Kuriotates advice and maybe a suggestion?

[TBox]

So I've been looking all over for Kuriotates advice, and the answers seem to fall into two groups: OO and FoL.

OO feels very off tone, and FoL works so much better with actual elves that they're better at building sprawling cities than Cardith until later in the game when the third ring starts to really kick in. Plus, y'know, they're not limited to 3.

Is there a strategy that makes me feel like I'm playing a good guy that's not a poor substitute for a real elf?

If it were my mod, and it's prolly a good thing it isn't, I think I'd give Lorda a unique worker that built farms and cottages that each provide a half point of health and a half point of happiness in addition to their usual farm/cottage benefits. Maybe other improvements, too. Of course, I don't know how that gels with slavery and/or capturing a Kuriotates city.

Would a modmod like this be easy to create, so I can play with it my own self? I'm shameless.

 

[Demus]

first of all, make full use of their special buildings, adding additional happiness to your cities (jeweler and tailor i think), even though this is pretty obvious . I still think the OO is the best religion for the kurio, since it allows 4x unyielding order (3x archmage + hemah, even though it's a bit of a shame to use hemah as a city booster) and the tower of contemplacy, so you haven't got a single city with a happiness cap.

If you want to play the good guys, you've simply limited yourself to order, empyrean and RoK. The main bonus for order is it's 0 maintenance policy, but with a limited number of cities maintenance won't be an issue anyway. Both other religions can work for kurio: empyrean for the council bonusses (early public healers etc.), RoK for the production bonus, giving your cities even more bang for their buck.

Honestly, i haven't played kurio that much, so i wouldn't fully be able to tell you which religion is THE best for them (if you really want to play the good guy), so just give the Emp's and RoK a try

 

[xienwolf]

Well, you could always run the civic for military happiness from garrisoned troops, is there a cap to how many happy you can get? If not, there is almost unlimited happiness from a good religion.

And if you are on a map with a 3 city limit, you can always use up your archmage slots for Unyielding Order, or go ahead and trade for some death mana and make those 3 into liches real quick-like.

 

[R0GERSHRUBBER]

If you're going for a cultural victory and you want to rp the Kuriotates cosmopolitan society, spread every religion.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

FOL for Kuriotates, but don't purposefully keep forests unless they're on good hills. You're just there for the +5 health from the civic. You could keep forests as ancient forests I suppose, but you're usually suffering from hammer overflow anyway. Do what suits you.

OO I would not recommand. So what about Tower of Complacency? Law archmages and/or liches work just fine, and even if not, you usually have enough hapiness from buildings and resources.

 

[DMN]

In my last game with the Kuriotates, the Order worked quite well with their Social Order civic (military happiness) and their nice ring-of-fire confessors and pillar-of-flame/heal high priests.

Law archmages are nice too, but you get them very late and they need reagents which seem to be very rare in the current version on my maps.

 

[Vehem]

And as a side note - build every settlement you can afford to defend from Barbarians - especially on coast. The trade routes can prove very profitable with the right civics, converting the 1 population to be a specialist allows it to do some more good and it denies space to your opponents. If you allow them space to expand unchecked, the city-limit becomes more of a problem for you. If you can limit their growth to a roughly equal number of cities, you have a very significant advantage from your third ring.

(Settlements themselves don't cost maintenance - so there isn't a real limit on how many you can spam. If you need to build their culture to exert some influence, Artist specialists or the world-spell can do the job quite quickly)

 

[xienwolf]

If I am thinking about this correct, you would have to run Ashen Veil to accomplish that, correct? City tile will produce only 2 food, so just enough to feed the 1 population which must work the city tile. That means to make the second unit a specialist you need to be running Sacrifice the Weak, in addition to Guilds (or the unlimited priests one) so that your settlement with no buildings in it can have an available specialist slot.

 

[Slvynn]

If I am thinking about this correct, you would have to run Ashen Veil to accomplish that, correct? City tile will produce only 2 food, so just enough to feed the 1 population which must work the city tile. That means to make the second unit a specialist you need to be running Sacrifice the Weak, in addition to Guilds (or the unlimited priests one) so that your settlement with no buildings in it can have an available specialist slot.

no, city with pop 1 work its own tile + another one, that mean you can have 1 specialist per settlement

you can also spam settlers and thus settlements to get more and more merchants with guilds, or science with scholarship.

 

[xienwolf]

Ok, was forgetting how small cities work then. So you just need a tile with 4 food and you can run 1 guy on that tile and 1 specialist.

So 4 food tile basically means farm on the tile or a nice special resource. Since we are spamming settlements that means we shouldn't count on a resource. So 1 farm + 1 specialist... Is that neccessarily better than 2 cottages on grassland (if you have 2 grassland spots of course)? I know that once you get those up to Towns they are better than the merchant, and I suppose they are better than the Scientist as well... unless of course you really want more gold while running a high science slider, or more science while running a low one that is.

I guess basically I just have to sit down and create the settlements so I can compare them and figure out which wonders you need to snag to make it worthwhile to use the population as a specialist instead of a grassland/cottage spot.

 

[Slvynn]

Ok, was forgetting how small cities work then. So you just need a tile with 4 food and you can run 1 guy on that tile and 1 specialist.

So 4 food tile basically means farm on the tile or a nice special resource. Since we are spamming settlements that means we shouldn't count on a resource. So 1 farm + 1 specialist... Is that neccessarily better than 2 cottages on grassland (if you have 2 grassland spots of course)? I know that once you get those up to Towns they are better than the merchant, and I suppose they are better than the Scientist as well... unless of course you really want more gold while running a high science slider, or more science while running a low one that is.

I guess basically I just have to sit down and create the settlements so I can compare them and figure out which wonders you need to snag to make it worthwhile to use the population as a specialist instead of a grassland/cottage spot.

you cant run food in settlements
it max 1 pop. so food does not matter. All you can generate in those with only 1 pop is money, science or culture. No Growth (food) or production can be done in sets.
u just transform 1 settler into 1 specialist and few tiles of culture.
IMO, guild is must civic for Kurio. Liberalism can give only culture.

 

[xienwolf]

I thought you got a population of 2, thus had to keep then Fed/Alive. Guess I need to go play them again sometime

 

[jenks]

CIVICS and RELIGION are the focuses.

Settlements can only generate culture and anything from specialists in the form of culture/science/gold (production, food and 'raw commerce' are disregarded - as are buildings and trade routes!). Providing you keep that in mind everything else fits into a decent civ i like to play

FoL allows bigger cities with both health and food once you get ancient forests, but i only stick with it if you can get incense for the priest spell 'bloom' - foresting everywhere you can!

Otherwise I make sure I get a state religion , and pop the religious wonder with a great prophet for cash boosts, spreading it to all my settlements.

Guilds is a great civic late game, there is also a civic i forget which allows a free specialist in all cities which includes settlements (if you have lotsa settlements this is essential if you want to generate enough of an economy so you can afford to have any units guarding them - i always go bards or scientists in the settlements as these are most useful), and also any of the ones which allow 'unlimited specialists' are useful as you dont have any buildings in settements to allow them.

 

[jenks]

FOL for Kuriotates, but don't purposefully keep forests unless they're on good hills. You're just there for the +5 health from the civic. You could keep forests as ancient forests I suppose, but you're usually suffering from hammer overflow anyway. Do what suits you.

Nah! there is no such thing as a hammer overflow when you can only have 3 of your cities building anything ... You have to try to max out both the hammers and food in all of the 3 sprawlers you are allowed!

 

[jenks]

And as a side note - build every settlement you can afford to defend from Barbarians - especially on coast. The trade routes can prove very profitable with the right civics, converting the 1 population to be a specialist allows it to do some more good and it denies space to your opponents. If you allow them space to expand unchecked, the city-limit becomes more of a problem for you. If you can limit their growth to a roughly equal number of cities, you have a very significant advantage from your third ring.

(Settlements themselves don't cost maintenance - so there isn't a real limit on how many you can spam. If you need to build their culture to exert some influence, Artist specialists or the world-spell can do the job quite quickly)

Disagree with this one too. Trade routes dont generate a thing!

AND seriously dont spam the settlements cause you will cripple your economy if you try to defend them all (they dont help you with anything other than explanding territory and hogging resources - at least until mid-late game when you get the civics to allow unlimited or free specialists).

 

[Elm]

It has been a while since I played Kuriotates. Can you still settle priests in settlements? (ie. create the temple there for the +20% culture). They would be easier to defend with culture defense.

Also, do the free building Wonders give buildings to settlements? A forge and building culture, for example.

 

[xienwolf]

Well, the +20% alone is useless. So you still have to run the Creative Trait from your adaptive in order to get ANY culture there. But I am not sure if there is a block to prevent forcing buildings. Reasonably certain there is not, so you can move in the Lyre if you managed to build it to garner a bit of quick culture.

 

[Vehem]

Disagree with this one too. Trade routes dont generate a thing!

AND seriously dont spam the settlements cause you will cripple your economy if you try to defend them all (they dont help you with anything other than explanding territory and hogging resources - at least until mid-late game when you get the civics to allow unlimited or free specialists).

Duel sized map, 2 cities + 1 Settlement (in screenshot). All are Size 1 for the test.

Capital is producing 12 research, other city is producing 4 research.

The Settlement reports producing 1 Research, from 5 Raw commerce (2 from trade route, 1 from city square, 2 from worked tile).

Total research produced by the empire is 17.

The amount is small for the amount of Raw commerce needed to produce it, but a large number of trade routes (Foreign Trade and Great Lighthouse) and cities on a different continent allows it to build up. Not amazing returns, but useful.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

OO temples are useful in settlements though, since it also provides raw culture instead of only a percent boost.

 

[xienwolf]

The question would be if that 1.00 research will ever change if you bring the base commerce up though. It might be that you are showing all the potential commerce, but actually only gaining for the 1 free commerce from the base tile.

I'll try to remember to build (or Worldbuild) a wonder or 2 to increase the number of traderoutes in my settlements and see if I can improve the yields from one of them in any way at all other than a specialist.