Fave Civs

[isthmus]

AV Elhonim Enough said.
Or rather, if it is not enough AV makes the Elhonim Neutral and not evil thus making them the best civ for AV since it does not do too much diplo damage early on.
Later, the whole Tolerant thing gets powerful and as a bonus all those goodies from the different unique features.
All in all, one of the stronger war mongering civs around.

Huh, I thought AV was a straight ticket to evil alignment?

Tolerant is a cool trait, but it encourages warmongering. Although I think that the concept of accepting foreign cultures probably suits an Elohim leader, to make the most of the trait requires conquest.
Is it possible to have the culture of nearby civs allow either a UU or UB of a different civ if there is culture of that civ in elohim plots in the city work radius?

I've always seen the Elohim as a religious and defensive civ, which implies focusing towards culture, religion or altar victory. It's hard to gain land when you're mainly defensive and you can't nick that city off the AI that took that prime city spot. Their UBs require several cities that become hard to gain since you're not great at attacking.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I've always seen the Elohim as a religious and defensive civ,

Tell that to the Malikim, and the Banor... if there is anything left of them by the time I am done.

lol


But I am playing Monarch level with no challenges (no build requirements is on thou) and the AI is not doing so well vs the barbarians and animals.

 

[Yerug]

I love Bannor. They're so fun to build a empire around (although I am boring and always use Order).

 

[Opera]

Out of RifE Civs - D'Tesh by far. Rather unique gameplay, flavour I like and they are not overpowered. And as Valkrionn mentioned - simple, so I can focus on strategy, not on micromanaging.
Of FfH one - Amurites. Much more micro, unique only later in game but makes most use of magic system in FfH, which is one of it's greatest features. Also, it's a civ that was improved most by various modmods
And one that is not in any modmod right now (at least, not in current version of any modmod) - Ngomele. Pretty unique gameplay, but not one that changes way you play completely, both with economy and war. New magic system (though it was never finished) and lots and lots of flavour I love. I miss them very much (well, not that much because I still have old version of Orbis with LENA installed but it's lacking improvements of latests Orbis version)

Don't worry...

 

[LionoftheNorth]

The stereotype is what makes it fun.

I agree. This stereotype is a lot more interesting than your average standard lawful good knights. I feel I can identify with Bannor under Gaius Octavius in a way I can only compare to the Scarlet Crusade of WoW. We lawful should stand together and rot out the radicals of the world.

I also enjoy the Illians, they fascinate me and seems like the most noble of the evil civilizations. I haven't played much with the Mekara order, though their backstory excites me.

Other than that, I have my first found memories of FF2 as the Hippus and Kuriotates, both have a very refreshing play-style. The Hippus seem newb-friendly too me, while the Kuriotates is a exiting experiment. I also enjoy the Lanun, though their expertise is mostly useful in the late game, were other things matter a lot more, anyway.

 

[arcticnightwolf]

I agree. This stereotype is a lot more interesting than your average standard lawful good knights. I feel I can identify with Bannor under Gaius Octavius in a way I can only compare to the Scarlet Crusade of WoW. We lawful should stand together and rot out the radicals of the world.

I also enjoy the Illians, they fascinate me and seems like the most noble of the evil civilizations. I haven't played much with the Mekara order, though their backstory excites me.

Other than that, I have my first found memories of FF2 as the Hippus and Kuriotates, both have a very refreshing play-style. The Hippus seem newb-friendly too me, while the Kuriotates is a exiting experiment. I also enjoy the Lanun, though their expertise is mostly useful in the late game, were other things matter a lot more, anyway.

You, sir, you just levelled up your thread-necromancy skill.

Anyway, i'd say that the Lanun's strength is also hidden in that Falamar has the charismatic trait, which is quite strong ( iirc only Sabathiel has it, besides him ) and also the financial trait of the second leader combined with the affinity for coastal cities is also quite strong, and both these strengths are strong right from the beginning.

 

[LionoftheNorth]

You, sir, you just levelled up your thread-necromancy skill.

Anyway, i'd say that the Lanun's strength is also hidden in that Falamar has the charismatic trait, which is quite strong ( iirc only Sabathiel has it, besides him ) and also the financial trait of the second leader combined with the affinity for coastal cities is also quite strong, and both these strengths are strong right from the beginning.

I guess.

You are right, I was mainly thinking about their units. I find the charismatic trait good but not that great, the -25% XP needed for promotions is nice but doesn't seem to make to much of a difference for a warmonger. The halved production rate for settlers is quite awesome though.

I must confess I'm not as experienced as most of you probably are. I have only played RifE since February, and I only play on Prince. (which I find hard enough for now, especially with the hordes of barbarians in this modmod)

 

[Adante]

Since we all seem to be such adept necromancers here, let me chime in on this thread.


I personally really enjoying playing the Calabim.

I don't like to play the very evil, Ashen Veil, summons demons route. (It messes up the pretty landscape, you see, and we can't have that.) No, instead I like to play a more neutral-minded vampire, even though sacrifice the weak works oh so well with their vampires. I really like founding the runes of Kilmorph religion and expanding quickly via the economic bonus their temples provide. I have also had fun times with making the dwarven mines (an improvement I absolutely love) all over my empire. Kilmorph is a really good early game religion for a few reasons, but having a few dwarven vampires just makes me happy inside.

My real pleasure in playing the Calabim comes from the unique vampire promotion and the eating of cities for experience. I get very much so into the lore here. I limit myself to only having a very few number of vampires, usually only one per city. I take great care in feeding my vampires, assigning each of them their own city to feed off of and giving them each a unique name and title depending on level. I pretend each of them is the governor of that city and their "personalities" are each a little different depending upon the unique situations that city has to endure. Depending on how prosperous an individual city is the resulting vampire will be somewhat proportional as I try to only allow vampires to feed if a town has grown so large that the population becomes unhappy. This makes the larger cities guarded by nearly unkillable vampire-governors.

Keep in mind that when I say "vampire" here I only mean units with the vampire promotion, rarely are these governors ever the vampire unit. In fact, it is something of a mini-game for me to see what different types of creatures I can make into vampires. I've had the great Lord Arronax, a giant spider vampire, Duke Acheron, the incredibly unfair dragon vampire, and even Baron Von Stompstomp, an elephant vampire. I can proudly say I have vamperized every possible combination of races in the game, except angels. Sadly there is no situation where a unit would get the angel racial buff. On a final point about this minigame, vampiric werewolfs are hilarious fun.

 

[Jheral]

I can proudly say I have vamperized every possible combination of races in the game, except angels. Sadly there is no situation where a unit would get the angel racial buff.

Well, technically there is an exploration result that gives you an Angel unit...

 

[Trappisto]

I love Elohim, cos i like to hord spirit nodes and try to build lvl 12 monks with the +2 affinity. Never manage to get many but i do love my ninja army.

 

[JEiK66]

Well, technically there is an exploration result that gives you an Angel unit...

Yes but angels and units with the angel racial are not living units and cannot receive the vampire promotion iirc.

 

[Jheral]

This is true. I forgot about that.

 

[Calavente]

do dying units reborn as angel keep their promotions ?

 

[Jheral]

I haven't actually looked at the code for it, but I would imagine not - As far as I know, it just creates a new unit as the reborn angel.

 

[Calavente]

oh.
that would have been a way to get an angel with vampiric