How do I use Loki?

[Caradoc]

How do I make use of Loki? I've parked him in another civ's city and after 15 turns nothing seems to have happened? You would think that by now I would have gotten a hit on a 15% chance for unrest.

According to the Wiki it says he may flip a city with less than 1 culture. I guess that means zero, which does not seem very likely to come up. If the city is generating any culture at all, a -1 deduction is not going to bring it to zero.

It also says the culture drain doubles after 1000 years. A thousand? Can that be right?

Finally, if he can't attack and defends only weakly, how are people getting him EPs? And if he had some, what good would that be?

 

[Sureshot]

his main use is exploring rivals territory with whom you don't have open borders.

his culture flipping is only really good in new cities that don't yet generate culture.

 

[Vatras]

The only use I found for him is to use his spell to delay enemy attacks. Possibly you can use him to scout enemy lands because he wont die doing so.

I can see some ways to get him XP, although there is no point in rising his combat promotions. But, on the other hand, maybe you can get him new spells, and there are movement, visibility range, medic and maybe some others which are sometimes useful.
The first way to get him XP - and which will probably never happen - is to have him enter huts and hoping the villagers give him XP. Then there are units (priests), who can sacrifice half their XP to other units in their stack when dying. Finally, if you can get hold of a vampire, you could turn him into one, and then sucking a city dry to get him XP is no problem at all (it requires of course Calabim enemies and someone on your side with a domination spell to steal a vampire).

In my opinion he is a waste of time, as are the gipsy wagons, unless I miss something there (I didnt get any gold from parking them in other peoples cities).

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Its not hard to get him xp, but why would you want to? He is not in any unit class, which mean that there re no promotions available for him to get with that xp.

 

[Bad Player]

his main use is exploring rivals territory with whom you don't have open borders.

his culture flipping is only really good in new cities that don't yet generate culture.

But wouldn't gyspy wagons be an easier option than Loki if it is mainly just a way to explore rival territory?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

The main strength of Loki is that he cannot be killed (unless completely surrounded he will always withdraw; I believe I heard that he was still withdrawing even then, although not supposed to). If you are playing with "require complete kills" and only allow conquest victory, then this means you cannot be loose (although it doesn't really help really you win, and you would certainly get too board to continue)

 

[BeefontheBone]

Train him early and he can take over newly founded enemy cities without declarations of war like taking candy from a baby - I've played Balseraph games where half my core empire was nabbed from the AI by Loki. You don't even need your own culture in the tile since theirs will be negative and thus lower than your 0. Also, charm person is really handy for neutralising tough enemies (well, restricting them to pillaging anyhow) and buying you time - Orthus in particular is a good target for it.

 

[The Tyrant]

When playing against Loki, I found him impossible to kill. Not only would he escape when totally surrounded, he once escaped when I surrounded the city he was in with units two tiles deep. Agh! I finally killed him when I took out the last Balseraph city, taking them out of the game. Otherwise, I couldn't kill him.

When playing as the Balseraphs, I parked him in enemy cities on my border and used him to wage culture/pillage wars. Every few turns the city he was in would experience unrest. When that happened, and the city's culture radius went to zero, I would rush units in and pillage improvements in what would otherwise be enemy territory, without having to declare war.

 

[Caradoc]

As I suspected. The Balseraphs have turned out to be a disappointment. Apart from the Taskmaster, this civ has little to offer. Weak leaders. Weak heroes. And Bards, Bards, Bards.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Of course, their druids (upgraded from Harlequins) can use all mind and chaos spells in addition to the normal nature magic. Extra pit beasts are always nice. Of course, switching to the Runes to be able to build them does seem out of character for them.

 

[Vulcans]

each AI unit can only attack once (unless it has blitz). so if Loki is infront of your attack stack then they'll attack him first, using up their attack for the turn, and so not attacking your stack, leaving you with the initiative to cast some spells and then strike first. a great detour in an offencive military campain!

 

[SwordofStriker]

I seem to recall a fellow player using Loki in a multi-player game a while back and using him quite effectively to bolster my stacks since we were allied. I believe it was dance of blades that they kept using to give my entire stack an additional first strike chance. That coupled with the fact that the stack was loaded with expendable skeletons meant no city stood a chance. This of course is in version 23c.

 

[brainpan]

It seems Loki could slow the efforts of a settlement spammer in a MP game. Also, his ability to freely explore a rival's territory in the very early game shouldn't be underestimated. Finally, having your stacks enabled with Dance of Blades in the very early game is quite a help, moreso if you spam and rush low-level units.

 

[brainpan]

Its not hard to get him xp, but why would you want to? He is not in any unit class, which mean that there re no promotions available for him to get with that xp.

Rather than rack my brain trying to figure this out, could you tell me how to give xp to Loki?

Also, I don't understand the mechanics of the Charm Person spell, but I assume that it is more effective when cast by a high-level unit. If that's the case, then there is plenty of motivation to power-up Loki.

This thread inspired me to finally give the Balseraphs a try. I rushed Loki out straight away and he was a help in charming an early invasion of barbarian lizardmen. Then, as I was running him towards my first victim, I experimented by attempting to charm a random scout who came into sight. But the humble scout resisted the spell!

The value of Loki is probably heavily dependent upon the reliability of his charm, in my opinion. Any help?

Edit: Aw man! Now it's twice in a row Loki failed to charm a scout (with Combat II promotion).

Edit: Now three times in a row. Maybe the spell only works on beligerants.

 

[Maksim]

How do I make use of Loki?

Playing as Balseraphs on Emperor, Loki really saved my bacon when the Elves declared war on me.

First of all, the Elves were going through the Malakim lands to get to me. Loki was a good forward scout to tell me when the next stack of theirs had arrived.

Second, when the stack did arrive, I would park Loki on an empty plains spot, and let the enemy attack him. They would oblige me, putting all their forces there (early game, so about five or six units), thus allowing me to take them out without the +50% defense bonus they get for staying in the forests all the time. The only danger with this strategy is that you want to take out whoever hurt Loki the next turn, since they earned some XP doing that.

On counterattack, he was helpful in that the next turn, he'd be able to cast Dance Of Blades on whoever was around. Since I only had one Adept at the time, Loki was like a second Adept with Mobility promotion.

Later in the game, he would mostly go out to the lands beyond and report back with news such as: "I met Hyborem, and he's really pissed off that you burnt down the Ashen Veil holy city. Apparently, saying that it didn't fit your dotmap was not a good enough reason for him".

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I'm pretty sure Loki gains xp just like any other unit when he is attached and wins (you could also try cheating, by giving him the hero promotion or just by giving him more xp directly), but it is completely useless to him. There are no promotions available to him, so he will never be able to gain a level.

 

[SwordofStriker]

I'm pretty sure Loki gains xp just like any other unit when he is attached and wins (you could also try cheating, by giving him the hero promotion or just by giving him more xp directly), but it is completely useless to him. There are no promotions available to him, so he will never be able to gain a level.

Don't additional spells count as promotions? I would think that he could learn any spells you had access to through your mana resources. I have not used him myself, but I would think he could pick up more magic through leveling.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Nope. The level II and II spell sphere promotions are available to all classes of units, but not to units who don't fall into any class at all. Birds, Workers, Settlers, Great People, Work Boats, Gypsy Wagons, Loki, Skeletons, Treants, and possibly a few more summons that I don't remember at the moment are never able to purchase promotions no matter how much xp they acquire.

 

[brainpan]

OK. Thanks Magister. Getting back to my second question: Do you understand how the Charm Person spell works? Is its effectiveness related to the XP--or specific promotions--of the caster?

 

[Vulcans]

I'm pretty sure Loki gains xp just like any other unit when he is attached and wins (you could also try cheating, by giving him the hero promotion or just by giving him more xp directly), but it is completely useless to him. There are no promotions available to him, so he will never be able to gain a level.

yes, he gains xp in combat like any other unit. although I’d say the situation would be more when he attacks and wins. generally he won't win many defensive battles when defending against units 3 times his strength, but he can easily pick up xp from attacking wounded units, normally I never attack unwounded units, after my fireballs and skeleton strikes most of the enemy units are at about 0.5 strength, free xp for Loki and adepts.