Clones of Eurabatres?

[BlakeTheDrake]

Octopus Overlords are powerful - they have potent early-to-mid game special units, and their first Holy Spell is devastating against anything close to the sea. The catch, of course, is that all their magic is useless if you're landlocked.

More to the point, their unique buildings, the Asylums, will boost your research, but causes a small chance (10% or so, I think) of any unit built in the city to start out Crazed - a pretty major handicap, since there's no way to counter it. Watch where you put 'em... oh, and the Tower of Complacency is pretty sweet - build it in a city you're expecting to get really big, and you'll never have to worry about unhappiness!

Ashen Veil is a dangerous one. Only use it if you're planning to run up the Armageddon Counter, since spreading it will ramp up the numbers. That basically means that you should be playing Sheaim (since their worldspell is powered by the Armageddon Counter) or Infernals (since they're not disadvantaged by Hell Terrain, while everybody else is, to some degree.) OTOH, with Infernal Pacts you can build Altars, allowing you to sacrifice living units for research (handy if you need to 'downsize' your military after a successful campaign), and the Infernal Grimoire - a fairly cheap 'free tech' wonder that you can pick up and carry with you afterwards - it causes random magical effects when used, and some of them are pretty neat. Oh, and 'Sacrifice The Weak', the unique Civic of Ashen Veil, while generally a poor choice, is perfect for weathering the Blight - and also quite helpful for survival if your lands are overrun with Hell Terrain. Their spells are also fairly handy, though nothing too impressive. Religious Heroes are noteable for Meshaber of Dis, one of the most powerful units in the game - he requires +70 on the Armageddon Counter, but if you're spreading Ashen Veil everywhere, you'll get there soon enough...

Order is the other big one, the direct opposite of Ashen Veil. Having it will keep Hell Terrain out of your territory, which is a big plus later in the game. Order Temples are probably the most useful of them all, since they increase military unit production-speed - and you can also build the Basilica, which helps keep down maintenance costs a LOT when your empire grows larger. On top of that, you get the 'Social Order' civic, which is pretty good. Their holy spells are so-so, but High Priests of the Order are the only ones (outside of Stephanos, the Horseman of Conquest) who can learn Command IV. Also got some pretty powerful heroes.

Way of Leaves is quite handy, but mostly if you're playing elves (Svartalfar or Ljosalfar) since it causes forests to grow everywhere around your cities - thus meshing nicely with the elves' ability to build improvements on top of forests. 'Protection of Nature' is a decent civic enabled by it, making it much easier to maintain high happiness in a widespread empire. Holy spells are OK, nothing to write home about tho. Few good units, decent heroes.

Don't know much about Empyrean or Runes of Kilmorph - never played them. But I do know that Runes of Kilmorph enables the construction of the Mithril Golem, another ultra-powerful unit, which also requires +70 on the Armageddon Counter. Also, Kilmorph priests require Gemstones instead of Incense to upgrade to High Priests - which might be good or bad, depending on what resources you have access to.

As for the Council of Esus, it's the odd bird of the flock. No priests, no temples, no spells... they do, however, have some nice, unique units - the Shadowriders are just as powerful as Knights, but supplement them instead of replacing them, effectively allowing you to have 8 knights in the field - four of them with Hidden Nationality, allowing you to harrow your allies. All Recon-units with Esus religion can also use 'Mask' to gain hidden nationality, so you can send a few Beastmasters to join the Shadowriders... oh, and your recon-units can 'Steal', taking artifacts, weapon-improvements or even 'carryable' wonders from rival units and cities. In other words, assuming you've got Open Borders, you can waltz right into your neighbor's territory and steal the Crown of Akharien from his capital! Oh, and if you choose to declare war, your units can stay wherever they are, instead of being pushed back outside the borders like normal. The only Hero you get is Gibbons Goetia, who does, however, have some pretty decent power - and the unique ability to temporarily seize control of another nation, not that it's terribly useful.


But while you're considering all these factors, do not forget this: The game's music-playlist is defined by your chosen Religion! So pick Council of Esus. They have the best music by far.

 

[Emptiness]

The other is the Hall of Mirrors, a special building available only to the Balseraph. It creates clones (under your control) of any enemy unit that approaches your city. Presumably, that's what's happening in your case. You're assaulting a Balseraph city with Eurabates the Golden Dragon, and that city just so happens to have a Hall of Mirrors. Thus, every turn a fresh copy of every one of your units - including your dragon - will be created. (Note that the Hall of Mirrors does NOT operate under the same constraints as the Black Mirror - demons, angels and dragons are fair game here.) I'm surprised, though - the AI rarely builds Halls of Mirror.

The Hall of Mirrors does not duplicate every enemy unit. It only creates one illusion each turn, of the strongest nearby enemy unit. If you bring a very powerful attacker then this can be a problem, but if your attacking army only contains units of similar strength (or if you keep your powerful attackers at a distance as BlakeTheDrake suggested) then the one extra illusionary defender isn't much of an inconvenience.

 

[BlakeTheDrake]

I see... I wasn't aware of that. The manual's none too detailed about that, and the Civilopedia-entry is completely blank. And last time I played as Balseraphs, none of the cities with HoM's in 'em ever got attacked, so I haven't actually seen it in action. >_>

Well, it makes more sense this way. The way I thought they were, they seemed overpowered.

 

[TranquilFlames]

Agreed with Emptiness. If HoM could produce as many units as your opponent, that's seriously overpowered.

And yeah, I figured the Octopus Overlords were one of the most powerful early-mid game. Two of them is enough to weaken down a city enough. And if it's coastal, send in a couple escorts and just have them attack from the seas.

Armageddon Count is measured with the % not the actual number right? And I hate crazed units haha. I was dumb and had my Acheron search a lair and then it became crazed. Sooo inconvenient when it came to conquest campaigns.

 

[avalonnn]

With the Elohim, get your resources and RoK, then research the priest line and get monks.

The reason I like the Elohim for learning is that you get to try out the unique buildings of the civs you conquer. This can help you learn about several civs in one game.

The most OP civ to take over, I think, is the Orcs. Once you get their warrens with your order and other advantages, your economy will be on overdrive.

I play the Elohim as a build and expand civ in this method, but try to conquer everyone whose land touches mine, especially if my neighbors are evil.

If you're near the Sheaim or the Orcs, take them out first.

For order heroes -- you can get Valin early (perhaps in time to use him as your hero for the Titan), and Sphener will have heal and command. In a game I played recently, Sphener kept my stack moving through the Demonlands. The AI would cast fire on my stack, and then at the start of my turn I would heal the stack. Sphener needed to rest occasionally as he does not heal from his own heal spell.

 

[RFHolloway]

The other option: Use lots of units with high Withdraw-chance. That means Cavalry and Artillery, basically. Throw a load of Catapults at him, and most of them will probably manage to retreat (40% base retreat-rate!) while each also damages him a fair bit. Wear him down like that, and he'll soon be within the reach of any decent combat-unit to finish. That tactics works against ANYTHING, and the AI ain't shy about doing it, either. I've had my Auric Ascendent brought down by 'bout 5 Catapults and half a dozen Wood Golems.

But if you do that make sure that after you have bombarded athe red dragon down to 3 hp with 5 catapults, some kinghts and some heros that there arn't any good two shoes elves lurking round the corner that jump in and steal your kill.

 

[morchuflex]

...The game's music-playlist is defined by your chosen Religion! So pick Council of Esus. They have the best music by far.

Interesting discussion.

As for music, I'd tend to agree with you: Esus rocks!
You are aware, I suppose, that you can manually select your favorite soundtrack in the game's audio options, right?
Recently, I played a whole game as Elohim and with the Kilmorph religion but with the Council of Esus music. The result was quite an intriguing atmosphere!