Grigori Guide

[EverNoob]

I've been playing with the Grigori for awhile, and just thought I'd give my 2 cents worth for players unfamiliar with them I'm gonna start with early game strategy then add mid game and late game strategy later on. So here we go!

Table of contents:
Part I - early game
Part II - mid-game economy
Part III - late game


General tips:

1. Choose your ultimate research path early in the game and upgrade your adventurers accordingly. Upgrade your adventurers to unit types that you are going to research all the way. For example, don't upgrade your adventurer to horseman if you don't intend to research the calvalry path all the way, since your adventurer will be stuck as a low tech unit for the rest of the game.
2. There are so many styles of play possible with the Grigori that it's tempting to try to do everything. Instead you should stay focused on the particular overall strategy that you picked out early in the game. Clearly the religious path is out of the question, but in some ways it's one less thing to worry about. You don't have to race to found a religion and spread it to your cities, which lets you focus on other things.
3. In general, the Grigori work better with early game aggresive expansion using the 1st adventurer you get. You can either use your 1st adventurer to subdue barbs to allow easy expansion, or you can simply conquer your neighbour/barb cities. You can even build in deserts fairly early, since the Grigori start with water mana.
4. There are many traits to choose from with Adaptive, but not all traits are equal. Good early game traits: creative, charismatic, aggressive, raider. Good mid-late game traits: financial, charismatic, organised, arcane, raider. Though some of the others are viable too depending on how you want to play. The worst one to pick is probably spiritual

Units:

• Dragon Slayer - Replaces macemen, but doesn't get a bonus vs melee. Instead it has courage and dragon slaying. Courage is useful for the extra healing it gives, but can be easily obtained using adepts anyway since the Grigori start with spirit mana. Dragon slaying is useful if you go after Acheron's hoard or against the Sheaim/Kuriotates dragon, but otherwise is useless. Making this unit slightly inferior to macemen.
• Grigori Medic - The only Grigori unit capable of casting cure disease. As of 0.31 they are able to cast Heal, and so are useful for late game hearling. They also have the ability to explore enemy territory without an open borders treaty. If your medics are in enemy territory when you're at peace, they do *not* get kicked out after you declare war. Therefore you could plant medics in your enemy's territory before declaring war. Unfortunately medics can't pillage, though they can use metal weapons up to mithril. Mithril scalpels
• Luonnotar - Replaces druid. Except that it can't cast spells and is obtained at strength of will. Instead it's magic immune. That's right, immune! It can also remove any religion from your cities. Luonnotars cannot be built and can only be upgraded from dragon slayers or grigori medics of level 6+. Adventurer luonnotars kick a** and are one of the main reasons to play Grigori.
• Arcane unit adventurer - While not a Grigori unique unit, adventurers make very powerful arcane units because they level up to level 10 on their own, or up to level 12 with charismatic trait. Therefore your archmages can start out with twincast, spellstaff, lich, and/or spell extention II. You can have brute strength casters with twincast, spellstaff. Or long range casters with twincast, mobility, spell extention II. This allows incredible flexibilty in the types of arcane units you end up with and essentially makes up for the Grigori weakness in divine magic.

Before you start, notice that the Grigori start with pacifism. Your 1st adventurer shows up in 20 turns, then the 2nd 50 turns after. After your 2nd adventurer, you should switch to nationhood because by then the support cost for your units is going to be to high.

What should you upgrade your 1st-2nd adventurers to, Scout or Warrior?

SCOUT --- hunter --- assasin --- marksman
      \          \
       \          \
        \          \-- ranger --- [s]druid[/s]
         \                  \--- beastmaster
          \
           \--- horseman --- horse archer --- knight
                       \
                        \--- chariot --- war chariot
                                       

WARRIOR --- axeman --- dragon slayer --- luonnotar
        \                          \--- berserker
         \                          \--- phalanx
          \                          \--- immortal
           \                                                                               
            \--- archer --- longbowman --- marksman
                                     \--- crossbowman
                                      \--- arquebus

Note that to get immortal or berserker you'd need to go pretty deep into the divine techs, which wouldn't do you much good. With the removal of druids, the divine tech path is even weaker now. Your 3rd adventurer usually comes much later, and by then your research has already branched off.

If you upgraded your 1st adventurer to scout, set out to capture every animal you meet. Use those animals to mess up your neighbours or kill barbs, until you can upgrade your scout to horseman and set out to conquer properly.

If you upgraded your 1st adventurer to warrior, you can start conquering right away! That early in the game, few rivals civs can stand up to a combat V, shock promoted warrior. But make sure to bring a few regular warriors along too. Adventurers aren't invincible. Or you could simply use him to subdue barbarians to give yourself breathing room for expansion.

Well that's it for early game strategy. Comments and constructive criticism welcome

 

[zxcvbnm]

Adventurer immortals require irrational research of religious techs but you can take crazy risks giving tons of xp with them. And in multiplayer you might get those techs easier as other players may not see reason in them. But they might see it as well so you may be seriously weakened by trying to get them.

If you have Kuriotates of Sheaim as enemies dragon slayers are worth getting as they are a cost-effective way to get rid of their dragons and get xp from it.

 

[it-ogo]

Cancelled.

 

[daladinn]

twincast archmages capable of dealing out 36 meteors in a single turn to rain down on a city is often one of the first and most obvious strats you will see from someone learning to play the grigori. its strong , its simple , and its easy to implement. but , its also very fragile.

you were tracking very well what upgrades into what as far as how to handle your adventures. but i suggest you follow up with how to increase the frequency of them also. when you do this you start to find out that one of the most overwhelming strats is a combination of shadows and archers.

the reason i suggest this is it allows for the highest yield of GPP over time based on the grigori special buildings. as well as giving you 9 extremely sick T4 units when used in conjunction with each other.

some notes on these units.
-- shadows are extremely strong for when you will attain them. and there only fear is things that see invis. couple these with the archers for this reason.
-- marksmen and flurries will have interchangeable promotion trees. both will have blitz and marksmen. both are capable of full city defense promotions. as well as having alot of first strike chances.
-- marksmen have the added advantage of forest stealth.
-- flurries will have the added advantage of city attack 3.

as for people who often think about taking a city with a hoard of summons. its jsut not possible vs this. in almost all but the rarest cases you wont even damage a flurry with a summoned unit (4-8 first strikes from an adjust strength 50 unit is hard to even dent.)

just a bit more room for thought for you guys..... enjoy.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Also note that in Shadow, Shadows are a Council of Esus-only national unit: the Agnostic Grigori won't have access to adventurer Shadows (but you could get them using unrestricted leaders)

 

[EverNoob]

Also note that in BtS Shadows are an Esus-only national unit: the Agnostic Grigori won't have access to adventurer Shadows (but you get them using unrestricted leaders)

Ah I didn't know that. Actually I'm a little relieved, personally I've always thought that invisible adventurers were a tad unbalancing.

Daladinn, thanks for the tips I'm trying to avoid being too specific as to which research tree one should take with the Grigori. Since almost any path is viable given the right situation. Although it would be very helpful to have people post their own favorite Grigori game style

I think every path has it's pros/cons. Some path are good early, mid, or late in the game. For example, the archer path is very strong towards the late/end game, on the other hand I find it lacks power and mobility in the early to mid game if you want to conquer cities.

I'm gonna post mid and late game strategy in abit, where I'm gonna discuss how to maximise the number of adventurers among other things. After I test-play a Grigori medic strat I wanted to try out...

 

[Grey Fox]

Yeah if I played Grigori I would definitely go Archer heroes. I just love first strikes

 

[Rex rgis of Ter]

I'll usually go for a magic heavy approach. After setting up adventurers guilds and Grigori Taverns in most cities, I start researching all the magic techs. With fire, 3 archmages with twincast can rain 108 meteors on a city with alot of back up mages with fireballs. I find magic the most effect path of the Grigori.

 

[Grey Fox]

I'll usually go for a magic heavy approach. After setting up adventurers guilds and Grigori Taverns in most cities, I start researching all the magic techs. With fire, 3 archmages with twincast can rain 108 meteors on a city with alot of back up mages with fireballs. I find magic the most effect path of the Grigori.

Yeah but thats a bit overpowered for my taste

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I prefer to have most of my archmages/summoners have a wide variety of spells they can cast. Adventurer archmages/summoners are very powerful, but they really must be narrowly specialized, since they don't start with the free promotions from the mana you control. You gain powerful offensive units, but lose out on some their more subtle spells.

 

[EverNoob]

I prefer some variety as well. I tend to only have 1 adventurer fire archmage, and I usually give him mobility+spell extension II instead of spellstaff. Being able to hit 4 tiles away and +1 move usually translates to hitting more often than a spellstaff mage, since he is able to hit things sooner. At least when he is on the offensive, as he usually is I find the extra speed works well combined with adventurer war chariots.

 

[EverNoob]

In the midgame, there are 3 major concerns for the Grigori:

1. happiness
2. adventurers
3. culture

Your lack of religion causes problems with city happiness and culture. Culture is usually only a problem if you have neighbours pushing their cultural borders into your cities. There are a many ways to deal with this:

1. Public Bath + Gambling House. This is probably the most effective ways to deal with unhappiness. However, if you want to keep a high science slider you might want to skip the gambling houses as the increased maintenance cost may not be worth it.
2. Theatres. Economically this isn't the best solution for happiness, but can be used if your neighbour's culture is pushing into your cities, or you're going for a culture victory (the Grigori aren't the best at cultural victory...).
3. Hope spell. Since the Grigori play well with mages and start with spirit mana this is a solution that is compatible with most Grigori strategies. Usually these mages are upgraded from adepts that took enchantment and spirit promotions used to buff your troops. As mages they should be stationed in your cities to buff your troops with courage, enchanted blade, and flaming arrows, as well as maintaining hope. The happiness boost is minor, but the culture boost is significant.
4. Consumption, Republic civics. By process of elimination, consumption is likely the best culture civic for the Grigori anyway. Except for nationhood, all the other culture civics don't work well with the Grigori. Republic is nice since it boosts culture and adventurer birthrate as well.
5. War. Your neighbour's expanding cultural border is only a problem if you have a neighbour Plus you can grab his happiness resources as well!

Another concern is slowing adventurer birthrate. The national epic, the adventurer's guild, and Republic are useful to boost adventurer output. The national epic is good useful because it allows you to run a few specialists or wonders outside your capital without worrying that their GPP will overrun your adventurer generation at your capital. Once you've adopted these strategies and your adventurer birthrate drops again, it is usually time to cast the Grigori world spell, Ardor.

There's also another way of boosting adventurer output. That is to assign specialists to increase your total GPP output. While the probability of getting an adventuerer decreases, this is offset by the increased amount of GP you get. A generally accepted strategy is to use sages plus the Great Library, and use the extra great sages to bulb toward strength of will for archmage. Another viable alternative is using great merchants to bulb the cavalry tech line, but this is more difficult with the Grigori because it requires you to not research mathematics. The problem is that you need mathematics for gambling houses.

Currency is a good tech to get early, as it gives you the adventurer's guild to boost your adventurer yield, and consumption. Plus it's a requirement for gambling houses and republic. Going for mercantilism early to get the Grigori tavern is optional, as the research cost is rather high for a mere +1 boost to adventurer GPP. Therefore you should only go for mercantilism early if it fits your overall strategy.

As always, comments and constructive criticism welcome. Especially since I may have overlooked a few things.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

-- flurries will have the added advantage of city attack 3.

You mean if you promote them to it while still warriors, right?

 

[Grey Fox]

You mean if you upgrade them to it while still warriors, right?

That reminds me, before upgrading them to archers, take all the promotions that archers cant take. Like City Attack, March, etc.

And btw, EverNoob. Your part 2 of the guide sounds pretty solid to me. Another good thing with currency early is that it boosts Villages and Towns +1 too.

 

[Calavente]

sorry, it may seems noob, but what is the "subdue barbarian" that you are refering to??? (I am still with .23)

is it a new feature available to the hero promotion on the melee path ??
or just available to grigori adventureres ...
or a mistake in formulation ?

for scholarship I would go in reverse...

by creating many science output from sage, you reduce your overall commerce production and can lower the science % without losing in science output... a nice combination with gambling house... you raise the money slider without loosing in science production... maybe combining it with guild for another +1 science for specialists (and don't say that grigori doesn't go with SE, I know it...but 1-2 specialist in every tiny city cannot overcome your capital production of GP, while allowing you to gain eventually 1-2 degrees on the money sllider and thus make more happies)
furthermore, I posted somewhere some curve showing that on average, diluting your adv gpp pool with 1-2 specialists is not alaways a losing bargain : more GP, average : same number of adventureres or a bit more, with a diminishing return (and higher risks) with increasing the dilution

and diluting it with GC (even non specialists) is still interesting : an eventual GC is always interesting to graft to an adventurer unit... +1 str and more xp means that your adventurer basedunits is less likely to die !!


greyfox : if you take city attack 3 and march, (combat IV???) .. meaning 8 promotions... it doesn't leaves many more opportunities to get drill I-V, or even the heroic defense/attack ...
unless, starting with combat 1 (aggressive) then go charismatic to spend all this xp into more levels.. then go raider to gain even more xp... then... charismatic again...

 

[Grey Fox]

greyfox : if you take city attack 3 and march, (combat IV???) .. meaning 8 promotions... it doesn't leaves many more opportunities to get drill I-V, or even the heroic defense/attack ...
unless, starting with combat 1 (aggressive) then go charismatic to spend all this xp into more levels.. then go raider to gain even more xp... then... charismatic again...

Yeah well you gotta start somewhere, and combat promotions are a good start, can always take the drill promotions afterwards. (First strikes works best on stronger units anyways)

But yeah, that is a good tip, to spend the XP when you are charismatic. Just don't go too fanatical about it. Sometimes you just can't wait to level up.

 

[Sureshot]

aggressive doesnt give combat 1 to adventurers last i checked.

charismatic is alright, but phi/rai is better overall for aventurer leveling

 

[EverNoob]

sorry, it may seems noob, but what is the "subdue barbarian" that you are refering to??? (I am still with .23)

is it a new feature available to the hero promotion on the melee path ??
or just available to grigori adventureres ...
or a mistake in formulation ?

I'm not sure how .23 is, but in .25 at monarch+ difficulties barbarians (I'm including skeletons and lizardmen) are a significant concern at the early stages of the game. At a point where I prefer scouting with a warrior than a scout unit, since a scout always gets killed before going very far You can use your adventurer to clear out barrows/ruins early and capture barb cities to prevent future barbarian rushes, thus reducing your need to build alot of warriors for defense at the beginning.

for scholarship I would go in reverse...

by creating many science output from sage, you reduce your overall commerce production and can lower the science % without losing in science output... a nice combination with gambling house... you raise the money slider without loosing in science production... maybe combining it with guild for another +1 science for specialists (and don't say that grigori doesn't go with SE, I know it...but 1-2 specialist in every tiny city cannot overcome your capital production of GP, while allowing you to gain eventually 1-2 degrees on the money sllider and thus make more happies)
furthermore, I posted somewhere some curve showing that on average, diluting your adv gpp pool with 1-2 specialists is not alaways a losing bargain : more GP, average : same number of adventureres or a bit more, with a diminishing return (and higher risks) with increasing the dilution

I was mostly referring to the fact that Scholarship in a CE (cottage economy) is maximally effective, in terms of research, if you have a high science slider. Using Scholarship to compensate for a lower science slider is perfectly fine too, though I think you're not getting the best out of Scholarship doing so. Schorlarship isn't that useful for the Grigori in terms of Sages if you only run 1-2 specialists per city, since council of elders and library are pretty cheap to build with the philosophical trait anyway, and boost research too.

As far as diluting is concerned, diluting adventurer GP to increase total GPP yield is indeed a good idea in the late game. Any GP is better than no GP at all. I just hadn't gotten to posting about late game strategy yet In the mid-game adventurer's guild+national epic is usually sufficient IMO if you want to maximise your chances of an adventurer. Essentially it depends on how much you're willing to gamble with GPP dilution and there's nothing wrong with that.

aggressive doesnt give combat 1 to adventurers last i checked.

charismatic is alright, but phi/rai is better overall for aventurer leveling

You're right aggressive doesn't give combat 1 to adventurers, but it helps non-adventurer units and gives cheap stables. I'm probably just partial to that trait since I like cavalry

Raider vs charismatic is a pretty close call. But you're right I should've included it in the list, thanks for reminding me. Charismatic is better for levelling if you're heavy on the arcane units, raider is better for levelling everything else.

Which reminds me, I was wondering what's better for leveling arcane units: arcane or charismatic. Hmmm...

It would be a good idea to add a whole section on trait choices later on...

 

[Sureshot]

i made Faeryl Arcane/Charismatic in my minimod specifically because they rock for casters heh

hard to say which is better for adaptive tho, adaptive is prolly better if you intend to use it for a long time, where as charismatic is prolly better if you are just choosing it once to level up some adepts whove gained xp already quick. arcane early on and then switching to charismatic right before you intend to use them might be nice.

 

[Grey Fox]

Raider vs charismatic is a pretty close call. But you're right I should've included it in the list, thanks for reminding me. Charismatic is better for levelling if you're heavy on the arcane units, raider is better for levelling everything else.

Well the trick here would be using Raider to gain XP and Charismatic when you pick the promotions.

Though it requires patience, and it's probably only gonna work at the higher levels.