Grigori question

[xanaqui42]

i think on immortal i was able to dominated using plain warriors that were highly promoted on Marathon, since its a long time before anyone gets anything better tahn them... what gamespeed were you playin on?

I was playing on Normal gamespeed.

 

[xanaqui42]

solutions.
first adventurer doesnt auto spawn until later say turn 100 or something, gives nothers time to have some kind of responce, plus also makes the early game more interesting /challanging for the grigori due to the fact that they would no longer have a str 6 unit in early game (combat5 heroic str2). to acheive this simply have the auto adventure points kick in later, or even though the bar fills dont let it spawn till later.

oh and for the record if othius (sp) spawns ANYWHERE near the grigori it has become the norm to get combat5, heroic str2, mobility and if you need to declear war to get at him, do so.

any player here can see that this isnt just a double win : combat5, heroic str2, mobility, +25%str and blitz + the exp bonus from killig orthius which will normally get you march... its basically game over unless oponents are over seas and need boats to get to.

so in sumation... i agree!

Note that a Warrior with Combat 5 Heroic Strength II alone has an effective Str of 8=(2+1+1)*2 Orthus's Axe ups this to 9. With Cover II or Shock II and City Raider III (assuming they all have an effect), this is 16 = (2+1+1)*4, or 17 with Orthus's Axe.

In other words, around LV 12, a Warrior (Adventurer) can be around as powerful as a barely-promoted National Unit, assuming that you can usually set up combats in your units' favor (i.e. your opponent is not smart), and you have the required techs for the promotions.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Wait, Orthus axe adds a strength now? I missed that.

edit: oh, maaath. I get maaaath! heh heh...

 

[Sureshot]

though it always did, about +25%

but all those promotions are just as easily gotten (orthus axe included) by regular warriors, an Agg/Rai leader can get super promoted units quickly, so the only real difference is the heroic strength, which only makes that unit equivalent to two warriors... so i really dont see a big imbalance there. ive done warrior rushes quite effectively before.

 

[xanaqui42]

It's only one unit. Unless you bring support troops, it will take a LOOOOOONG time to conquer several civs. Also consider you can gain better troops by building the Pact of the Nilhorn. Consider it takes quite a while before 100 XP are reached. Plenty of time for opponents to research towards a military tech themselves. Adventurers are nice, but not overpowered.

Don't get me wrong; I had support. For one thing, I made the other Adventurer a Scout, and once I advanced that unit to a Ranger, I used it as a support unit that was particuarly effective against any enemy units that weren't in cities. It was not, however, a primary attacker until around turn 280 or so. I also eventually got the Nilhorn Pact, and (through defending against Barbarians) got two of the giants fairly well promoted (LV 4+), and then sent them out to assist by reducing walls (they weren't strong enough to use as primary attackers, but evetually, they could take out a city in combination with highly advanced Rangers. I used a number of Hunters, and then Rangers as support units (largely to defend the cities I wanted to keep). Rather late in the game, I used more standard Heroes.

Timeline (so you can judge if it was "LOOOOOONG"):
Year 109 - Orthus takes out one of my cities.
Sometime between 112-120 - I take out Orthus with the Warrior (Adventurer).
121 - War (Sheaim)
145 - First Civilization gone (Sheaim)
158 - War (Doviello)
166 - War (Mercurians)
168 - Peace (Doviello)
177 - Pact of Nilhorn (note that for quite a while, I used them as defensive units against the Barbarians)
213 - war change - peace with (Mercurians), war with (Doviello) (couldn't find the last city of Mercurians)
252 - Second civilization gone (Doviello)
279 - war with Svartalfar
286 - created Baron Duin Halfmorn (This is the first significant attack unit I use, other than the first two adventurers)
(Somewhere around 290) - changed the Warrior (Adventurer) into a Dragon Slayer (Adventurer)
293 - war with Basium (cleanup - only one tiny city remains)
296 - Basium destroyed
302 - Svartalfar destroyed
315 - war with Kuriotates (by far the strongest civ -they actually trained Rangers and Archers; others had the tech, but never built)
335 - Kuriotates destroyed.

So the answers appear to be: a little over 200 years, and technically, I only destroyed two civs and reduced one civ to a single city using the Warrior as a primary unit.

 

[xanaqui42]

Any other ideas on ways to constrain them?

Halve their free XP gain. this is, of course, assuming that they need constraint.

 

[xanaqui42]

As to OP, Grigori have a huge downside to their one-man armies: agnosticism. This affects a lot of other elements ingame, like diplomacy, happycaps, unit diversity, even victory conditions. If you've found a easy-win strategy for a particular civ, then maybe you should try playing that civ at higher difficulty levels. I'm not saying Monarch is easy, only that you're too good with the Grigori at that level

Yep; I'll probably try my next game at a higher level.

 

[xanaqui42]

though it always did, about +25%

but all those promotions are just as easily gotten (orthus axe included) by regular warriors, an Agg/Rai leader can get super promoted units quickly, so the only real difference is the heroic strength, which only makes that unit equivalent to two warriors... so i really dont see a big imbalance there. ive done warrior rushes quite effectively before.

I actually think that a unit of Str 2x is somewhat stronger than 2 units of strength x, particuarly for defensive purposes. However, I'll take your word for it that this is just a varient of a Warrior rush; I may be overreacting to what is (for me) a new tactic.

 

[xanaqui42]

Wait, Orthus axe adds a strength now? I missed that.

It's +25%; with a base Str of 4, this translates to an effective +1 (until promoted).

 

[Sureshot]

I actually think that a unit of Str 2x is somewhat stronger than 2 units of strength x, particuarly for defensive purposes. However, I'll take your word for it that this is just a varient of a Warrior rush; I may be overreacting to what is (for me) a new tactic.

because of the power system, you're prolly right, but regardless with raiders you can mass produce high xp units

 

[Kael]

Halve their free XP gain. this is, of course, assuming that they need constraint.

Thats actually configurable in the editor on the global defines page for all heroes. Its the HERO_XP_CHANCE setting.

 

[InfinityV]

they do not need the constraint! I still prefer the Grigori as they are right now. 130+ turns into the game is long enough for a religious civ player to tap into their own advantages.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

One warrior of 4 strength is definitely more powerful than two warriors of 2 strength. Hm... you know, a scout with heroic strength 2 is as strong as a hunter, and a warrior with heroic strength 2 is as strong as an axeman. However, an axeman with heroic strength 2 isn't as strong as a maceman, and a maceman with heroic strength 2 isn't nearly as strong as a spartaiatoi or immortal. I see a simple solution.

Tier-1 units can get heroic strength 1. Tier-2 units can get heroic strength 2. Tier-3 units get heroic strength 3, and tier-4 units can get heroic strength 4. Not sure where heroes would come in, but I'd suggest letting them get heroic strength as a unit one tier higher than their contemporaries (Sphener actually gets better odds from the base combat promotions than he does with heroic strength). Sounds like a good idea to me.

 

[DREWid]

ok how about this for a 'fix'?

remove the free adventurer points from the grigori palace.

give them early access to a cheap grigori only national wonder (adventure training camp?) that produces 2 adventure points

make this building avalible from a couple of different early techs, to maintain the grigori adaptibility

mjake it so cheap that it only takes a few turns to build.

i think this would work as it would slow down the point at which the first adventurer comes out quite a bit, but not slow down the rate they come out after that (which i have no problem with).

with this they would have to wait to finish a non start tech, which is why i suggest making it avalible with several different techs, and a few turns to build it, then the turns until it generated the adventure. In my view this should give any other player/comp fair enough time to build enough to put up a fight against steamrollering.

just my 2 pence

 

[Sureshot]

we've played the grigori in multiplayer many times, and even times when theyve rushed people. i had the experience of eerr declaring war on me in turn 5, yes turn5!! i never lost a single city to him because i made well defended cities and had a fair amount of units in them. single hero is fairly easy to deal with, and when you kill it (or just bypass it and take out their cities while their heroes are off somewhere) they're screwed. units attacking at 99% odds still get hurt, sometimes viciously so, and all you need to do is counter attack. if they have an entourage all you need to do is go raze all their cities, because theyre not going to be too well defended if theyre sparing all that for an attack.

the grigori are balanced, the only real problem with them is due to the recon line, since you can easily make a couple strength 9 (8 now) rangers while everyone else who didnt focus on recon (i.e. easy early war machines) was stuck with at best strength 4 units if theyre lucky (either have copper or founded OO) with a long window where they won't be getting anything better and no way to counter recon.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

We can hope that hunters will get moved back a tech to fix that problem, Sureshot. Really, it would solve so many problems at once...

 

[QES]

I've always prefered my "Final Solution" to the Grigori Question.
-Qes

EDIT: Too dangerous a notion? We speak of genocide frequently since its a "civ" game, but too close to reality? In Bad Taste? History vs Tact?

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Tact is overrated.

 

[xanaqui42]

they do not need the constraint! I still prefer the Grigori as they are right now. 130+ turns into the game is long enough for a religious civ player to tap into their own advantages.

I'll note that in the game in question, my Civilization founded most of the religions, so the other civs didn't get much advantage out of them.

 

[Sureshot]

well youd already won if youve found all the religions, sounds like you had a multiple win going so having some units to help you win quicker is a good thing