What are lunatics good for?

[scutarii]

basium+lunatics=angels.

 

[doktarr]

basium+lunatics=angels.

Yep, that's the killer app for lunatics, no doubt. I played a game out with that combo and once it got rolling it felt pretty unstoppable. I mostly built commerce-boosting buildings, except for a couple cities producing priests, adepts, and boats. The large majority of my troops were slaves->lunatics->angels.

 

[akatosh]

Yeah, and Perpentach can summon Basium. Possibly a switch to RoK while he has spiritual and then a switch back to OO.

Doktarr--do you think it's better to summon Basium and gift him the lunatics to avoid the micro, or play as Basium and upgrade the lunatics yourself?

 

[Ororo]

Is there any way to dispel their craziness? Pool of tears/Priests/dispel spell?

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

not in FFH, but if you're playing Extramodmod I think Spirit III does that. i.e. remove enraged, not crazed.

 

[doktarr]

Yeah, and Perpentach can summon Basium. Possibly a switch to RoK while he has spiritual and then a switch back to OO.

Obviously if you've got Basium on your side, running a good religion has benefits. As you've noted before, you really only need OO long enough to research Mind Stapling and build one Asylum. That said, Basium himself could easily run OO the whole time. You probably won't want to build Stygian Guards, but Cultists and Hemah are still awesome, and you don't build that many units when employing this strategy anyway.

Doktarr--do you think it's better to summon Basium and gift him the lunatics to avoid the micro, or play as Basium and upgrade the lunatics yourself?

"Better" in this case is a matter of interpretation. Just playing Basium and upgrading yourself is pretty clearly the strongest play in an absolute sense, but depending on the map and the situation it can be pretty annoying. In the game where I used Basium+Lunatics it wasn't so bad, as there were only a couple places for the Lunatics to wander to and before long I had them corralled on boats off the coast. But on a map with a big landmass and lots of barbarian corners for the Lunatics to wander into, it could really slow down your game (and be less efficient, too).

If you've committed to playing the Basium end of things, then basically every civ that can reasonably run one of the three good religions is a decent starting option. Ones that don't rely on unique units are marginally better. Luchuirp have the easiest time rushing the gate but are one of the worst civs for actually supplying angels.

 

[doktarr]

If you could get lucky enough to acquire an Asylum via Hyborem's Whisper or Diplomacy, and the civ that summoned the Infernals had already researched Mind Stapling, Hyborem can get the same sort of ridiculous benefit from lunatics that Basium does. Hyborem can't build an Asylum, or conquer one for that matter, though, so it takes some luck.

Werewolves are also a really inefficient tech path for Infernals (very little up that line for them), and mercenaries come out as demons for Infernals, just like all their produced units. So really, there aren't reliable ways for Infernals to get manes out of their own troops like the Mercurians can.

 

[scutarii]

If you could get lucky enough to acquire an Asylum via Hyborem's Whisper or Diplomacy, and the civ that summoned the Infernals had already researched Mind Stapling, Hyborem can get the same sort of ridiculous benefit from lunatics that Basium does. Hyborem can't build an Asylum, or conquer one for that matter, though, so it takes some luck.

Although, played as Hyborem, my selected city HAD asylm, it dissapeared after changing ownership via hyborem's whisper.

Tested hyoborems whisper several times. Sometimes you get selected city with asylm, sometimes not.

I cannot upgrade captured slaves to lunatics as hyborem, although all requirements are met

I got it: you still have to switch to OO and research mind stapling first ( your "mother civilization" already did it but it does not count)

But its better DOW on barbarians or be at war with others, there simply is not enough animals for lunatic suicide.

Directly built lunatics for hyborem are demon race - no manes. Only slave upgrades work.

Lots of micromanagement - pick up captured slaves from the field, airlift slaves to your previously lanun owned city, upgrade, usually lift again ( one per turn), release.

Now...where are my manes ???? At least aganist of barbs ..none...( showed middle finger to them)

My own lunatics dying - no manes, other lunatics dead=manes

also under OO hyborem can build asylms.

My guess: only enraged "your" lunatics dying count as manes ??? ah, screw it.

 

[doktarr]

Although, played as Hyborem, my selected city HAD asylm, it dissapeared after changing ownership via hyborem's whisper.

Tested hyoborems whisper several times. Sometimes you get selected city with asylm, sometimes not.

I cannot upgrade captured slaves to lunatics as hyborem, although all requirements are met

I got it: you still have to switch to OO and research mind stapling first ( your "mother civilization" already did it but it does not count)

But its better DOW on barbarians or be at war with others, there simply is not enough animals for lunatic suicide.

Directly built lunatics for hyborem are demon race - no manes. Only slave upgrades work.

Lots of micromanagement - pick up captured slaves from the field, airlift slaves to your previously lanun owned city, upgrade, usually lift again ( one per turn), release.

Now...where are my manes ???? At least aganist of barbs ..none...( showed middle finger to them)

My own lunatics dying - no manes, other lunatics dead=manes

also under OO hyborem can build asylms.

My guess: only enraged "your" lunatics dying count as manes ??? ah, screw it.

Agh, sorry you went to all this trouble! I looked at the code and figured this stuff out a few days after I posted that but I never came back here to correct things.

I believe you have it right on what you need to do in order to get living lunatics. You need to have Mind Stapling researched and the Asylum built before summoning the Infernals, then you need to get lucky on Hyborem's whisper and retain it, then you need to be running slavery (and/or undercouncil in EMM) and upgrade captured slaves to lunatics. (I wasn't aware Hyborem could convert to OO? Is that in the base game? I thought he could only be AV or no religion, but I haven't checked this. If you can convert to OO then that means you can get an Asylum without trouble.)

Slave->Lunatic and werewolves are pretty much the only way you can get a steady supply of living units with Hyborem. (There's also domination, beast capture, and some random events, but none of these count as a steady supply.) Everything you produce in your cities that is normally a living unit will be a demon (except for Baron Duin and Rosier).

Even then though, those lunatics won't become manes, as you noticed. This is because Hyborem doesn't get automatically get manes when his living units die like Basium does. Basium gets angels from all good-religion living units that die, plus all Mercurian living units that die irrespective of religion. Hyborem gets manes from all evil-religion living units that die, plus all living units with entropy 1 or death 1 that die. Being in the Infernal civ doesn't matter.

So... really, aside from the "Dominate Govannon and teach your lunatics Death 1" scenario, you're kind of out of luck in terms of creating a self-contained mane pipeline for Hyborem. (No worries - just tech up the economy line, run city states/caste system/mercantilism, spam cities, bulid workshops everywhere, and laugh all the way to the bank. Endgame Hyborem has absurd economic output and can spam units as fast as anyone.)