Lightbringers

[westamastaflash]

What's the point of these guys? It used to be nice for the early culture pop, but they can't create a great work anymore. The only value they have is sentry (and so you can upgrade to priests with sentry), but they're terribly expensive early game...

 

[Rex rgis of Ter]

What's the point of these guys? It used to be nice for the early culture pop, but they can't create a great work anymore. The only value they have is sentry (and so you can upgrade to priests with sentry), but they're terribly expensive early game...

Their sight makes them excellent early scouts. You'll get your world map alot faster with these guys. Also, if your on a desert heavy map, they get double moves, which is another bonus for scouting.

 

[Demus]

try playing an oasis map using malakim, they're some of the most amazing fogbusters you can find

 

[loki1232]

Also, you can upgrade them to mages if you get them to level 4.

 

[White Elk]

And you can upgrade them to Rangers (they keep Sentry).

 

[westamastaflash]

ooh i didn't know they upgrade to the recon line. That's very nice..., unless you have to upgrade them to leaves guys first?

 

[Basil II]

Also, you can upgrade them to mages if you get them to level 4.

Now that is valuable...

 

[White Elk]

ooh i didn't know they upgrade to the recon line. That's very nice..., unless you have to upgrade them to leaves guys first?

I'm playing as the Malakim so Leaves is not required. They don't upgrade to
Scouts or Hunters, just Rangers. I don't know about the later Recon units yet.

 

[westamastaflash]

So basically I have to stick some lightbringers in each stack so they can kill the easy "final" battles of each city attack, get some xp, then upgrade to mages / rangers .

Building them in the Altar of Lunnotar city helps too.

 

[xanaqui42]

I'm playing as the Malakim so Leaves is not required. They don't upgrade to
Scouts or Hunters, just Rangers. I don't know about the later Recon units yet.

Anything that upgrades to unit X also upgrades to any of the units that unit X upgrades to.

So, yes, if a unit upgrades to a Ranger, it can upgrade to any unit a Ranger can upgrade to.

 

[zxcvbnm]

I want lightbringers back to replace vicars for the Empyrean priests!

 

[White Elk]

I've just begun the training of a couple Battle Mages (City Raider1 from the Lightbringers).

 

[julko]

I have interesting game as malakim, after few turns of wandering with Lightbringer and wondering about "WTH is this unit for", he got hero promo by event. I renamed him to "Varn" and started one of the best roleplay in my ffh games(after realizing that lightbringer can be upgraded through vicar to high priest of empyrean).
Maybe I should post some early save later if somebody is inerested, because it is really fun to have Varn as High priest!!!
Map is huge, balanced, frozen, slowly warming up, flat, more resources, no tech brokering, monarch and fun to play.

 

[Ekolite]

I don't really understand what its there for tbh, it has sentry which makes it a good scout but it is way expensive in the early game when you actuallly need scouts. I thought they would just have a lower cost and be a malakim unique scout, or at least be the empyrean missionary unit.

 

[onedreamer]

are they still strength 2 ? The problem is that they are strength 2. They are the only unit which didn't benefit from the strength increase, which is very bad because the scout's ability to move two times and its bonus vs animals are better than Sentry to keep it alive, yet Lightbringers cost a lot more production, as reported. They really need to be back at the same strength level of warriors. Anyways, I normally just mod them to strength 3.

 

[julko]

Hmm, playing that roleplay, i now can see what they(lightbringers) could be. If you treat them wisely early in game(goblin killing machine), you can inmediatelly have ecclestatic(better goblin killing machine)(Str3, medic) with Honor(Empyrean). With priesthood and temple you have highly promoted Vicar(priest of Emp.) with Sun II, Earth I, medicII. With some AI fighting and upgrade to High priest with patriarch promo you have best High Priest in game very early.

Anyway, in beginning, buil some Lightbringers, treat them like grigory's early heroes, and with some beelineing through religious tech path you are victorious!

 

[White Elk]

Yep they are still strength 2. I agree that they are either overpriced or underpowered on their own merits. Yet they are great for keeping raging barbarians at bay. Using them as fog busters means you don't have to pay as much on support costs since you'll require less units outside your borders. And I think they should be able to see invisible units but there is no mention in the game that they do so.

But I think the Lightbringers biggest strength is with their upgrades. They upgrade to Rangers, Vicars, and Mages! And are available immediately so you can start earning promotions for the upgrades right off the bat. The Sentry promotion transfers as do all the promotions you will earn. So a Mage for example could have City Raider 1 and Shock 1. Which is very helpful for getting quick xp with them. And I find the free Sentry especially helpful for my Rangers since I can use that promotion slot for something else (I generally always have a recon unit with Sentry 2 in my attack stacks).

My favorite upgrade for the Lightbringers is Vicar and then Paladin. The Lightbringer only brings Sentry to the Paladin, but seeing as how the Lightbringer is such an early unit this means that the Paladin can start off fairly experienced. Of course other units upgrade to Paladin, but with Lightbringer you upgrade to Vicar and then to Paladin. This makes them a Channeling 2 Divine caster with access to the Fire, Sun, Earth, and Law spheres. They also gain Medic 2 and of course Sentry. I had great fun with these guys razing AV cities and then casting Restore City and gifting them to my ally Basium. Each Paladin is like an Army unto itself as it has reconnaissance ability with Sentry; it has artillery with Ring of Flames; it is a powerful melee force; and it can heal even the most damaged allies within a couple turns. A very nice unit indeed!

Spoiler :

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[Ekolite]

the patriarch mechanic was removed in shadow.

But apart from that maybe they do have potential, it can be very difficult sometimes to get highpriests and I think empy hps can cast crown of brilliance which is IMO one of the most powerful spells in the game.

EDIT: Spellcasting....Paladins.... *loads FFH*

 

[White Elk]

Yep with channeling 3 the Empyrean Priests get the Divine spell Crown of Brilliance.