This thread made me try out the Khazads and they rock... especially for a compulsive builder like me, as they seem to be extremely useful for early conquest
. Granted, I play on Prince, so maybe a too easy level, but:
- Early conquest is a great way to fill the vaults
- Troops are plentyful - pretty much immediately, Warriors can be made every turn in main cities
¨
The thing that got to me, however, was that I was falling behind in tech... granted, I played against Hannah and Flauros which typically are fast techers, but I was also behind Bannor and Sheiam... I may have over-focused on producing troops (a first for me) though. It did however got me thinking - how do you prioritize tech order in the early-to-mid game with the Khazad?
My immediate instinct:
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Agriculture (get growth going)
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Crafting -> Mining (almost always gold available from start to support tech, happiness)
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Caldendar -> Festival (even with no Calendar resources - Agrarian is great for Khazads and Markets really help with filling the coffers)
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Ancient Chants / Mysticism / RoK (RoK shrine + religion happiness boost + temple gold bonus and ability to run merchants for coffers + Soldiers of Kilmorph to support new cities of for attack)
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Exploration / AH (to hook up resources and support health which is a problem)
It can be argued that Calendar / Festival isn't strictly a priority unless having several calendar resources; but at the same time typically food is scarce early. Would you have a different tech order above? If I have copper available, I'll likely prioritize bronze working and exploration earlier to go on the attack ASAP.
After the above is where I think it is hard to prioritize between the following - how do you prioritize between the following:
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Education/Writing/CoL - I typically build very few cottages; not sure whether this is dumb or not. Similarly, I don't often use Aristocracy, and in my Khazad game I found the -1 food to farms was seriously limiting growth as there are often few grasslands and few food resources
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Construction - Clearly, b-lining for this is useful to quickly get an attack stack
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Bronze working - Especially if I don't have copper and no jungles
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Priest-line - I really like Stonewardens - and this line has alot of synergy with Edu/Writing/CoL
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Arete- Bambur early is a great benefit (not the least b/c enchantment) and
the mines bonus is great. Also, it seems that building the mines give Iron even if you don't have Iron Working which really improves melee
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Trade Going on the offense means significant potential to extract techs for peace
Now... a very large number of these techs are synergistic (Education -> Writing -> Trade (with HBR) -> Philosophy -> CoL -> Priesthood and they also lead into the very useful Military Strategy. But at the same time, it feels like the most immediate bang for the buck for the Khazad is going Arete / Construction and then start stomping. What balance are you typically aiming for?
/Andreas