SchpailsMan
Warlord
- Joined
- Jun 9, 2006
- Messages
- 189
Ouch ! 
I didn't realize that the above post would be SO big... I'm sorry for the inconvenience, I guess I might as well edit it to remove most useless parts (such as the details on how the war went with Perpentach etc). 
I'll still post the rest of the original message, since that was exactly the part that is most specific to the Khazad and the experience I had while playing them... so, sorry again for the inconvenience, I'll make a little cleanup later on, right now I'll just post the end of this feedback before someone grabs this spot.
First, I had chosen Kandros Fir instead of Arturus Thorne not because I liked him particularily better but because most feedback I had seen in this thread seemed to concern Arturus. I had gathered that the Khazad were a World-Wonder building powerhouse, but I'm now convinced that while Arturus certainly is, Kandros at least has the capacity to play more tech-wise and get on well sustaining a high research rate, without getting his vaults totally filled. That said, I did sustain ~100% research, but I guess I could have rather been to ~40-60% just so I would have had overflowing vaults faster on. That may be a mistake on my part, but by the look of the game it feels that the alternative is at least viable, which is good in my opinion (you know, that part about having choices and everything...). Being Financial really helped me a lot in staying in the competition with other civs despite being almost surrounded by unfriendly rivals, as I was able to generate income without compromising my research rate. Instead of rushing for heavily-filled vaults, I rather let them fill slowly while advancing through what I considered the most important part of the tech tree. Almost everything tech from now is either a) related to the end-game and the armageddon spells of tower of mastery, none of which I actually feel much concerned with ; b) a full tech path I won't gain much from exploring, such as the archery, cavalry or magic branches of the tree ; c) possibly useful but definetely not a really high priority, such as getting priests and dwarven druids-eqv, especially since I'm almost sure I have no chance of getting the Baron before Arendel or Faeryl does. As I see it, after I get the last couple tech I'd like to have soon, I guess it will be a perfect time to get MUCH gold and begin to conquer some of my annoying neighbours, starting with what's left of Perpentach and next Faeryl. But up until now, I have strictly no regret for having spent much effort into keeping in pace with the tech-leading civs.
Second, I can only confirm the already established consensus that the Khazad really LOVE the Runes ! Frankly, the Arete civic didn't help that much in my opinion (I'll probably have little regret for it when I get Caste System), but everything else the religion yields really helped me a lot. I can not stress enough how SoK's were efficient in getting some production running in low-prod or just-founded cities. With the cumulative boni I had when recruiting them in my capitol, and the additional bonus the Vault allowed for when using them to rush buildings, sacrifying them was really worth it, probably even more than when I was running Slavery and whipping like crazy under OO (at least OO have the pop decrease and unhapiness to deal with... Rune-Vaulted-Khazad just don't have a single penalty for this, except maybe a little hammer loss in the process, I'm gonna make a little testing in this regard when I continue this game). Temples of Kilmorph add up to (cheap) Marketplaces so that even cities that would usually cost 5 or 6 gold in maintenance become at worse "free" (except for the impact they have on the Vault level). And my kingdom is still small enough that I have only built a couple of courthouses "just inn a side note, SoK and thanes of kilmorph natural hill defense made protecting my cities against the Balseraph a little easier, I for example had a Thane of Kilmorph sitting on a hill tile to draw a stack of merrymen away from an temporarily unprotected city, and he actually blew two of them to dust before falling. I Finally also used SoK's to build mines while my workers were busy removing jungles and building plantations upon discovering Sanitation and Calendar.
Third, I'm getting to the point where I guess I'll miss some serious city defense, just like what was discussed before. Upon reaching engineering, I noticed that the Crossbowman icon was grayed in some of my cities. I realized that I had to build archery ranges to get them, and still haven't researched archery yet (I figured the Khazad just wouldn't be allowed to build archery ranged at all, anyway Archery's now just a couple of turns to get, but that's annoying already). We'll see if crossbowmen do the trick, and I for sure often rely on them for city defense instead of longbowmen when facing infantry-heavy ennemies, but I'm still a little anxious to see wether I'll be able to hold the cities I conquer without having to fill them to the roof with soldiers. The point is not that I hate defending cities, but rather that I wouldn't feel it right to have to build half a dozen units per city just to let them rot there so they actually get a chance to hold on would they get attacked. Anyway, I've not reached this point yet, I'm just making a mental note on what I might have to deal with later on, and I felt it better to talk about my concern to the team.
Fourth, the "insular" part of the design sure works well. In fact, I have so much of an insular civ that I've spent most of the game without knowing where each other civ had started the game, except for a couple of them. With tech trade disallowed, map trading requires either good maps (which I don't have) or a lot of money (which I don't want to trade
no doubt that's the Annoyingly Greedy Little Khazad Civ). I managed to get Garrim Gyr maps (for a small price, but only because we were very friendly) only a few turns ago, and I now realize that Capria is getting horribly powerful in this game. All in all, I can see I'm probably the one civ that has least territory on the map, without counting the almost-dead civs (Perpentach and Varn). I intend to take on Perpentach soon (anyway, I always appreciate getting another player's starting location), but with the underlying Vault level issue I guess I'll have to go for Conquest rather than domination, keeping only really well developped cities. On a side note, I intend to develop culture a lot in this game, not because I need some or anything, but rather to hinder my rival's spreading efforts as much as possible. The point is that I intend not to keep many cities when conquesting, but I have already noticed that Garrim has taken over most of the land that formerly belonged to Perpentach. I want to avoid letting the AI grab too much land at my expense, since it will make conquesting them even harder in the long run.
Finally, I think it will be worth it to try and load an early autosave just to try going for either Leaves or the Order. That might not give very accurate feedback because of the background "cheating" that will be introduced (there I mean that knowing the map in advance will mechanicaly lead me into make "better" choices than I might have done otherwise), but I think nonetheless that it might help determining wether the Khazad really "need" the Runes or can perform just fine under some other religion. Right now, I have a slight feeling that, although going for OO or Veil would definetely be a bad move (one for lack of sea resources that would justify going for fishing, the other because it would require an early rush to Knowledge of the Ether which is far less appealing when playing Khazad than for most other civs), either Leaves or the Order could prove to be a viable option. At any rate, I guess that different maps would call for different strategies, and one could find the Khazad to be perfectly viable for example when playing OO with Kandros, taking benefit from both the financial trait effect on sea tiles and the OO Slavery civic for even higher prod rate. That's just a thought that would need some actual validation testing.
In conclusion, I do need to get further into the game to get a better opinion, especially on the "city defense" issue, but so far I do think the Khazad are fun to play with, and globally match their design concept. With my game settings (in particular the No Tech Trading limitation), they do require specialization to get by, but upon getting the necessary techs they can really get powerful. When compared to some other civs I played with recently (especially the Lanun and the Balseraph), it feels that they get a lower start but make up for that by turning into powerful builders since mid-game. In particular, the early unit that I found most useful was NOT a Khazad-unique unit but the Rune-unique Soldier of Kilmorph... when compared to the Balseraph Acrobat or the Ljosalfar Elven Archers, it seems clear that the Khazad don't get as much a fresh start as some other civs. Not that I'm complaining or anything, it's just that my feeling is that the Khazad are (designed to be ?) slow in the beginning, only to become really powerful later on, and that really makes them different to other civs.
I'd just like to add two things. First, I'd want to say to the Team "hey... guess what... it works !" And second, I just want to congratulate you all once again for making such a good game, and going on through the process of making it even better with each version. Franckly, that's amazing and I cannot congratulate you enough for that 
I didn't realize that the above post would be SO big... I'm sorry for the inconvenience, I guess I might as well edit it to remove most useless parts (such as the details on how the war went with Perpentach etc). I'll still post the rest of the original message, since that was exactly the part that is most specific to the Khazad and the experience I had while playing them... so, sorry again for the inconvenience, I'll make a little cleanup later on, right now I'll just post the end of this feedback before someone grabs this spot.
First, I had chosen Kandros Fir instead of Arturus Thorne not because I liked him particularily better but because most feedback I had seen in this thread seemed to concern Arturus. I had gathered that the Khazad were a World-Wonder building powerhouse, but I'm now convinced that while Arturus certainly is, Kandros at least has the capacity to play more tech-wise and get on well sustaining a high research rate, without getting his vaults totally filled. That said, I did sustain ~100% research, but I guess I could have rather been to ~40-60% just so I would have had overflowing vaults faster on. That may be a mistake on my part, but by the look of the game it feels that the alternative is at least viable, which is good in my opinion (you know, that part about having choices and everything...). Being Financial really helped me a lot in staying in the competition with other civs despite being almost surrounded by unfriendly rivals, as I was able to generate income without compromising my research rate. Instead of rushing for heavily-filled vaults, I rather let them fill slowly while advancing through what I considered the most important part of the tech tree. Almost everything tech from now is either a) related to the end-game and the armageddon spells of tower of mastery, none of which I actually feel much concerned with ; b) a full tech path I won't gain much from exploring, such as the archery, cavalry or magic branches of the tree ; c) possibly useful but definetely not a really high priority, such as getting priests and dwarven druids-eqv, especially since I'm almost sure I have no chance of getting the Baron before Arendel or Faeryl does. As I see it, after I get the last couple tech I'd like to have soon, I guess it will be a perfect time to get MUCH gold and begin to conquer some of my annoying neighbours, starting with what's left of Perpentach and next Faeryl. But up until now, I have strictly no regret for having spent much effort into keeping in pace with the tech-leading civs.
Second, I can only confirm the already established consensus that the Khazad really LOVE the Runes ! Frankly, the Arete civic didn't help that much in my opinion (I'll probably have little regret for it when I get Caste System), but everything else the religion yields really helped me a lot. I can not stress enough how SoK's were efficient in getting some production running in low-prod or just-founded cities. With the cumulative boni I had when recruiting them in my capitol, and the additional bonus the Vault allowed for when using them to rush buildings, sacrifying them was really worth it, probably even more than when I was running Slavery and whipping like crazy under OO (at least OO have the pop decrease and unhapiness to deal with... Rune-Vaulted-Khazad just don't have a single penalty for this, except maybe a little hammer loss in the process, I'm gonna make a little testing in this regard when I continue this game). Temples of Kilmorph add up to (cheap) Marketplaces so that even cities that would usually cost 5 or 6 gold in maintenance become at worse "free" (except for the impact they have on the Vault level). And my kingdom is still small enough that I have only built a couple of courthouses "just inn a side note, SoK and thanes of kilmorph natural hill defense made protecting my cities against the Balseraph a little easier, I for example had a Thane of Kilmorph sitting on a hill tile to draw a stack of merrymen away from an temporarily unprotected city, and he actually blew two of them to dust before falling. I Finally also used SoK's to build mines while my workers were busy removing jungles and building plantations upon discovering Sanitation and Calendar.
Third, I'm getting to the point where I guess I'll miss some serious city defense, just like what was discussed before. Upon reaching engineering, I noticed that the Crossbowman icon was grayed in some of my cities. I realized that I had to build archery ranges to get them, and still haven't researched archery yet (I figured the Khazad just wouldn't be allowed to build archery ranged at all, anyway Archery's now just a couple of turns to get, but that's annoying already). We'll see if crossbowmen do the trick, and I for sure often rely on them for city defense instead of longbowmen when facing infantry-heavy ennemies, but I'm still a little anxious to see wether I'll be able to hold the cities I conquer without having to fill them to the roof with soldiers. The point is not that I hate defending cities, but rather that I wouldn't feel it right to have to build half a dozen units per city just to let them rot there so they actually get a chance to hold on would they get attacked. Anyway, I've not reached this point yet, I'm just making a mental note on what I might have to deal with later on, and I felt it better to talk about my concern to the team.
Fourth, the "insular" part of the design sure works well. In fact, I have so much of an insular civ that I've spent most of the game without knowing where each other civ had started the game, except for a couple of them. With tech trade disallowed, map trading requires either good maps (which I don't have) or a lot of money (which I don't want to trade
no doubt that's the Annoyingly Greedy Little Khazad Civ). I managed to get Garrim Gyr maps (for a small price, but only because we were very friendly) only a few turns ago, and I now realize that Capria is getting horribly powerful in this game. All in all, I can see I'm probably the one civ that has least territory on the map, without counting the almost-dead civs (Perpentach and Varn). I intend to take on Perpentach soon (anyway, I always appreciate getting another player's starting location), but with the underlying Vault level issue I guess I'll have to go for Conquest rather than domination, keeping only really well developped cities. On a side note, I intend to develop culture a lot in this game, not because I need some or anything, but rather to hinder my rival's spreading efforts as much as possible. The point is that I intend not to keep many cities when conquesting, but I have already noticed that Garrim has taken over most of the land that formerly belonged to Perpentach. I want to avoid letting the AI grab too much land at my expense, since it will make conquesting them even harder in the long run.Finally, I think it will be worth it to try and load an early autosave just to try going for either Leaves or the Order. That might not give very accurate feedback because of the background "cheating" that will be introduced (there I mean that knowing the map in advance will mechanicaly lead me into make "better" choices than I might have done otherwise), but I think nonetheless that it might help determining wether the Khazad really "need" the Runes or can perform just fine under some other religion. Right now, I have a slight feeling that, although going for OO or Veil would definetely be a bad move (one for lack of sea resources that would justify going for fishing, the other because it would require an early rush to Knowledge of the Ether which is far less appealing when playing Khazad than for most other civs), either Leaves or the Order could prove to be a viable option. At any rate, I guess that different maps would call for different strategies, and one could find the Khazad to be perfectly viable for example when playing OO with Kandros, taking benefit from both the financial trait effect on sea tiles and the OO Slavery civic for even higher prod rate. That's just a thought that would need some actual validation testing.
In conclusion, I do need to get further into the game to get a better opinion, especially on the "city defense" issue, but so far I do think the Khazad are fun to play with, and globally match their design concept. With my game settings (in particular the No Tech Trading limitation), they do require specialization to get by, but upon getting the necessary techs they can really get powerful. When compared to some other civs I played with recently (especially the Lanun and the Balseraph), it feels that they get a lower start but make up for that by turning into powerful builders since mid-game. In particular, the early unit that I found most useful was NOT a Khazad-unique unit but the Rune-unique Soldier of Kilmorph... when compared to the Balseraph Acrobat or the Ljosalfar Elven Archers, it seems clear that the Khazad don't get as much a fresh start as some other civs. Not that I'm complaining or anything, it's just that my feeling is that the Khazad are (designed to be ?) slow in the beginning, only to become really powerful later on, and that really makes them different to other civs.
I'd just like to add two things. First, I'd want to say to the Team "hey... guess what... it works !"
And second, I just want to congratulate you all once again for making such a good game, and going on through the process of making it even better with each version. Franckly, that's amazing and I cannot congratulate you enough for that 
)
). I haven't yet decided if I'm going to continue the game and try to 'win', or move on to the next one 
)
