LUCHUIRP
I'm relatively recently back and have really benefitted from this thread. Some of the suggestions on here have left gaps that were likely assumed to already be known, but that as a newer player I had to discover for myself. Here's what I've learned from the synthesis of reading this post and playing the Luchuirp in single player, which I realize is broadly regarded as too easy for the veterans even on deity but which can challenge me consistently during the early game on Immortal (or just obliterate me... thanks, 1st Immortal game starting me on a continent with Balseraphs, Doviello, and Clan!).
I. Faction Advantages: Hybrid Synergy
In addition to those outlined in the manual, the Luchuirp get exceptional value out of certain tech lines. When I used to play SMAC, the factions were often categorized as Momentum (aggression), Builder, or Hybrid. One of my favorite factions, the Gaians, were exceptionally good at deriving Momentum advantages from tech lines that were more commonly used for Building, killing two birds with one stone. The Luchuirp are likely the best faction in FfH at this kind of doubling up on tech outputs; it begins with Construction, a tech I have a hard time staying away from with any faction for the twin bonuses of Siege Workshops and irrigating Farms. The Luchuirp also get their Axemen replacement, Training Yard replacement (with +1 culture), and their Hero at this tech. Engineering and Machinery continue this trend, giving the Luchuirp Momentum AND Builder edges from a single line of techs and giving new, easily confused players clear guidance on what to grab.
II. Early Techs
- A. Play the map. Resource techs (Animal Husbandry, Mining, Fishing) vary by map and blanket statements cannot be made about their priority - usually Agriculture, Calendar, and Education are the typical start, but with enough Gems or Gold Mining may be a valuable grab. Regardless, your early game goals are a mix of teching to Calendar / Code of Laws to get Aristocracy and Agrarian up and running while grabbing Bronze Working* or Archery** if you're seriously threatened by local hostiles.
* Bronze Working is pretty bad for Luchuirp in the early game, as their Warriors cannot upgrade to Axemen. However, if you've spammed Warriors early, upgrading them all to strength 4 may help you avoid chronic researchers syndrome i.e. you're just building your first Sculptor's Studio when your opponents BSOD takes your town. Bronze Working is weak for the Luchuirp, but it gives its advantages pretty much instantly.
** While Archery is the usual defensive tech of choice, Dwarven Slingers lead you down a bulbing path you may wish to avoid. However, not dying is more important than the damage that Archery does to your bulbing options.
- B. Early victory = Kote and Construction. Once you've gotten your economy / bare bones defenses down, your key goals are Knowledge of the Ether and Construction, which will give you everything you need to win your first serious conquests. If you're particularly pressed, moving to KotE 1st will give your Warriors access to Enchanted Blades, which will in conjunction with Bronze Working give your Warriors a little extra oomph; however, Construction 1st is usually beneficial, to give you time to build Sculptors Studios or Siege Workshops in your cities (notice the OR - you want to be building Catapults at the same time as Wood Golems, not all one then all the other). In the pre-Assassin early game, you only need a couple Adepts in your BSoD to give it incredible endurance.
- C. Maximize the spoils of victory. I like to research Trade after KotE and Construction, in preparation for wearing my 1st target down to the point where he's willing to give me all his techs. Again, you may wish to avoid Archery if possible - even for free, it throws your Engineer's bulbing priorities in a particular direction. If you're interested in Iron Golems before Gargoyles, you should also avoid Mathematics. One tech the computer often researches early that you're particularly keen to get in this stage is Warfare, which is critical to you for reasons explained below.
- D. Religion. I'd avoid early religion, especially since you're probably going to be bulbing so many Engineers it's hard to found most holy cities - try to pick it up a religion in Trade and a holy city in conquest. No single religion is particularly critical to the Luchuirp. Pretty much every religion has something to offer them - the Order and OO are personal favorites. AV works great here as well, having the best synergy with any faction save for the Sheaim, but it makes me sad to corrupt the kindly, befuddled dwarves that profoundly.
III. Luchuirps, the Home of the Great Engineer
- A. Wait on your Worldspell. While it's tempting, and perhaps necessary in Mp, to spend your worldspell asap, I have found that the Luchuirp can effectively gain an effect similar to the Philosophical trait / Sidar Wane if you can wait until you have 5-7 cities. Barbarian cities are especially tempting targets to make this happen, as it doesn't matter if your city is still in rebellion, Gifts will still trigger. Bringing all the hammers back to a central city with Scouts and deleting them there will allow you to plant all your Engineers in a single locale, which gives you a sizeable increase in hammers and also supercharges the amount of GPP available at the time. Picking up Warfare unlocks the Heroic Epic, which doubles GPP output in its location; you'll be cranking out your first 3-4 great people in no time.
- B. Bulb. Once you've got your 5-7 settled Engineers + the Industrious trait + whatever other production resources are located in this city, you really don't need to utilize the Great Engineer's ability to finish off Great Wonders early. Instead, you can use your Great People to lightbulb certain critical techs. The first seven Great Engineer lightbulb techs are:
1. Engineering (Gargoyles)
2. Mithril Working
3. Machinery (Clockwork Golems)
4. Smelting
5. Blasting Powder
6. Bowyers
7. Iron Working (Iron Golems)
This is a fantastic list for you. The presence of Bowyers ahead of Iron Working is the reason that it's best to wait on Archery/Slingers if at all possible if you want to get Iron Golems asap. You'll need to research Mathematics manually if you're interested in the Gargoyle line - it ranks in #52 on the Great Engineer priority list.
- C. Pick your Path. It's either Gargoyles or Iron Golems. The latter are significantly better offensively, but the former offers nice Builder bonuses such as Gambling Houses (for managing happiness without sacrificing health), Guild of Hammers (VERY nice pickup for the Luchuirp, even with Industrious - Forges are necessary for Iron Golem creation and the +1 hammer for Engineers synergizes wonderfully with your Worldspell), City of a Thousand Slums, increased road movment (helps your slooooow Golems a lot), and gets you closer to Taxation/Guilds/Mercantilism/Machinery. At Immortal+, it's easy to miss out on Wonders if you don't push for them.
1.Iron Golems probably benefit most from a mix of bulbing and straight research down the same path to grab them asap - strength 10 Iron golems with Empower V are simply overwhelming against Bronze-wielding archers and axemen. Continue the Golem/Adept/Catapult combo.
2. Gargoyles are significantly weaker offensively than Iron Golems while costing identical production, with their one significant advantage being that they produce 25% faster with Marble. One implication of this is that you may wish to manually research Elementalism and Sorcery while bulbing your way to Gargoyles, as a Fireball thrown by an Iron Golem = a Fireball thrown by a Gargoyle. Enough Fireballs will kill virtually anything, but the defensive power of a Gargoyle is significantly better than that of a Wood Golem.
IV. Combined Arms: What else besides Golems?
- A. Golems Rule (kind of)! Golems are fantastic troops - able to be healed by a spell readily available to Adepts while other armies need to wait for their High Priest units for instant healing, resistant to many damage types, pre-upgraded by Barney, and some of the most prolific Fireball-throwers available in the game. On the other hand, they can't learn from experience, can't get better weapons, can't be effected by buffing spells, and never get any faster than a move of one.
- B. Options for diversifying your forces away from Golems.
1. Chariots. Your "horsemen" as the Luchuirp are pretty terrible (contrary to what is shown in the manual, they are strength 4 movement 2). However, your Chariots are the same as everyone else, they unlock with Trade (which you will want to get the most out of your conquests), and they are built at Siege Workshops (which you will want to provide Catapults until you get Blasting Workshops). Therefore, they require minimal additional investment to toss into your forces, making them an attractive option for those looking for quick troops without a lot of fuss. Their speed (3+upgrades) is extremely useful as a complement to all your 1 speed golems, and they are reasonably good offensive units when upgraded with Iron or Mithril.
2. Octopus Overlords. Usually a conversion I make as a result of being surrounded by Neutral/Evils. As mentioned earlier in this thread, you can Drown all of your early game experienced Warriors to continue to proceed in parallel to other cultures - Drown for Axemen, Stygian Guard for Champion. This is an especially nice combination with bulbing the Iron Golem path, as this will keep your squamous, non-euclidean hordes armed with superb weaponry all the way through. While others have mentioned the savage Dwarven Druid as a benefit from this path, I'm also particularly fond of gaining access to Slavery for mid-game conquests (which is prohibited by the base Luchuirp good alignment) - newly converted cities are often both cranky and starving due to lack of culture, and whipping their useless population away for your Monument/Market/Sculptor's Studio gives these cities a great intro to life in the Luchuirp Empire. You also get the very unreliable but entertaining option of Slave->Lunatics through this combo - I find I can virtually never control my Lunatics, but they do hit very, very hard.
3. Crusaders. The Order is already a superb choice for managing a large, sprawling Empire due to its Basilicas (especially with a Financial leader whose reliance on Aristrocracy means he doesn't want to have a mega-financial capital through God King). If you wait to switch to The Order until after Fanaticism, you can count on picking up a significant horde of Crusaders, which has to one of the game's best deals - a Confessor for 120 hammers gets you guaranteed city conversion + a Temple of Order worth 120 hammers + a 75% chance of a Crusader worth 120 hammers. If you're converting said large, sprawling empire, you're going to pick up a serious number of Crusaders along the way. The downside, of course, is that once you have a large empire you've often already won - this will help you win faster, however, which still helps on points.
4. Mercenaries. Currency isn't a bad tech even without building the Guild of the Nine, but mercs can really tip the balance, if for no other reason than that they allow your golem horde to avoid attrition through city defense to maintain a critical mass of Fireballers. Remember that Industrious + your worldspell really cranks out the Wonder easily; might as well use it for a Wonder that matters the whole game, especially if you're setting your gold rate especially high to benefit from Gambling Halls. Bonus stupid fact: Fireballs can summon Mercenaries.
V. Magic Picks
- A. Golems Love Enchantment 1. Ideally you nab an extra source of Enchantment mana, for the additional happiness and so that every one of your Adepts starts with Repair. If you're mana starved, though, skip it - Fire mana is your top priority for Blasting Workshops.
- B. Debuffs: Entropy and Metamagic. Your Golems cannot use weapons or benefit from buffing spells, but they are pretty tough customers without them - an Iron Golem has the same base strength as a Mithril Wielding Champion. Wherever possible, you want to strip your opponents of the benefits of their weapons and buffs and force them to fight your Golems naked. Dispel Magic and Rust are therefore extremely useful offensive additions to your repetoire. Entropy 2 and Metamagic 1 are also pretty good - the Eye gives you excellent intel on your enemies, which helps you prevent your slow Golems from proceeding down the wrong paths, while Pit Beasts actually put in good service in conjunction with a hail of Fireballs - they can often stick around for 2-3 rounds in a long siege, grabbing City Raider upgrades to heal themselves and continue bashing away. And, of course, once you get Entropy 3 you've got one of the nastiest offensive spells in the game.
- C. Mage Protection: Death and Earth
Your Golems really want a mage around with Repair. Enemy Marksmen also want you to have mages around to provide them with soft targets, and your Golems can't pick up Guardsmen. I usually just use Royal Guard and a Guardsmen upgraded combat hero (Saverous with Fear is nice). Theorycrafting suggests, although I haven't tried it, that Stoneskin should make your mages tougher than Wood Golems, even discounting the lost point of poison against the Golem. The same theorycrafting suggests that Skeletons should be weaker against Assassins than your Mages even without Stoneskin.
- D. Grab a Tower of Elements
You want Fire Mana for Blasting Workshops. You start with Earth. You want Metamagic for recon and debuffing. You might consider grabbing Water (ideally through the Necronomicon constructed by someone else) and Air to slap Strong on all your Fireballs. If you're going to be tossing dozens of them around every turn, you might as well make them hit as hard as you can, and Metamagic will allow you to respec your mana later.
VI. Late Game Wonders
- A. Nexus. Everyone loves the Nexus for military and financial applications, but the fact that Golems are as slow as it is possible to be and still move means you love it more.
- B. Birthright Regained. When you're looking for that last oomph to either invade another continent or power through the Tower of Mastery in record time, casting Gifts on a fully-formed Empire is hard to beat. It's especially easy to shuffle those Hammers around with the Nexus.
Ermmm... that's all I got.
P.S. Generic tip: If you want to get a city out of revolt faster, throw in a level 1 Disciple and sac them for bonus culture - viola, instant happy. Doesn't work with Savants, for obvious reasons. Not always a good idea if the city in question is still surrounded by enemy culture - better to conquer more cities in the duration of the revolt to push back enemy culture.
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