As for eliminating a choice - yes, it does reduce choices somewhat, but like I said in the previous posts - choosing *any* civilization already reduces your choices somewhat, and those running the Slavery civic already have much of the production/food choice eliminated for them (since food = production).
Well, I'm not eliminating the food icon, I'm changing what produces the food icon.
As for eliminating a choice - yes, it does reduce choices somewhat, but like I said in the previous posts - choosing *any* civilization already reduces your choices somewhat, and those running the Slavery civic already have much of the production/food choice eliminated for them (since food = production).
I played my game to completion. And in doing so I discovered the Dwarves are prohibited from building Marksmen too. So they cannot build either stealth units nor anti-stealth units in ver 2.014. This is a major omissions, IMHO. I hope that this is corrected in 2.015, as there is no reason whatsoever, role-play or play balance, to exclude the Dwarves from the stealth portion of the game.
Lost amongst the discussion of Dwarven archers is the issue of Copper. There is no guarantee your early Dwarven civ will have access to Copper. Without Copper and without the Archer unit, you may find yourself going to war with and all-Warrior army, as I did in my game. Play under those condition with, say, an aggressive Hippus on your border, THEN decide if the lack of a city defensive unit is No Big Deal.
So I am glad to hear of the plans for the Dwarven Slinger. And yes, I agree further debate on the issue is moot.
I played my game to completion. And in doing so I discovered the Dwarves are prohibited from building Marksmen too. So they cannot build either stealth units nor anti-stealth units in ver 2.014. This is a major omissions, IMHO. I hope that this is corrected in 2.015, as there is no reason whatsoever, role-play or play balance, to exclude the Dwarves from the stealth portion of the game.
Lost amongst the discussion of Dwarven archers is the issue of Copper. There is no guarantee your early Dwarven civ will have access to Copper. Without Copper and without the Archer unit, you may find yourself going to war with and all-Warrior army, as I did in my game. Play under those condition with, say, an aggressive Hippus on your border, THEN decide if the lack of a city defensive unit is No Big Deal.
So I am glad to hear of the plans for the Dwarven Slinger. And yes, I agree further debate on the issue is moot.
But since when has something being moot stopped anyone?
Yes, there is an issue with dwarves and copper. I have been pleading people with programing skill to visit the Random Map generator thread http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=178192. The goal here being to have initial placement of civs in resepective "natural" environs. This is not to say that players could not expand outside of those initial placements, but dwarves should get some hill (and in theory therefore copper) love.
I also agree that dwarves should be inovled in the "stealth" game. I SUSPECT, that the "gun-powder" denotation is still in effect largely because dwarves will get marksmen that are likly wielding weapons of the "firearm" variety. About them not having Invis units, i think this is likely simply because they've not the art for the unit yet. I think these sections will be filled....and i've no reason to doubt it.
The main question comes from essential and qualitative difference between dwarves and other early game tactics. Yes, its a "hurting" problem if your not near copper and you've no archer unit. But, if you ignore archery (tried this?) and instead go for the runes (Which i admit unless you aim for, another race tends to get) youll have the Kilimorph soliders at your disposal, but they're not all that cheap....admitedly. But, I think that constructions could be the answer to this....try building walls.....always build walls with dwarves?
Walls are cheap, quick to build, and apply to whatever you got. At least for .14. In .15 i suspect/hope they'll have more buildings and units at their disposal to make up for being beaten with the "prohibition stick". But i still dont believe that an archer unit is necessary.
-Qes
I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that some races have heavy synergies with some religions. Those hated elves play the best with Fellowship of the Leaves, too.
A "heavy synergy" is fine. But if the issue is not one of synergy but neccessity (Worship Killmorph Or Just Save Time And Start A New Game) then that would be rather much a dissapointment, considering the imagination and creativity to be found in the rest of FfH. Why is it desireable to pigeonhole a race into the same exact strategy game after game? Are not righteous Dwarves working for the Order also a fantasy archtype? Is there some reason Dwarves might not fall into the clutches of Evil, in some fantasy universes?
The dwarven Vault is a neat game mechanic. But it is a valid playtesting question to ask if this Vault is so strong a mechanism that it will inexoribly draw teh Dwarves to the money-making religion. The Vault is a 2-endged sword. It hinders poor realms as well as it benefits the rich ones. Can FfH Khazad enjoy life only under the Runes of Killmorph? IMO that's a valid question, and I'll test it myself once 0.15 comes out.
A "heavy synergy" is fine. But if the issue is not one of synergy but neccessity (Worship Killmorph Or Just Save Time And Start A New Game) then that would be rather much a dissapointment, considering the imagination and creativity to be found in the rest of FfH. Why is it desireable to pigeonhole a race into the same exact strategy game after game? Are not righteous Dwarves working for the Order also a fantasy archtype? Is there some reason Dwarves might not fall into the clutches of Evil, in some fantasy universes?
The dwarven Vault is a neat game mechanic. But it is a valid playtesting question to ask if this Vault is so strong a mechanism that it will inexoribly draw teh Dwarves to the money-making religion. The Vault is a 2-endged sword. It hinders poor realms as well as it benefits the rich ones. Can FfH Khazad enjoy life only under the Runes of Killmorph? IMO that's a valid question, and I'll test it myself once 0.15 comes out.
I have to admit I have had this thought as well. Runes is very difficult to get as the dwarves, and if you dont get it, your in deep doo-doo.
As for dwarves being money makers, i think in most fantasy civs, thats exactly what they do, but they dont tend to SPEND that money. Just horde it. So their not great "tradesmen" or international economic powerhouses, they're just craftsmen who demand pay for the quality of their work....and then simply refuse to buy "lower quality" junk.
Which is unfortunate, since elven made items are of a higher quality.
-Qes
Walls are cheap, quick to build, and apply to whatever you got. At least for .14. In .15 i suspect/hope they'll have more buildings and units at their disposal to make up for being beaten with the "prohibition stick". But i still dont believe that an archer unit is necessary.
-Qes
Yes, and for the Nth time I will try to state once again that I have never said such a unit was "neccessary".
My issue has always been that there is no apparant reason to deny the dwarves such a capability.
My comments have never been along the lines that the Khazad cannot function without such a unit. There should be rationale behind decisions; I see no game-balance reason to deny the Dwarves this useful capability, nor do I see any compensation for its loss. My conccern, I hope to state for the very last time, is that this change was made purely from a role-play perspective, with inadequate consideration for the practical ramifications.
Also, once again, I would not have brought up this issue if the Archer unit was the only unit denied to the Khazad. But it is not; I discussed it as but one example of many. But my attempt to supply feedback to the Design Team has generated so many tangential comments that I fear my original context is being lost.
Please allow me to generate my personal feedback to the design team, thank you. My opinions deserve hearing as much as yours. All I care about is that Kael and Company get the chance to hear my two cents. If they feel my comments are without merit, no problems, I had a chance to express myself.
Yes, and for the Nth time I will try to state once again that I have never said such a unit was "neccessary".
My issue has always been that there is no apparant reason to deny the dwarves such a capability.
My comments have never been along the lines that the Khazad cannot function without such a unit. There should be rationale behind decisions; I see no game-balance reason to deny the Dwarves this useful capability, nor do I see any compensation for its loss. My conccern, I hope to state for the very last time, is that this change was made purely from a role-play perspective, with inadequate consideration for the practical ramifications.
Also, once again, I would not have brought up this issue if the Archer unit was the only unit denied to the Khazad. But it is not; I discussed it as but one example of many. But my attempt to supply feedback to the Design Team has generated so many tangential comments that I fear my original context is being lost.
Please allow me to generate my personal feedback to the design team, thank you. My opinions deserve hearing as much as yours. All I care about is that Kael and Company get the chance to hear my two cents. If they feel my comments are without merit, no problems, I had a chance to express myself.
Oh lordy, I never meant to imply you didnt have justification in what your saying, nor did i mean to put words in your mouth, and what i think your doing by brining up your points does a GREAT service to everyone who reads these posts.
If you think i dislike what youve been saying, please reconsider, because I've done a lot of thinking on dwarves because of you. Never for a moment believe that everything i've said hasnt been for the betterment of the mod, and not to spite you in any way.
My position has been to defend role-playing as a legitimate reason to justify the presence or absence of a unit/function. I 100% agree that there should be some sort of compensation, or alternative for any civ that is denied options normally given to others. On that let me be clear, i agree with you.
I also agree that playability is paramount, and in the end more important than role-play. I'll say that again, Gameplay and balance is more important than roleplay. But that doesnt mean one shouldnt fight losing "roleplay" qualities and flavor without trying to do everything one can to prevent the loss.
There is an intended synergy between the runes and the khazad. But I dont want it to be the only viable strategy. I still suspect that the khazad can play any religion effectivly and I like the fact that they can choose how much gold to keep just by adjusting their research rate.
I've only played two games with the Khazad in .14, but I'm of the opinion that following another religion (or none) would not be so prohibitive that you may as well start a new game. In fact, both times I played I had managed to get a sizeable vault before even getting Runes of Kilmorph. All that getting Runes did for me, in my opinion, was allow me to get my vault to such a level that I could expand my empire with no consideration for the GpC value.
Your points are interesting, though. Makes me curious about an Order-centric Khazad game (especially with that new hero, Maros) . . . no, Kuriotates are next! Maybe.
I've only played two games with the Khazad in .14, but I'm of the opinion that following another religion (or none) would not be so prohibitive that you may as well start a new game. In fact, both times I played I had managed to get a sizeable vault before even getting Runes of Kilmorph. All that getting Runes did for me, in my opinion, was allow me to get my vault to such a level that I could expand my empire with no consideration for the GpC value.
Your points are interesting, though. Makes me curious about an Order-centric Khazad game (especially with that new hero, Maros) . . . no, Kuriotates are next! Maybe.
Is this merely a hole in my memory, or do remember correctly that the Khazad dont get "dwarven warriors"? I know the Luchirp(sp) do. As i just played them. And I think, btw, the Mud Golems should be a Bit cheaper. It Is cool that they can keep on reproducing while their getting build (no food needed). But I think that its easier to Stop food production, build a worker, and go back to food production than it is to build a single mudgolem. I DO think they should be expensive, but not terribly expensive.
-Qes
Dwarven warriors are Luichirp-only right now because of upgrade reasons (they upgrade to Luichirp unique units). The Khazad will be getting their own warriors soon.
Hi. I just lost maybe a 8 pages long post relating my current game with the Khazad I'll try to write it all again, but not now... it took me maybe 3 hours to write it, so I guess I'll go get some air before I try agin
Is this merely a hole in my memory, or do remember correctly that the Khazad dont get "dwarven warriors"? I know the Luchirp(sp) do. As i just played them. And I think, btw, the Mud Golems should be a Bit cheaper. It Is cool that they can keep on reproducing while their getting build (no food needed). But I think that its easier to Stop food production, build a worker, and go back to food production than it is to build a single mudgolem. I DO think they should be expensive, but not terribly expensive.
-Qes
Hey you realize they do twice the work of a normal worker, right....or how about the fireball they can cast when you get what is it called guys a Blast Furnace......Hey Kael, I haven't played the Luchuirp in a while the fireball ablity and x2 work rate is still on, right?
Oh and I almost forgot.....they are cheaper than they used to be.
Hey you realize they do twice the work of a normal worker, right....or how about the fireball they can cast when you get what is it called guys a Blast Furnace......Hey Kael, I haven't played the Luchuirp in a while the fireball ablity and x2 work rate is still on, right?
Oh and I almost forgot.....they are cheaper than they used to be.
I didnt know they worked better. It didnt feel much faster when i played...mostly cause it took forever to build things, like them . So it didnt matter if there was "nothing left" to improve.
Still, if thats true, then i just have to try to build less of them .
-Qes
Hey you realize they do twice the work of a normal worker, right....or how about the fireball they can cast when you get what is it called guys a Blast Furnace......Hey Kael, I haven't played the Luchuirp in a while the fireball ablity and x2 work rate is still on, right?
Oh and I almost forgot.....they are cheaper than they used to be.
Yeap, mud golems are the cheapest fireballers in the game (assuming they are built in a city with a blasting workshop). And with a fully pumped up Barnaxus they are throwing fireballs at +100% the normal power.
Now I'm in my first game after 0.14 patch playing as Khazad, first couple of things I see is: dwarfs can't buid a lot of very important things, like IMMORTALS, SHADOWS, only theyr apportunity to improve land(not talking about regular deserts) is to build genesis, because they simply have no casters with vitalize(I didn't tryed to use FoL for this reason yet, just don't think its possible anyway), and they can't build much more things
Alright, SchpailsMan's Khazad feedback, part 1, take 2... ACTION !
(in order to make this post a bit less expansive and avoid thread pollution, I've tried to enclose most of the less "useful" text in 'spoiler' tags... I hope it will make it less tiresome to read)
Game Settings :
Spoiler:
Game settings: playing on Prince as Kandros Fir of the Khazad, 10 civs (random civs and leaders), all victory types enabled, aggessive AI, no tech trading allowed
Map settings: Smartmap standard size, 2-5 continents, "somewhat round, many fragments" continent shape, many rivers, many goodies, player start inland
Layout: After trading for most of the world map, I guess there are 4 or 5 continents on the map, except that they have actually partially merged so that there is one small-size continent on the northern edge of the map with only Capria and Basium, and a very large star-shaped continent with the other 8 civs (I'm not suere wether there is a connection by land between Arendel and Capria, I think I had looked and there was none but hten again I might be wrong). I guess i may have left the "low sea level" option from a previous game, although I think I had medium sea level in my last game... well, whatever, the point is that Capria and Basium are both good, share the same religion and have no other immediate neighbour save for Arendel which I'm not sure they can reach without boats. Is seems that Capria grabbed most of the land there (my guess is that she got ~60-70%) and is turning into a wonder-building powerhouse, which wouldn't be surprising considering that, unlike Basium, her leader traits can be used effectively when at peace.
(this is actually a scaled-up screenshot edited with Paint to add a rough legend... I did that fast rather than precisely, so it doesn't look very good, I just hope this will help everybody get a better understanding of the following. On a side note, I apparently forgot to mark Faeryl starting pos... she has the white-colored land south-eastern of mine)
Comments: I have taken to playing no tech trading since my last game and find it really enhances gameplay experience since it makes each civ's specialization MUCH more noticeable (basically, once you decide to beeline to a given tech, you just can't get everyting else "for free", you actually have to research everything you've missed and still intend to use or just get by without). In this game, it will have a heavy impact since I've spent most of the time a little backward tech-wise, and couldn't rely on heavy tech trading to compensate for that.
I've played about ~300 turns before stopping, and began to write this feedback just after (that was yesterday, see above post). At this point, I feel the Khazad are totally overpow... no, just kidding in fact, the game is going on rather well and I'm confident that I'll eventually get a chance to dominate my immediate neighbours, but up until now that was by no means the easiest game I've played. Anyway, what I want to stress is that after the first 300 turns, I feel I'm still in the game although not dominating yet, so I guess that so far the Khazad are neither overpowered nor underpowered.
I'll first relate briefly (probably MORE briefly than yesterday, I just hope I won't forget too many details) how the game went, then develop my impressions regarding the Khazad themselves.
First, I wanted to get some other religion than Runes, so after moving my oh-so-handy Staring Settler (hey, great job on that one, I think I move my settler during first turn maybe in every 2 of 3 games) I set research to Exploration and enqueue a pair of Scouts. However, after a few exploration turns, and even more as my warriors and newly produced scouts moved on, I could see that there were only a few forest tiles around my starting pos, and there was only ONE sea resource (clams) in the entire area I considered expanding to, so in the end I decided that going for Fishing just to get OO would be a very self-destructive move, and founding Leaves in this terrain didn't seem very appealing either (it could have worked however, when the game ends I may be tempted to load an autosave and try for it). In fact, you could say that SmartMap did exactly what some people have asked for in a different thread : it made me start in the Khazad ideal spot, that is with a lot of hills, not too many forests, mainly plain tiles but with enough grassland to have a few growing cities and the "many river" option would even allow for a few breweries
So, in conclusion, I gave up and ran for Runes, which I founded only a few turns after Arendel discovered Leaves and a few turns before Faeryl got Overlords (it's nice to see the AIs time their own religion discovery about the same way that the player does, even if it wasn't a really good player in this case ). By that time, I had founded two other cities, grabbed a couple of resources and met my four immediate neighbours : Perpentach, Garrim Gyr, Sheelba (which was in fact not so immediate) and Faeryl. Now, with 3 Evil neighbours (-2 diplo, apparently no diplo bonus for staying at peace for a long time) and being really low in score, I figured it wouldn't be long before someone declared on me. Even worse, Perpentach had founded a city just two squares away from the spot I had decided to found my fourth city at, and was beginning to put heavy cultural pressure on my second city. Fortunately, that's where Runes got founded so I was soon able to push the culture back. I immediately turned production in my newly Kilmorph cities to Soldiers of Kilmorph (SoK, I'll refer to these a lot), which proved to be a good move as I noticed a Balseraph stack of merrymen approaching my borders just as I got my second SoK. No surprise there, Perpentach declared on me and rushed towards my second city. However, SoK's against Merrymen is just like sending hunters against warriors : Perpentach's stack was no match and my shock-promoted SoK soon ran towards the annoyingly misplaced Balseraph city.
(below are a few comments about how the ensuing war went. In short I razed 3 cities, sued a fourth one for peace, and got it, and left Perpentach with his capitol alone).
Spoiler:
I must say that the AI didn't put much of a fight in this war*, since Perpentach would keep on producing and sending only Combat-promoted merrymen against my shock-able SoK's. I mean, if I was able to get Kilmorph along with resource-allowing techs, then you'd think Perpentach would have had more than enough to research Carnivals and get at least a couple of Acrobats. I guess he must have rushed to a religion (overlords ?) or a late tech... anyway, what's sure is that whatever he was researching for didn't help him much during this fight. I was soon able to have half a dozen SoK running through his land, helped in the task by a couple of warriors and the lone thane of Kilmorph that I got along with founding the religion (I hoped for the thane to get a little experience on the way so it will get much more efficient when I come to upgrade him to priest... as of year 300, I still don't have priests but the guy is already level 4 so I hope he will graduate to High Priest rather fast ). Perpentachs cities were usually defended but 3 or 4 merrymen and had at most +50% culture defense, so that my combat + shock promoted SoKs would tear them down most of the time, with the occasional loss of course, and the thane of kilmoprh helped them heal faster.
* technically speaking, the fact that the AI went to war with only warriors doesn't surprise me much, and I understand that Perpentach may have tried to go for an advanced tech early... but getting both happenning together is a bit off: I think going to war while in the process of getting tech-lead to the expense of military power is just plain wrong. The result only proves it: Perpentach wasn't even able to get neither archers nor acrobats by the time I razed three cities (and believe me, combat-shock-promoted dwarves don't run fast in plains), probably due to over-specialization. I guess that this behaviour was caused by the combination of me having a low score at that time, the AI being set on "agressive" AND Perpentach being a pure psycho anyway, so in the end I'm not actually complaining... I just wanted to make that point. Besides, this is the sort of crazyness that actually makes the game so fun to play
At this point, I razed 3 of Perpentach's cities : one of them I wanted to so I could found my own city in the tile I had chosen before, and the other ones were a bit far and I didn't want to get heavy maintenance as well as reducing my global vault level. Along with recruiting units to take on Perpentach (and defend from the occasional stack he would try to send against me), I tried hard to cram in some infrastructure in my cities but with only three cities that was really hard and I quickly see my score get really low when compared to my other neoghbours. Besides, I was only researching Construction, so I couldn't send catapults yet, and Perpentach only had two cities left: his capitol and a size 5 city somewhat far from both him and myself, both of which being on a hill with +75% culture def... even my strongest SoK only had like 35-40% odds of success against those, so I considered requesting peace. However, without currency and with tech trading disallowed, the only thing I could ask from Perpentach was his far-reached city. I gave it a try, and he accepted ! That left him with only his capitol left, and me with a city that was a little far and a 5-6 gold maintenance cost.
Considering that my diplo was still rather bad with Sheelba and Faeryl, I tried to get a reliable partner so I gave my newly acquired [no]burden[/no] city to Garrim Gyr and enqueued a thane of kilmorph in an attempt to convert him. This worked wonders: my economy was strong enough for me to found two other cities in very good spots, and Garrim Gyr proved to be very reliable once converted to Runes (he had got Leaves from Arendel, but only in a minor city and I made sure all his cities got Kilmorph as soon as possible... besides, he was the only AI I had Open Borders with so I couldn't afford missing this occasion). Garrim Gyr had a nice score (I believe he was 4th or 5th at that time, although I hadn't met Capria, Basium and Varn at that time), and because he had claimed much land on my southwestern side I could afford shifting my defenses towards my other neighbours just in case.
That said, I was before-last in score (with only his capitol left, Perpentach was the only one to be even worse than me, although it is possible that Varn actually got even lower without me knowing) and I was only building my first catapult while I knew from discussing with Garrim that he already had developped Alchemy (btw, the diplo text is not really accurate when considering world units... Garrim said "Look, I have a Typhoid Mary... oh ! oh ! oh !" although in the end Perpentach was the one to get her... hey, I think I just found the answer to something that was puzzling me above).
In this situation, I rushed for much-needed infrastructure and scrammed to discover Sanitation, Engineering, Currency and Iron Working as fast as possible, switching from one path to another in an attempt to get the best out of it. I also used SoK a lot to help my yougest cities build their necessary buildings fast. During this phase of the game, being Financial REALLY helped me A LOT since I was able to sustain 100% research most of the time without my vault ever getting lower than "full" (+25% prod): my income was at break-even most of the time, and I only allowed for small deficit when I was about to complete a financial-cheap markeplace or a temple of kilmorph. In fact, when I began to feel somewhat confident tech-wise, I decided to decrease my research to 90% (now 80%) only to fill my vaults even faster. When I got to "overflowing" (+40% prod) at 90% research with still +100-150 income, I had met every civ left by religion-spreading and was oscillating between the 6th and 5th rank in score. The downside of all this was that being technologically bacward most of the time I missed almost every single world wonder so far. I only got the Mines of Gal-Dur (missing that one would have had me really pissed off, although I bet Garrim Gyr wasn't too far of getting it) and I think another one I'm not sure about (maybe the one that increases improvements building speed, so I would raise my great engineers rate).
(below are a few comments on the funny way religion spread out to the world, and what very few wars happened in those "far away lands" where so many things seem to happen all the time)
Spoiler:
Religion-wise, things got funny somehow: I only took pains to make sure Garrim Gyr had Runes in all his cities so he wouldn't switch. I already said that Arendel was Leaves and Faeryl was OO. Faeryl had soon converted Sheelba, Mahala and Perpentach, and Arendel converted Garrim. However, after I converted Garrim he wouldn't switch anymore, and Perpentach lost in OO cities during his war against me so in the end he turned to Runes when it spread to his capitol (no hope this would compensate for the -10 "you razed our cities" penalty... oh, dear ). Every other civ on the map got Runes spread to them (Varn may have got it from Garrim, but I really doubt that Basium and Capria could have since they were really isolated on their islands !) and switched to it, so I had 5 religious partner, whereas the Evil civs had all turned OO (I'm not sure, but it's possible that Mahala or Sheelba eventually turned Leaves), and Arendel was left alone with Leaves (with the possible addition of Sheelba or Mahala, I'm really not sure). The funny thing is that without ever really working for it, I finally got at least Pleased with 5 civs out of 9 (not including me), and while the Order and the Veil have actually benn founded nobody ever switched to any of them. I guess whomever founded the two late religions either had already founded another religion (that would mean Arendel or Faeryl) or already has too many cities converted to another religion to justify swapping even when having the holy city (that sure wouldn't be the case for the Good civs: I'm almost sure I know every Luchuirp city, and the other ones only have Runes in one or two, max three, cities so getting the shrine alone would be enough of a reason to switch).
In the warfare department, I was a little disappointed in the "aggressive AI" behaviour. Capria and Basium were alone on their continent, but all the other had diplo penalties with other civs and nonetheless kept on developping without attacking each other, except for the Dovellio and the Malakim who have been at war for about 100 years although I never got a message indicating that a single city got conquered in the process (that could be for lack of exploration on my part). Anyway, Varn only has his capitol filled with archers and is last in score, and what's worse he's isolated in the far southern border of the map with the Dovellio and the Clan for neighbours. Garrim Gyr is not far from him, but I would have to bribe him to get him to help, and with tech trading not allowed I would have to give him a great deal of my so precious gold... my preciousssss, it's miiine, go away, you bad, bad dwarf ! errr, sorry 'bout that
Anyway, during my technological-scramming phase, I kept building a consistent military force using a mix of catapults (damn, those dwarven cats are really good ! I really missed them during my early war with the Bals', but now there's no way I'm gonna let go off them), dwarven soldiers and axebearers (or whatever is the name of the dwarven macemen) and.. SoKs. Really, always having a few of them dispatched everywhere in my realm allowed me to rush-prod buildings every time I found myself needing something fast. For example, upon discovering Smelting, they helped me getting those great dwarven forges in no time. Whenever I founded new cities, getting three SoKs there allowed me to make sure the base 3 buildings (Marketplace, Obelisk and Elder Council, in that order) would get built in less than a dozen turns each (make that half a dozen for the financial-built marketplace), just in time to get the Runes auto-spread there so I could go on with either a temple of kilmorph or a dwarven forge, depending on the actual production rate. Besides, while being in God King, my capitol alone often had enough time to build whatever was unlocked by my latest discovery AND a few SoK's before I had reached my next tech, so I always had a few spare SoK running in my territory. Even better: building an SoK in my capitol would take benefit from +25-40% prod from the Vault, +50% from God King and +20-40% from the Forge (i didn't get Copper and Iron as soon as I'd have hoped), AND I would get another +40% prod bonus (possibly add +40% from Forges, although most of the time I wouldn't rush-build in a city that had a Forge) when using them to rush-build things in other cities so I guess the whole proccess was really effective hammer-wise.
All in all, I had gathered quite a few units by year ~275 and was considering taking on Acheron in his citadel, especially since he was only protected by a couple of weaklings (you could even think HE was protecting them ), and I kept an anxious eye towards his city in fear that Garrim or Sheelba would take it before I had time to get there. Besides, with getting a whole lot of "the-wonder-of-year has been built in a far away land", I expected Acheron's city to be full of wonders to loot for and really hoped getting it would allow my civ to get a great boost. I nearly had a heart attack (ok, that might be a bit exagerated) when I saw that someone passed on Orchus' Axe to Acheron errm, no, that's not funny in fact, it meant that the bloody lizard would get another +25% bonus... no like he needed that anyway, it only pushed the pressure even harder on me to get that city fast. Anyhow, I finally sent Bambur with a task force WAY less consistent that I'd have liked, but I had to keep a few stacks in my territory if only to keep Faeryl and Mahala from getting bad ideas. I was also considering sending some troops to Perpentach and finish the job, considering that he only had built a second city, and appeared to only have in his army merrymen (a lot of them, but they're still merrymen), a couple of acrobats and, of all things, Typhoid Mary. I just bet that sacrificing a few unit to take down Mary without contaminating my army, and using the survivors to contaminate other troops would be perfect as I don"t plan on getting priest quickly enough to allow having too many diseased people in my army (but I might change my mind since I have almost reached the techs I had defined as 'Top-Most Priority'when I was before-last in score).
(in short, I just captured Acheron's city, at the expense of a few soldiers and a little chunk of self-estim)
Spoiler:
In conclusion, Bambur left with a couple dwarven catapults, a couple of dwarven thingbearers (macemen-eqv), a few SoKs and a pairs of thanes for faster healing and instant city order-restoring on capture. That was really close, both in time* and in firepower**. However, I got the city, and was proved wrong on the world-wonder subject since only the Dradon Horde (Hoard ?) was to be found inside
* Garrim Gyr and Arendel had sent attacking stacks there, fortunately Arendel only sent low tier units which probably couldn't attack Acheron while Garrim only had his golem hero (Combat-IV already) so I guess he has sent other units that couldn't finish the job... I'm half-sure Garrim is the one who got the Axe and lost it to Acheron, and that would explain his golem wandering there alone
** to my great shame, that's the only time in this game when I saved & loaded. Not because I had lost the fight, but because I really had no idea wether the stack I had sent had any chance against Acheron and his minions (I rarely get a chance to take on Acheron since I often play on large maps... all in all, I think I've fell upon Orchus more often than Acheron ; I guess I will be able to get him more often now the tile he is in is revealed, but until now I could only get his city a single time before, and that was with a far more powerful army). Worse yet, I really had to take both Acheron AND the city in the same turn, because Arendel had warriors in the same tile as I, and would probably rob the city under my nose if I could turn the dragon down without finishing off the couple orcish spearmen that defended the city. So I first saved, combat-promoted my units and just tried a basic non-optimized rush (cats first, bambur next and the weaklings to finish the job) just to see what would come out of it. Bambur expectedly died, and I was not able to take the city even if sacrifying the thanes of kilmorph, but could see that I had at least enough firepower to take Acheron down. So I loaded the game, and performed an optimized attack (using City Raider promos, spending a full turn to have the cats bombard the city before collateral-attacking, and sending macemen before Bambur to tear some of Acherons' HP) that actually did work at the expense of my macemen-eqv and half of my other units. Bambur killed Acheron of course and got about 40XP out of it... just for your knowing, he had less than 50X when he attacked so I really felt under pressure. I had decided upon saving that I wouldn't load the game if the real attack would fail (only cancel it if the first dumb attempt proved it just plainly impossible), but I felt really relieved that I actually could take this city down. Technically speaking, the eventuality of losing Bambur would have been a pain, but the AI civs don't always get heroes at all and that doesn't prevent them from sometimes being a real pain, so I thought I would still try to get the best out of it. Anyway, Bambur eventually survived, so I'm just glad I can still count on him.
That's pretty much where I saved my game and stopped playing. I initialy went to Civ Fanatics to write this report and give feedback, except I got some session expiration message when sending it and lost the whole thing in the process Anyway, I'll now give some feedback on what I feel the Khazad were good (or not) for in this game. And because the whole feedback is larger than the 30.000 char limit in Civ Fanatics (actually, the error message listed 30.500 chars , it will be posted right below
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I'll try to write it all again, but not now... it took me maybe 3 hours to write it, so I guess I'll go get some air before I try agin 
.
in fact, the game is going on rather well and I'm confident that I'll eventually get a chance to dominate my immediate neighbours, but up until now that was by no means the easiest game I've played. Anyway, what I want to stress is that after the first 300 turns, I feel I'm still in the game although not dominating yet, so I guess that so far the Khazad are neither overpowered nor underpowered.
and the "many river" option would even allow for a few breweries 
). Every other civ on the map got Runes spread to them (Varn may have got it from Garrim, but I really doubt that Basium and Capria could have since they were really isolated on their islands !) and switched to it, so I had 5 religious partner, whereas the Evil civs had all turned OO (I'm not sure, but it's possible that Mahala or Sheelba eventually turned Leaves), and Arendel was left alone with Leaves (with the possible addition of Sheelba or Mahala, I'm really not sure). The funny thing is that without ever really working for it, I finally got at least Pleased with 5 civs out of 9 (not including me), and while the Order and the Veil have actually benn founded nobody ever switched to any of them. I guess whomever founded the two late religions either had already founded another religion (that would mean Arendel or Faeryl) or already has too many cities converted to another religion to justify swapping even when having the holy city (that sure wouldn't be the case for the Good civs: I'm almost sure I know every Luchuirp city, and the other ones only have Runes in one or two, max three, cities so getting the shrine alone would be enough of a reason to switch).
