What are lunatics good for?

[akatosh]

I recently played a game as Mahala of the Lanun on Deity in order to take advantage of mass lunatic spam using slave trade. On paper, this looks like a really abusable strat--buy slaves for 30g, Mahala can upgrade them to Lunatics for 33g. You get a 7/4 metal-using unit for a total of 63g and no hammers.

Until you can get slave trade in, you use warrior-->drown-->stygian guard with cultists for a 25 hammer+63 gold strength 7 unit.

The problem is that I can cheaply make hordes of lunatics, they don't seem to be a great unit. They don't start with any promotions so it takes them forever to get to the front-line. And only Doviello Mahala gets upgrade anywhere, so I have to send/buy slaves in an asylum city and then upgrade them, and then send them to the front line.

Having some casters ready to buff them helps their utility, and I am sure they would be good if I could actually bring them to the front line and get them to stay there. But then they run off in random directions and it's a royal pain to micro them once they get out of rage. And usually a single lunatic dies to the random units the AI has wandering around anyway.

So: is there some way to make lunatics more useful? The whole 63g total cost seems potentially game-bustingly powerful, but I think the strategy needs some refinement. And is there any leader that would want to build them manually for 120 hammers?

(They do not require OO religion. Also, only Doviello slaves can upgrade to warriors straight with gold. Balseraph slaves can upgrade to warriors using the arena battle.)

 

[Kiech]

Don't Lunatics require mind stapling, so you have to stay in OO for a while? I am not a fan of the asylum, but this sounds like a fun strategy. To help with the upgrades, I would mutate them for interesting results. Just have a cultist on standby to remove the negative effects.

Is there a spell to remove the rage promotion?

 

[akatosh]

It requires you to have an Asylum, which can only be built with mind stapling. You don't have to stay in OO, however. I switched to Empyrean and had Chalid leading stacks of lunatics.

I also had a mutation mage and a cultist sitting in the asylum city. Still, the main problem I found was the lack of starting upgrades (no mobility 1) and the fact that they run off randomly. That could be fun in theory but when you have 40 lunatics running around and periodically they become un-insane, you have to micro them... which means turns take forever as you're suddenly regaining control of crazy units in weird corners of the map.

If you can afford tons of upkeep costs, it might be better to just let them run around. Make as many as you can and set them all to "explore". Anytime you regain control of one, just hit "e" again and let the AI do your work for you. Then the problem becomes war weariness...

 

[BobCW]

If you stick them on boats, they won't run away; you can then use them as amphibious attackers, although there isn't much reason to prefer them over Cultists or Stygs. Otherwise, they're mostly good for picking off random units and confusing the AI. Probably not worth the hammers or gold.

 

[Kiech]

That sounds hilarious! Chalid leading the insane clown posse.

As far a starting upgrades go, you are limited to spells as far as I know. Can the slaves get any starting experience?

 

[doktarr]

I agree that loading them on boats seems like the only way to make them efficient as a spammed unit. So, some sort of island or snaky continent map would probably be needed to make this strategy worth considering.

Mahala leading the Kuriotates, or just buying airships from the Kurios, would work on any map. That's obviously a very long lead time before you can start using this strategy.

 

[akatosh]

Hmm, Kurio airships is a pretty interesting idea. Can Cardith Lorda pick ingenuity as his adaptive trait?

 

[Qgqqqqq]

No.
Adaptive is restricted from some traits (which include, IIRC, defender, magic resistant, barbarian, ingenuity, and summoner. If any of these are modded onto a adaptive leader in the base game, then they won't lose the "minor" trait, but instead gain a free one, due to an artifact in the way the event works.)

How exactly would one "buy" airships?

 

[Kiech]

It's an option if you enable advanced tactics. Of course, the Kurios have to have built them and be friendly with you.

 

[doktarr]

I get why Barbarian and Summoner are restricted, but I'm not sure why the others are. I suppose Magic Resistant is restricted for theme/lore reasons. Ingenuity could be restricted because it seems like a bit of an exploit to take wait until you have trait and then take a boatload of upgrades, but by that logic, charismatic should be restricted as well. I can't for the life of me figure out why defender is restricted.

Mahala leading the Kuriotates, or just buying airships from the Kurios, would work on any map. That's obviously a very long lead time before you can start using this strategy.

How exactly would one "buy" airships?

It's an option if you enable advanced tactics. Of course, the Kurios have to have built them and be friendly with you.

Or be vassalized to you, and you can give them the tech. So it's somewhat controllable, but you still need to have the Kurios nearby and vulnerable, and it's a late-game tech.

 

[Qgqqqqq]

As I understand its because they're classified as "minor" traits - not intended to equal proper ones.
This is why some leaders have 3 (or 4!) traits with these, as they ate not seen as equal to the rest.

 

[doktarr]

I decided to give this strategy a shot with Basium, since I had a recent savegame of a Kuriotate game just before I popped the Mercurian gate. Huge, Snaky Continents, Standard Speed, Increasing Difficulty, doubled events/counter, Advanced Tactics. I had 4 nice cities - three carefully placed landlocked cities and one coastal city taken from the now-dead Malakim. I had my Great Engineer cool his heels until Valin Phanuel and the Centaur Archers could defuse the stack of Axemen the Bannor were throwing at me, while I researched message from the deep and spread OO in the Malakim city. (I have the Order and Empy holy cities, the Llosafar are on the other end of the continent with the FoL holy city, but the other four religions were absent from the continent.)

Once that was done, I popped the gate in the OO city and gave away every settlement and city except the core three to the Mercurians. The Mercurians built one confessor and then converted to OO to research Mind Stapling and build a cultist. Once Mind Stapling was done they started on an asylum. I took Way of the Wicked in a peace settlement from the Balseraphs (a war on another continent I hadn't fired a shot in) and researched Deception so I could join the undercouncil (along with Beeri, the CoE founder and only other member). Once the asylum was done I switched to Empyrean.

I'm only a few turns past that at this point. Auric casted stasis, which helps me a lot (my "economy" keeps producing angels while the Bannor can't reinforce). My only way of getting slaves is via slavery captures until Beeri decides to bring it up, but at the moment my economy can barely support the angels and I'm really short on workers, so I wouldn't be doing much upgrading anyway. Once my aristograrian economy is on its feet and the Bannor are brought to heel, I'll have the option to start upgrading slaves to take advantage of Basium's ingenuity. The game has reached Deity difficulty, but with the Kuriotate economic engine working for me this is less of a headwind than usual. (Being the only one with Iron weapons helps a lot, too...)

My plan, medium-to-long-term, is to give the Kurios the two nicest interior Llosofar cities (forested Enclaves!) to give them their full 5 cities (but no way to build normal boats) then get to astronomy. We'll see if that motivates the Kurios to build airships, which I can either request he give me, or just load my Lunatics on and see where Cardith takes them. I'm in a pretty strong position on my continent at this point, but there are several powerful civs waiting on other continents. If the Kurios don't cooperate and provide airships, I can make do with a regular navy, using the Lunatics for coastal attacks.

 

[akatosh]

Good luck with this. In my other game I am trying gifting piles of lunatics to Basium, so I don't have to micro them.

 

[Kiech]

LMAO...nice!

 

[Qgqqqqq]

LOL they probably can't tell the difference between that and the regular ai.

 

[doktarr]

Good luck with this. In my other game I am trying gifting piles of lunatics to Basium, so I don't have to micro them.

Interesting. That does allow Basium to get free angels out of the deal, which is a great double win. It fails to take advantage of Basium's ingenuity, though. I wonder if Basium would promote on his own if you gifted slaves to him in an Asylum City? Probably not.

I haven't gotten too far in my game, but I settled the war with the Bannor when the Ljosalfar declared war. At this point I have committed my Angels to defense and am attacking with Lunatics. (My entire army is Lunatics and Angels aside from Basium, one Cultist, one Confessor, and a couple Adepts. Cardith has centaurs buzzing about killing stray units, too, as well as piles of confessors. I'm not sure why he's building confessors and not Crusaders.) Beeri has been very unhelpful in his proposals (Fund dissidents!? At least give me a Gambling Ring dude!), but Slavery capture has actually given me enough to work with for now. It feels really powerful to be able to create a pile of 10 attack figures (Iron + Blessed) for 33 gold a pop, especially going up against Archers and Tigers.

The insanity thing is less of an annoyance playing on a continent map, because there's only so many places that a Lunatic can run to in search of a fight. In my case, by far the closest path to an enemy from the Asylum city is Ljosalfar territory, so I'm usually regaining control pretty close to where my main stack is, anyway. I don't have Acheron on my continent or things would be way more annoying.

 

[akatosh]

Interesting. That does allow Basium to get free angels out of the deal, which is a great double win. It fails to take advantage of Basium's ingenuity, though. I wonder if Basium would promote on his own if you gifted slaves to him in an Asylum City? Probably not.

I am playing Mahala of Lanun in this game, so it sort of works. Whole problem is that Ingenuity's a pretty rare trait--Mahala of Doviello doesn't need the Lunatic trick and Kandros Fir can't afford to spend the gold. To really make this work we need a non-Doviello non-Khazad Ingenuity leader.

What actually might work is in your case, you build and upgrade the Lunatics as Basium and then gift them to Cardith Lorda so you don't have to micro them. But then you don't get to recycle them as Angels so that's not a perfect solution either.

 

[doktarr]

Yeah, I think you just have to accept the micro if you want to play this strategy. Or load them on ships to avoid it.

 

[akatosh]

Let us know if you can get Cardith to start building airships

 

[Choriston]

Lunatics = Early Win!

Hi, first post.

Lunatics are awesome. In my opinion they are the most cost effective early game steamroller unit in the game as well as being quite amusing later on. IMO they make a Hannah/Lanun OO civ an early martial powerhouse. So: playing Hannah/Lanun on Emperor, Huge, 18 Civs on 6 Continents, Raging/Blessed Everything I conquered two continents and four civs, vassalling the fifth and leaving me undisputed master of the universe using only Saverous, the Norn stooges, on hunter, one asylum and the slavery civic, all within the first 200 turns. Built maybe two warriors, a second scout and a half dozen caravels. I didn't build a single Training Yard until Phalanx. I probably could have gone on to demolish more continents if I hadn't done the usual and gotten bogged down into the settler/builder sideshow.

Strat as follows:

Teched for Fishing (build boats), Agriculture, Exploration, Animal Husbandry, Hunting, Ancient Chants, Mysticism (switch to God King), Crafting, Message from the Deep,Cartography, Philosophy, Mind Stapling (build Asylum, Saverous), Way of the Wicked (switch to Slavery, build Pact of the Nilhorn), Horseback Riding (for Mobility I) Build a couple of workers for that oh so vital road to the neighbours' capital cities as soon as happiness maxed. Maybe use them to link up resources but not really important. Your neighbours will have very kindly done that for you. As well as building lots of lovely cities for you. No settlers required for ages.

Scout upgrade to hunter asap and search for bears. Lots of bears. These will garrison the conquered cities.

Take Saverous and the Norns to say hi to the nearest neighbour. The Norns knock down the city defences. Saverous manufactures slaves which are then turned into lunatics. Lunatics make more slaves, make more lunatics. The only essential promotion is Mobility I, working very nicely with Commando. Occasionally the loons do run off for a bit of private fun. Mobility I brings them home quickly and usually unscathed. Tech for Mining, Archery, Bronze Working, Sailing, Optics. Build Caravels. Build a new asylum on the new continent.

That's it. If you really push this rush nobody has anything higher than ST 4 units when you turn up on their doorstep for the old 'surprise visit'.

When this blitzkreig is over I like to pick up both Honour and Deception for Deus Dei and Nox Noctis. And that's Homeland Security taken care of by my enraged invisible perfect sight lunatics. Their low defence mattereth not a jot now. And it's also somehow deeply satisfying leaving the security of the homeland in the hands of total loons. With Altar of the Luonnatar and Mithril they're a 12/9 unit. Which have cost no hammers/turns at all.

In the late game they synergise very well with the Baron and Ravenous Werewolves. Just unload a few ships worth of these with the Regeneration spell promo after taking the first city on a new continent and watch in amusement as your foes field defence turns into chaotic mush as they spend all their time mopping up these brutal annoyances while your real army takes city after city. Lunatics retain the race of the original slave - Lizardmen lunatics, for example, will have free Amphibious from their racial characteristics.

Cost effectiveness: I ended up with 18 living lunatics all between lvls 5-7, from a game high total of 25. So I lost seven and not a moments sleep over them - just phoned up the asylum for some replacements. Turned four of the most powerful into Berzerkers who Never Get Off The Boat. 25 x 120 hammers = 3000 hammers.
Training Yard costs 100, Swordsmen 60; so I could have built about 48 upgradable swordsmen. However those 3000 hammers were able to be turned into Heron Throne (400+?) Tower of Complacency (750h), Bone Palace (700h) 7 caravels (600h) and an early wonder of your choice. Incidentally I didn't turn all my slaves into lunatics so there are quite a few hammers being contributed by their Hurry Production ability. But most importantly, the hammers saved are early hammers when production is scarce and are thus significantly more valuable than later more plentiful production.

To be honest I love them so much I'm thinking of Grafting one onto my invisible, hidden nationality, perfect sight, marching, Mob II, flying Flesh Golem and parking him in the middle of a 'friendly' continent and just leave him to it. For the lols. But that would probably be a bit of a waste.

I hear good things about Drown. Never used them.