Gibbon Goetia vs. the Stupid AI

[orgonebox]

Before I begin, let me say, "Great mod!"

On to the rant.

I've been weighing the advantages of switching to Council of Esus and building Gibbon for the purpose of breeding a mess of chaos. In my present game, I've been playing as neutral Flauros, having founded (in order) RoK, FoL, OO, and then CoE. My strategy has been to switch around to the different religions, build their early heroes, and waste them against the other opponent on my continent (Feral Sheryl Vic). So far so good, right? My plan was to build the priest units for each religion, let them gain experience, vampirize them, and then cycle through again once they've got experience and build the high priests. I had OO planned as the last religion switch in the cycle - so I can have Hemah and Saverous for the long term.

Well, CoE's turn comes up, my Nightwatch is spreading the faith, and I realize I can pop Gibbon in a few turns. The AC is getting kind of high, so I figured I'd take over the Veil-founding civ (the Clan lead by Jonas following the Order of all things), switch to AV, gut the cities, and let the Bannor/Basium take it all over, eliminating the Veil. Didn't go according to plan, of course. The Elohim got in on the action and bumped the AC over the blight mark by capturing the AV holy city.

Right, so it goes on for too many turns that I've got control of Jonas's crap festival. When I get control of my civ back, however, I find an EVEN WORSE crap festival: Somehow I'm also at war with Sabathiel, half my units have been disbanded (like my priest units I spent all that time building, and my druids), a treasury of over 3000 gold is gone, research is in the hole, gold is -61/turn, the religion has been switched to RoK again, and every city is building work boats, frigates, or thanes of kilmorph. And oh yeah, blight has happened. Prior to using Gibbon, I had been building lots of workers in anticipation of blight. When the game returns, most of those workers are gone, or building...crap. Forts and plantations. Chopping down ancient forests. Starving my civ down by being useless.

To end, one strategy change, one speculation, and one question.

1. Is the thorough crapitalization of your civ the pay-off for Gibbon's ability? It kind of seems that way, but I really don't see a decent trade-off considering you'll spend nearly as many turns fixing your civ as you do 86ing another.

2. Suppose I try to take over Basium and use his civ to go for the Veil holy city? I've got a save for the pre-impersonation point - maybe?

3. Has anyone had positive experiences using Gibbon Goetia? I'm still just messing around with the unit, so if anybody has a better idea, let me know.

 

[xienwolf]

Personally, I enjoy Summoning FAR too much to ever let go of Gibbon. An extra Summoner who can TWINCAST is gold for me.

That and I have never heard of the AI treating your Civ well while you are gone...

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Yeah, I wouldn't use it (except for testing purposes) unless it left me in control of my civ.

I think it should make the game play like a hot-seat game for a limited time, so you control both civs. Of course, this probably wouldn't work well in simultaneous turns MP games, but a lot of things in FfH are already kinda broken by simultaneous turns anyway.

 

[thapagan]

Oh there is An idea, dual control for a short time (5 turns) and you have to spend gold to cast the spell, and the amount of gold gets higher each time you cast,eh?

 

[orgonebox]

Okay, after further testing I've concluded Gibbon's impersonate leader ability just isn't worth it. The AI messes up your civ, and other civs are so messed up already you're better off bribing them into war. I was mainly pursuing a blight-avoidance strategy, but with too many other variables in the field (Prophecy of Ragnarok, Pillar of Chains, and razed barb cities) there's just no control.

I think the whole Council of Esus thing needs to be re-worked. There simply aren't enough benefits (apart from the Undercouncil - overcouncil sucks by comparison) to outweigh the late-game costs. Furthermore, doesn't the AI get their huge vs. barbarian percentage bonus against human controlled HN units also? I like the Shadows as CoE units, but Gibbon just doesn't cut it as a hero. I like a twincasting summoner just as much as the next civver, but he ain't no Hemah. I go OO for him every time.

 

[it-ogo]

My only full experience of Impersonate was positive. My civ was far from strongest, it was in peace with everybody, had no big army or heroes, had one dominating religion and AC was low. I impersonated Rhoanna who was first in score with a great advantage over the next civ in score. When impersonated I started many wars (actually put the whole peaceful world into the age of wars) and produced enough much harm to make Rhoanna complete looser with time. When I came back there was one war with a minor civ with no actuall fighting and situation was quite acceptable. After some time I was able to become first in score. So that was really successfull experience - the usage of GG has broken the gameline in my favor.

I knew about possible AI faults and tried to provide it situation easy to handle.

 

[it-ogo]

Conclusion: GG Impersonate worth only if you are far from first in score and want to break the situation.

 

[TheJopa]

Consider this-AI plays your civ as good as it would play it's own. That means that for some reason AI always disbands troops, especially high priests, builds crap, changes religion stupidly...