How is the Pillar of Chains/Governor's Manor production Supposed to Work?

[Thunder_Gr]

An interesting argument, I've never played Calabim, but I can see why you might need Governor's Manor to sustain your Vampires via Bloodpets. But the Specter-feeding thing seems incredibly unthematic. Also:



Assumes you're at war. What about peace time? Then the Specter-feeding thing allows you all that sexy production.

Couldn't the feeding spell only target living units, maybe? (I assume Specters are undead, never actually checked, though.)

You can only feed on bloodpets. This will allow the Vampire to replenish its actions and recast the specter. You will not be able to feed on any other unit besides bloodpets.

 

[Iceciro]

What the player in question means is bringing stacks of bloodpets along for the fight so the vampire in question can make tons of specters (by casting, eating the bloodpet, casting again) for a seige situation.

Cheap, four strength suicide troops aplenty.

On the really overpowered list of things... Get Sphener. Convert Govanon with Command IV Sphener. Vampires with fireballs.

 

[Gelvan]

I'm a bit surprised about the idea to build huge stacks of anything, in this case blood pets. When I play - in the time around Feudalism I have maybe 6 cities, and they need to build wonders, settlers, warriors that have died against the barbarian and Illian and Doviello and market places and courthouses for the science slider... I really don't have TIME to build a huge stack of bloodpets. especially if the Svarts are nearby swarming everything with hunters... a bloodpet against a hunter? it dies. therefore, playing Calabim, I have to build Vampires - not bloodpets - to have a chance to survive. And I should expand, because the AI will expand, not matter what. And also, if I USE the Vampires, all my cities are size 5 after a while, and therefore they produce not very fast. Therefore I'm really against anything that nerves the production speed.
make hunters more expensive j/k
also the modifier of the Calabim courthouse is -20% corruption - which is nothing compared with a "normal" courthouse. It translates in -1 Gold corruption per city with a big empire. Marketplaces are better than that.
But nice idea about the Altar III + RoK/Arete + GE-Calabim strategy. I should try this

 

[WarKirby]

On the really overpowered list of things... Get Sphener. Convert Govanon with Command IV Sphener. Vampires with fireballs.

hah, good luck with that. I don't see many of the AI's heroes lasting very long. If the amurites survive long enough to build govannon, he's not likely to survive long enough for you to capture, before they send him off to die alone.

The calabim don't have any problem fighting off champions, seriously. first of all, the vampire is their champion. and although they have only 5 str instead of 6, they come a fair bit earlier, only requiring feudalism.

In addition, the 1 less strength quickly becomes irrelevant, because you're going to severely outclass those champions in levels, thanks to feeding on cities. Where the enemy has a Combat III champion, you have a Combat V, Shock II, Mobility vampire.

In my current calabim game (emperor difficulty) I've just slaughtered a mass clan invasion, mostly consisting of rangers and champions, by using my ridiculously strong vampires. Valin and Losha helped a bit too, of course

One of the things people often overlook, is that vampires can be quite hard to kill. Every single one of them has Summon Skeleton, and since the vamps have Channeling II, the skeletons will almost always defend the stack over vampires. And since blitz is an extremely rare thing to see, generally a skeleton will die and use up one of the enemy stack's attacks. Not to mention injuring them too if you're in a decent defensive position. You can then just summon a replacement next turn.

It's quite easy for your vampires to never have to fight on anything but your own terms, at all.

 

[WarKirby]

I really don't have TIME to build a huge stack of bloodpets. especially if the Svarts are nearby swarming everything with hunters... a bloodpet against a hunter? it dies. therefore, playing Calabim, I have to build Vampires - not bloodpets - to have a chance to survive.

I agree with this.

I've never used the bloodpet mechanic, at all. I don't realy understand the point of having an ability that can only be used with such a weak early game unit. I never build them at all, once I get even moroi.

 

[Iceciro]

I agree with this.

I've never used the bloodpet mechanic, at all. I don't realy understand the point of having an ability that can only be used with such a weak early game unit. I never build them at all, once I get even moroi.

Yeah. About the same time I'd build piles of bloodpets for the repeatable spell spam, I have Sorcery and some mages to spam fireballs.

In my current calabim game (emperor difficulty) I've just slaughtered a mass clan invasion, mostly consisting of rangers and champions, by using my ridiculously strong vampires. Valin and Losha helped a bit too, of course

As a sidenote - Vampire Jesus.... I mean Valin Phanuel - will save your entire empire from pretty much anything. Drill V/Blitz, Flanking II, Combat Five unit with 5 moves per turn before roads even get involved?

My buddy Valin eats whole freakin enemy stacks.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

Agreed. Valid is the single most useful hero in this game IMO. It is a serious incentive for me going for order with any civ except the Elves, Sheaim and Khazad...

 

[Iceciro]

You can do pretty well with the Vampire Antichrist in the exact same manner (Rosier). Valin just has the utterly massive benefit, comparatively, of his religion not spiking the Armageddon counter.

Honestly, I'd take Veil with my evil civs for thematics if it didn't spike the AC with every spread, unit, etc. As it is I go with Order because the Overlords are kinda weaksauce if you're not fighting on the coast, and Esus has no priest units nothing helpful.

 

[PaleJackal]

You can only feed on bloodpets. This will allow the Vampire to replenish its actions and recast the specter. You will not be able to feed on any other unit besides bloodpets.

Thanks for the correction.

 

[popejubal]

Agreed. Valid is the single most useful hero in this game IMO. It is a serious incentive for me going for order with any civ except the Elves, Sheaim and Khazad...

He has always seemed quite stinky to me. What makes him better than Rosier the Fallen and how do you use Valin in your games? The Vampire Valin sounds like a great idea, but without lots of Drill to get Blitz AND Combat V at the same time, I don't see how you'll get so much use out of him.

(I'm not saying you're wrong - I just don't see how it works.)

 

[Thunder_Gr]

He has always seemed quite stinky to me. What makes him better than Rosier the Fallen and how do you use Valin in your games? The Vampire Valin sounds like a great idea, but without lots of Drill to get Blitz AND Combat V at the same time, I don't see how you'll get so much use out of him.

(I'm not saying you're wrong - I just don't see how it works.)

It is easy to level, because he can be healed by the priests after each battle. Of course, he is always blessed. I get mobility II and Drill all the way to blitz first. Then combat promotions.

If I happen to get Orthus axe, I go reverse. Mobility II first, All way Combat, HS I+II, all drills.

Flanking promotions last.

It is also interesting that he is always more useful than Sphener, because Sphener cannot be healed and Valin can attack 5 times per turn with HS II and first strikes and be able to get healed, by the time you can build Sphener.

 

[WarKirby]

I'm pretty sure Valin and Rosier are exactly identical. parallels of each other in everything but alignment and appearance.

As a vampire, either can feed and level up crazily. you can have blitz and combat V by level 11, mostly, which requires 101 xp. Not hard to reach. lv10 if you're alexis, because of the free combat I

 

[Thunder_Gr]

Except that Rosier requires AV and AV priests cannot heal or bless.

 

[Mesix]

I think 0.5 would be too little, and 0.25 is just laughable.

If you want to nerf calabim, take away the Death I from vampires. that would help a lot.

That's a great idea. They are not undead...what's up with the Death mana? In the lore there is nothing about the Vampires leading huge armies of raised Skeletons, but by giving thier Champion UU access to Death I, that is the result ingame. Vampires are plenty powerful without access to Death mana.

On topic: I think the maintenance nerf (courthouse has a greater reduction to maintenance) is enough. 1 is fine as is.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Except that Rosier requires AV and AV priests cannot heal or bless.

They can heal, but cannot bless.

I prefer waiting to adopt AV until after I have the third level of the Altar of the Luonnatar for the free Blessed promotion to all units that stop by that city.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

They can heal, but cannot bless.

I prefer waiting to adopt AV until after I have the third level of the Altar of the Luonnatar for the free Blessed promotion to all units that stop by that city.

I thought that they lacked healing because they get that offensive type of spells. Thank you for correcting my mistake.

 

[Senethro]

That's a great idea. They are not undead...what's up with the Death mana? In the lore there is nothing about the Vampires leading huge armies of raised Skeletons, but by giving thier Champion UU access to Death I, that is the result ingame. Vampires are plenty powerful without access to Death mana.

I don't think Vampire death magic represents access to Death mana, so much as generic Vampire supernatural abilities which just happen to manifest as summoning spells. Death is the summoning sphere, game mechanic wise.

On topic: I think the maintenance nerf (courthouse has a greater reduction to maintenance) is enough. 1 is fine as is.

Hardly. 1 hammer is somewhere between 2 and 3 commerce, so if you be generous and assume that 20% less maintenance will save you 6 gold per city, you're still making something like 10 hammers in profit on a size 15 city.


And to someone elses post: Did Veil priests lose Medic II or something? Why can't they heal.
Edit: Answered in the 3 minutes prior to my post!

 

[WarKirby]

That's a great idea. They are not undead...what's up with the Death mana? In the lore there is nothing about the Vampires leading huge armies of raised Skeletons, but by giving thier Champion UU access to Death I, that is the result ingame. Vampires are plenty powerful without access to Death mana.

On topic: I think the maintenance nerf (courthouse has a greater reduction to maintenance) is enough. 1 is fine as is.

I did post to this effect in a whole new thread about it, a while back. People seemed opposed to it because certain other mechanics, like Keelyn's massive summoning abilities, were also horribly overpowered.

now that the summoner trait has been nerfed, it might be time to revisit that, though. I think that massive xp gains without combat, and access to the body spellsphere, is more than sufficient to make vampires ridiculously powerful, and that they really don't need death magic too.

Vampire lords having death magic is cool. No problem with that. But the normal vamps which have no limit, shouldn't have it, I think.

 

[WarKirby]

Except that Rosier requires AV and AV priests cannot heal or bless.

well, of course they can't bless. that's an order specific spell. Order priests can't cast Crown of Brilliance, or Summon Treant either.

AV priests have Ring of Flames, which makes them the best offensive priests by far, unquestionably. (not counting high priests)

Av high priests can summon balors, and cast hellfire. The balor is a pretty powerful summon, but I honestly have no idea what hellfire does, because it seemed to be broken in the one game I ever played where I got that far in AV. It was with FFH 0.40 with no patches.

By comparison, the order High Priests have only Unyielding Order, which I thought was incredible until I accidentally discovered that any low level disciple can instantly stop rioting in a city. It's nice to have no unhappiness in a city though, but it has zero offensive potential, and requires the priest to remain in the city, which takes them away from your frontline army.

honestly, I think AV (and by extension, rosier) is stronger.

 

[Charlie_B]

Erm, I'm playing a game as the Calabaim right now and the Governor's Manor doesn't give +1 per unhappy face - it gives +1 production per angry citizen (patch x) :/

Spoiler :