Grigori Deity Guide

[eris23]

The main advantage of Grigori is their ability to spam Quest once they have a Fort Commander; if there isn't a fort nearby for you to occupy the quickest way to get one is to have a Great General build one.
Quest allows most units (including builders) to get 2 experience per turn up to 100 experience, heroes up to 200 experience) That's about level 10 and while they are questing they don't cost any upkeep.
It's very nice to have workers with Skilled V and 4 movements.

Reload the map if you didn't spawn close to at least 3 river flatland tiles (except jungles or tundra).
Change policy to Nationhood, allow yourself the extra turn to find a good spot. Build warriors, switch to 2 builders when you get to 4 pops and have them build farms.
Mysticism (God King) > Calendar (Agrarianism) (> Animal Husbandry if there are Cows or Sheep, Masonry if there is Stone) > Bronze Working > Writing > Code of Laws (Monarchy)

If you're lucky, you have a nearby rival that is somewhat peaceful and doesn't go straight for archery and have soaked up enough experience with one of your warriors/axemen for him to be at least level 3, preferably 5 to have march. The point of early aggression is to get a Great General (so even if you can't take down their cities - yet - harassing their improvements will slow his progress and give you some much needed experience), once you have one he can build a fort which spawns a fort commander and you're set for pretty much the rest of the game.
You can then use your high level units to attack your enemies to steal their techs.
At this point you should start thinking of changing back to pacifism and try to get as many great people as you can, to spawn some more heroes, first one should be a scout, train him up to Combat V, +2 ATT/DEF and capture animal.

Economy wise, you should rely on Fabricaforma or Masquerade (or both), which is why I generally use Museums and Bards to expand borders.

Since you're running both Monarchy and Agrarianism, Sanitation is a very important tech. And the good thing about those farms is that they turn into Homesteads. Those help with generating more Heroes and have better yields. So you wanna spam every possible tile with farms, which is why Construction is also a very important technology.

Late game you probably wanna run to Republic, Caste System and Scholarship.

 

[azatote]

Yeah, the Quest mechanic is really, really OP indeed. I usually don't use it when playing the Grigori because I find it unfair, the heroes alone are enough to have a strong army. My opinion is that the quest should be nerfed: 20 XP max for non-hero units is more than enough to me.

Besides, this is a nice guide indeed.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Any mechanic can be OP if you cheese it. Just look at say the vampires. Especially against the AI that does not know what it's doing half of the time. That does not mean the mechanic needs nerfing but that everything else needs to be brought up to its level and left here. And than you can chose how much cheesing is too much for you.

Like, reading this guide right now I can immediately say that reloading the map is too much for me.

 

[azatote]

There are OP mechanics with which I'm fine, like as you said the vampires. And there is this: 100 free XP for every Grigori unit, at an insane rate (twice faster than a hero's XP gain, infinitely faster than unit training), with no requirement on the unit at all, and requiring only a fort (which is super easy to obtain, either by claiming a neutral one, clearing a goblin fort, gaining a great commander or even building it with a worker) and a bit of micromanagement.

It's not simply OP, it's insanely, stupidly broken. Balancing that by bringing everything else up would mean to give every civ a feature as strong as gifting the hero promotion to every unit. This questing feature does not make any sense in terms of balance, and it's not even essential in terms of civ flavor. I agree with your favored approach for balancing the game, but this time, this time only, nerf this mechanic.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I understand you on a basic level. I just don't really see a way to make it more balanced without utterly breaking it. It has to still remain something you want to use as opposed to a gimmick. And stuff like a 20XP limit would be pathetically nerfing it into the ground.

 

[eris23]

Like, readQuote These Messagesing this guide right now I can immediately say that reloading the map is too much for me.

If you don't have a couple of river flats, you're gonna have a bad time. Often enough you can compensate though.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

If you don't have a couple of river flats, you're gonna have a bad time. Often enough you can compensate though.

That might be so, but rerolling the entire game is just too much cheating for my tastes. It's basically the same as save scumming battles where your units die to get a flawless victory.

 

[azatote]

If we set a 20 XP limit, it won't be pathetically nerfing the mechanic into the ground as it would still be way, way stronger than any unit training mechanic present in game. The feature would still be very strong, but at least it wouldn't be completely game-breaking anymore. My favored solution would be to completely trash this questing mechanic that doesn't make much sense, and replace it with something completely different. For example, in would be much more in line with the "adventurer's quest" theme to give extra XP and gold when exploring lairs, maybe extra adventurer GP points too.

 

[eris23]

That's fairly easy to mod, go into Assets/XML/Units/CIV4PromotionInfos and set

<fFreeXPCap>100</fFreeXPCap> to <fFreeXPCap>20</fFreeXPCap>

Another fun thing to do is setting up very defensible cities with a Great Commander by starting to build a fort then have the settler build a city on top of it. Especially good if it's going to be a very productive city, then your units can be sent to a quest right as they are built.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

If we set a 20 XP limit, it won't be pathetically nerfing the mechanic into the ground as it would still be way, way stronger than any unit training mechanic present in game. The feature would still be very strong, but at least it wouldn't be completely game-breaking anymore. My favored solution would be to completely trash this questing mechanic that doesn't make much sense, and replace it with something completely different. For example, in would be much more in line with the "adventurer's quest" theme to give extra XP and gold when exploring lairs, maybe extra adventurer GP points too.

Lairs run out very quickly. And they don't last you the whole game thus trashing the mechanic.

If it was me what I'd do is simply add a ticking gold cost to doing it on top of the existing upkeep cost of the unit. That way you'd have to pick which units you level more carefully and couldn't sustain too many at once but would still get the full benefit of 100XP if you are willing and able to afford it.

 

[eris23]

Also very easy to mod, just replace the line
<bFreeUnit>1</bFreeUnit>
with
<iExtraSupport>1</iExtraSupport>
in the Questing promoition. Maybe remove the blind condition.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Someone should test things out like that. I don't really have the time to play many games in Q1. That's the time we finish up everything that should have been done by Q4.

 

[Calavente]

I think +50xp would be huge already (30 turns of off-duty guys...) the aim would be 2 turns of off-duty, but allowing for units having already some xp or earning xp.

I had all those 40+ xp axemen (didn't want to go further).. but didn 't attack, I had no neighbor that had cities close enough that I'd want to capture them. I guess I'll attack now. when their units are much stronger than 5 turns prior

honestly I"d rather have them be entierly unusable, instead of running everywhere like that, but still calling to you every turn, and forgetting every turn you order...

I forgot that grigori had non-useful mana ! water (why???) force (not useful yet) spirit (so sad...)

Homestead are great, but 50 turns to upgrade, that's real long.