How do I use Loki?

[Pyr0mancer]

As well as getting a convenient source of happiness as a stopgap measure.

As I said in the Lore thread, shame about loss of Mutation though. Getting 5/4 Cannibal Blitz warriors on turn 1 was always fun.

 

[Yashkaf]

Well, we all love him for the city stealing, no? If the AIs are fighting each other but they all like you, he can take over whole continents.

 

[Marksman77]

Getting 5/4 Cannibal Blitz warriors on turn 1 was always fun.

On turn 1? How??
Unless Advanced Start of course.


Loss of Mutation of Loki will make us use Freaks again, which is a good thing.
Loki was a bit overpowered in early game. But so much fun...

 

[Pyr0mancer]

On turn 1? How??
Unless Advanced Start of course.


Loss of Mutation of Loki will make us use Freaks again, which is a good thing.
Loki was a bit overpowered in early game. But so much fun...

Yeah, advanced start. First 50-100 turns or so on Epic drag out really badly.

Still, Loki was quite overpowered early game. Even more so recently with Inspiration instead of Charm Person. Most of my Balseraph games Loki never leaves my borders, unless there's a nearby AI that's being particularly annoying. Then Loki gets to go have some fun

 

[Ecofarm]

Bals are one of my favorite three civs and I never build Loki except to delete him for the shrine.

On immortal, it doesn't seem he can flip a city. His immortality doesn't do me much good - if I wanted a scout, I'd build one for 16 hammers (instead of 100s) and let him die.

I don't mean to be a stick-in-the-mud, but I play balseraph alot and never build him. There's always something better to build than a 200 hammer adept (unless I want the shrine).

 

[Marksman77]

He is expensive.
But I don't play MP and play mostly for fun, so I use him anyway.

I like to delude enemy troops by making them follow Loki and go in circles. Very much in character, though probably unusable against human opponent.

 

[Grey Fox]

Actually deleting Loki and getting the shrine is a very decent strategy. Since he is such an early hero and not really that useful in war you can get the upper edge on your enemies with the Shrine. Getting a free promotion and the gpp rate and whatever else the shrine does (just culture right? I forget) is just awesome.

 

[Yashkaf]

On immortal, it doesn't seem he can flip a city.

Flipping cities has absolutely nothing to do with the difficulty level, just stick him in any city that doesn't generate any culture at all (newly built/conquered, not a creative opponent) and wait without moving for a few turns. An obelisk in a newly founded city has to take at least 15 turns, plenty of time to flip (You have about 10% revolt chance per turn after the second turn Loki is immobile in a city). Later tonight I'll post the main overview of my first win with Perp on deity against 20 civs on huge. I never settled a city after Jubilee, I just had Loki follow an army of Sheaim invading their neighbors and flipped more than 10 freshly conquered cities, plus another 10 they built to replace them.

 

[Ecofarm]

The thing is, at immortal level, the AI can (pretty much) instantly build a monument in new cities. Also, if you spend 200+ hammers building Loki in the early game, you will get overrun by a couple warrior/scout stacks or even axe if you build a couple cities before him.

Making units chase him around does sound pretty fun though

Well, he has new powers in .33

I never settled a city after Jubilee, I just had Loki follow an army of Sheaim invading their neighbors and flipped more than 10 freshly conquered cities, plus another 10 they built to replace them.

And you do not find this to be an exploit?

 

[Yashkaf]

Exploit? Of course it is. It's pretty hard to win on Deity without them and that's why my first try was with the Balseraphs after I spent a while studying all their exploits carefully. I almost felt ashamed but then I remembered I'm a crazy clown king and felt much better

 

[xienwolf]

So, with Keelyn using Loki, you could just have him conjure a puppet each turn. Then have the Puppet Disrupt in an enemy city, meaning once you get all 3 of them in the city you are sapping 3-9 per turn. Or you could cast entertain and pull 1.5x the population of the City worth of gold out of their coffers and into yours.

Should you not want to let Loki be placed at risk (which he isn't really since he has 3 Puppets there to help guard him even!), you can keep him in your own city casting Entertain with 3 puppets to gain +3 in the city of your choice.



Yeah, Loki is better now

Nevermind, that all applies only if Loki's spellcasting is based on Promotions.

 

[Zechnophobe]

The thing is, at immortal level, the AI can (pretty much) instantly build a monument in new cities.

Well, that isn't true at all. Just send Loki out to say the capital, and wait for Settlers to leave it, and be waiting. Once you get -1 culture in a city, it's radius drops to 0, meaning it often can't work many useful tiles to build said obelisk.

I'm not sure off the top of my head what the conversion chance is, but any time he would cause unrest in a city with negative culture, you get the option of taking that city.

Note that since you'll start accruing culture negatively Pre obelisk, even after it is built you'll still have a period of time when the culture is still negative.

Difficulty level has no bearing in how often it occurs, but it is a quasi random event, meaning that you occasionally just get unlucky.

 

[Yashkaf]

The odds per turn of a revolt in a city in which the other civ has negative culture is 15% according to the manual. That's about right as I had to wait 4-5 turns on average in a freshly conquered/built city (85% to the fourth ~= 50%). That's even quicker than chopping 3 trees.

 

[Caradoc]

Flipping cities has absolutely nothing to do with the difficulty level, just stick him in any city that doesn't generate any culture at all (newly built/conquered, not a creative opponent) and wait without moving for a few turns. An obelisk in a newly founded city has to take at least 15 turns, plenty of time to flip (You have about 10% revolt chance per turn after the second turn Loki is immobile in a city). Later tonight I'll post the main overview of my first win with Perp on deity against 20 civs on huge. I never settled a city after Jubilee, I just had Loki follow an army of Sheaim invading their neighbors and flipped more than 10 freshly conquered cities, plus another 10 they built to replace them.

Just out of curiosity, what did you do with those 20 cities? How could you defend them? Why didn't maintenance costs eat you alive?

 

[Yashkaf]

I have all the details in the thread "Winning on Deity" with the entire story of the game. As for maintenance I beelined to education (not a lot of line ), switched to city states and never changed it. As for defence, I worked hard to be friends with everybody and had only a warrior in each. When the war with Tebryn finally happened he took 4 or 5 of them while I just took the entire defence to 2-3 important cities. Still, it was worth it. I got plenty of cash from cottaging all those cities, and then more when plundering them after he retook the cities.

 

[Ecofarm]

Can you win deity exploiting any other game mechanic? Please tell if so

 

[Yashkaf]

If you have an idea then that's the other thread is the place for it. I'm currently trying some new ideas.