Esus-Calabim: Taking over cities without triggering a war?

[Kamen Rider]

1.)Rape an entire city with masked recon units
2.)Place Moroii
3.)Hope burning blood turns it into a barbarian
4.)Conquer

I haven't tried this yet (or had the opportunity to do so), so I'll ask: Does this work or am I missing a something that turns this into a mere bombo? If this is possible, then the marriage between an ahole civilization and an ahole religion is perfect and divine.

 

[DaveGold]

Maybe. Never rely on barbarian units though as they have a mind of their own.

A lot of people look at hidden nationality units and think they're about capturing cities so try to overcome all the obstacles that prevent it. Let every other unit in the game fight over cites. My advice - use the hidden nationality units for raiding, pillaging, weakening, and economic damage. Decius with Esus-Calabim works great.

 

[Pickly]

Sort of noobish related question: does the hidden nationality come from Esus as a state religion, or from Night riders/some other unit?

 

[DaveGold]

Hidden nationality units come from a great variety of sources: captured animals, pirates, shadows, summoned mistforms, and too many other sources to mention. Recon units with the mask ability can reveal nationality or hide it each turn and it's these units that come mainly through the CoE. Most other hidden nationality units cannot hide again once revealed.

The basic source of hidden units are the nightwatch. One comes when you learn Deception. More come through the undercouncil and you can build them as a replacement for longbowmen under the CoE. You can promote the nightwatch to become assassins.

Any unit built in a city with CoE has a chance gaining that religion, any such recon unit will get the mask ability. Shadows can be built in a city with CoE once you have guilds and they always follow CoE religion and mask.

 

[Onionsoilder]

Maybe. Never rely on barbarian units though as they have a mind of their own.

A lot of people look at hidden nationality units and think they're about capturing cities so try to overcome all the obstacles that prevent it. Let every other unit in the game fight over cites. My advice - use the hidden nationality units for raiding, pillaging, weakening, and economic damage. Decius with Esus-Calabim works great.

I can attest to this. In my last game I had a horseman that got crazed from a dungeon. I was fully expecting him to suicide on a nearby hill giant, or perhaps that goblin archer guarding the fort. Maybe the wadering axeman maybe, which would give him pretty decent odds as victory...

Nope. He ran southwest, past all of them. And kept going. 5 turns later, after heading in a straight line SW, he finally kills a bear. This gets him a new promotion, which I give him and bring him bringing him back up to my empire. Maybe 15 turns the same thing happens, but now he runs east three turns and finds a lizardman to kill. His running off was getting annoying, so I started using him to explore every dungeon... and his mad adventurers running off into no-man lands to kill obscure targets he somehow picked out were followed with him escorting great people and various artifacts back to my empire. Of course, I had to send a rondevous of other units to help, in case he ran off again. That horseman never died in the entire game...

 

[avalonnn]

Hidden nationality units come from a great variety of sources: captured animals, pirates, shadows, summoned mistforms, and too many other sources to mention. .

One surprise source -- Mimics who steal it as a promotion! Happens most often when fighting animals.

 

[PekkaR]

1.)Rape an entire city with masked recon units
2.)Place Moroii
3.)Hope burning blood turns it into a barbarian
4.)Conquer

I haven't tried this yet (or had the opportunity to do so), so I'll ask: Does this work or am I missing a something that turns this into a mere bombo? If this is possible, then the marriage between an ahole civilization and an ahole religion is perfect and divine.

I've done it in a simpler way: Pact of the Nilhorn. Curly, Larry and Moe start with Hidden Nationality. I killed all the defenders in a city right as barbarians were approaching, then took the city from barbarians.