Doviello Help

[Frodius]

I am a big fan of barbarians in fantasy settings. Something about the mere existence of elves gives me the urge to grab a huge battle axe and a few thousand of my screaming, blood-thirsty friends and sack every elven fortress we can find and then burn the ancient forests they are built in.

With that said, I figure I would enjoy the Diovello. About 15 minutes into my first game I was sort of struck by the fact that they don't seem to have much to do besides rushing people, and that realization has made each battle really a lot of fun. I find I have to do more fighting at mediocre odds, and celebrating the success of my tribesmen, as well as learning to cope with the consequences of their failures is really the core of the Doviello.

Another thing that seems unique about the Diovello is how different their two leaders play. Charadon being barbarian really makes for a totally different game.

Unfortunately, I find that I have more trouble winning consistently with the Diovello than with other civs. I win reliably with other civs on Monarch, and if I reload a bit, I can usually win on Emporer, but I haven't had any luck with the Doviello, except one really lucky start where I got really lucky with events and goody huts.

I have some basic things I like to do right from the start, and I would like to get some feedback on if anyone thinks these are good ideas.

1) Always settle on a plains hill, it seems to really speed up your beastman rush.

2) If you are playing Charadon, it may be worth buying a couple of goblins from goblin forts so you can get more goody huts, but also so that you get more wolves from your world spell. I think this can be important if your first neighbor, or should I say victim has built up some defenses.

3) I find that going for economic techs first is the way to go, i.e code of laws, calendar, festivals etc.

4) I raze the majority of cities I conquer.


If anyone has any tips or advice, thanks.

 

[Grakor456]

Mahala and Charadon DO play almost completely differently, so it's hard to give general Doviello advice since the two want different things. I will say this...after trying both out, I no longer even try to play Charadon. I'm convinced that outside of the very early game, he's just flat-out inferior to Mahala. Your mileage may vary.

Anyway, I don't raze cities that often as Mahala. The AC is bad mojo for her, but more importantly it's ignoring *the* thing that can help the Doviello jump ahead in the game...taking a city is cheaper and faster than building one yourself, and it helps make up for the Doviello's poor economy to begin with. Unless keeping it would be putting me in economic distress, I keep the majority I take. Then again, if I were playing Charadon, I'd probably raze more just because he has little to fear from the AC, so yeah.

My typical Mahala set-up involves grabbing some economic techs first, depending on what's around me, nabbing Bronze Working relatively early for optimum rushing, and grabbing Way of the Wicked for Slavery, which is all sorts of awesome for Doviello and pretty much defines how Mahala plays. The snowball effect from being able to cheaply upgrade captured slaves to Battlemasters is pretty awesome to watch.

 

[avalonnn]

Well obviously sacking an enemy civ very early on helps. Taking a holy city helps even more. Never found any use for the world spell.

I've played them RoK -- AI often chooses FoL but I don't find that very useful. What religion do you usually use?

 

[Valkrionn]

FoL actually..... But it's actually USEFUL the way I set them up, so it doesn't really apply to unmodded Doviello.

 

[Calavente]

I'm looking for some tips on "how to play mahala when I'm moslty a builder" !!

please ... pretty please ?

some few questions :
How to combine melee /horse line with "get that war machine !!" ?
How to survive the money hole of the world spell ? (well I've survived but at the cost of playing 40-50% science at turn 25 !! and gaining a second city )

Is it better to go iron-working for the beastmasters or going OO + fanaticism for the stygian guards ?
What is the place of magic / KoE for those barbarian ?

How to concile the fact that I'm a big barb but I must research commerce techs to survive ?

etc .

any advices ?

 

[Emptiness]

How to combine melee /horse line with "get that war machine !!" ?

The war machine is nice, but there are a lot of expensive techs in the way. More important is getting access to Slavery asap, to take advantage of Mahala's Ingenuity trait by upgrading slaves from combat into reinforcements while on the move.

How to survive the money hole of the world spell ? (well I've survived but at the cost of playing 40-50% science at turn 25 !! and gaining a second city )

Cast Wild Hunt and then immediately use it. Position troops next to one or more enemy cities, cast the spell, and the suicide wolves into the cities before taking them with your regular troops. Wolves that appear in locations away from combat should be used to construct Wolf Pens (if you have Carnivals built) or combined into fewer stronger wolves. Most of the wolves should be gone at this point, so the economic impact should be minor or nonexistant.

Is it better to go iron-working for the beastmasters or going OO + fanaticism for the stygian guards ?

Stygian Guards are very nice, but you'll need to research the metal line anyway for access to metal weapons. You could go RoK for the Mines of Gal-Dur and early iron, but then you're looking at two religion switches and a lot of religious research with a non-spiritual leader. If you do go OO then you give up the Doviello upgrade-in-the-field mechanic, because your slaves will upgrade to warriors and then will need to be brought back to a Temple of the Overlords to be drown as part of the process of making them into SGs. It would be a fun game to play, as an experiment, but as a general strategy I think skipping divine to focus on melee & mounted makes more sense.

What is the place of magic / KoE for those barbarian ?

Chaos is your friend. Thanks to Ingenuity you can build Warriors and mutate them, then cheaply upgrade the good mutates and use the bad ones as cannon fodder. Palace access to Body Mana makes early research of KotE worthwhile, because Haste is great for the army on the go and synergises well with pillaging (move/pillage/end turn rather than move/end turn/pillage/end turn.)

How to concile the fact that I'm a big barb but I must research commerce techs to survive ?

The nice thing about Mahala (imo) is that she doesn't have the Barbarian trait. So no research penalty, free(ish) xp from barbarians, and explore all the lairs you want. Because she has the Raiders trait you may not need to research commerce techs particularly early, as long as you can find a steady supply of improvements to ruin. Be careful not to overexpand your empire. When you need not to grow for a while, stop taking cities. Pillage and move on; when your foe runs out of improvements to take declare peace and pick a fight with someone else. Running a pillage economy may allow you to have 100% and still have a large military, depending on how well you coordinate your expansion with your economic research.

 

[readercolin]

Nvm, discovered that my plan doesn't work with the dovollio, as getting any better warriors means you can no longer build any warriors. It worked for the khazid because I never actually did get archery (and even when I did, I still didn't build archery ranges). Putting my original post into a spoiler - I believe it may still work with orbis or FF (I think one of them makes warriors never obsolete), but it will not work with regular FFH.

Spoiler :

Something that I tried first with the khazid, but would work even better with mahala (i hate the barbarian trait - absolutely useless imo... but its still better than peace with animals that is given to them in orbis), is CITY SPAM. I'm not talking put down a few cities here, a few cities there, etc. No, what I'm talking about is overlapping the fat crosses everywhere. Spam like you're playing as the jotnar in FF. For religion, there are 2 that work best - RoK, and Order. As a matter of fact, the best method is to snatch RoK, use it till you can grab order, then switch to order.

Here's the reason why this works. With the khazid and ingeneous trait, you can upgrade (on normal speed) a warrior to an axman for a mere 38 gold. You can upgrade a beastman to a son of Asena for about 20 (i believe, haven't played as the dovollio recently, but am going to try them out again once I finish my khazid game). On the other hand, going with Mahala instead of Charadon means that instead of only being able to upgrade warriors cheaply to the higher teirs, you can also upgrade other units and other lines. Upgrade your Beastman to a Son of Asena. Or upgrade him to an archer. Upgrade a scout to a hunter, or upgrade him to a horseman. It doesn't work as well with the divine and arcane lines, but that just means you place less emphasis on those lines.

Now, for techs to make this work, there are two key ones in the early game - festivals, and code of laws. Festivals gives you market - +3 gold per city. Code of laws gives you courthouses of course, and you will need them soon. Festivals however is by far the more important one early game. Once you have festivals, then you can snatch code of laws, or go and grab RoK. RoK is important for two things. First, it gives your early game the economy boost of +1 gold per city with RoK (from religion in the city, an additional +1 from holy building if you can get it). Second, for early to late game, it gives the temple of kilmorph, for the awsome +2 gold from that. Once you're a bit later into the game, if your empire is starting to get a little large, grab order, research (the tech that unlocks chalid, forgot what its called), and start building basilica's. Manawise, you're going to want to spam law mana nodes. Ideally, you'll want 6 sources of law mana, so that you get the -40% from the courthouse, -40% from the basilica, and -30% from the law mana - that last 10% isn't vital, but it means that each city will still be costing no maintenence once you build gambling houses in all of them. Take this tech path a little loosely - if you have gold, snatch mining first, etc. before you grab festivals. Grab what you need to attack (who cares about defense anyways ), then snatch RoK. Grab some more military, then snatch Code of laws to help reduce the costs of your empire. Get a bit more military, then grab mathematics for gambling houses. If your empire is getting large, make the jump for order, then go for the basilica's. If you empire isn't growing, you need a bigger army to MAKE it grow , so don't neglect that. But what path you take is up to you (unless you're an idiot and playing charadon, in which case its run up the metal line asap).

Another important thing to note is city placement. The majority of your cities are going to be wimpy little things that need to have only a few buildings - an elder council, a market, a courthouse, a temple of kilmorph, a basilica, and a gambling house. They will then spend most of their time spamming warriors or scouts, or building wealth/research (whichever you need), if you already have enough warriors. However, you will also have a few major cities. You want 1 major city to produce wonders, so a city with high production and the food to feed it is vital. It would also be very nice if this city could also double as a money city or a science city (holy city, build bazzar of mammon, science city, build great library). This city will also produce other buildings and units that cost more than a warrior when you don't have anything more important - build adepts and religious units here. You want 1 major city (more optional, but not really needed) to spam higher teir units. It can spam warriors as well, but this is where you would build hero's, adepts, religious units, teir 4 units if you have to replace them, etc. Lastly, you would want 1 or two major cities producing commerce and running great people. This city will be primarily what is driving your science research, or making you money during wartime. It is important that it can build buildings fairly quickly, but it is more important that it has enough food to run specialists, or enough commerce to power your empire. Another good thing to do would be to place an adept in every city - have him cast hope, inspiration, wall of stone, just general city buffs. Most important though is inspiration - that extra 2 research in every city is going to be what saves you research wise, because you will have enough cities that it will make a HUGE difference.

The most important thing to remember about this tactic is that it requires lots of money. Luckily for you, mahala is a raider, and by pillaging and burning your way along, you can snatch all the nice cities to keep for yourself, and make plenty of money off the ones you destroy. Just remember to not build more warriors than you can use - every city can spam them, so you can build a large army quickly, but having a large standing army will reduce the amount of money you have in the end. Take advantage of your abilities and make sure that you always have plenty of gold - you aren't a dwarf, but you'll sure resemble one

Hope this helps

-Colin

 

[Landmonitor]

Emptiness:

About (chaos) mana and these guys, I don't have the manual handy and I can't get it right now, but can they even build adepts? If they can, can the adepts upgrade? Or are you speaking about relying on chaos mana to auto-mutate your builds?

 

[Lone Wolf]

can they even build adepts?

Yes.

If they can, can the adepts upgrade?

Yes.

 

[Emptiness]

You'll have to upgrade them to mages to access Chaos II, but the result is very nice if you can squeeze in the necessary research. You'll also unlock Body II (regeneration), so there is more than one reason for a detour. I recommend researching Alteration and building an Enchantment node, so that you can fix all your melee units up with Enchanted Blade.

 

[Senethro]

For Mahala, Adepts are not optional. They are a necessity. They have no requirements apart from KotE tech to build, so thats a bunch of hammers saved on useless Mages guild. They give double movement to living units, a further first strike chance on top of the one provided by Commando promotion, and +20% to city defense.

I'd suggest getting Stygs before getting Iron. Doviello Battlemasters are Str8 but don't have the +25% vs melee other Champion units have, so they're weaker (but much cheaper). In contrast, Bronze Stygs are Str 9 for the same hammer price and a similar gold price.

Don't bother with Mounted. Melee with Adepts Hasting them does everything you need, including city defense.

Oh, and I've never built the War Machine.

 

[heisenberg]

mmm i beg to differ though, I usually go for ironwork just to upgrade battlemasters straight out from captured slaves.
But yea, fanaticism is much cheaper than smelting > ironworking and if you do go OO you can consider heading for it first. (I'm assuming you went priesthood already for Cultists)

Personally though, I usually end up going RoK for extra coin for upgrading, Mines of Gal-dur for a confirmed iron source, and Bambur to help spearhead my offensive.

 

[deadliver]

Well obviously sacking an enemy civ very early on helps. Taking a holy city helps even more. Never found any use for the world spell.

I've played them RoK -- AI often chooses FoL but I don't find that very useful. What religion do you usually use?

I play huge maps and use the World Spell after about 50 turns of playing. By then I have found another civ and am assaulting them.

The first 25 turns I am leveling Lucian and using the starting beastman as rough scouts (my second beastman, usually, defends my first city unless I have found another civ).

 

[iwalkwithzombis]

People really underestimate the barbarian trait. I def admit that Mahala is overall a better leader, but the barb trait + aggressive + beastmen's city attack allows you to utterly eliminate your two nearest neighbors more than 80% of the time, especially on smaller maps.

Even on monarch and higher, were the opponents randoms spawn early free warriors, the barb trait lets you leave your first city completely undefended assuming your surrounded by mountains. Send your scout, beastman, and Lucian to the first "enemy" city you find (it helps to buy a goblin or 2) and just rush the city. Before palisades, your beastmen almost have the same attack as the opposing warriors defense.

Keep building beastmen at your capital, and capture every city you overrun. Put the beatmen on captured cities, and continue your path of destruction. After you take your first city the beastmen that fought there should have combat 1 and shock 2, not to mention how powerful Lucian is. With these beastmen, who are vastly more powerful than ANY warriors you come across early on, you can rape and pillage until someone has archers.

With this strategy, I usually can capture 9-10 cities early on. Then I rush festivals so I can get markets up to mitigate the cost of rapid expansion, otherwise your research will plummet to 10-20%. Then get bronze working, upgrade all your dewds, and sit tight for a few hundred turns; youll likely be atop the score heap by now, and soon youll need to rid your captured kingdom of newfound barbarian enemies. This works really well in multiplayer against elves, when people think they are kool and try to rush Silveric.

 

[DaveGold]

Unfortunately it's very hard to rush opponents on the higher levels due to the number of AI defenders and their promotions. It's also much harder to prevent your economy from crashing if you overexpand as the technology just doesn't arrive fast enough.