Thoughts on civ economy/civic/religion synergies

[akatosh]

I wanted to write up some of my thoughts on optimal strategies for various civs. This post is mostly to clarify my own thinking and hopefully generate some discussion. I've found the following threads very useful: Top Ten Tips, all of Horatius' Tholal/Deity AARs, and the various aristocracy vs. cottage debate threads.

In terms of my skill level, I'm an Emperor/Immortal level player against Tholal's latest AI. I can win on Deity with some luck and a strong civ (e.g. Tasunke.)

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I think of the civs in terms of four categories: Standard, Semi-standard, Cottage, and Non-standard. I typically consider a civ's favored economic strat first. I define economy as the method in which the civ generates and . is transformed into and through different ways--it's a means to an end.

Here is how I group the 21 civs:

Standard: (8) Balseraphs, Malakim, Amurites, Illians, Grigori, Hippus, Luchuirp, Elohim

Semi-standard: (6) Clan, Doviello, Khazad, Calabim, Mercurians, Sheaim

Cottage: (4) Svartalfar, Ljosalfar, Kurios, Bannor

Non-standard: (3) Lanun, Sidar, Infernals

So what do these categories mean?

Standard refers to a civ that generates and through conventional means, e.g., tiles. What makes these civilizations unique is how they put and to use in terms of their unique military units and favored tech paths, not how they get and in the first place.

These civs generally favor aristogranarianism as it's the strongest standard economic structure in this game through the mid-late game (the reasoning's been discussed ad infinitum on this forum; I won't rehash it here.) This usually means aristofarms on all grassland tiles, cottages on plains, and mines on hills. City specialization (or lack thereof) is generally determined by the mix of tiles available to a city. In the late game, these civs might switch to different civic combos (e.g. city states, scholarship+caste system, conquest) or better specialize their cities using workshops and windmills.

 

[akatosh]

Semi-standard refers to civs that resemble normal civs until some point in the midgame, at which point they obtain some alternate means to generate . This may alter their optimal economic strategy in some fundamental way. They still produce normally through tile yields, merchants, or sages, which means they still generally favor aristogranarianism.

A quick overview of how this works. Clan can use warrens+soldiers of kilmorph to transfer production from city to city, giving them an incentive to specialize cities more than normal (lack of libraries and alchemy labs is a disincentive.) Calabim's governor's manor+feast mechanic gives them a strong incentive to maximize food regardless of the happy cap, which may affect city layout. Khazad's gold vault mechanic alters their expansion and slider strategy significantly. Sheaim effectively generate through planar gates past the mid-game; Mercurians generate through good units engaged in warfare. The Doviello, once undercouncil and Slavery are in, effectively generate most efficiently by capturing or buying slaves and upgrading them using .

Cottage is self-explanatory. These four civs favor cottages over aristofarms on grasslands for whatever reason. The choice of a cottage or a mine on a hill depends on an individual city's needs.
- For elves, the synergies with GoN and dis-synergies with Agrarianism are obvious. With up to +20 from GoN, they don't need Aristocracy to help them convert into -- they can do it directly with a better to ratio from cottages or use specialists.
- Kurios get a better per-tile yield--3 and 6 --from cottages than they do with aristofarms at 4 2 . Even Sidar with GL, scholarship and caste system can't beat a 1 to 4 ratio.
- Bannor are unique in that they effectively generate from cottages through Crusade. Assuming a town produces a demagog within 6 turns (not sure on the math), and it takes 40 turns to grown from a village to a town, you are getting a demagog every 46 turns or so at the cost of about 40 . A demagog is considered a 60 unit, but at 5 strength is better than an axeman--so is probably worth a bit more than 60 . Assuming you actually value a demagog at 75 , this is a to conversion of 1 to 1.63. Another way to look at it is to say that a city with 20 grassland cottages is producing a weak champion every 2 turns while sacrificing 20% of its , which is pretty good compared to what most civs can achieve.

Non-standard means none of the above. These civs either 1) don't have much use for tiles at all or 2) don't need to generate much from them.

- Lanun have plenty of from sea tiles and pirate coves and generally have more than enough food to hit their happy caps early. They use land tiles to generate whenever possible--mines, lumbermills, and in the late game, workshops. They are probably the only civ that will consistently get good mileage out of Foreign Trade, and will often favor City States/Foreign Trade over Aristocracy/Agrarianism. Alternately, they can use Agrarianism and Slavery as a source of hammers. With enough farms this could favor an Aristogranarian approach.
- Sidar and Infernal are the main specialist economies in FFH2, but they function very differently from a classic Civ4 food-based SE. They have to fight to generate and . Infernals don't use in the first place. Sidar use waning, so they need to maximize XP, which means Theocracy+Apprenticeship+Conquest. Aristocracy and Agrarianism are both locked out in their endgame (though they are useful when powering through to get your critical techs.)

These fundamental economic structures combined with the civs UUs and UBs determine their optimal civic and religion choices, which I'll go into below.

 

[akatosh]

Now let's talk about religions. I'm only going to focus on the benefits you get for having the religion as your state religion or being the founder; anybody can spread a secondary religion and get the extra benefits from it.

Octopus Overlords
You want OO if:
- You need to fight on water (cultists, water walking, krakens)
- You have an underpowered melee line, or are gold rich and hammer poor (warrior-->drown-->stygian guard upgrade line)
- You need an early archmage
- You want to make a super city for some reason
- You need some extra per-turn culture (for border pops or to push back enemy culture). Admittedly anyone can get this benefit

OO is a pretty good religion in my view. It offers solid military benefits on multiple lines.

Fellowship of Leaves
You want Leaves if:
- You want to do something with forests.
- You need hordes of disposable cannon fodder and you don't have death mana. (Fighting PZs maybe?)
- You desperately need extra health to counteract Blight.

Seriously, almost everything this religion gives you is tied to forests. GoN depends mostly on forests, Ancient forests spawn from forests, Treants are created on forests, Bloom makes forests, Woodsman II helps you fight in forests, and Fawns help you fight in forests. I cannot think of any reason a non-elf civ would want to use FoL in a standard game. I guess if you wanted to make some marginal tundra/plains city with no freshwater into a viable production center, you could set up some kind of ancient forest lumbermill thing. But switching to FoL to improve some fringe corner of your empire at the cost of tangible benefits to your core cities is not worth it.

Runes of Kilmorph
You want Runes if:
- You want extra gold. (Admittedly good for anyone, without state religion)
- You want early iron.
- You want good permanent buffs for your units (enchanted blade, shield of faith.)
- You want to transfer production between cities.
- You have a lot of hills and you want more production.
- You want more GP.
- You want to fight on hills (guerilla II, SoKs)

Runes is a solid religion for most civs in the early game, since its benefits are frontloaded. Its heroes are relatively weak, so most civs will probably want to switch to a stronger religion in the late game. Reasons to keep Runes in the late game include extra production from Arete for warfare, extra GP from Arete for bulbing or building the altar, or rush building wonders with SoKs.

Ashen Veil
You want Veil if:
- You want to raise the AC.
- You want lots of extra food, or high population.
- You want solid, front-line fire support (Ritualists.)
- You want a cheaper champion replacement.
- You are Spiritual and you want to mass-produce mages (don't need this to be your state religion, however--just need 1 city with AV to produce Potency Savants which you will then upgrade.)

Veil is a pretty situational religion. A lot of civs can benefit from switching to it, getting a few Ritualists, and switching out. The main reason to stay in it over the long term is Sacrifice the Weak, but it's hard to generate enough happiness for your population under StW. It does become better when you have maxed out workshops and guilds for unlimited specialists, though.

Order
You want Order if:
- You need to reduce maintenance in your cities.
- You need unlimited happiness.
- You want to spread your state religion quickly.
- You want to quickly assimilate new conquests.
- You want a useful, temporary buff for your units.
- You need to fight demons.

The Basilica+Courthouse combo is really good for large empires that don't want to use City States. Social Order can be really good for very large cities--most empires don't need all the extra happiness though, since you can reliably get to 25-30 with gambling houses and religion. Like Veil, I'd say Order is very good for certain civs and average for others.

Empyrean
You want Empyrean if:
- You want to crush massive stacks in the endgame.
- You want Blinding Light and you can't get it from your mages.
- You want to do something goofy with the Overcouncil.

Empyrean offers very little except Chalid. Having a couple Rathas or Radiant Guards mixed in to horse or melee stacks is ok, I guess. But Chalid is the main thing. And he's really good. Good enough that I go Empyrean with a lot of civs after I get a few of the priests I want from other places.

Council of Esus
You want Esus if:
- You want an early archmage before Hemah, or you think someone else is going to beat you to Hemah.
- You want to fool around with Impersonate Leader in a multiplayer game (just for laughs.)
- Shadowriders? lol

Deception is a great tech but Esus offers almost nothing as the state religion. You can get most of its good benefits (Nox Noctis, Undercouncil, Shadows, Mask) without it as the state religion.

 

[akatosh]

Taking the above into account, you will see that there are only 5 real choices for most civs: OO, Runes, Order, Veil, and Empyrean. Esus is useless and Leaves is pretty bad unless you're an elf--in which case it is way better than anything else.

Standard civs
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Balseraphs are an interesting civ in that they can go in a lot of different directions based on their leader traits and multiple UUs. Fundamentally, they get extra happiness and culture from their UBs. They might be better able to make use of Veil/Sacrifice the Weak thanks to the extra happiness from their slave cages; slavery is also opened up at Way of the Wicked, which leads to Veil. Esus is a must-have as a secondary religion to get the most out of their UUs for Undercouncil and slavery. OO can help to generate extra culture on top of their freak shows and slave cages in border cities--this is one of the few civs that actually has a viable culture-flip strategy in the early to mid-game. They can pile on raw culture generators in border cities--which is rare in FFH. Bals can use monuments, freak shows, 4 slave cages, OO temple, OO religion, Creative trait, and whatever animals they can capture to generate +13 base culture before multipliers and specialists. Combine this with Loki draining culture from border cities and you can actually make this a viable strat as in Civ4.

Bals also have a theoretically underpowered melee line due to the Str 5 mimic. You can offset this "weakness" by using OO or Veil. Stygian Guards or Diseased Corpses can provide the bulk of your forces, while elite Freak-->Mimics are the spearheads of the offensive stacks.

Malakim's main gimmick is better priests and an early tech bonus on flavorstarts--5 5 floodplain aristofarms are fun to see. They are otherwise a pretty vanilla race. Empyrean fits them thematically and has some marginal synergies with them, with stacking Sun mana and dominating the Overcouncil with Teutorix and Chalid. This can make some diplomacy-based strategies viable if you can get enough other players onto the Overcouncil. Chalid also gives them some hard-hitting military power which is otherwise lacking.

Veil is a strong secondary religion for Varn Gosam who can produce many mages through the Potency Savant trick plus desert shrines+Adaptive command posts+Altar levels+XP civics+Adaptive Charismatic+Dies Diei. Think of it as a knock-off Cave of the Ancestors. You can also do this with Leaves for Potency Rangers. Using the Zealot-->Stygian guard upgrade would be neat, but it requires OO as your state religion. Warrior-->drown-->Stygian guard is more hammer-efficient anyway. Stick with Empyrean and spam Disciples of Leaves and Savants from your Empyrean holy city with Altar levels and a command post.

Amurites can make pretty good use of priest-mages from from any religion. I really wish Amurites had a spiritual leader that could really take advantage of religion hopping to build different kinds of priest-mages. Religious shrines are a great way to get extra mana, so it's also worth founding whatever hasn't already been founded just for the shrines.

Amurites also need to go down at least 4 tech lines to get the most out of their civ: bowyers, metals, arcane, and religion for extra archmages. Bowyers and arcane are of course the priorities, but still, the science needs are large. Empyrean and OO offer good science multipliers and Veil offers a small amount of raw science. For the state religion, OO is probably best since it lets the Amurites get two archmage heroes at Arcane Lore.

Illians/Grigori can't use religions.

Hippus don't have a strong synergy with any religion that I can see. They don't favor water or melee units so OO offers few benefits. RoK is good for the gold and shield of faith, as it is for any civ, but they will be past axemen by the time Bambur's enchanted blade comes out. Horse archers can't use metals so the Mines are less useful as well. Get 1-2 Stonewardens and switch. I cannot see any clear reason to go for Veil or Order either in a standard game--perhaps Order could help Tasunke with maintenance costs when his empire has grown from early conquests.

Esus and Empyrean might be the best state religions for Hippus. Rathas supplement the fast-moving chariot/horse archer stack with some magic. Build as many as you need and switch back to Order or Esus. Esus, although almost totally useless as a state religion for everyone else, actually synergize somewhat with Hippus. Hippus want to go for Warhorses for Knights and Ride of the Nine anyway, so you might as well unlock 4 more national units at that tech with Shadowriders. An endgame Hippus army might have 4 Knights upgraded from Rathas, 4 Shadowriders, Magnadine, 4 Royal Guards from Aristocracy, and a mix of Horse Archers, Chariots, and Mounted Mercenaries. Pretty cool. Download Avahz Darkwood's [link]http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=335194[/link]flavor modmod to add a couple of mounted mages to the mix for some extra fun.

Luchuirp, like most of the civs mentioned above, don't have any especially clear synergy with any religion. Like the Amurites they need to tech multiple lines to unlock all their power--metals and arcane for their core units, and religion and stealth for their very strong racial UUs. I'd go with the standard solid religions--Runes and OO--for a couple of reasons. Extra gold is always helpful, and Mines give you access to Iron for your champion unit if you can't find it elsewhere. OO gives you a viable supplement to your champion stacks that can earn experience and will turn you Neutral so you can get druids later.

Esus and Empyrean are useless aside from their shrine manas (which Luchuirp have a special use for) and Shadows. You will never tech warhorses, and why go for Chalid when you can have 4 Dwarven Druids?

Elohim have weak synergies in their core civ, but can potentially do a lot thanks to Tolerant. In the core civ the only two real synergies are 1) the option to upgrade Devouts to Runes/Leaves/Empyrean/Order priests for a plethora of Destroy Undead casters and 2) rushing fanaticism to unlock your archmage hero and stygian guards at the same time. This would give you fighters, mages, and clerics all down one research path.

With Tolerant, however, a lot of neat tricks open up. I saw on a different thread the idea of summoning Hyborem, leaving an open space for him to spawn in the middle of your empire, and sacking Dis immediately to build the Infernal Palace. If you can get access to Clan cities you can gain a lot from the warrens+SoK trick. Likewise from Arete+dwarven vaults. Basically, just see the suggestions for other civs that depend on the civ's UUs and UBs rather than civ-wide traits (e.g. waning, improvements in forests) and try to make that work.

Therefore the strategy might be to go OO to Fanaticism and build Stygian Guards until you conquer one civ. If that civ has good units or buildings, switch to whatever religion will best help you abuse your new toys.

 

[akatosh]

Non-standard civs
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Khazad are in my opinion a beautifully-designed civ. Their gold vault is a creative idea, they are focused tech-wise, they have strong reinforcing synergies, they are strong, they fit the roleplaying fantasy standard of what a dwarven kingdom looks like, and they are fun to play. Of course, their strongest synergies come from Runes of Kilmorph. As Kandros Fir said, "Oh, Runes of Kilmorph, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways."

Let's start with the gold vault, their defining characteristic. It offers happiness, a production *multiplier*, and a bonus to GP generation based on the amount of gold you have. Some of their other characteristics include: inability to build mages, most archers, and most horses. This means they will focus on the melee line. They have an also extremely good UU with earth mana affinity, and a very good UU Shadow replacement, Their worldspell creates hills.

Hmm. So. Runes of Kilmorph provides raw gold and merchant slots, which pumps up the vaults. Maxed out vaults are like a civ-wide God King. Their worldspell creates hills, on which they get double movement, which are then mined, which are then buffed by Arete, the bonuses of which are then multiplied by the vaults. Tablets of Bambur provides earth mana, which stacks with their palace mana, which buffs their UU druids, and has a chance to further buff their mines, which they already have a lot of, which in turn further boosts their production--which is multiplied by vaults--or commerce income, which in turn keeps their vaults more full. Arete also increases GP production, which stacks with the Vaults, which is like having a free Pacifism civic without the upkeep costs and no penalty to military production. Extra GPs means more tech, more production, or more gold in the form of settled merchants. Ok. Arete also unlocks the Mines of Gal-Dur, which can be semi-efficiently rushed using Soldiers of Kilmorph, a Runes UU, thanks to the production multipliers from the Vaults. The Mines buff their primary tech line and their Forge UB. Their Forge UB also has a chance to be buffed by earth mana. The Arete tech provides Guerilla II, which helps them fight in hills, which they already have a lot of thanks to their worldspell and in which their base units already get movement and combat bonuses. Then there's Bambur--not that great of a hero, but basically counts as a free enchantment mana for the Khazad. Unlike other civs, Khazad gain nothing from Enchantment II and III--they only need enchanted blade, which is a permanent buff, which means they only need 1 caster for it--either at their primary rally point or in their main attacking stack. This means they can even further delay arcane line research, or save their nodes entirely for melee buffs like blur, dance of blades, haste, courage, or loyalty. Or they can stack more earth mana. It's a virtuous circle.

Let's recap. RoK buffs Khazad's: main military line, production, commerce, happiness, GP production, defenses, favored mana, UUs, and UBs. THIS IS WHAT REAL SYNERGY LOOKS LIKE. Why would you, in a standard maptype/game, ever choose a different religion? (Of course get Esus in a couple cities for Dwarven Shadows, Order/Empyrean temples for the multipliers, etc.)

PS I think Arthendain is a RoK hero. I am not sure what, if anything, he does. I am usually well on the way to winning the game when I get to him.

Clan of Embers, like Khazad, gets strong benefits from RoK although the synergies are not quite as self-reinforcing. The main thing is a zero hammer loss from SoK rush-building thanks to Warrens, and even net hammer gains if you use some combination of Sheelba's Command Posts, God King, military state, nationhood, Order temples built as non-state religion, Arete (for raw hammers), and Heroic Epic, for a total potential production multiplier of +205%. On Marathon speed, this is even easier because SoKs cost 180 and return 135 . This means that on Marathon, for every 59 you invest in SoKs, you get a total output of 270. This might in fact be the tastiest (and stinkiest) of all the cheeses. (Of course, Clan is still an aristogranarian economy and probably wants to leave God King before too long.)

RoK's peripheral benefits include extra gold to support Rantine/Jonas Expansive/Warrens rapid expansion. Gold-providing temples can be rush built with Stonewardens very effectively as well to spread the religion and provide extra shrine gold as well. 2-for-the-price-of-1 Thanes can be used to culture bomb new cities to offset RoK's lack of culture. Same as Khazad, Mines of Gal-dur can be rush-built efficiently by the Clan and provide the same benefit to the Clan's primary military line. Ditto for Bambur.

The alternate religious strategy for Clan involves Ashen Veil. Here you use Warrens to spam Savants and rapidly spread AV everywhere you can. You combine this by Warrens spamming Goblins in the Prophecy of Ragnarok city to rapidly drive up the AC. When the Horsemen arrive, they ignore your barbarian self and instead create problems for your enemies. Also, Veil's science bonus can help a little to offset your research penalties.

Note that these strategies are not mutually exclusive. You can run RoK as your state religion and get your alignment to neutral to avoid hell terrain spread for most of the game, while you continue to benefit from Veil as a secondary religion. Spiritual Jonas or Sheelba's Command Posts can also make some use of the Savant-->mage progression path.

Sheaim have a very clear synergy with AV. The planar gate--Sheaim's core mechanic-- output depends on the AC, which is efficiently raised by spreading Veil. Furthermore, since planar gates' production is independent of city tiles, Sheaim production is maximized by packing a ton of cities tightly together and maximizing the total number of planar gates in the empire. These small cities make very good use of AV's Sacrifice the Weak, meaning with a greatly reduced number of tiles they can still hit their happy caps. These mini-cities will want to use farms and agrarianism mostly, with Aristocracy for some extra commerce and Slavery (unlocked along the same tech path as AV) to whip out important buildings. Veil also allows extra scientists which can help Sheaim bulb their main tech path, Arcane. Like Khazad+Runes, I feel the designers did a very good job of building interesting synergies into this combination.

Sheaim can benefit from secondary religions as well, primarily to get a little extra gold or science from temples and unlock extra specialist slots for StW.

Mercurians - I have never played them, only summoned them, but I think the basics are pretty straightforward. Your comes from the deaths of units that follow RoK, Empy, and Order, so you want to spread these religions as much as possible. Since you are a warfare-oriented civ, but don't have any particular economic bonuses, RoK's extra gold and Order's maintenance savings can both translate to a larger empire and more for your ingenuity trait. You already have iron from your palace so you don't need the Mines of Gal-Dur, and they will probably be gone by the time you enter the game anyway. Same goes for Bambur. Arete can help with GP production if you are going for an Altar victory--Kurios build first 3 Altar levels, summon Basium, switch to Basium, pump out the last few prophets yourself. Even so, RoK's benefits are nice but can probably be obtained using it as a secondary religion. Get your 1 stonewarden and switch.

Order's probably a better primary religion than RoK for a few reasons. 1) RoK temples can be built with it as a secondary religion, but Basilicas cannot. 2) Spreading Order itself produces extra military units which can be sacrificed for the cause. 3) Combined with Altar levels, Confessors with Spirit Guide can be used to maximize XP flow to your Angels to build up a crack army of well-promoted troops. 4) Social Order is available if you need it, although admittedly I am not sure if it is better than Arete. With an aristogranarian economy using mines and plains cottages, you can probably get a large enough happy cap using gambling houses. But using Arete locks you out of Apprenticeship which means less starting XP for your angels. And religion provides +5 with RoK/Order/Empyrean temples by itself, which might be as much as you need. Or you might want Scholarship to boost research, etc, etc.

The other choice is Empyrean. This really comes down to a choice of whether you need the economic benefits Order provides, or you need the sheer ass-kicking power of Chalid. This assumes Chalid is still available when you're summoned, but he probably will be because your summoning civ most likely beelined Mercurian Gate because you were playing it. Right?

Leaves and Esus are out as they are for most everyone else, but what about OO and Veil? I am not sure about this, but I think that when YOUR OWN living units die, they also spawn an angel regardless of what religion they followed. Now I believe Basium purges Veil from all of his cities every turn, so you can't follow Veil. OO might be an option though, if you need Cultists for some reason. But I don't think Drowns or Stygian guards turn to angels when they die, so think carefully.

Calabim are about maximizing population for feasting and free from the Governor's manor. They can certainly make some use of RoK and OO in the early game, but I think the real choices for Calabim are Order and Veil. You need to ask yourself this question: Would I rather have a higher amount of ABSOLUTE population through bonus food, to maximize XP and production, or would I rather maximize PRODUCTIVE population through bonus happiness, which will probably produce superior commerce and GP through extra specialists?

I analyzed this at a high-level in another thread, but basically I think Veil Calabim are better for pure warfare and expansion (setting up new cities through slavery) while Order Calabim can use a slightly more balanced strategy. Order Calabim have a little extra tech advantage which might help if you want to play around with things like flesh golems and tier 4 national units. Basilicas/Code of Junil law mana also offset some of the relative maintenance weakness of the Governor's manor. Conversely, Veil's Ritualists and entropy mana offer extra firepower on the battlefield. Both civs' top-tier heroes can't be vampirized, but their intermediate mounted heroes (Rosier and Valin) can be.

Since Order and Veil are mutually exclusive within a city, you usually have to choose between one and the other or be content with some of your cities not having your state religion in them. Admittedly thanks to the Governor's manor this minor loss of is not that big a deal. One viable strategy might be to switch between Veil and Order as the economic and diplomacy situation demands. But that's probably overcomplicating things, because once you have governor's manors and vampires you can win however you want.

Doviello under Mahala are pretty interesting to me. I like their warfare-focused economy that generates gold through pillaging and uses that gold and captured slaves to produce new units. Aside from the melee line and KotE (which unlock Haste and Dance of Blades from palace mana) your priority techs are Deception and Way of the Wicked.

This being said I think a lot of religions can work for Doviello. RoK's extra gold and guaranteed iron is always welcome, as are Stonewardens and Bambur, but you probably don't need Arete's because you're using slavery. Order is out because you can't use Undercouncil or Slavery with it. Empyrean is useful if you need firepower in the endgame, but there's no particular synergy here.

Leaves could have some situational use if you have a lot of bad tundra tiles--ancient forest lumbermills are at least semi-useful. Esus might also be useful temporarily, since if you don't strongly need any other religion, you might as well pick up Gibbon to support your melee stacks with Mutation, Regeneration and Wonder at the same time you get Undercouncil. In the very late game (if you get that far) you might be able to create some raider mischief with HN Shadowriders.

Since you are going to be using aristogranarian and slavery anyway, there's a strong argument to be made for generating a lot of extra population through Sacrifice the Weak. Ritualists and Rust can also help your melee stacks. OO provides one interesting trick. Mahala can go Slave+10g-->Beastman+30g-->Drown+33g-->Stygian Guard, for a total of 73 gold. Slave-->Battlemaster costs 70 gold. So for a marginal price difference Mahala can get a champion-replacement that has +1 strength and march. But, this is true for any other civ--Stygian Guards cost the same as normal champions for everyone else too, and that isn't necessarily a reason to use them. The big disadvantage to using the Stygian trick is it requires a Temple of the Overlords, which means you can't use it to raise fresh troops deep in enemy territory like you can with slave-->battlemaster... which is one of Doviello's core mechanics. Why throw it away?

In sum, I think the Doviello are more about civic choices than religion choices. AV, Esus, Empyrean, RoK can all work. OO and Leaves are situational. Order is out.

 

[akatosh]

Cottage
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Elves - get leaves. I have seen some people say Esus is good for Faeryl in the late game. It isn't. She's arcane so you get mages fast enough, and a GoN-powered economy can get you to real archmages in a reasonable period of time. Faeryl might want to get Runes early to switch to Neutral, to protect her forests from Hell terrain, but that's it.

Kurios are another interesting civ. OO is *generally* pretty weak for them because they need to maximize every tile, which means they need to minimize water tiles. They can make use of the Tower of Complacency however. They also favor the mounted line over melee. Similar logic for Leaves. RoK is nice as a secondary religion, but doesn't tremendously help their cottage-based economy. Get a stonewarden and switch. Esus sucks as usual. Empyrean if you need Chalid.

I think the main choices for Kurios are Order and Veil. Sprawling+Tailor+Jeweler provides a potential +9 which is civ-only. A Kurio city has up to 36 tiles if ideally placed. Assuming an enclave on each tile for 3 food per tile, we have a max potential population of (3x36+2)/2 = 55. How do you get to 55 happiness? Sprawling+Tailor+Jeweler = 9, related resources = 6, gambling house = 10, base from city = 5, other buildings 5, miscellaneous other sources 5. That's a total of roughly 40 happiness. You have to make up the rest with civics. Religion can get you 7, but you're still 8 short. Consumption, scholarship, nationalism all give less happiness than Religion. So that leaves Social Order. Having 15 units in each city to get you over the hump isn't necessarily a bad thing either, because Kurios really want their cities to be well-defended against a surprise attack.

The other option is Veil, which takes some work. Assuming the same layout, you have 110 total food being produced. There is no way to get anywhere close to that without future techs. One city can get an infinite cap through a temporary switch into OO for the Tower of Complacency, which yields 80-90 productive citizens under STW after accounting for unhealthiness. A second city can use the Pillar of Chains to make the same total pop semi-productive. I am not sure how to salvage the third city under Veil. Perhaps you can use it as a slavery city and whip out wonders, I'm not sure. Civic choices could include God King or Theocracy in government, Slavery or Guilds in Labor, and Agrarianism or Foreign Trade depending on how many farms you actually end up using.

Using Theocracy might mean a lot of priest GPs. This could lend itself to an Altar victory or just Altar levels for the +2 . If this is the case, use Caste System for extra science and go Adaptive-->Spiritual to allow frequent religion/civic switches. You need at least 1 switch into OO for the Tower, and 1 switch into RoK for a stonewarden is a good idea (shield of faith is a nice buff for mounted.) You need to be good or neutral to build the Altar, so switch to Order for a little bit, sac all your prophets, and switch back 5 turns later. Mind you that Hyborem can steal one of your cities.

I don't know if there is a clear winner between Order and Veil for Kurios. Much like Calabim, the way Kurio cities are built gives them food far in excess of a normal happy cap. Do you go for productive population with Social Order, or do you use StW to push the population pressure to the extreme and make use of it through buildings like Tower of Complacency, Pillar of Chains, and Governor's manors?

Bannor. Although Order fits them lore-wise, it doesn't offer the same kind of advantages Runes, Leaves, and OO do for Khazad, elves, and Lanun. Since Bannor favor cottages, their populations tend to be lower than aristofarm economies and don't usually need the extra happiness from Social Order. Besides, Social Order is in the same civic category as Crusade.

Since the Bannor favor the melee line, the normal advice of Stonewardens+Bambur+Mines of Gal-Dur applies. But they may prefer to cottage some hills, which means Arete will be of less use. Empyrean? Esus? Leaves? meh. OO? only if on water--they don't really need Stygian Guards. That leaves Veil. Sacrifice the Weak helps the low-food Bannor cities hit their happy caps in peacetime, but unfortunately can't be used concurrently with Crusade. Ritualists can provide good AOE damage to support demagog stacks.

Since the Bannor might be using multiple stacks in warfare, having multiple Confessors might be useful to pair with buff-casting mages and flagbearers to refresh buffs in the field. Have your 1 stonewarden at your main rally point along with enchanted blade/loyalty/courage/mutation casters. Demagogs pick up iron and permanent buffs here. Stacks in the field have adepts using haste, regeneration, blur, and dance of blades, plus flagbearers and confessors using bless.

I don't play Bannor much so I don't have a clear idea of what religion works well with them. The best advantage I can see is Veil compensating for low-food cottage cities. Beyond that, I'm open to ideas.

Non-standard
-----------------

Infernals Veil only.

Lanun OO wins here. Lanun must be prepared to fight on water and boarding parties suck, so they actually need Stygians. They're also hammer poor and gold rich, so warrior-->drown-->Stygian makes a lot of sense for them. Remember that warrior-->Stygian guard costs 25 and 125 for a strength 7 unit with march, while the Guild of Nine mercs cost 180 and have only 5 strength. In my opinion Guild of Nine's primary advantage is defensive, not raising an army through gold. Stygians give you a much better return on investment in terms of pure fighting power. OO can also take advantage of a little water mana stacking with Hemah. Heron Throne capital+City of a Thousand Slums+Tower of Complacency is pretty fun as well.

Even though OO is a straight-up good choice in most games, Order and Veil offer some interesting alternatives. In my experience Lanun cities are often struggling with their happy caps, so Social Order is a welcome benefit. Veil is nice because the food-rich and production-poor Lanun economy can make very good use of slavery. Deception is a priority tech for Lanun because of Undercouncil's smuggling port resolution anyway, and Way of the Wicked is on the way to Undercouncil. Run Slavery as your labor civic and if the land is suitable, you can even try Agrarianism and Aristocracy. You can even try Theocracy with Altar levels as the source of raw for your empire.

Basically, pirate ports are so good that Lanun have a lot of flexibility in what they can do with their civic and religion choices. I don't have a clear idea of what the best avenue is, but OO+City States+Religion+Foreign Trade, Veil+Slavery+Agrarianism and Order+Guilds+Agrarianism Theocracy+Order+Caste System+Agrarianism all seem viable.

Sidar Ah, my favorite civ. Hard to use but really fun when you can get it working. I have always favored the warlike style of Sidar, which means Theocracy+Apprenticeship+Conquest locks up 3 of your 4 main civic categories. Fortunately, it still leaves the most diverse category open--Cultural Values. Remember you also want to build the Altar if possible.

As far as tile development, I usually use Godking-->aristofarms until I get horse archers in. Then I tech Theocracy and switch. After that, I settle all merchants and sages in the capital for academy/bazaar of mammon bonuses. I might have a second Altar city and ideally a third Nox Noctis city. Cities with XP boosters might get extra engineers here and there. All cities after that maximize hammers for whatever core military unit I'm using (generally horsearchers, sometimes confessors.) A Tower of Divination slingshot to Warhorses can put you over the top, assuming you can get all the mana nodes needed.

Leaves and Esus are generally bad choices here, although building Gibbon for a little while and then waning him can work (you can keep his spells as a Shade.) OO is subpar because demons and undead can't be waned. That leaves Runes, Order, Veil, and Empyrean.

Stonewarden buffs are always nice, but you don't need Bambur because you have enchantment mana in your palace. The gold helps early too but won't matter in the late game. If given a choice of using OO or RoK early, pick RoK. Get a stonewarden and switch.

Empyrean offers Chalid, Dies Diei offers +2 xp to priests and is nice to have in your Altar city (start building the Altar after you found Empyrean, if you can manage it. Hard to do on Deity however) I favor horsearchers with Sidar, so having mobile spellcasters can help.

Veil--I keep wanting to take advantage of some kind of cheese here by abusing StW and Theocracy to get a pile of prophets out fast. I am not sure exactly how to pull it off, though. Sidar can get the bulk of their research from settled sages, so they can easily run a 0% slider economy for +10 happiness from gambling houses. But this doesn't help them get more happiness than a standard civ.

Order--I think this is the best overall choice for Sidar. Social Order gives you unlimited happiness in your settled merchant city, which can probably turn into a prophet farm using the Theocracy cheese I mentioned above. You can also build the Altar straight without resorting to alignment switching. The other big benefit to Order (besides bless) is Confessors' Spirit Guide promotion. Sidar and Mercurians are the only two civs that can really make good use of this. A confessor built out of an Altar V city will start with 16 xp, more if you have a command post, Dies Diei, Altar 6 or Form of the Titan. When that Confessor dies, he gives 8 xp to someone else in the empire--hopefully someone who is close to waning. In the late game, I think spamming Confessors can work as a supplemental strategy.

In practice, getting all this lined up is hard. Either you get a few shades early and you win, or you struggle to get shades, fall behind in tech and production, and lose. I wish there was a more middle road with this race..

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

excellent writeup!

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

careful with AV malakim, you'll need plenty of life 1 adepts to make sure hell doesn't spread to you. it will destroy all your floodplains and make desert tiles impassable otherwise.

 

[UnforcedError]

Very nice thread I'd actually say the Illians are also a potential cottage civ on some weirder mapscripts (where you have to make extensive use of early terraforming) and on an Erebus map, where they'd traditionally start in the great white nothing. If you don't need the temples aristofarms are fine, sure.

 

[UnforcedError]

Veil is a strong secondary religion for Varn Gosam who can produce many mages through the Potency Savant trick

Level 4 lightbringers upgrade directly to mages. You don't even need AV. They're also a bit better to upgrade as they start with Sentry on top of the standard Mobility + Potency for SPI disciples.

 

[Goodwill]

If I remember, I think the advantage of turning them into savants first is for the march promotion, though I really dont remember now if that was the specific advantage.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

mages don't really need march though

 

[BvBPL]

Council of Esus
Deception is a great tech but Esus offers almost nothing as the state religion.

Council of Esus civs can declare war on other civs with which they have open borders. That's about the single most devastating tactic available in FFH2 as the Esus troops and pick and choose juicy targets with few defenders among their former allies. If Empyrean is worth considering for Chalid then Esus is worth considering for devious attacks.

 

[Calavente]

this one is a keeper...
thanks

Edit : for esus ... especially to pass those unbreakable frontier cities... (you know, those in Erebus, a hill behind a river, sandwitched between a mountain rage and the sea ???... and with all fortifications and hundreds of units ???)

 

[UnforcedError]

If I remember, I think the advantage of turning them into savants first is for the march promotion, though I really dont remember now if that was the specific advantage.

You have to waste a promo on March though, while mages are much better off with the Combat line disciples can get. Sentry OTOH is free for lightbringers.

Agree with BvBPL's assessment on CoE.

 

[Riflin'Joe]

Is a stint in FOL worthwhile for the Lanun? Lumbermills on all the forest tiles and switch to OO later once they've turned into Ancient Forests.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

you should already have more than enough food really, your economy is fine

focus on getting some kickass military instead

 

[UnforcedError]

Gekko's right. As the Lanun you're better off with an early Slavery or Conquest. Alternatively just focus on building improvements on most land tiles.

 

[scutarii]

Alternatively just focus on building improvements on most land tiles.

In this case RoK with arete is better.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

it can work with lots of hills, but usually you have more forests.