Khazad are tough to play
- Thread starter Yarnosh
- Start date
Senethro
Overlord
Then you clearly aren't so desperate for city crackers that you'll pick a religion that covers your weakpoints!
JonathanStrange
PrinceWithA1000Enemies
I don't play the Khazad particularly well myself. I usually game on the Immortal/Deity level and while we survive well into the late game - sometimes despite vicious and numerous attacks from everyone and their brother - we rarely prosper. In a thematic sense, I think this is probably appropriate since I've never envisaged a world ruled by Khazads, but it is a bit of a downer seeing the empire slowly grind to a halt...
I think monkeyfinger's comments on Khazad's may be appropriate for me; I'm not aggressive with the Khazad early on and when I take them to war it's in the midgame when they're not as strong relatively.
(-signed, "An occasional Khazad leader")
I think monkeyfinger's comments on Khazad's may be appropriate for me; I'm not aggressive with the Khazad early on and when I take them to war it's in the midgame when they're not as strong relatively.
(-signed, "An occasional Khazad leader")
Monkeyfinger
Deity
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Well for me, the Khazad are one of two civs which make Deity consistently winnable without trying to optimize my every move, the other being Calabim. For everyone else, I have to play on immortal for that kind of easy-but-not-too-easy game, except for Amurites and Grigori - gotta go down to emperor for them.
Give me divine magic over arcane magic any day.
Give me divine magic over arcane magic any day.
Jules.lt
Prince
I never played the Khazad much, but I'm surprised that people complain about their siege weapons' mobility... Doesn't the "create battering ram" mentioned in the manual work?
(I hope it works on ancient forests)
(I hope it works on ancient forests)
Monkeyfinger
Deity
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Well, spending what is it, 3 turns? In a forest waiting for a battering ram isn't much better than slowboating with trebuchets.
The three things siege have going for them over mages are:
1) Available quite a bit earlier.
2) Easier to spam than mages, so while it takes longer for them to start bombarding, they can go through defense faster once they get there.
3) Stronger than fireballs, so they hit harder once the defense is gone (or if it's an open field stack.)
Despite 2 and 3, fire mages are still better when available due to range, mobility, and the fact that siege has a small chance to actually die when it attacks.
Where personal playstyle comes in, though, is that I think both are stinking manure compared to direct attack divine magic. So, losing the arcane line past adepts doesn't really affect how I fight wars. Dwarves have a bonus to this divine magic in the late game, and Kandros can get to both the midgame and lategame stuff faster than most other civs due to his fast tech rate and his resilience against early attacks, even if you don't war early with him.
The three things siege have going for them over mages are:
1) Available quite a bit earlier.
2) Easier to spam than mages, so while it takes longer for them to start bombarding, they can go through defense faster once they get there.
3) Stronger than fireballs, so they hit harder once the defense is gone (or if it's an open field stack.)
Despite 2 and 3, fire mages are still better when available due to range, mobility, and the fact that siege has a small chance to actually die when it attacks.
Where personal playstyle comes in, though, is that I think both are stinking manure compared to direct attack divine magic. So, losing the arcane line past adepts doesn't really affect how I fight wars. Dwarves have a bonus to this divine magic in the late game, and Kandros can get to both the midgame and lategame stuff faster than most other civs due to his fast tech rate and his resilience against early attacks, even if you don't war early with him.
WarKirby
Arty person
In Fall Farther, the Force spellsphere has a lv1 spell called Accelerate, which is basically haste for siege weapons and golems.
Would be useful for dwarves
I played a game as khazad once, found it pretty fun.
The trick is to NOT expand. Or at least, not much. I stopped at 5 cities. Permanantly.
Get the vault nicely filled up, and reap the ridiculous production bonuses. Which you can use to create an army instantly.
It's amusing when someone declares war on you while you're basically defenceless, and you can literally manufacture an army in the time it takes them to reach you.
The huge production also makes it easy to build wonders before everyone else.
Would be useful for dwarves
I played a game as khazad once, found it pretty fun.
The trick is to NOT expand. Or at least, not much. I stopped at 5 cities. Permanantly.
Get the vault nicely filled up, and reap the ridiculous production bonuses. Which you can use to create an army instantly.
It's amusing when someone declares war on you while you're basically defenceless, and you can literally manufacture an army in the time it takes them to reach you.
The huge production also makes it easy to build wonders before everyone else.
Monkeyfinger
Deity
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Don't do this. Instead, run one of the economy government civics all game and have short bursts of 0% science slider to maintain/strengthen your vaults. You will make up for the lost science when the happiness bonuses allow you to work more commerce tiles, thus increasing your beaker output compared to what it would be with no vaults.
Or, if you find your tech is running ahead of your ability to produce the things it grants, work more hammer improvements instead. You're basically converting science into a buttload of hammers this way.
Jet
No, no, please. Please.
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Another option is to run with low vaults (worst case, they cancel out the palace resources) and emphasize commerce tiles, abusing Ingenuity to produce upgradeable units with commerce.
In unmodded civ upgrade cost is 20 + 3 * (new hammer cost - old hammer cost).
In FFH it's 5 + 2 * (new hammer cost - old hammer cost).
Rush buying in both is 1 hammer for 3 wealth.
In FFH with Ingenuity upgrade cost is 2.5 + (new hammer cost - old hammer cost).
So you can basically use commerce tiles as mines.
In unmodded civ upgrade cost is 20 + 3 * (new hammer cost - old hammer cost).
In FFH it's 5 + 2 * (new hammer cost - old hammer cost).
Rush buying in both is 1 hammer for 3 wealth.
In FFH with Ingenuity upgrade cost is 2.5 + (new hammer cost - old hammer cost).
So you can basically use commerce tiles as mines.
Start with low research and get some gold -- get metal techs and RoK and you'll have a commerce and production engine that has unfortunately high pollution, but since RoK's heroes are in the pollution-reducing line, you'll be building aqueducts and infirmaries in every city.
Not being able to have Public Healers makes this less effective than in the past, but it's still powerful.
Remember to locate Gems for your priests, and to build the Mines if you have no iron.
Expand slowly to avoid negatives.
Later in the game, make a huge push for cash to 500 / city. Keep storing cash.
Not being able to have Public Healers makes this less effective than in the past, but it's still powerful.
Remember to locate Gems for your priests, and to build the Mines if you have no iron.
Expand slowly to avoid negatives.
Later in the game, make a huge push for cash to 500 / city. Keep storing cash.
JFSebastian
Scout
I'm glad someone mentioned this because the Ingenuity trait is HUGE. Not only do you have way more efficient production of units, but you only need to specialize a couple cities with the specific buildings needed to upgrade your warriors/scouts to the upper tier units. Make your Deruptus Brewery House city into a warrior spammer and have them upgrade someplace else, needn't bother wasting any hammers making unit upgrade buildings there. Tons of efficiency to be found in the dwarves. Good group to go to war early with warriors/axes/trebs.
As for siege weapons. They are amazingly effective at what they do, especially considering how easy they are to get. They have to have some weakness and speed is it. Just gotta live with it. The fact that dwarves can repair siege though makes them far more efficient with siege than other civs, not to mention that their siege is way more powerful to begin with.
Magic is great, but it takes time and is harder to setup.
Seems like going to war early using T2 units & siege may be the way to go.
They also make remarkably good pirates I've found. Upgrade those galleys to privateers on the cheep.
As far as growth is concerned, I'd probably start with 4-6 cities, grabbing as many hills as possible along with good resources. Build a mine everywhere and then cash in the world spell to help fund the vaults. Get them up as much as is convenient (think of it as researching a tech that gives extra happiness using
instead of 
). If you happen to be sitting on tons of happy resources you might not need the vaults as much if your population growth is slow. Depending on what sort of opportunities are nearby, you may want to continue funding the vaults to fund war prep/building or just try and keep up as much as possible while you continue to grab good city locations. Maybe use a great merchant or two to help continue early expansion with funded vaults. If you're going to be building a lot of units or buildings, you'll want to try and max out your vaults as much as possible to get the 
bonus going. Play in phases. Expansion phase sacrifices happiness for more potential resources, consolidation sacrifices research for more efficient, more productive cities.Sorry, but this is simply not true.
I strongly consider Khazad as one of strongest civ's(top 3 if not top 2), especially at levels Immortal+.
The reason they have no mages is simple - they don't need it, it would be overkill. Dwarven Druids is an absolutely amazing replacement and quite probably best unit in the entire game. Also, you get Myconids on your way, and they great aswell.
Ok, sum it up.
Early game - Khazad have no real disadvantages, infact they are pretty strong. You can't push vaults at that time, but it's easy to maintain low level and you would be perfectly fine.
Mid game - you already have axemen/trebi's for active defence, techin economics stuff and going nature line for Myconids/DD. You have your core of 4-5 cities, maintain overflowing vaults and pretty much have best production rate.
You can go for champions at that time (somitimes AI so harsh so you kinda need it), you can go war at that time, because trebuchets is still best siege but i just don't see why you supposed to conquer world in midgame? Heck, what civ can? Hippus? Doviello?
Late game - well, actually it's still mid game. You have Stack Of Deathiesh Death consisting of:
4 Dwarven Druids
4 Myconids
4 Stonewardens, which is lately runekeepers (never really seen purpose to change religion)
1-2 Adepts for haste and stuff
Maros & Co just for kickin in some hero action
Whatever amount of champions you want to throw in
And rest is all that fancy Knights, Berserkers, Phalanx, War tortoises, freaks, assassins, chariots, that you never bothered to research, but just to good to being dismissed. Yeah, Command promotion rocks.
In fact, that particular stack could be divided in two, and still going to be deadly. And all of it due 'Crush' being such an imba spell.
Seriously, Khazad is fine. And i never had much problem in late game to maintain 50% land with overflowing vaults/70-80% tech/Aristocratic
I strongly consider Khazad as one of strongest civ's(top 3 if not top 2), especially at levels Immortal+.
The reason they have no mages is simple - they don't need it, it would be overkill. Dwarven Druids is an absolutely amazing replacement and quite probably best unit in the entire game. Also, you get Myconids on your way, and they great aswell.
Ok, sum it up.
Early game - Khazad have no real disadvantages, infact they are pretty strong. You can't push vaults at that time, but it's easy to maintain low level and you would be perfectly fine.
Mid game - you already have axemen/trebi's for active defence, techin economics stuff and going nature line for Myconids/DD. You have your core of 4-5 cities, maintain overflowing vaults and pretty much have best production rate.
You can go for champions at that time (somitimes AI so harsh so you kinda need it), you can go war at that time, because trebuchets is still best siege but i just don't see why you supposed to conquer world in midgame? Heck, what civ can? Hippus? Doviello?
Late game - well, actually it's still mid game. You have Stack Of Deathiesh Death consisting of:
4 Dwarven Druids
4 Myconids
4 Stonewardens, which is lately runekeepers (never really seen purpose to change religion)
1-2 Adepts for haste and stuff
Maros & Co just for kickin in some hero action
Whatever amount of champions you want to throw in
And rest is all that fancy Knights, Berserkers, Phalanx, War tortoises, freaks, assassins, chariots, that you never bothered to research, but just to good to being dismissed. Yeah, Command promotion rocks.
In fact, that particular stack could be divided in two, and still going to be deadly. And all of it due 'Crush' being such an imba spell.
Seriously, Khazad is fine. And i never had much problem in late game to maintain 50% land with overflowing vaults/70-80% tech/Aristocratic
JonathanStrange
PrinceWithA1000Enemies
It's funny, last week I was playing the Khazads for the first time in ages, when a huge AI stack from my usual civ came and crushed us and ground our bones to make their bread. That bloodthirsty civ? The Ljosalfars, who, when I play them, are usually very defensive. The one time I see them all aggressive and it's against me.
HUGE??? Ingenuity+ Financial+Dwarves=I WIN
DirtyFinger
Prince
- Joined
- Apr 20, 2008
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- 369
The trick is to put all your effort into getting overflowing vaults. Slow expansion and sacrificing research in the early game and your production gets rolling.
And casting the wordspell after fully developing your landscape is great, too ... all those hills with farms on them.
And casting the wordspell after fully developing your landscape is great, too ... all those hills with farms on them.
Shatner
Warlord
The Khazad are my guilty pleasure civ in FFH; they were the first civ I ever played and they're the civ I go to whenever I just feel the need to turtle and stomp(tm). The Khazad's only meaningful disadvantages are their inability to plumb the depths of the arcane (good fun if you don't value your eyebrows) and their generally slow expansion (you don't HAVE to have overflowing vaults in the same way you don't HAVE to build warrens as the Clan).
However, the Khazad are well equipped to spring forth in the middle and late game, becoming juggernauts of industry, commerce and inebriated violence. While everyone agrees that Dwarven Druids are carved from solid blocks of Awesome, I rarely have meaningful opposition by the time I'm playing with T4 units. Whenever I usher in an enlightened age of bearded dominion I do so with axemen/champions, trebuchets and enchantment adepts.
Here's the thing: despite many fine and clever tweaks by Kael and Co., melee units still rock the casbah; metal promotions, march, city raider and the fact that the melee branch of the tech tree contains so many other tasty fruits have all made the ax the preferred weapon for Erebusian domination. The Khazad may have no meaningful recon or archery units but that's okay because they still have the only unit-type you need. Your heavily armed infantry can go toe-to-toe with anything wandering around outside a city and, as the Khazad, you should have no trouble training plenty of 'em on short notice.
Furthermore, trebuchets are to engines of war what zombies are to civilians in a Romero film: devastating and best in large numbers. Trebuchets can and will crush an enemy stack in short order. Whether you're cracking a city or countering an invading Stack-Of-Doom, throwing five trebuchets at the problem will leave you with one stack of crippled enemies and (statistically speaking) four or more trebuchets. Then your dwarves jump in with mops and you end up with a lot of promoted mop-wielders and dead enemies. Let me impress upon you that trebuchets are an oft overlooked but marvelous unit: they are early in the tech tree, have very good stats by themselves (6 attack at a time when your bronze-wielding axmen have a strength of 5 is very nice), bombard very well, cause collateral damage like a doviello in an antique store, and have an 80% withdraw rate. While they are slow, with proper use, they are unstoppable and if you wanted to perform lightning raids on your enemy what the heck are you doing play Khazad <points to hippus>?
So you get a stack of melee units with march, a half-dozen trebuchets and one or two adepts hauling a wagon of siege-engine components and duct tape. You throw this stack at a rival civilization and it will slowly but methodically destroy all of their cities... like a molasses tsunami. You can do this early, you can do this often (courtesy of your crazy-go-nuts production) and all the proceeds of your conquest go straight into Khazak Mutual Funds: paying dividends in the form of hammers and happy since the Age of Magic. Invest today and get a free* mini-shrine to Kilmorph. *Free after you pay a nominal charge.
Imagine if every Sidar city benefited from God King, giving each one +50% production? We'd scream foul. We'd run, en masse, to the balance thread and whine like there's no tomorrow. But the Khazad pretty much get that early-to-mid game. Once you have the coin, every new city comes with an overflowing vault; the single most potent non-wonder in the game. An overflowing vault plus a two-metal dwarven smithy gets you +80% production... that plus one or two civic-born bonuses and you are basically getting two hammers for the price of one; which is a hard act for rival civs to follow. The Khazad go in for Quality over Quantity approach to cities (until the late game, then they can expand like a tar demon in a buffet), so they play similar to the Kuriotates. You'll find yourself with a handful of cities producing everything and, unlike the Kuriotates, they don't need some sissy third ring to pull it off.
One last thing, I think Runes of Kilmorph and Khazad go well together like CEOs and slush funds. Aside from the obvious "mo' money" aspect, you get Arete, Soldiers of Kilmorph (or as I call them, Hammer Piñatas) and Bambur. You are going to have mines littering the countryside so Arete is the logical choice for feeding your military-industrial complex. Using Kilmorph's Piñatas, you can give a fledgling city a hammer infusion like no other. And, despite what others say, Bambur is in no way weak; he has the benefits of timing and synergy on his side. He shows up early enough for a strength 7+ (metal + heroic atk/def) melee unit to really help; I use him to crack that one stubborn defender that refuses to yield to my trebuchets' gentle reminder that their city has been slated for demolition. And getting an early Enchantment 1 caster makes a HUGE difference for a melee-and-machinery based military. Suddenly all your units have a +20% to combat: that's like Kandros somehow having the Aggressive trait twice! And Bambur allows you to send off that genocide stack (ax + trebs + patience = no more neighbors) that much earlier.
I may have to work up a Khazad AAR, like I did for the Bannor and the Kuriotates. I will not have my bearded battle buddies slandered so. Strike the EARTH!
However, the Khazad are well equipped to spring forth in the middle and late game, becoming juggernauts of industry, commerce and inebriated violence. While everyone agrees that Dwarven Druids are carved from solid blocks of Awesome, I rarely have meaningful opposition by the time I'm playing with T4 units. Whenever I usher in an enlightened age of bearded dominion I do so with axemen/champions, trebuchets and enchantment adepts.
Here's the thing: despite many fine and clever tweaks by Kael and Co., melee units still rock the casbah; metal promotions, march, city raider and the fact that the melee branch of the tech tree contains so many other tasty fruits have all made the ax the preferred weapon for Erebusian domination. The Khazad may have no meaningful recon or archery units but that's okay because they still have the only unit-type you need. Your heavily armed infantry can go toe-to-toe with anything wandering around outside a city and, as the Khazad, you should have no trouble training plenty of 'em on short notice.
Furthermore, trebuchets are to engines of war what zombies are to civilians in a Romero film: devastating and best in large numbers. Trebuchets can and will crush an enemy stack in short order. Whether you're cracking a city or countering an invading Stack-Of-Doom, throwing five trebuchets at the problem will leave you with one stack of crippled enemies and (statistically speaking) four or more trebuchets. Then your dwarves jump in with mops and you end up with a lot of promoted mop-wielders and dead enemies. Let me impress upon you that trebuchets are an oft overlooked but marvelous unit: they are early in the tech tree, have very good stats by themselves (6 attack at a time when your bronze-wielding axmen have a strength of 5 is very nice), bombard very well, cause collateral damage like a doviello in an antique store, and have an 80% withdraw rate. While they are slow, with proper use, they are unstoppable and if you wanted to perform lightning raids on your enemy what the heck are you doing play Khazad <points to hippus>?
So you get a stack of melee units with march, a half-dozen trebuchets and one or two adepts hauling a wagon of siege-engine components and duct tape. You throw this stack at a rival civilization and it will slowly but methodically destroy all of their cities... like a molasses tsunami. You can do this early, you can do this often (courtesy of your crazy-go-nuts production) and all the proceeds of your conquest go straight into Khazak Mutual Funds: paying dividends in the form of hammers and happy since the Age of Magic. Invest today and get a free* mini-shrine to Kilmorph. *Free after you pay a nominal charge.
Imagine if every Sidar city benefited from God King, giving each one +50% production? We'd scream foul. We'd run, en masse, to the balance thread and whine like there's no tomorrow. But the Khazad pretty much get that early-to-mid game. Once you have the coin, every new city comes with an overflowing vault; the single most potent non-wonder in the game. An overflowing vault plus a two-metal dwarven smithy gets you +80% production... that plus one or two civic-born bonuses and you are basically getting two hammers for the price of one; which is a hard act for rival civs to follow. The Khazad go in for Quality over Quantity approach to cities (until the late game, then they can expand like a tar demon in a buffet), so they play similar to the Kuriotates. You'll find yourself with a handful of cities producing everything and, unlike the Kuriotates, they don't need some sissy third ring to pull it off.
One last thing, I think Runes of Kilmorph and Khazad go well together like CEOs and slush funds. Aside from the obvious "mo' money" aspect, you get Arete, Soldiers of Kilmorph (or as I call them, Hammer Piñatas) and Bambur. You are going to have mines littering the countryside so Arete is the logical choice for feeding your military-industrial complex. Using Kilmorph's Piñatas, you can give a fledgling city a hammer infusion like no other. And, despite what others say, Bambur is in no way weak; he has the benefits of timing and synergy on his side. He shows up early enough for a strength 7+ (metal + heroic atk/def) melee unit to really help; I use him to crack that one stubborn defender that refuses to yield to my trebuchets' gentle reminder that their city has been slated for demolition. And getting an early Enchantment 1 caster makes a HUGE difference for a melee-and-machinery based military. Suddenly all your units have a +20% to combat: that's like Kandros somehow having the Aggressive trait twice! And Bambur allows you to send off that genocide stack (ax + trebs + patience = no more neighbors) that much earlier.
I may have to work up a Khazad AAR, like I did for the Bannor and the Kuriotates. I will not have my bearded battle buddies slandered so. Strike the EARTH!
Last edited:
Monkeyfinger
Deity
- Joined
- Oct 24, 2006
- Messages
- 2,002
Abundant is my vault goal for around the first half of a game. I never go for overflowing, and only go for full once I'm preparing for a mid/late war, once I'm convinced I have all the techs needed to wage it and just need to build some stuff to make it a reality. Typically it goes like: Get engineering, go for iron while building the guild of hammers, turn off research once I have both and get up to full.
Hammer bonus from abundant is pretty small (1 for every 10) but 2 free happiness per city is pretty big at that point. Full + guild gets you +65% hammers, pretty damn big in the age of champions - champions in a turn anyone? Or axemen in a turn from multiple cities, upgraded via ingenuity to champions. Overflowing... by the time your economy's strong enough to reach and maintain it happiness and GPs don't matter so much anymore. The +15% hammers over full is pretty sweet, but worth 200 gold per city? ...nah.
Hammer bonus from abundant is pretty small (1 for every 10) but 2 free happiness per city is pretty big at that point. Full + guild gets you +65% hammers, pretty damn big in the age of champions - champions in a turn anyone? Or axemen in a turn from multiple cities, upgraded via ingenuity to champions. Overflowing... by the time your economy's strong enough to reach and maintain it happiness and GPs don't matter so much anymore. The +15% hammers over full is pretty sweet, but worth 200 gold per city? ...nah.
Emptiness
[]
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Thank you for that.Okay, that's all I can take... well done.
WarKirby
Arty person
This.
Turtle and Stomp is my favourite strategy in any strategy game, ever. Period.
Khazad may just be my favourite civ because of it. I play the same strategy in Supreme Commander, too. It's lamentable that some newer strategy games try to discourage turtling, like it's a bad thing. The pitiful limit on turrets is why I never liked Dawn of War.
Khazad are just so incredible at both parts. The vault mechanic encourages slow and little expansion, and their city defence bonus encourages turtling. Then lategame, you have Hornguard and Dwarven Druids, which can pretty much crush the world alone.
oh, and it's not true that they don't have meaningful recon units. Myconids are excellent too.
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