Flesh golem - the ultimate weapon of calabim?

[River guard]

Recently started to play FFH again and tried something with flesh golem, is there a better race to use them than calabim?

-For the number; dependent on the number of archmage (wth body 3 promotion)? As Calabim there could be 4 archmages+4 lichs +4 Vampire Lords (+mage hero from overlords)=12/13 flesh golems, could there be more?

-For the Quality(As promotion); I doubt there can be better "meat components" than well fed(and promoted) Vampires.

 

[Horatius]

Calabim is good for everything. You can tell that people who worked on the mod liked vampires.

 

[River guard]

Calabim is good for everything. You can tell that people who worked on the mod liked vampires.

No kidding, I thought there are vampires who worked on the mod

 

[doktarr]

It doesn't seem to me like the real value of flesh golems lies in being able to build 12 or 13 of them. Other temporary summons make better fodder. And if you have 12-13 Archmages, you could win the game lots of different ways...

Still, the Calabim are one of the easiest civs with which to use Flesh Golems. Vampires have an extremely easy time piling on promotions, so any Calabim Flesh Golem can easily get every standard promotion available to a melee unit, in addition to the promotions that anything you can build starts with. (Anything that requires experience from a non-Vampire to get is harder to give up to the Flesh Golem, though... that priest with Command 3 would make an awfully nice Eidolon, too.)

The Balseraphs also have a relatively easy time collecting promotions for their FGs, between Mimics, Freaks/Mutate, and the Arena.

 

[Selrahc]

Calabim work insanely well for Flesh Golem creation because the Vampire Lords that make them also serve as the source for components, since immortal units return to life after being merged. Any other army has to pour valuable hammers and experience into getting the golems battle ready, or alternatively has to tech both Divine Essence *and* Strength of Will to get their golems.

If you're in the mood for bug exploitation, the Calabim who have captured the Black Mirror can create 1 Illusionary Vampire Lord and 1 "Real" Flesh Golem/turn, fairly rapidly dwarfing any more conventional attempt.

Alternatively, go dominate a massive army of Archmages or Sons of the Inferno and teach them all body 3.

As far as legitimate, single civ, raw numbers go? Amurites can get 4 from High Priests, 4 from Archmages, 4 from Liches, 4 from Druids, 1 from Govannon and 2 from Hemah twincasting the final one. 19.

that priest with Command 3 would make an awfully nice Eidolon, too.

He probably would, if he was a legal unit.
Priests can only take Command 1. It takes a High Priest to get the higher levels of Command.

As far as vampires go, I think generally you'd get all your Eidolons to be Vampires. Priestdolons are a good idea for most civs, but the vamps want everything possible to be a Vampire.

 

[doktarr]

Calabim work insanely well for Flesh Golem creation because the Vampire Lords that make them also serve as the source for components, since immortal units return to life after being merged. Any other army has to pour valuable hammers and experience into getting the golems battle ready, or alternatively has to tech both Divine Essence *and* Strength of Will to get their golems.

I admit I'm still just feeling my way around the Python and XML, but I'm pretty sure that Immortal units can't get added to the Flesh Golem. Maybe this is just a feature of Tholal's modmod?

If you're in the mood for bug exploitation, the Calabim who have captured the Black Mirror can create 1 Illusionary Vampire Lord and 1 "Real" Flesh Golem/turn, fairly rapidly dwarfing any more conventional attempt.

Really? I would have assumed that Flesh Golems worked like skeletons, where you could only have as many FGs at a time as you have units with Body 3 (or one more, if you twincast when you're one below the max). So the Black Mirror would only get you one extra FG. That's how it should work, anyway...

Priests can only take Command 1. It takes a High Priest to get the higher levels of Command.

Ah, right, yeah. Getting carried away... the point I was trying to make is that non-vampire units have to be nursed up to 26 XP before they can go crazy, so they are more precious than vampires when it comes to adding stuff to a Flesh Golem. So if you want stuff like Flanking 3 or Perfect Sight or Command 3, you have to work for it, rather than just build->feast->promote->add.

As far as vampires go, I think generally you'd get all your Eidolons to be Vampires. Priestdolons are a good idea for most civs, but the vamps want everything possible to be a Vampire.

Well, you can always gift vampirism to your best priests. So really, it's a question of whether you'd rather have Medic 1/2 and a level 2 divine spell, or Haste/Regen/Skeleton/Spectre.

 

[Selrahc]

I admit I'm still just feeling my way around the Python and XML, but I'm pretty sure that Immortal units can't get added to the Flesh Golem. Maybe this is just a feature of Tholal's modmod?

It's a new feature of Tholal's modmod, based on my feedback of exactly this experience. It seems that regular FFH is *supposed* to block immortal units from being grafted to flesh golems, but it only works for units with the Immortal promotion rather than those with the Immortal property. Ogre Warchiefs, Immortals, Vampire Lords etc. can all be grafted to golems for fun and profit in base.

Really? I would have assumed that Flesh Golems worked like skeletons, where you could only have as many FGs at a time as you have units with Body 3 (or one more, if you twincast when you're one below the max). So the Black Mirror would only get you one extra FG. That's how it should work, anyway...

When I said exploitation, I did mean it. This is something that *shouldn't* work, but does. When an immortal unit uses the Black Mirror, their illusionary copy is not destroyed at the end of the turn, but instead merely dies, returning to the capital. So the number of Illusionary Vampire Lords can be increased by 1/turn. Assuming Body 3, each one adds a slot that can be used for casting Flesh Golem, an illusionary one if the new VL casts it, real if one of the originals does.

 

[Tholal]

When I said exploitation, I did mean it. This is something that *shouldn't* work, but does. When an immortal unit uses the Black Mirror, their illusionary copy is not destroyed at the end of the turn, but instead merely dies

This should also be fixed in the latest version of my mod.