Initial thoughts and praises

[Traks]

Hi,
While I have played around 40 hours, I still consider myself beginner in this amazing mod. My usual settings are epic as ideal speed, and big map.

So far I have played with: Grigori, as manual said.
Disabled all other victories except culture and conquest, so AI would not get them.
I sucked at game and heroes at least helped to get to middle game. Game level was 3. Still, I did not understand how powerful heroes can be with proper planning. Dropped when almost everybody piled on me.

I played as elves, to try out religion.
First time I died again, still building too much

Third time. Managed to play to the end, when game got too boring and quit.
Explored all technologies, built all wonders in late game.
As I used continents map, after killing all enemies on my continent noticed AI is not good with ships. That's why mainly quit.
Oh, Fellowship of leave make your cities healthy but non-elves can't sustain any economy under this one. Having no siege engines is bad, but I got three dudes from pact that helped. Learned how magic works more or less, even if I had 1 mage for every 20 or so troops.
Exciting game, with breaking point of Bannor who made Rally and Crusade on me. Tough tough tough fight, with demgogues running amok. I even lost one nice city. But then I unleashed power of trees, crushed invaders and took 3 cities. Then it came down to slow attrition warfare, but still was fun. Other battles on continent were just mop-ups. Interestingly enough, one AI asked to be vassal even without fights, so he survived.

Tried with Sidari, put on raging barbarians. Died.

Now I started again with Sidari, wanted to see their feature. Level 4 difficulty.
Permanent alliances on, twice amount of events on as I am sucker for cool events.
Pangea map, to prevent AI from being bad.
Endless warfare, even with me making countless warriors. Sheelba (Twice speed of unit making) declared war on me because I put my last city very close to them. I can see much more aggressive AI behaviour overall. Anyway, it again was tough fight, and enemy stack of Doom was approaching important city when by event I got adept. Ahhhh! Such salvation! Got "enchant blades" and all my warriors got +20% attack. Else it would have been restart, I guess.

So great thanks to modmakers. Tremendous work, and even more enjoyable than vanilla. Thanks. Questions in next post

 

[Traks]

So:
1. Lvl3 spells get into game so rarely, that relying on them is not going to work.
That makes water most useless, as on lvl1 you can make deserts better place and put out forest fires, but nothing spectacular.
Fire and air rock even at lvl2. But Air rocks better, as fire resistance is much easier to get. Earth at low levels also seem kinda useless, when I am one on attack generally...

2. I never use any archers, are they any good? They seem so weak compared to other units. Except those fire archers that one nation gets of course. And archers don't benefit from Iron/Bronze.

3. How can I force enemy into capitulation? Could not find this option anywhere.
Or how to offer to become my vassal?

4. Some AI's declare war even when firendly? In one game my "friend" had +18 relation boost, but still backstabbed me instantly.

5. What is this farm civic that give -1 hammer?
Farms give no hammers at all, so that is "free" food.

6. Can anyone seen AI Bannor going out of "crusade" mode without killing enemy?
Or I am afraid will have to kill them in every game.

7. Achieving Blessed Altar victory seems crazy hard, can't imagine how you can achieve that in standard game.

8. In my last game there are fires appearing in random places. Very annoying. How to get rid of them and what is causing them?

9. What is "smoke" stuff at lvl1 fire? Seems totally useless.

 

[Jarrema]

I will answer some questions...

Ad 2. archers are great for builder-defensive players like me... especially, when You are playing with Ljosalfars. Erchers get bonuses in defense, and elven (Ljos) archers get +1 strenght if I remember correctly

Ad 5. When You have a farm on plains, the tile yield contains one hammer. Agrarian civic means, that on farmed plains You will get ZERO hammers. So, agrarian is not so good when You are surrounded by plains

Ad. 7. I believe that Altar is the easiest victory type (at least for me, but I am a builder and I do not like massive conquests). It has awesome synergies with disciple units, and You do not need so much to accomplish it (a few great prophets, + prefferably one great engineer). I'm generally monarch level player, but I managed to win Altar victory on deity

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

3. How can I force enemy into capitulation? Could not find this option anywhere.
Or how to offer to become my vassal?

4. Some AI's declare war even when firendly? In one game my "friend" had +18 relation boost, but still backstabbed me instantly.

8. In my last game there are fires appearing in random places. Very annoying. How to get rid of them and what is causing them?

9. What is "smoke" stuff at lvl1 fire? Seems totally useless.

3) beat them on the head and it will eventually happen. vassalization also works with friendly civs that are a lot weaker than you.

4) some leaders are backstabbers. the elven booby chick for example.

8) hellfires? they start to appear when the AC reaches a certain point, 80 or 90, can't remember for sure.

9) it will eventually develop into fire that wipes out forests. if you are warring against elves, it can be fun

 

[readercolin]

1. Apparently you haven't discovered specters yet... (death 2)
that being said, if you play on larger maps/etc. then archmages become more important

2. Archers are good city defenders. Note that regular archers start out at their strength, and cannot improve. However, longbowmen start out at 5/6, and can get bronze and iron. All archers can also get flaming arrows (+1 fire strength), and archers (and disciple units?) are the only units that can take the city defense promotions (+30% strength within city). For holding onto your cities, nothing is better than archers. For offense however they aren't all that great.

3. You need to research feudalism first

4. The AI decides to declare war, then builds up his army to attack. In that interval between deciding to declare war and attacking, any changes that you make to your relations are pointless.

5. Agrarianism is nice - +1 food for -1 hammer. As you said, its just +1 food - if you are on grassland. If you are on plains however, you loose the 1 hammer from plains, making it a trade of a hammer for a food. Similarly, using this with the elves under forests/ancient forests looses you the hammer from the forest.

6. Nope - they don't come out of crusade. That being said, if you're good friends with them before they get fanaticism, you may not have to wipe them out.

7. Altar victory is actually pretty easy. Beeline mysticism, build pagan temple, work priest. When first great prophet appears, decide which city you want the altar in, and build stage 1. Now you can work two priests, which gets you the next one faster. Add in a religious temple (empyrian and order are the best - they both allow 2 priests instead of 1 priest and 1 something else), and you can work 3-4. If you put the altar in a holy city, and you build the holy building, there is another 2 priest slots open (depending upon religion). So that is 5-6 priests you can work now. Alternatively, don't get many great people (as in, try for none if possible) until you can get theocracy, then run that and spam nothing but priests. It is only slow because of the number of techs that you need for it.

8. If the Armageddon count is at 90, its hellfires (gekko explained it above). If its just fire through the forests, it could be due to someone casting blaze (fire 1) or the dragon appearing and setting all the forests around them on fire.

9. Smoke has a chance every turn of turning into fire. A great way to get rid of jungle if you're a civ that starts with fire mana (beeline Knowledge of the Ether, build adept, cast fire till its gone). Note, spring (water 1) will put out both fire and smoke.

-Colin

 

[mcwill123]

Level one mages really can be pretty usefull. Enchanted blade, rust, blur are all good for combat. Spring and scorch are nice for converting many of the unusable tiles so your cities can use them.

 

[Traks]

1. Apparently you haven't discovered specters yet... (death 2)
that being said, if you play on larger maps/etc. then archmages become more important


Nah, Archmages are expensive toys. 4 of them can't cover whole map, so have to rely on simple mages. I also learned that you need quite many mages for killing. On other hand, they don't need Holy specialization as any unit can get +40vs undead or demons.

2. Archers are good city defenders. Note that regular archers start out at their strength, and cannot improve. However, longbowmen start out at 5/6, and can get bronze and iron. All archers can also get flaming arrows (+1 fire strength), and archers (and disciple units?) are the only units that can take the city defense promotions (+30% strength within city). For holding onto your cities, nothing is better than archers. For offense however they aren't all that great.

A-ha. So first archers are bad, and second generation are pretty god. Thanks.

3. You need to research feudalism first

Great, good to know. That was missing piece of puzzle. I thought that maybe you even need specific civic running for that, like in original.

4. The AI decides to declare war, then builds up his army to attack. In that interval between deciding to declare war and attacking, any changes that you make to your relations are pointless.

I kept being quite friendly to Bannor for centuries. Now they are on short "to die" list in other games.

5. Agrarianism is nice - +1 food for -1 hammer. As you said, its just +1 food - if you are on grassland. If you are on plains however, you loose the 1 hammer from plains, making it a trade of a hammer for a food. Similarly, using this with the elves under forests/ancient forests looses you the hammer from the forest.

Yea, thought so. So should watch out for plains.

6. Nope - they don't come out of crusade. That being said, if you're good friends with them before they get fanaticism, you may not have to wipe them out.

Already did, in long and bloody battle.

7. Altar victory is actually pretty easy. Beeline mysticism, build pagan temple, work priest. When first great prophet appears, decide which city you want the altar in, and build stage 1. Now you can work two priests, which gets you the next one faster. Add in a religious temple (empyrian and order are the best - they both allow 2 priests instead of 1 priest and 1 something else), and you can work 3-4. If you put the altar in a holy city, and you build the holy building, there is another 2 priest slots open (depending upon religion). So that is 5-6 priests you can work now. Alternatively, don't get many great people (as in, try for none if possible) until you can get theocracy, then run that and spam nothing but priests. It is only slow because of the number of techs that you need for it.

Mhmm. Will try Kuoritates next probably, and go for this victory. That means no other great people though.

8. If the Armageddon count is at 90, its hellfires (gekko explained it above). If its just fire through the forests, it could be due to someone casting blaze (fire 1) or the dragon appearing and setting all the forests around them on fire.

Armageddon is 5, only 3 evil civs out of 12, and 2 already declared war on me. So they are dead now. Calabim declared war on me 5 turns ago, but they are far away. Still, just matter of time for their uhm, death
Probably some dragon. But strangely this fire appear as pillar of flame, and every few turns it changes place. Not moving, but jumping to different place, usually in my territory as after killing two aggressive neighbours I have big empire, even if technically backward.

9. Smoke has a chance every turn of turning into fire. A great way to get rid of jungle if you're a civ that starts with fire mana (beeline Knowledge of the Ether, build adept, cast fire till its gone). Note, spring (water 1) will put out both fire and smoke.

Ah. I see, I see. Situational, but not bad. Thought that smoke would give cover against archers but nowhere in manual there was meaningful description.

Much thanks for long and through answers.

 

[Traks]

Level one mages really can be pretty usefull. Enchanted blade, rust, blur are all good for combat. Spring and scorch are nice for converting many of the unusable tiles so your cities can use them.

Any bad effects to using death/entropy mana? Like Armageddon counter increasing?
I mean, full entropy IS the end of world as we know

 

[Senethro]

Any bad effects to using death/entropy mana? Like Armageddon counter increasing?
I mean, full entropy IS the end of world as we know

Yes, a little bit, but not dangerously so. Good civs will have diplomacy penalty.

They're the best magic so its still worth it though.

 

[readercolin]

I wouldn't call regular archers bad. They can get flaming arrows if you get a caster with enchant 2, bringing them up to 4/6. In addition, getting +25% city defense and +25% hill defense, fortified in a city on top of a hill, they automatically have +100% defense, as opposed to an axman who would only have +50%. That being said, if you are generally offensive early on, you won't see much use for them.

On a different note, I think you underestimate the archmage. Here are a few tactics that you can use with them (note, some are civ specific).

nature 3. Can upgrade your terrain to grassland (useful for getting tundra to plains, and plains to grassland. Druids can also get this, possibly negating that benefit however). Even if you use genesis, this spell can still be useful.

Death 3. This allows two abilities, summon wraith (strength 6+3-4 death (these numbers may be wrong), +1 death affinity), and create lich (turns your caster into a lich - strength 5, +2 death, national unit limit of 4). Key note here - lich's aren't archmages, and so do not count against your national unit limit, allowing you to get 8 archmages. Another fun trick is that building the tower of necromancy gives all your undead units the strong promotion... including lich's (and IIRC, Pyre Zombies and Diseased corpses).

Air 3. Upon winning a round of combat, chance to create a lightning elemental (strength 3 or 5 unit, most of which is lightning damage, starts with blitz). Haven't used this one in a long time, but lightning elementals used to not have a limit to how long they stuck around, but if they do its still a free attack.

Earth 3. Summons earth elemental. This is the highest strength summon, and all its strength is purely physical (no resistances to it). The only thing stronger is a hopped up Arouralis (sp? Sun 3 summon). This works excellently with the lurchip (if they are neutral), as they can get 4 archmages, 4 lichs, and 4 dwarven druids, all of which can summon the earth elemental.

Water 3. Summon water elemental. This summon has the unique ability that if it dies, two new ones will appear with the weak promotion. However, if you have built the tower of elements, and the first one dies, you get two new ones with no promotion, which if they both die turn into a total of 4 more new ones with the weak promotion (thats a total of 7 attackers). If you have the summoner trait, you can double the number available in a turn, if balsferas, quadruple it. If balsferas with hemah (or any other hero), you can theoretically get up to 160 water elementals. Look here to see more on this.

Sun 3. Summon Arouialis. This is a strength 6 summon, that has +2 sun mana affinity. Note - pairs excelently if following the empyrian and have chalid

Ice 3. This is only available if you are the illians, or have legatum frigius. The spell is snowfall, and it does 40% damage, up to a max of 80% to every unit within 1 square of the caster, and also turns all the tiles to ice. Combine with Auric Acended (his can kill) for true epic pwnage. Note, this spell can also be cast by his high priests of winter.

Chaos 3. Wonder. If you like random stuff happening, this is the spell for you. Do note however that it IS completely random, so don't expect it to win the game for you. It is a fun spell though.

Twincast. Promotion only available to hero units, requires combat 5. Doubles the number of units summoned (only units that can get it are hemah, gibbon goeta, the amurite hero, and grigori hero's).

Teach spells. Available only to the amurite hero, it teaches all the level 1 spells this hero knows to units on the same tile. Then units with channeling 2/3 can take later spells. This allows the amurites to get 4 archmages, 4 liches, 4 druids, and 4 high priests, all who can cast level 3 spells.

Now, are these good enough that you can rely on just them? Nope. However, many of these spells can become your lategame citybusters, which allow your other units to be that much more effective.

-Colin

 

[Traks]

Thanks.
So far I mostly used excessive force.
Chaos goes for next game. As for this game, following things happened.
My SoD was happy bashing Calabim, I converted to Order, when Elohim declared cast world spell and declared war on me. They, holiest of all... after all I have done for good guys. Plus he dragged his vassal and one friend into war against me.
So I was forced into hard battle, and had to find allies. I finished researching Mercurian Gates and unleashed them in cheap 1-man city, using engineer and buying the rest. Soon after I lost one city but got peace. So no chaos/entropy mana in this game.
I wonder how much angels cost on support. But Basium is basically win-win, as he gave all palace mana to me and can't go around much using that crappy northpole city. And he is one more vote on Overcouncil.

I will give a shot for summons, as Luchirp (which soon after declared war on me) use golems and Earth elementals.
Lost and recaptured my city, when SoD arrived back from Calabims. Lost iron due to losing city to Elohim, which is not nice. But got 5 mages and am 15 turns away from Archmages. So summons are close

 

[Traks]

Situation update.
After Luichirp declared war on me, I took 2 their cities, razed 1 and they agreed to give me 2 techs and capitulate. Sweet.
5 turns after war ended, Kuriotates asked to be my vassals and I gladly took them.
I stripped Kurio and Lui of their mana, so I have life 2, earth 2 and some other at 2.
Calabim founded Veil, so that turned into autowar by Basium. Time to sanctify some wampires now, but overall game looks much better.
Discovered technology for Archmages and took 2 of them in SoD. One has Fire 3, other has Earth 3. Let's see how good those summons are. Added 5 mages, so it looks like: 10 warriors (from first war), 15 champions, 5 mages, 2 archmages, 2 adepts, 2 confessors, 2 paladins. Should be enough to roll them.

Similar SoD kept on border with elves, they look suspicious.
Got 3 shades from last war, they are on way back to capital to boost my economy nicely.

 

[saathei]

I wouldn't call regular archers bad. They can get flaming arrows if you get a caster with enchant 2, bringing them up to 4/6. In addition, getting +25% city defense and +25% hill defense, fortified in a city on top of a hill, they automatically have +100% defense, as opposed to an axman who would only have +50%. That being said, if you are generally offensive early on, you won't see much use for them.

On a different note, I think you underestimate the archmage. Here are a few tactics that you can use with them (note, some are civ specific).

nature 3. Can upgrade your terrain to grassland (useful for getting tundra to plains, and plains to grassland. Druids can also get this, possibly negating that benefit however). Even if you use genesis, this spell can still be useful.

Death 3. This allows two abilities, summon wraith (strength 6+3-4 death (these numbers may be wrong), +1 death affinity), and create lich (turns your caster into a lich - strength 5, +2 death, national unit limit of 4). Key note here - lich's aren't archmages, and so do not count against your national unit limit, allowing you to get 8 archmages. Another fun trick is that building the tower of necromancy gives all your undead units the strong promotion... including lich's (and IIRC, Pyre Zombies and Diseased corpses).

Air 3. Upon winning a round of combat, chance to create a lightning elemental (strength 3 or 5 unit, most of which is lightning damage, starts with blitz). Haven't used this one in a long time, but lightning elementals used to not have a limit to how long they stuck around, but if they do its still a free attack.

Earth 3. Summons earth elemental. This is the highest strength summon, and all its strength is purely physical (no resistances to it). The only thing stronger is a hopped up Arouralis (sp? Sun 3 summon). This works excellently with the lurchip (if they are neutral), as they can get 4 archmages, 4 lichs, and 4 dwarven druids, all of which can summon the earth elemental.

Water 3. Summon water elemental. This summon has the unique ability that if it dies, two new ones will appear with the weak promotion. However, if you have built the tower of elements, and the first one dies, you get two new ones with no promotion, which if they both die turn into a total of 4 more new ones with the weak promotion (thats a total of 7 attackers). If you have the summoner trait, you can double the number available in a turn, if balsferas, quadruple it. If balsferas with hemah (or any other hero), you can theoretically get up to 160 water elementals. Look here to see more on this.

Sun 3. Summon Arouialis. This is a strength 6 summon, that has +2 sun mana affinity. Note - pairs excelently if following the empyrian and have chalid

Ice 3. This is only available if you are the illians, or have legatum frigius. The spell is snowfall, and it does 40% damage, up to a max of 80% to every unit within 1 square of the caster, and also turns all the tiles to ice. Combine with Auric Acended (his can kill) for true epic pwnage. Note, this spell can also be cast by his high priests of winter.

Chaos 3. Wonder. If you like random stuff happening, this is the spell for you. Do note however that it IS completely random, so don't expect it to win the game for you. It is a fun spell though.

Twincast. Promotion only available to hero units, requires combat 5. Doubles the number of units summoned (only units that can get it are hemah, gibbon goeta, the amurite hero, and grigori hero's).

Teach spells. Available only to the amurite hero, it teaches all the level 1 spells this hero knows to units on the same tile. Then units with channeling 2/3 can take later spells. This allows the amurites to get 4 archmages, 4 liches, 4 druids, and 4 high priests, all who can cast level 3 spells.

Now, are these good enough that you can rely on just them? Nope. However, many of these spells can become your lategame citybusters, which allow your other units to be that much more effective.

-Colin

A few additions...

Fire 3 - Fire elementals are awesome, because not only are they a decent unit, but they do collateral damage whether they win or lose. Throwing a fire elemental or two at a city can really change how difficult it is to take it.

Enchant 3 - This is somewhat less exciting if you're the Amurites and everyone gets a free spellstaff, but it's nice to have the ability to cast 2 spells on a turn when you really need it.

Entropy 3 - Wither can be really nasty when paired with units that do collateral damage, as it prevents the units from healing.

Mind 3 - It's kinda awesome to make cities easier to take because you're stealing their guys. I really like doing this if I can get a Longbowman or something so I don't have to leave part of my army there as defense. And you can get crazy lucky - I've gotten paladins before, and even TumTum!

Life 3 - I try to have someone with this if I have a late game hero. This is kind of awesome with Govannon, since he can learn entirely new spell spheres.

Yeah, you're limited to 4, but really, how many fronts are you fighting at once? You really only need one per stack. 2 per stack and the city is dead for sure.

 

[readercolin]

Actually, some notes about mind 3:
If it fails, you loose it (grrr...)
if a puppet fails, it looses it (who cares)
A balsferas (summoner trait required) archmage with mind 3 can summon a puppet every turn, and then those puppets can cast dominate (possibly allowing you 2 dominations per turn per archmage). However, Hemah and gibbon can get twincast, which gives you 2 puppets allowing you up to 4 dominations per turn. All this without any risk of loosing an archmage

-Colin

 

[Traks]

A few additions...

Fire 3 - Fire elementals are awesome, because not only are they a decent unit, but they do collateral damage whether they win or lose. Throwing a fire elemental or two at a city can really change how difficult it is to take it.

Yes, I noticed that. This summon looks strongest at the moment, and fire in general.
Djinn is also strong. Earth looked not so hot.

Enchant 3 - This is somewhat less exciting if you're the Amurites and everyone gets a free spellstaff, but it's nice to have the ability to cast 2 spells on a turn when you really need it.

Wasn't impressed. Single spells are not that strong and give all your archmages Ench3 is kinda waste.

Entropy 3 - Wither can be really nasty when paired with units that do collateral damage, as it prevents the units from healing.

Next thing to try, as I said had to avoid being in death/entropy mana this game.

Mind 3 - It's kinda awesome to make cities easier to take because you're stealing their guys. I really like doing this if I can get a Longbowman or something so I don't have to leave part of my army there as defense. And you can get crazy lucky - I've gotten paladins before, and even TumTum!

Tried some 10-15 times. Did not see getting new units or losing this spell. Not sure how useful it is at all. Right now I rate it as useless.

Life 3 - I try to have someone with this if I have a late game hero. This is kind of awesome with Govannon, since he can learn entirely new spell spheres.

Ah, limited spell but I would develop it when my hero dies.

Yeah, you're limited to 4, but really, how many fronts are you fighting at once? You really only need one per stack. 2 per stack and the city is dead for sure.

I do have 2 and 2.
In fact my lategame started crashing every 2 turns, so I will scrap it as I generally have won anyway and will start new. Sheelba probably, or maybe Sheaims. Want to see Armageddon.

How it is possible to make more than 4 archmages? 4 more with liches as I understood. Some kind of puppets too?
readercolin - I will skip Balsferas for now, they seem more complicated, but thanks for your advice.

 

[Emptiness]

Tried some 10-15 times. Did not see getting new units or losing this spell. Not sure how useful it is at all. Right now I rate it as useless.

Are you sure you were casting Domination (Mind III) and not Charm Person (Mind II)? Charm Person applies a promotion to enemy units (that fail resistance), and so might not be noticed. Domination always either captures a unit (which appears in the caster's stack) or is lost - either way the results are almost impossible to miss.

 

[avalonnn]

quick comment on archers -- their defensive can make it worthwhile having at least one in a stack that's in a quagmire, fighting a tough battle that's not moving in either direction. But I'm not certain of the math on defensive hits.

 

[Traks]

Are you sure you were casting Domination (Mind III) and not Charm Person (Mind II)? Charm Person applies a promotion to enemy units (that fail resistance), and so might not be noticed. Domination always either captures a unit (which appears in the caster's stack) or is lost - either way the results are almost impossible to miss.

I think I tried both. As I usually have quite big attacking stacks (20 and more units), it's hard to see any changes in stack size, maybe I missed something on Domination.

Charm Person I saw no effect at all.

Archers - I started using T2 archers now, but skipping T1.

 

[Tascani]

I think I tried both. As I usually have quite big attacking stacks (20 and more units), it's hard to see any changes in stack size, maybe I missed something on Domination.

Charm Person I saw no effect at all.

Archers - I started using T2 archers now, but skipping T1.

Charm Person will "apply a Promotion" to all enemy units that didn't resist the spell.
Its a very useful spell and very viable on higher difficulties where those 150+ Units stacks are attacking you (and Gilden kills 80% of them solo - but thats another story).

If you dont play an old version, Domination should work properly. Im not sure about this but IIRC the dominated Unit will be under your control at low health - also its easier to notice them as they may have another unit-art-icon between ur units (if you playing as elves and dominated a human longbowman - you will definitely recognize it).

 

[Emptiness]

As I usually have quite big attacking stacks (20 and more units), it's hard to see any changes in stack size, maybe I missed something on Domination.

Next time you are about to cast Domination, group all your units in the stack into a single group (hold <Alt>, then click a unit in the stack, then click the 'group' action icon - which looks like 3 circles on the left with three arrows merging to 1 circle on the right), then select your caster and cast Domination. If the spell works it should be easy to tell, because the dominated unit will not be in the main group. Select a unit in another stack, then reselect the stack from which you cast Domination; you should now have your main group selected, and the dominated unit should be the one not selected as part of that group.