Order vs Ashen Veil

[Thunder_Gr]

Bannor with AV is pretty hilariously awesome too. Remember, Crusade is a civic that requires ANY religion. Theoretically you could have an esus crusade.

Very good point

However, I do not think Bannor go too well with HT. They do not have the option to spawn any demons from any planar gates, also. And, please correct me if I am wrong, AV units do not get any bonuses from HT.
Although a main argument would be about being able to run StW, but with order, you do not need to run StW since you have so many happy faces, you can have any number of farms/specialists with no problem and no health handicap that comes from StW.

 

[Senethro]

Senethro, being an absolutist only works when there's a single answer to a question.

Thats a very smug sentiment, yet I don't think its very applicable.

Your scenario with ritualists and axemen turns out the exact same way if you use ritualists and champions instead. Your view that horse archers are inferior to champions is equally flawed. You've obviously never tried using the flanking promotions to good effect. With horselord or homeland, flanking 3 horse archers have excellent survival rates even with zero chance of killing their target. When you can attack and retreat outside of retaliation range, your power is more than you raw strength.

All models less complicated than the actual thing are flawed, but can still be useful. I used Ritualists because of the topic we were in and their direct abilities in combat. Ritualists don't "obsolete" but PoL, Vicars, Confessors and Stonewardens do become less useful as you go up the tech tree.
I promote about a quarter of my mounted units with withdrawals first. I use them to soften up a well defended tile. I wouldn't use withdrawal units as the standard of my army unless I somehow healed at three times the rate of my opponent and the battlefield was a very long, flat, roaded plain between our empires.

They are vastly superior to even mithril weapon champions for defense of your own lands unless the attacker has commando. The enemy unit strength is all but irrelevant to them, and after they've struck, those mithril weapon champions wont need to worry about losing combats against the surviving, damaged units, that got squat for experience from their hollow victories.

This is just plainly wrong. I wrote a small paragraph about use of Haste, standing in unroaded terrain to defeat withdrawal (like any smart human player does) but Horse Archers just won't beat mithril champions. The Champs will heal faster than the Horse Archers can damage through withdrawal.
Also, if you're defending, you're probably losing.

 

[Azhral]

With Bannor you want Cottages everywhere, so Hell Terrain makes little difference to that, unless you're on Flood Plains. Still since the Bannor have been fighting hell since their creation, it makes sense thematically that HT wouldn't slow them down very much. Still, its not like its a bonus to them or anything.

Demons are the ones that get a bonus on Hell terrain, and there are a few AV units that are demons. You'll want to bring someone who can cast Sanctify with any stacks anyway.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

With Bannor you want Cottages everywhere, so Hell Terrain makes little difference to that, unless you're on Flood Plains. Still since the Bannor have been fighting hell since their creation, it makes sense thematically that HT wouldn't slow them down very much. Still, its not like its a bonus to them or anything.

Well, getting the health hit from StW does slow down Bannor quite a bit. They do not get magickaly appearing units through gates like the Sheaim. So, they have to rely on a healthy city size/production combination to get the more useful troops, for producing enough demagogs, and for having enough people to work on those villages so they become towns again to produce more free demagogs.

Demons are the ones that get a bonus on Hell terrain, and there are a few AV units that are demons. You'll want to bring someone who can cast Sanctify with any stacks anyway.

A list of AV units may be useful here. What I can remember right now is:
1)Diseased corpses(Undead)
2)Eidolon
3)Beast of Agares
4)Ritualist
5)Savant
6)Their High Priest, can't recall the name

So, unless the Beast of Agares is a demon, I do not see any other units in AV being demons... And, besides that, Demon Slaying gives Order units +40% against demons, while they just get 10%(IIRC) on HT.

The sanctify may be necessary if you run Order, but not with AV. Besides, HT, slowly reverts back to normal when it gets to Order lands.
EDIT: This can only happen if you conquer an area already having HT, of course, since HT cannot naturaly spread in Order lands

 

[WarKirby]

Diseased corpse have -30% strength due to being diseased, and they are practically useless against Order troops.

But you can just cast Cure Disease on them, and they're full strength again.

 

[WarKirby]

So, unless the Beast of Agares is a demon

It is.
Demon Slaying is really more for fighting the Sheiam I think, than av directly.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

You have also left out that a Profane (The AV High Priest whose name you forgot) can summon Balors, which are demons and start with Stigmata.

 

[Nor'easter]

@Thunder Gr:

You don't have to be AV to build Eidolons, just Evil alignment.

 

[zup]

Looking back at my post, seems it is easy to misread.

"If I can secure enough happy resources, it is not that important as I tend to build lots of buildings before I mass defenders. It might take lots of effort to protect your resources from hell though."

What I meant is that I do not build enough defenders for my cities to make use of social order. I prefer happiness resources. And I meant AV lands are a pain to protect from hell.

One more thing that favors AV is that undead and demon units can get fear after combat 5. I have not made up my mind which is better protection from fodder units, cannibalize or fear, but both are nice. I rarely see the AI with courage units. Mostly it is Calabim royal guards casting hope. Will only work against a human player if you can deny them spirit mana though.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

But you can just cast Cure Disease on them, and they're full strength again.

Yes, I forgot about this exploit. Someday Kael will make them immune to cure disease .
This spell shouldn't be able to cast on undead anyway.

It is.
Demon Slaying is really more for fighting the Sheiam I think, than av directly.

Exactly. This is why I argued about the Bannor not fitting too well with the AV. No real advantages from HT.

You have also left out that a Profane (The AV High Priest whose name you forgot) can summon Balors, which are demons and start with Stigmata.

Yes, indeed they do. But they can only be max 4 per turn. Next turn they are history.
I would like to read your personal opinion on the subject, Magister. You are one of the most experienced people on this game.

@Thunder Gr:

You don't have to be AV to build Eidolons, just Evil alignment.

Ah, thank you for the clarification. But since AV players are always evil, you can count them in I guess

Looking back at my post, seems it is easy to misread.

"If I can secure enough happy resources, it is not that important as I tend to build lots of buildings before I mass defenders. It might take lots of effort to protect your resources from hell though."

What I meant is that I do not build enough defenders for my cities to make use of social order. I prefer happiness resources. And I meant AV lands are a pain to protect from hell.

Ah, I see now. I admit that I found it strange that you would have forgotten about HT not spreading in Order land.

One more thing that favors AV is that undead and demon units can get fear after combat 5. I have not made up my mind which is better protection from fodder units, cannibalize or fear, but both are nice. I rarely see the AI with courage units. Mostly it is Calabim royal guards casting hope. Will only work against a human player if you can deny them spirit mana though.

Fear is much less effective in the current implementation of FFH 2 than it was in 0.34. It is common to have 50% or more of the attacks pass through opponents with fear. So , I do not consider it such an advantage. OTOH, undead slaying and Magic resistance can be chosen for Order troops, since with bless they can skip a portion of the combat promotions with no consequences.

 

[Sephi]

This poll doesn't really make sense since the power of a religion depends a lot on the game situation. Sometimes even for the Sheiam order is more powerful than AV.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

This poll doesn't really make sense since the power of a religion depends a lot on the game situation. Sometimes even for the Sheiam order is more powerful than AV.

Sure. But the general feeling of the relative strength can be shown by a poll.
A poll is not initiated to deduce objective results for an issue. It is a measurement of what people think about the subject. It does not necessarily mean that the results form a kind of "universal truth".

The common feeling is that AV is more powerful. And this is what the purpose of this poll was.
I just hoped, as I already said, for more justifications...

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Yes, indeed they do. But they can only be max 4 per turn. Next turn they are history.

Unless you have the summoning trait, or if get Govannon to teach Death magic to your Profanes so they can learn to cast Lichdom and open up more Profane Slots.

I would like to read your personal opinion on the subject, Magister. You are one of the most experienced people on this game.

Most of my experience is with versions of the game I have personally modded. I don't play with The Order that often, so I haven't modded it all that much. I think it is fair to say that AV is definitely the strongest religion in my version, but that doesn't mean it is true in general. I'd guess that AV probably has a very slight advantage over the Order in vanilla FfH II 0.40, which depends on circumstances and playstyle.

 

[Fafnir13]

AV is clearly more powerful in my book. Direct damage is win, even with some of the well deserved nerfs it has gotten recently.

 

[Earthling]

For those who are asking for more specific opinions - I have a couple more to offer besides the ones I gave before (once again, I voted they are about equal though). Ashen Veil gives stronger troops significantly earlier - the idea I think is usually to snowball as the game goes on, hell terrain and armageddon increase. In single player (and again I don't have so much mp experience) it's easy to exploit the AI with both religions, so I'd say that balances out. But once a civilization "falls" to AV the AI will usually never go back (it'll be hated by the other AI too, so only choice is to ally with you). I also still think Hyborem is more effective than Basium in causing damage to enemies. I also think the ashen veil bonus to research is significant, you can easily keep up well enough at the point in the game where it matters. Tier 3 priests/Sphener and Mardero/paladins and eidolons all come quite late into the game - if AV hasn't built up strength by then they should be losing. Lastly, AV is strong with some civs that already are very powerful militarily (Clan, Calabim, Sheiam) while Order doesn't match these civs so well. AV is about raw power, Order is more civilized but requires you to have friends in your fights.

 

[Honor]

I've seen quite a few people that are really into the Calabim/Order combo though

 

[Luckmann]

[...]
Lastly, AV is strong with some civs that already are very powerful militarily (Clan, Calabim, Sheiam) while Order doesn't match these civs so well. AV is about raw power, Order is more civilized but requires you to have friends in your fights.

I'm sorry, I just don't see the 'raw power' benefit of Calabim AV - unfortunately. The only real reason to take AV as Calabim that I can see, is to run Sacrifice the Weak and ramp up on massive cities with 'disposable' population. lol. And while Order may not be my -complete- favourite Calabim religion, saying that Order doesn't match them (and by them I mean Calabim) well is just.. mindboggling to me.

I can see how some people may protest against Order/Calabim on the basis of flavour & fluff, but from Ashen Veil vs. Order "which is better?", I'd say that Order and AV is at least on equal footing.

I've seen quite a few people that are really into the Calabim/Order combo though

(shameless thread promotion)​

 

[Iceciro]

I've seen quite a few people that are really into the Calabim/Order combo though

That's because Vampire Phanuel is AWESOME.

 

[far_wanderer]

In peacetime, Order wins out due to happiness and reduced maintenance.

In a war, it comes down to what kind of war you're fighting. If you and your opponent are evenly matched, Diseased Corpses and Ring of Fire can give you the edge. In that situation Order doesn't really have much to offer except Bless, which is negligible compared to the benefits of any other religion. The Entropy mana from the shrine will also help you more than Law mana would.
But if you already have an advantage, Order will let you steamroll over your opponents a lot faster due to Crusader spawn and Unyielding Order. I've had games where Sphener was my entire offensive force, and all of my production was going towards city garrison troops and confessors. AV doesn't have anything to help you wage war faster, it just has stuff to let you do it better. So if you're already in the lead Order will accelerate your victory.

It all makes a lot of sense thematically - AV comes to you when you're fighting for you life and says "Hey, I can give that extra little boost you need. So what if a little hell leaks into the world, it's not a big deal." While Order shows up when you're the leader of the world and says "Look at all those poor heathens out there, think of how much better off they'll be when they're part of your empire."

 

[hbar]

Warriors are Tier 1, Acolytes are Tier 2 (doesn't mean they're useful), Confessors are Tier 2.5, Crusaders are Tier 3, Popes (whatever they're called) are Tier 4.

Technically, the Pope is a world unit.