000 posts, Gekko.

 

[orangelex44]

I think the traits are connected with Hyborum being on the map, not just killed. I think.

Summoner gives temporary summons two extra turns of life (three, instead of one) - effectively tripling the usefulness of summons as spells.

As for killing Hybo, in theory you can disband any unit. I'm not sure if immortal units still are respawned if they are removed this way, though.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

1001. wow, I hadn't even noticed. happy birthday to me

 

[Zechnophobe]

I've just noticed they became spiritual. I think it still might be worth to kill Hybo off once. Three more things:

1. If I select him and hit "delete", will Hybo die? Can I use this to teleport immortals to my capital?

2. Going back to the summoner trait, what does it actually give you? It seems a bit underpowered from here.

3. Congrats on 1000 posts, Gekko.

You get negate the -10% science... at the expense of an extremely powerful Demon Hero? Why on earth would you do that? Building temples of the Veil is always worth it for him, and having Ritualists that move 2 without any XP is also pretty nice. And yeah, summoner occasionally matters... sometimes.

I really think this is a bad bad BAD idea.

 

[xienwolf]

1. If I select him and hit "delete", will Hybo die? Can I use this to teleport immortals to my capital?

Yes, deleting an immortal unit will send it to your capital for "free"

 

[MagisterCultuum]

In my version he wouldn't have barbarian (but would still start at peace with the barbarians) or Summoner (the trait is gone, but duration is extended by each Dimensional sphere promotion, and his palace was changed to entropy/fire/dimensional instead of entropy/fire/iron). There will be AV-only rituals that let you get peace with the barbs back after declaring war on them. Barbs won't turn on you for stupid score reasons anymore, but for making too many peace treaties with civilized nations

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Remember, unless you really rush to summon him, or play with a bit empty maps, barbarian is not a trait that prevents the infernals from leveling up on warriors, rather it prevents you from having to kill the 4 horsemen. When they enter the game, follow after them and finish what they start!
The the benefit of summoner is not entirely the longer range, certainly not reduced micromanagement--it is being able to attack with 3x as many on one turn. Makes city seiges a lot quicker when the defender doesn't get a chance to heal between fire elemental attacks.

 

[xienwolf]

Aye, if you wait to summon anything until you arrive at your target, you are wasting Summoner. The point is to get all of your summons up and running while enroute to help protect the stack against pre-emptive attacks, and to have 3 chances to knock their biggest, best fortified defender off his arse instead of only 1.

 

[Fafnir13]

Summoner really doesn't get the love it deserves sometimes. I've certainly abused the heck out of it to gain really, really nasty armies of specters that virtually nothing in the game can stand up too. I don't even want to mention the evilness you can get when you do this with Keelyn and her puppets.
But, as it was also mentioned, you would also be losing out on a very nice demon hero that can virtually win all your wars for you (early on). A recent game of mine where I switched to the good borem had me stuck with very little room between the Svartalfar and Malakim. About ten turns later, five of the Svartalfar cities were in ruins, their strongest military units crushed, and a nice place for Dis all set up. The champions certainly helped, but the rampaging demon was the real head of that spear. I couldn't live without him in an Infernal game.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I got a question about the Infernals spawning on the map, sorry for hijacking: what is gonna happen if the map is already filled with cultural borders when the infernals are supposed to spawn? I'm asking this could I'd love to raise the amount of civs on the map, but I'm afraid it's gonna be very very bad for Infernals, and for barbs and animals as well.

 

[Fafnir13]

There's usually some strip of narrow land the Infernals can spawn on in between cultures, though Dis may never get founded when that happens. I'm not sure what would happen if there's no non-cultured area...

 

[BillSeurer]

I had that happen in a recent game. Hyborem spawned on a tiny strip of tundra surrounded by hills and mountains and ice. I rushed some units into the surrounding hills and after he turned nasty he expended his units on my well dug in ones and then I just moved in around him and let him rage. I did goof up the eventual attack on him and didn't kill the hero unit himself, though. And then I was stuck until I got units that could attack something with fear.

 

[Fafnir13]

A good horde of skellies did the trick for me last game. Kind of annoying as I had a good horde of high level vampires and a vampiric Valin. Bunch of fricking pansies...

 

[Yashkaf]

I didn't know summoner allows you to keep yesterday's summon when creating a new one, that definitely makes more sense now. Also, the first time Hybo dies he respawns back at Dis, and you just lose all the traits. He isn't true immortal though, the second time he's whacked it's for good, and he can't even regain his mojo like Losha.

Teleporting immortals at will seems a bit of an exploit. On huge maps with lots of civs fighting simultaneously it can be incredibly useful to rush a palace at some corner of your empire and the next turn having 4 immortals suddenly appear there. In my last ultra-game (26 civs, huge) all my immortals had around 200 xp and all the promotions you could imagine. I didn't think of teleporting them because I couldn't imagine how to get any of them killed (CR3, C5, D4, S2 ...) against an enemy that was already being mopped up by puny war chariots and the like.

 

[orangelex44]

If you have that kind of production capacity/money stashed away, you've won already.

 

[Zechnophobe]

If You have immortals Yashkaf, you could have also gotten the Nexus, which would allow you to teleport around almost at will too.

 

[Fafnir13]

Also, the first time Hybo dies he respawns back at Dis, and you just lose all the traits.

Er, are you sure about losing the traits on his first death? I'm fairly certain it has to be the second death. Why, after all, would you lose the traits if he's still there?