Civ guide: Balseraphs

[Sarisin]

"Loki's unique ability is to randomly cause revolts in enemy cities that he's in while draining 1 culture per turn from them like a gypsy wagon. This is most effective against newly founded cities or cities that just changed hands in an AI-AI war which don't have any culture yet. When the city culture is zero or less, the victim city can only work its own tile, and is extremely likely to flip to Balseraph control should a revolt occur. Taking advantage of squabbling neighbours is is a good way to get free cities, the key is to get Loki in quickly before an obelisk can be built."

I agree with your strategy using Loki, but there is a bug associated with this that I reported in the Bugs Thread.

The next time the city with Loki in it contracts to one tile due to unrest, you will note that the Workers are STILL working the tiles no longer included in the city's radius. I think they should stop as the tile is no longer part of that civ's territory. Further, with Loki in the city, you can see what is being built and the number of turns needed. Again, this is unaffected despite the city now not being able to work the surrounding tiles. I think this is also a bug.

It is true that usually once the city contracts it will soon flip. However, I have seen times where it stays in this "one-tile" condition for many turns and the Workers continue to build improvements on tiles no longer within the civ's borders.

I have not had a response from a team member on this bug with Loki/Balseraph.

 

[Raize]

I've read that Law mana counteracts the chance to go barbarian. This would mean that having law mana could get rid of primary disadvantage of Mutation.

 

[Blackmantle]

Yep. Loyal units won't defect or turn barb (are still dominatable right now, but that might be a bug and hence be fixed soon.).
Which turns enraged and especially crazed / burning blood into a real advantage. (Which is very neat since the calabim start with law mana and have moroi which can cast burning blood. So bronzeworking and KotE is a nice early strategy for them.)

 

[davidlallen]

It seems that 0.33 completely changed the Balseraphs. Loki no longer has mutation, and the puppet unit appears to be new. I have tried a couple of games and I just can't get the hang of the civ. I guess the puppet is the new key, but I don't see how to use it with chaos or mind mana, unless you have archmages. Is there a midgame win strategy (before archmages)?

Granted, I am not an expert FFH player, but if somebody could update this strategy thread for 0.33, I'd appreciate it. Or, if there is another thread with 0.33 related advice, please point me.

I was able to use Loki to kill off the other civs' brand new cities. Every unit (more than eight) that I threw into the arena died. I was able to build a decent economy, population 11-12 by turn 200 or so; but the attacks I did were using stacks of swordsmen, which does not feel very civ-specific.

 

[hbar]

IIRC they start with air mana, so while it is not the most unique strat, Maelstrom is always good for a laugh (just make sure no friendlies are around). Puppets are a little useless in the early game as spellcasters, but they have their uses as shock troops. I like to use them as wall fodder in early wars - if they can knock a warrior from 3 to 2.8 even, it makes taking the city that much easier. Also, I don't know if it was changed, but I remember my puppets gaining the combat (instead of empower) promotions from the parent mage, so they can be 4 out of the gate.

Fun Fact - puppets can pillage! Nothing can bring an economy to its knees like a horde of bloodthirsty marionettes burning villages and collapsing mines while the real army is holed up on a forested hill.

 

[Caradoc]

I have found that using Puppets, a level 1 Adept on a boat can wreak considerable havoc on coastal territories. The Adept sits safely in the boat and spawns Puppets that wear down opponents and defenders of Tribal Villages. This is very nice if the Adept has Haste and can jump off and on the boat. Even better, use a small stack of these -- cheap and effective.

 

[newbiebad]

Maybe I'm thinking of the previous patch? With Keelyn you can gather a large army of puppets that can all cast your spells. Get 2 death mana and every single adept you build means you can support 3x skeletons PER turn. Just summon your puppet army and have the puppets summon you an army. The skeleton limit seems to be based on the number of casters and more puppets means more skeletons. It'd work for any spell but skeletons are tier 1 spell.

 

[davidlallen]

The upper limit on the number of skeletons is the number of adepts. If a created puppet raises the limit, that seems like an exploit. Or, is that the whole point of the puppet spell, specifically for infinite (well, large numbers of skeletons?

EDIT: one man's feature is another man's exploit, I guess. It seems well established that Keelyn + puppets + skellies is overpowered right now.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=288423

 

[slowcar]

early units: clearly freaks. if they have useful mutations they can be upgraded to elite troops later on, if they don't you sacrifice them for a freak show in newly conquered or built cities.

keelyn is a bit overpowered with summoning puppets, you get three times the summons, up to 9 per mage. domination with archmage puppets is also fun. a few other spells also benefit from being tripled.

loki seems to work more efficient when taking over cities. if there are none to be taken he can inspire a bit or explore. after this you can just delete him to build the shrine.

all in all i play balseraph with a focus to early festivals, other then this pretty normal. getting RoK is nice to build druids - not too early though or you miss all the nice evil->prophet events.