Alexis - Calabim Guide 0.33

[EverNoob]

[SIZE=+2]Alexis - Calabim Guide 0.33[/SIZE]​

On the forum there seems to be more info on how to play Flauros than Alexis, so I thought I'd fill that void. Seeing as I prefer Alexis.

As usual contributions and constructive criticism welcome

Trying to play Alexis as if you were Flauros will lead to failure (or extremely sub-optimal play). The crucial difference between Alexis and Flauros is how they run their early game economy. Alexis is Philosophical, Flauros is Financial. Though as the game progresses, their styles of play becomes more similar.

Alexis is most fun played aggressively right off the bat. She's Aggressive after all

Table of Contents

Early Game Economy
Religion
Feudalism vs Fanaticism​

Note: to distinguish units with vampirism (acquired or innate) in general from the Vampire unit (Champion replacement) I spell Vampire with a capital “V”.

[SIZE=+1]Early Game Economy[/SIZE]​

Since the Calabim cannot build Elder Councils, early game economy revolves around Great Prophets. Most of them should be settled in your capital, under the God King (or Queen ) civic. For an idea of how a Great Prophet SE can work see here. There's some debate as to whether settling or bulbing Great Prophets is better. As far as I can tell, mostly settling, with bulbing a few selected techs works best. Plus a well timed Golden Age for the final push toward Feudalism/Fanaticism.

Bulbing a religion and Priesthood is usually a good idea.

The Calabim Breeding Pit is essential to helping you maintain priests to generate GPP.

However, as the game progresses, gradually shifting to a CE is a good idea. Producing other types of GPs later on is also feasible. Eventually switching out of GK will be necessary, and is a function of the size of your empire and how established your cottages are.

Therefore, initial research is Ancient Chants --> Mysticism for God King (GK) and Pagan Temple. In order to take advantage of the God King production bonus, your capital needs to have a decent number of forested plains or hill tiles. Once you have GK, build the Pagan Temple and assign a priest. Then continue building Warriors to rush your neighbours, or start REXing as normal. Next, go for a religion.

[SIZE=+1]Religion[/SIZE]​

RoK, OO, or FoL are all good. It depends on terrain, your preferences, and your neighbours. You'll need an early religion for Temples and holy shrine so that you can continue churning out Great Prophets. I suggest researching Agriculture sometime after founding a religion.

Bulbing a religion is often a good idea, since it founds the religion before settling your 2nd city. This means that your holy city will be your capital as well, allowing the GK gold bonus to apply to the holy shrine. Founding OO without bulbing is often doable as well if you have a lot of fishing resources to boost commerce, though the Lanun may still beat you to it. Founding RoK without bulbing is possible if you have gold nearby, but watch out for the Dwarves. Founding FoL without bulbing is difficult and usually takes too long. If the Elves are on the map don’t even think about it. Since I don’t like to gamble, I prefer to simply bulb.

If you did not manage to found a religion, then you’ll need to produce GPs in parallel in many cities instead of concentrating your GPP generation at the holy shrine. That is until you take someone else’s holy city

Since religion heavily influences how Alexis plays, I made sections by religion.

Octopus Overlords

If there's fishing resources at your capital, then OO requires the least amount of , since the extra food can support your growth until Agriculture.

The biggest benefit of OO is the Tower of Complacency (ToC) for your "Feasting City". The 750 cost seems ludicrous, but in fact the ToC is easy to build if you've been settling all your Great Prophets in your capital. The ToC yields the best long-term feasting potential out of all 3 religions.

The only real drawback is that Hemah is fairly deep in the arcane line of techs, so I usually make do with Saverous. Note that Saverous cannot become a vampire.

OO allows Drowns/Cultists/Stygians for a strong naval presence, whether it is for coastal defense or assault.

OO conserves your evil alignment, giving you access to Vampire Eidolons. Moroi and Vampires upgrade to Eidolons​

Fellowship of Leaves

If your surrounding area is heavily forested or has alot of hunting resources, then FoL is a viable option. from Ancient forests supports your growth until Agriculture.

FoL has some sweet advantages. The extra from ancient forests (non-pillageable) reduces the need to farm, freeing your Workers for other stuff. But the biggest benefit is that FoL allows you go grow many huge cities for you to Feast on, though becomes an issue with repeated feasting.

Unfortunately, FoL requires research down the recon line for most of the religion specific units. All the FoL heroes are fairly deep in the recon line. This takes away from your main line of research, which is Vampire research. So you have to choose between forgoing FoL units or delaying Vampires.

Since FoL yields large cities, it allows you to easily generate GPP in parallel. FoL is also good if you want an economy with a stronger lean toward SE and start producing other types of GPs.

Before vampires, FoL works well with whipping from Slavery.

Like OO, FoL conserves your evil alignment for Vampire Eidolons.​

Runes of Kilmorph

RoK is the least terrain dependent of the 3 religions. However if you have access to gold, RoK yields an extremely strong early game economic boost. RoK plays very differently from OO and FoL.

The and boost of RoK is undeniable and yields the strongest pre-vampire benefits out of the 3 religions. If you want to dominate using non-vampiric Moroi then RoK is the most appropriate. The Mines of Gal-Dur is easily built with settled Great Prophets, and Bambur gives the Moroi +20% combat in addition to their Burning Blood ability. I wonder how Kilmorph feels about a vampiric Bambur

RoK is the most compatible religion for an early Moroi rush (though not a rush properly speaking).

Build mines to accelerate construction of Breeding Pits, this should help compensate for late Agriculture.

Unfortunately, RoK does nothing to increase your “food base” for vampire feasting. Therefore your vampires will be of lower level than possible with OO/FoL. This can be compensated by having more units, since the RoK economic base can produce and support more units.

Another big disadvantage is that RoK changes your alignment to neutral, making Eidolons unavailable. Druids are available, but they require researching the recon line and do not upgrade directly from Moroi or Vampires. In addition, Druids needs to wait for lvl 6 to acquire Vampirism.

Given those 2 big drawbacks, RoK benefits most from acquiring vampirism via Feudalism rather than Fanaticism, churning out Vampires in large quantities.​

[SIZE=+1]Feudalism vs Fanaticism[/SIZE]​

There's already a thread on this topic. So I won't go into too much detail.

The choice between Feudalism vs Fanaticism to access vampirism depends on many factors, aside from personal preference.

Factors in favour of Feudalism:

• An early builder start to provide a strong economy for Vampires. A strong economy is essential because Vampires are very expensive (180 compared to 120 for Champions and 60 for Moroi). Writing and Trade, which are builder techs, are requirements for Feudalism.
• Few lvl 4+ Moroi
• RoK

Factors in favour Fanaticism:

• Many lvl 4+ Moroi
• Early warmongering, which yields more lvl 4+ Moroi.
• FoL and OO = evil alignment for Eidolons

With Fanaticism, your military strength will be concentrated in Losha and a group of vampiric Moroi. Whereas with Feudalism, it will be more evenly spread out among easily replaceable Vampires.

Feudalism allows vassals states, but Fanaticism brings you closer to Eidolons (Malevolent Designs) and Bruja (Rage). Vampiric Eidolon and Bruja are seriously badass dudes.

To sum it up, Fanaticism caters to heavy warmongering but Feudalism caters to a more balanced style of play.

At the point in the game when vampirism is acquired, the difference in playing style between Alexis and Flauros diminishes substantially.

I hope this was helpful to new Alexis players

 

[dot]

Up 'til now I've always been addicted to the Elves. I have been pondering on giving the vamps a try ... but never did.

With this I might give it a try soonish. I'll report back.

Thanks for the guide.

 

[slowcar]

Good guide, short and nice to read, and, most important, correct and helpful.

The only backdraw for me, regarding Calabim, is that the game is essentially over when you get to vampires. It is similar to the fireball-throwing golems the luichirp feature, it is just walking all over the rest of the victims.
From time to time i enjoy a nice calabim game - but i quickly get bored each time i reach vampirism and play a bit more.

 

[Marksman77]

Thank you, that's one perfect and deep guide.

However...

Note that you should generate GPP and build the ToC in different cities, as feasting interferes with assigning specialists. Therefore you do not want the OO holy city to be the same as your capital.

ToC can be built in any city, so you can still have HC as your capital and ToC in another city.

 

[EverNoob]

However...

ToC can be built in any city, so you can still have HC as your capital and ToC in another city.

Very true.

I'll just edit out that part of the guide

 

[avalonnn]

Elsewhere on this site, people talked about playing Calabim as Order. I strongly recommend it. I play a more relaxed game (no hammer counting) at a lower difficulty level than most here.

Anyway, played as Calabim on one of my first BTS games:

I used a conquest early economy and nearly went broke, and had slow research, and was RoK (a tablets of Bembur economy + Iron from Mines of Galdur).

When the opportunity to switch to Basium came, I took it, giving Basium the tablets -- I had also founded OO and later obtained that city for Basium when it was overrun by Barbarians).

I cast River of Blood shortly before the switch.

The early economy is a very serious problem for the Calabim. One way to solve it on a lower difficulty level is to found a religion and build that religion's shrine.

In addition, conquest can give you enough gold to enable you to run science at 80% -- with negative per turn gold.

Don't know whether this would work on Prince or even Noble, however.