Kuriotate Playthrough

[Onionsoilder]

Alright, well I'm attempting a Diety game for the first time since the latest patch. I decided to play as Kuriotates because one of my strong points has always been micromanaging the cities I do have to perfection.

I got lucky with Yggdrassil early on, and I moved my settler 2S from were he started to both grab the most resources and settle on a hill; the extra defense is always useful (1). I started researching Calendar first thing and switched to Agarianism immediately after, having my workers build farms in the north and plantations were applicable.

Soon I had a nice lagre city, and quickly built 2 settlers; one to send north, another south. Due to some unforseen problems.with a Hill Giant, it took longer than expected to get my third city build down in the desert, but after I settled I popped Legends for instant borders(2, 3).

After that I went for KotE so I could Spring some of those deserts and build cottages on them, and then Horseback Riding so I could get some centaurs out for defense(4). With the latest AI changes, the AI seems to *love* archers, so centaurs are a natural counter. After that I plan on going for either AV or Order, I'm not quite sure which. Both have a mounted hero(Rosier or Valin), which is good because they can keep up with my centaurs. Both have good psynergy with large cities(Order for Unyielding Order, and AV for Sacrifice the Weak). I guess we'll have to wait and see on those.

 

[Ichabod]

Nice to see other playthroughs, specially from better players

Deity ougtha be very hard with the new AI... You'll probably find some very big SoDs and the techrate will be pretty fast...

Never played a game with the kuriotates... I'll be following this to learn how to do it...

Some questions:

1. How do you use the adaptive trait: What do you pick in the early, mid and late game?

2. What's the type of victory your going to head for?

At least one of your neighbors is a very nice one to have... Einion won't attack you im a million years...

 

[Jet]

Sacrifice the Weak has no synergy with large cities because at pop points higher than - 4 the unhealth cancels out the tile bonus. It has synergy with a large number of cities.

 

[readercolin]

Actually, it does have synergy with large cities, because even when the pop points are higher than the health, it still only takes 2 food to feed a pop, as opposed to the 3 food required for regular pop higher than the health cap. On the other hand, you can combine both of them by getting 3 order priests, and then upgrading them to druids, then switching to AV for sacrifice the weak.

-Colin

 

[Jet]

Oh, I see.

 

[Onionsoilder]

Alright. I decided to found Order because I didn't want the Oasis down by my third city disappearing if hell terrain ever spread to them. Not a huge issue in itself, but sort of the deciding factor. Anyway, Perpentach declared war on me with a huge stack of archers and just 2 hunters. Nothing else... like I said, AI loves archers for some reason. Normally Centaurs would be able to make mincemeat of archers, but Perpentach somehow got Archers with Strong, Combat V and Drill IV on them... So I used Slow from the Letum to keep them in place while I built up my army(5). It is a little cheap, yes, but there are other ways to immobolize AI armies(Blinding Light from Mages or Empyrean; Summon Baiting) so it's not Letum exclusive.

After I build Valin and some Centaurs, I went on a pillaging rampage since his army was frozen in place(quite literally)! The gold from all those yummy towns and villages helped to keep my research up. I got a Great Engineer from Code of Junil, so on a whim I got Fanaticism and built the Mercurian Gate. Despite that fact that the Mercurians are my favorite civilization, this is a Kuriotate playthrough, not a Mercurian playthough, so I didn't switch. Still, he will be useful for extra military support, research and more importantly, making sure the AI doesn't get him.

 

[Onionsoilder]

Some questions:

1. How do you use the adaptive trait: What do you pick in the early, mid and late game?

2. What's the type of victory your going to head for?

At least one of your neighbors is a very nice one to have... Einion won't attack you im a million years...

1) First(I forget which turn) I picked Financial because I had a lot of cottages out and I desperately needed a boost to my economy, since all my centaurs were dragging it down. Second(Turn 260) I picked Raiders to so all my Centaurs would gain Raiders when they upgraded into Centaur Archers. Of course, the extra gold from pillaging doesn't hurt either.

2) I'm not sure at this point. Domination is possible since I can place settlements all over the place without worrying about maintenance. Domination also means I can stay on my own continent. I doubt I will go for Altar, as I am not set up to spam Great Prophets... If Domination isn't working out, I will probably go for ToM. ToM is always a possibility, since all you need is a couple mana nodes and a LOT of gold to rush-build it.

I have had Enion attack me before, but I was Evil and a different religon then. In this case, I think you're right, which is nice; He sevres as a good buffer between me and Amalanchier.

 

[Onionsoilder]

After farming experience from wandering units and Perpentach's lands, I headed back home from raiding. I ran 0 research for a while to upgrade all my Centaurs to Centaur Archers, then attacked. I had roughly half my army upgraded down the flanking line, and half down the combat line. The flankers attacked first; about 60% ran away, 40% died. Then my combat units moved in, and killed most of the weakened units. On the nest turn, I finished them off, finally destroying that damn SoD once and for all, and even got Orthus' Axe out of it (7). I resumed my conquest through Balsearph lands. After his main SoD was destroyed and I got some highly promoted centaurs, things were much easier. I was able to take a couple cities utilizing effective withdrawal techniques, then finally took the Balseraph capitol. With it, I killed the spited Loki (8).

An odd thing happened at this point; Varn Gosam converted to Order, despite having founded RoK and having RoK in each of his cities (9). Usefulf or diplomacy and extra gold from Code of Junil. After an unfortunate roll of the dice that lost me a level 9 Centaur Archer at 94% odds, I finished off the Balseraphs on turn 331 (10). Kept all the cities as settlements, and ran a Confessor through each one, casting Inquisition. This is were I stopped playing to take a break, probably going to resume tomorrow.

 

[Azhral]

I just finished a playthrough as Kurios. Unfortunately I have FFH2 033 and Dial Up, so its ancient, even for me.

Anywhos, small map, with order. Had a Prior in each city with Unyielding Order. Kwythellar had a pop of 57 by the time it finished the Altar, giving me the win. Naggarond had 30-something and Avelorn was over 45. Kwythellar had about a dozen Enclaved floodplains and Genesis. If I had gone Farms they would be even bigger. Perhaps even pushing pop 70. Money wasn't much of an issue as everyone turned Order except Keelyn, who was AV and vassalised to the Bannor, Hybbie who was crushed early, Khazad only had the one city thanks to Barbatos (033 yeah!) and the Grigori were around. Unhealthyness was an issue too. Even with Public Healers, Aquae Succellus and every single health building availible Kwythellar was losing upto 20 food a turn. But since it had around 150 food coming in each turn it was still growing.

As for adaptive, I always get Creative as the first change, especially with Kurios, just so my Settlements get a few borders. Usually then switch to Organized, which I find much better than Financial, especially in the late game when Inflation becomes an issue, and you can build Command Posts. With this playthrough my second switch was Spiritual, just to pump out a bunch of Potency Confessors for my Priors and Paladins. Never did any serious warmongering in this game, but if you are then Aggressive or Raiders is a very good choice.

As for victory, the Kurios are good for basically any victory. Lots of settlements means lots of Mana and Territory. Massive cities means big production and population. The Centaur line means lots of decent easy Cavalry with defensive bonuses so I usually rush Horseback Riding over Bronze Working.

 

[Marksman77]

An excellent read, waiting for more!

How did you manage to kill Loki? I've never seen him die, neither under my nor AI control.

 

[Onionsoilder]

An excellent read, waiting for more!

How did you manage to kill Loki? I've never seen him die, neither under my nor AI control.

Loki can die under two conditions:

1) He is killed during the First Strikes phase of combat. This is very difficult to do, as he has to be seriously wounded before combat even starts, and then your units needs to get lucky on the first strikes. Keep in mind that Loki himself can get a first strike from Chaos I, negating one of yours.

2) He is located in a city when you fight him. Units can not withdraw from cities.

I think it's obvious that I used condition #2 here.

 

[readercolin]

Due to a recent change, you can now also kill him if you surround him (if there are no open spaces to withdraw to, he cannot withdraw, and therefore dies).

-Colin

 

[Onionsoilder]

Alright, well I had to do something with my huge army, so I declared war on the Elohim, who were weaker and closer then the Ljosalfar. Unfortunately, I failed to notice the Elohim were vassalized to the Ljosalfar, so I declared war on both of them. Oh well. I got the Gaelan event, which I decided to take since I didn't have any Chaos mana (11). Mutations were overall positive, though some troops got Heavy which was annoying. Eventually they were relegated to guarding cities. Took 4 turns of all my units slaughtering Einion's until I finally killed his SoD(12), which was absolutely huge. 4 of my units had Blitz, and another was equipped with Orthus', so they took out 15 units per turn by themselves. Thanks to Malstrom, I took no casualties. Throughout this whole ordeal, Basium was completely worthless; he did nothing but sit in his cities and send a few 20-units patrols to make sure the horses were still safe.

Having seen enough of the horrors of war, my holy paladin decided he wanted to go save a damsel in distress(13). Good thing she can fight too, otherwise I would have to penalize Valin for going AWOL.

Basium continues to be useless, despite having Angels of Death now(14). I sort of wish I didn't build that gate; all that Basium has done up to this point is take one of my perfectly good cities. Still, my mobile strike force ventured deep into Ljosalfar lands and secured me another city, one that was grand enough for me not to relegate to a settlement(15). Now I'm back up to my 3-city cap, so I have to use the next 22 turns while it's in revolt to capture the surrounding cities so it can actually work tiles.

 

[Onionsoilder]

A Ljosalfar SoD came out of nowhere and started capturing my settlements up in the north(16). They must have snuck through Archeron's territory, because they certainly didn't pass by my army. However, with the new AI stack mechanics, they would leave their newly captured cities completely undefended... So I made a practice of moving all units out of a settlement, having Amelanchier take it, then when he moves onto the next settlement run a Crusader in there and take it back. Amelanchier would then turn his army back to recapture the settlements I just took back from him. I called this little game "Tag" (17).

Basium continues to do absolutely nothing, despite having these huge SoDs that would be immensely helpful. All of his angels had at least Combat IV, because angels retain their EXP when they die. This means his stacks could pulverize anything, but decided defending is the best course of action(18).

One thing that I found was very different from lower difficulties was the amount of war weariness. I lost Brigit at 95%+ odds(Good thing she's immortal) and I immediately got a huge spike in War Weariness. Might have something to do with her being a hero... I'm glad my other units aren't dying(19).

Since I was kicking Amelanchier's ass all around the world, Einion decided he would break free from being a vassal. As Basium was busy doing nothing and I was busy killing the elves, I decided to make a temporary peace with him, so I don't have to worry about his units while my army is away (20). Too bad he'll still die in the end.

That little game of Tag with Amelanchier's SoD and my settlements kept up while my main army was busy wiping out his real cities. I actually gained a considerable amount of units from that, since there is a chance that a Crusader will join you when you gain a city with the Order religion. Since I was gaining(and losing) settlements so rapidly, I got a good 10 Crusaders, who I sent to guard my newly captured elven settlements. Eventually my crusader waltzed right into my old undefended settlement, which just happened to be the elves' last city(21).

 

[Onionsoilder]

Lets finish this up, shall we?

Shortly after the end of the Elves, I redirected my army to Archeron's city since the barbarians streaming out of it were annoying. One of my centaurs died, another withdrew, then Valin finished Archeron off (22). This prompted a rather odd bug; after Archeron was killed, every barbarian city on the planet tried to build him - They couldn't obviously, since he was already built once (23).

I turned my attention towards the Elohim and started sweeping them up. It was rather uneventful, as my 20-unit army could easily dispose of anythign he threw at me, up to and including 60-unit stacks of longbowmen. I'm not quite sure why it happened since I wasn't razing any cities, but Blight kicked in around the middle of this (24). I lost around 5 population in Nagarond but not a single population anywhere else - not thta it mattered, since my cities weren't even building units anymore - they were just spamming whatever buildings they could to increase my GDP.

Finally got Priors on turn 437 - way too late to make a difference in the game - though they were sort of nice to have (26). Once I covered my entire continent I found I was 5% land short of a domination victory, so I beelined airships and sent a strike force over to the other continent (27). While I was adding the Doviello cities to my giant list of settlements, Stephanos popped up in the middle of my empire (28). My entire army was away conquering, so I somewhat panicked at this... until Brigit died (again) and finished him off, taking her crown for herself.

Meanwhile, I had quite a bit of fun with my airships. I found out that units can attack from airships, and will stay inside the airships after attacking. If they attacked from over the ocean, they took the 50% combat penalty and lost all their movement after one attack, so I stopped doing that. I did find out that if I attacked from a mountain, they took no combat penalty and it only took up one movement. This meant I could have my Blitzed centaurs attack 5 times a turn, have an airship ferry them 6 tiles away, then assault another city the next turn. Also, the airship animation is rather glitchy when it moves over mountains and hills... I took a picture, but I seem to have accidentally deleted it.

Anyway, after taking some cities from the Doviello and Khazad, I finally got the 5% land I needed to grab Domination. I could have easily gotten a Conquest victory, but that would have taken another 100 turns or so and I was bored of the game by that point (29). And wow... just look at that power graph! (30).

 

[Jenaelha]

What a great learning tool, thx Onionsoldier!

1) Beyond spoiling your fun, could you have tried to convince Basium into War? [I've never not played Basium so I'm not sure a team mate can be traded with to declare war on a shared enemy.]

2) What kind of defenses did you maintain in your cities?

3) It seems like the SoD is a popular strategy, why did your's work so much better than the AIs?

 

[Onionsoilder]

1) Beyond spoiling your fun, could you have tried to convince Basium into War? [I've never not played Basium so I'm not sure a team mate can be traded with to declare war on a shared enemy.]

I tried to do this on three separate occasions. Each time Basium said he would attack in the diplomacy screen, yet each time he did nothing except sit in his cities. Throughout the entire game, Basium captured a single city; a barbarian one that was guarded by a single Warrior. One of his Angels stumbled upon it while exploring, I guess.

2) What kind of defenses did you maintain in your cities?

Early on, I had 4 Warriors each, which I later upgraded to Swordsmen. The main purpose of these was to take care of any barbarians who wanted to pillage my improvements; once I got Centaurs and their increased mobility, this dwindled down to a single unit per city. The new AI is woefully inadequate when it comes to launching offensive attacks; their attention could easily be diverted until my army returned from wherever they currently were.

Note that as the Kuriotates, I only had to worry about keeping improvements around my three core cities safe. I couldn't care less if barbarians pillage my settlement's improvements, as they serve barely any function. With a different civilization, I would probably have to devote slightly more resources to ward off barbarians, but there is no point trying to keep enough units in a city to defend against a SoD; you need to tackle those in the field.

3) It seems like the SoD is a popular strategy, why did your's work so much better than the AIs?

This comes back to diverting the AI's attention. While the AI is now able to field large armies of units, they don't really know how to use those units. If damaged, the AI will often sit in one spot until all the units in the stack are healed; this made the Malstrom spell invaluable in both tying the AI down and giving my units the advantage. Other direct damage spells would be similarly useful, as would spells like Slow or Blinding Light, though those last two don't cause damage, only immobility.

Quite simply, if the AI directly attacked me with it's SoD, it would have won. However, I was able to either divert it's attention, immobilize it's stacks, or sometimes lead their stacks on a wild goose chase (referencing the game of Tag here; this can also be done with expendable units like summons). While it's stack was preoccupied, I was able to slowly whittle down their numbers until I had the advantage.

I would like to note that prior to Patch H, Basium would not have been useless. I have played games with him as an ally before, and in each and every one of those games he actually helped in war and even conquered a few cities. Part of the reason for this game was to prove what I've been saying in the AI feedback thread for over a week now: allowing the AI to crank out huge stacks of units is not a substitute for them making poor build orders and stack movement choices.

 

[Jenaelha]

I just read this was you first Deity win!? Impressive, you handled it easily. There had to be more teetering moments than revealed?
I hear you on the AI improvement potential. I believe it will come and I am patiently watching [and enjoying] the process. I think your thread is an affective way to highlight those AI deficiencies. I hope those programming and playtesting monsters review this thread for those bits.
However, an AI that "knows" how to weild a SoD is a little impossing. If we're not careful, we may just get what we all wish for!

 

[Onionsoilder]

Yes, this was my first deity win. I've found that since patch H, the AI is better in most areas EXCEPT attacking and defending. It seems to do these worse that it did before patch H, which is part of the reason I might have won. As far as having a better AI, I wouldn't mind dropping down to Noble if the AI actually fights back next game.

As far as teetering moments:

1) When the Balserphs first sent their archers, my Adepts were too far away o Slow them in time. One of them got enough EXP to take Mobility I, which got him up there fast enough.
2) When the elves' SoD first appeared by my settlements, I panicked. My main army was way to far away to come to help... then I realized I could play Tag with them.

Erm... that's it really.