Calabim overpowered?!

[PotatoOverdose]

but don't difficulties above noble give the AI "cheating" advantages ?

I really like playing on a level field with my opponents.

Look at it this way, if the AI was better it would be able to accomplish the same things it currently does with cheats without them. So, the "cheats" are just a stopgap until the AI is improved to the point where it can accomplish the same task without as many cheats. At least I hope the bonus xp is a stopgap...

 

[Grey Fox]

Level playing field is alright as long as you and your opponent are of similar skill level, and the AI suck, so they need the cheats.

 

[Ashdrake]

I just made the thread because i usually got my ass kicked on noble on BTS and i normally only play at the warlord dificulty level. (i'm very new to the game) so meaning i could play at prince did came as a shock to me givin that i could wipe civ after civ with just 1 type of unit (without requiring anything else). And some say that you can do that with all civs, and even in BTS, but the point is that i never had any casualties, from my 20vampires or so, i think the lowest xp ones died (2-4 because i was trying to get them to fight to get some XP).
They have nice str, 6 (with bronze i think), they are able to be promoted to have COMBAT promotions (like combat/hilldef/forestdef/shock/cover) + they also act like mages (being able to cast death magic), and also due to the fact that they have the ability to cast Regenerate, that acts like march used to, so no need to bring a priest with you.

Now i dont say the AI is stupid but the only reason i've upped the difficulty level is because the AI got zapped by the barbs in the first 100 rounds (like from 12AI, 4 died due to barbs or Othus or Mocca)

My personal experience at least.

 

[Yaotzin]

It's a common thing from folks new to FFH. I think it's just because the AI is weaker (can't really deal with magic and whatnot), so it seems like everyone is overpowered. You should definitely play on a higher level than you play regular Civ on.

Try play Keelyn with puppet spam or Faeryl with Forest 2 recon+mages with shadowwalk/poisoned blade/treetop defense etc, and throw in Nox Noctis for fun. Vampires won't seem so strong anymore

 

[zup]

Oh yeah? All of my vampires can summon a permanent skeleton to safeguard them and a spectre every turn to soften up the enemy. Death 2 is 2 xp away for a newly created vampire and command posts supply that (if I don't have form of the titan or run theocracy.) And it is my permanent units getting the kills. Not summons who vanish and take the xp with them. And unless you are spamming assassins on a wounded vampire, you'll have to plow through all of my skeletons to get to them. Even with puppet spam, do you have enough attacks? (Channeling 2 makes vampires unlikely to defend if they don't have a huge advantage.) How do you hurt a big stack of vampires? Spells which AI does not use well, collateral damage which might go to skeletons, blitz troops (if they are still in shape to do so after all the skellies) or an even bigger stack. And that bonewall can be reinforced every turn for free. Also, if you kill 100 skellies/turn for say 10 turns that's 1000 battles. Even with 99.9% win odds you should lose 1 unit on the average. And my vampires were not in any significant danger. And once your units are wounded, the high xp vampires can counter attack with great effect, and summon skellies the same turn.

I have wiped out enemy SoDs with skellies alone. Even without Nox Noctis, once I have researched engineering, I can use my entire stack to send skellies to attack that stack 3 times before they reach my vampire stack and have the bonewall up when they get close enough. Not as effective against raiders leaders though. With Nox Noctis I have even more time to spam skellies on them. Or I can use spectres.

In short, mass produced hungry coward skellie/spectre factory champions = win.

 

[Yaotzin]

Destroy undead would be rather effective with the recent change

Skeletons are nice and all, but remember that if you're letting me spam kill your skeletons I'm getting tons of free XP. Can just play defense with Faeryl or something and feed on them. Vamps are very strong (if you get them, Tasunke can kill you long before you get them), but there are still a few stronger civs.

With the change though (a needed one, skeleton spam was OP), as long as you can kill the actual vampires, which various strategies can, you shouldn't have problems. Can't rely on that bonewall anymore.

Yeah, the AI can't deal with them at all, but the AI can't deal with lots of things.

ETA: Also, remember the Channelling promotions are a double edged sword. If your Vamp is too weak to defend in front of the skeletons that means assassins/shadows can take it out.

 

[Zechnophobe]

It really isn't vampires that make the calabim, but the Governor's Mansions. While Vamps are definitely a solid champion level unit, the reason the calabim are so consistent is because their cities with a mansion are ridiculously productive.

 

[Yaotzin]

How so? Even with STW, they basically give 1food=1hammer until you hit the health cap (probably quickly with the +4), where it becomes 2food=1hammer. Am I missing something? It's useful, but doesn't seem that great.

 

[Zechnophobe]

The governor's mansion works like a pillar of chains. It gives +1 Hammer for each unhappy face that exists in the city. Since each point of population gives 1 unhappy face, you get at least 1 hammer per city size.

Keep in mind, that the mansion gives 1 Hammer per unhappy face, NOT 1 hammer for each unhappy face ABOVE the number of happy faces you have (This is how it worked a while ago).

This isn't really well shown in a city, but you can easily notice it if you know where to look. Mouse over the production bar to see your production break down. It will give you a total production (In the mouse over). Then look down at the actual number of hammers being applied per turn... you'll notice it is significantly larger.


For examples of how effective this is, consider a size 10 city. It is working 10 tiles plus the city center. Generally speaking a size 10 city will produce roughly 12 production, if it is doing pretty well. That city with a governor's mansion will instead produce 22 production, almost double.

 

[Grey Fox]

Actually since the governors manor itself produces +1 unhappy face that would be 23 production.

 

[Yaotzin]

Oh, it still does that. I thought that was a bug that would surely be fixed (haven't actually played them in a while). Veeeeeeery OP. Seems like it should be a bug since the mouseover on production says it's giving unhappy faces-happy faces production.

Though elves are probably still stronger, 1food1hammer per pop pretty much!

 

[Zechnophobe]

Oh, it still does that. I thought that was a bug that would surely be fixed (haven't actually played them in a while). Veeeeeeery OP. Seems like it should be a bug since the mouseover on production says it's giving unhappy faces-happy faces production.

Though elves are probably still stronger, 1food1hammer per pop pretty much!

Yeah, it's definitely comparable. Of course, the Calabim ALSO have campires and breeding pits, whereas the good elves don't have much special in the military area.

 

[Yaotzin]

Rather have Elder Councils than breeding pits honestly. The hammers for pits are so harsh, and an early sage is so useful.

Yeah, not sure about the good elves militarily. Although with archers getting these defensive strikes and the extra attack for Ljos, Longbowmen are better than pre-mithril Champions. The hero ain't bad either. I should try out archer spam with them, hrm. I guess the beakers is the biggest problem, hmm.

 

[zup]

Sure, skellies are weaker now. But that does not limit their effectiveness, it still costs one attack to kill them. And if you feel just dumping skeletons at the enemy feeds them, use spectres, a newly born vampire should be capable of casting them. Anybody can squeeze out 2 xp from civics if all else fails (Alexis without form of the titan).

As Calabim have good production, Soul Forge is not difficult to get. That's 1 death mana. Nox Noctis and Stigmata on the Unborn give entropy and shadow manas. If you don't have the holy cities, conquer them. Then get chaos mana and build necromancy tower. You now have 2 death mana. Then make some death nodes and now your spectres become scary. Of course nobody wants to meet a stack of 150 vampires on the battlefield, but if they hang behind 150 skellies (which you have to kill all) and attack with 150 spectres, it will hurt your own SoD, which is not quite as big as Calabim have lots of production. And surely that stack has some neatly promoted vampires as too to mow down even lightly wounded targets. They can also cast regeneration on the whole stack, so their city raider III vampires have all the advantages of march. And they can give regeneration to support magi and disciples. And it is not a big deal if their regeneration caster dies as they have plenty of reserves.

It is not the size (strength) of the skeletons that counts, its the number of them. And killing them in defense nets very little experience for powerful units. Getting that 1 extra promotion, say cold resistance to handle tsunami better, for one or two units (they are out of more important stuff to get) while losing a combat V, drill IV, city garrison III, shock II longbowman is not a good deal IMO.

Killing Hyborem early, or having a nice Elohim player do lots of Hallowing will allow you to reap the benefits of StW without other drawbacks than Basium hating you and dragging all of his goodie buddies to suicide against you. A big population = lots of vampire food + lots of production = SoDs of nasty vampires.

I am also well aware how Calabim die next to Tasunke. Everybody seems to. But Calabim are supposed to suffer early and then rise to dominance.

 

[Zechnophobe]

Rather have Elder Councils than breeding pits honestly. The hammers for pits are so harsh, and an early sage is so useful.

Yeah, not sure about the good elves militarily. Although with archers getting these defensive strikes and the extra attack for Ljos, Longbowmen are better than pre-mithril Champions. The hero ain't bad either. I should try out archer spam with them, hrm. I guess the beakers is the biggest problem, hmm.

In the first 100 turn, yes. But all things considered breeding pits are amazingly good once you start getting happines modifiers in.

Say you have a size 5 city, and switch to Guardian of Nature, and suddenly have 6 pop to grow. A size 5 city takes 30 food to grow. Without a breeding pit you might be making 4 food a turn if you've set yourself up nicely. Post breeding pit, you get 6 food, and grow in 5 turns. At the end of those 5 turns you carry over 6 food (20% stored). The pit ends up giving you a total of a little more than 3 food a turn.

When your pop cap suddenly increases in situations like this, the biggest thing you need is to grow into it as fast as possible, and then start working your production and economic squares, and this they do exceptionally well. (And of course, the synergy between fast growing cities and Governor's Mansions is awesome).

 

[WarKirby]

Keep in mind, that the mansion gives 1 Hammer per unhappy face, NOT 1 hammer for each unhappy face ABOVE the number of happy faces you have (This is how it worked a while ago).

I never knew this. I thought it was only for excess unhappiness.

In my last calabim game, I only built mansions in a few select military production cities. And I was STILL dominating easily..

Maybe the production bonus should be unhappiness/2 (rounded down). That would still be fairly good.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I'll have to agree, the bonus hammers provided by governors' manors seem over the top.

 

[Ekolite]

He was talking about Faeryl, probably. Some people have this ridiculous idea that a leader with one purely offensive trait, one trait that's utterly worthless till sorcery, and no strong early UUs can become a defensive juggernaut by adopting FoL and banking on unreliable treant spawns. It's a baseless, false myth, but also a common one.

Actually that's not true. Faeryl's amazing defense comes from her recom units. Assume that she has gone FOL, her lands will be more or less covered with ancient forest. All her recon units have +1 attack from sinister, all her recon units have bonus movement in forest to track down and kill enemies before retreating to a city. These recon units can build up easy xp by killing the victims of Faeryl's illusions (amazing) and can get the forest promotion (not sure of the name) at level 1 and 2, giving tehm an even better synergy with their forest homeland, as each provides something similiar to +30% attack and defense in Ancient Forests. Unbeatable, even compared to the Ljos IMO.

 

[slowcar]

while the manor looks like not working as intended i still think that vampires itself are a lot stronger compared to other units. if you play them right you get 100+ xp from the start, enough for CR3+Combat3+Cover2, enough to march through almost all of the cities defended by longbows.
it is all about the super units, at least as long as you have some guarding stack to protect them from getting stomped by some SoD. normally very easy to attack and retreat though, most of the time the AI attacks only if you stand next to their city.

 

[Gelvan]

no offense meant, but why does everyone who plays FFH2 for the first time, think, that calabim is overpowered? In my suggestion every single civ is overpowered IF you know how to play it. The funny part is not to play calabim if you're very good at it, but to try Lanun where you suck. Calabim IS NOT overpowered, was never and will never be. Calabim ist just a BUILDER Civ. Which needs time to get where it get's unstoppable. That's the IDEA of calabim. SO DONT NERF THEM.