How to Use Elegy of the Sheaim?

[shahballs]

I've been playing exclusively deity, I generally limit myself to one city until I defeat the first invading enemy stack and start conquering theirs. Earlier game when I'm at risk of attack I can't afford to build the elegy, I need to build the gate and mage guild and the 5-6 warriors and economic buildings I could get in that elegy build time. Once I have 5+ witches upgraded to chaos 2 I can beat any invader with pit beasts, raising the AC is no longer a priority anyway and I'd rather build the POR for the GP points. So when and how do players use the elegy?

 

[Jojo_Fr]

It's useless. Too expansive.
Just make units, raze cities, and spread Vail.

Or spawn unit with the Temple which give +1 AC per units.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

My understanding is that it's basically one of those things you build when you have nothing better to. Sort of like a replacement for wealth or culture really.

 

[shahballs]

Bump. Any other thoughts on how to use this?

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Upon actually playing them in a game with the SVN version I say that my previous point remains, but with a caveat. The AC can be your best weapon. Your worldspell depends on it. Your units get stronger from it. And from my understanding of the planar gates you get more free units from it. So it's basically trading hammers for an empire wide buff exactly analogous to wealth or research.

 

[shahballs]

Thanks. What's SVN? I agree with all of what you said but I still can't justify building it, before I conquer anything I need to focus on getting a few witches out. As I start to conquer I need economic buildings to pay for my new conquests (I always steamroll everybody after my first victory against a stack with witches - expansion happens so fast my taxes go up to 100% and I'm usually more than -20 in debt, it's very hard to stay solvent.)

Perhaps they should be made less expensive and moved to an earlier tech?

 

[Calavente]

I also find it too expensive...
but the AI can spam it... and I've seen them raise the AC from a safe 15 to 40+ in less than 50 turns by building it in multiple cities.
it curbed their growth into nothing for those turns, (but trapped behind strong Balseraphs they couldn't expend at all). but they f*cked up the rest of the world heavily...

if left alone they could have made a big comeback, with such high odds of getting demons.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

It's a good thing to build if you have a couple spare cities like you usually do in the mid-late game if you've been conquering things a lot.

 

[shahballs]

Perhaps it could be made cheaper but limiting the number - for example only building one at a time to prevent spamming?
Or since "it's basically trading hammers for an empire wide buff exactly analogous to wealth or research." - why not treat it exactly like wealth - so it's not a ritual that can be completed - it's just something that makes a small decimal point contribution to the AC each turn it's built.

While I've got you guys here, how and in what stage of the game do you use pyre zombies? I barely use them either when I can spam pit beasts for attack and place tar demons as defenders. The very few I do build I try to level up to guardsmen for my witches rather than kamikaze them.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I am not sure how they perform in MNAI since I mostly play RIFE but fundamentally I find that the best way to use them is to "draft" a bunch of them when I conquer a city and than throw them as disposable artillery on the next city or nearby enemy stacks.