Malakim advantages

[JonathanStrange]

Disable them!!? Well, at least you're confining it to your games and not campaigning for their removal from all FFH2.

 

[Der Kantelberg]

Well, I find most world spells annoying, so I just disable them.

Thats another possibility. Only works if you don't want them.

 

[PekkaR]

Posts on the second page already concluded that you don't need AV to promote Lightbringers to Mages. That said, perhaps you want to have them gather experience as Savants, or want them to have Medic I or March. Or it goes well with using other aspects of AV. In that case you can remove the religion from any city later when the Infernal worldspell could be a threat. Just switch your state religion to something else and use Inquisition.

If promoting Lightbringers to Savants, you only need one temple anyway. The AV city can be your most remote little town, and Lightbringers come from elsewhere to visit it.

Last time when I wanted to use Infernal Grimoire, I had to summon Hyborem in the process. I did this early, so he was tons of research away from being able to use the worldspell: it requires Malevolent Designs. My only worry was possibly having him appear next to me, forcing me to micromanage Sanctify until I switched religion/alignment later. The alternative of losing my flood plains to hell terrain wasn't acceptable. Luckily he spawned elsewhere, and the AC never got high enough for hell terrain to cross over neutral lands to mine before I switched.

 

[someone67]

Starting mana types

Malakim palace gives Life, Mind and Sun mana. I find these a slight drawback for Malakim because Adepts can be pretty useless until researching further mana node techs. Often I make 1-2 Adepts for tapping mana nodes and otherwise wait to promote Mages from Lightbringers.

Access to Sanctify, Destroy Undead (both situationally important) and Dominate (for Gibbon Goetia without arcane techs!) is guaranteed. Building more Sun nodes for the late game makes for really strong archmage summons, and/or Chalid. Scorch can sometimes support Nomad forces nicely, and allow you to summon the Sand Lions of course.

Needing only two more mana nodes for Tower of Divination national wonder is useful. Researching Divination doesn't improve your Adepts much though.

Adepts are not useless, if you are going on war scorch will help you. Also, as you are probably trying to build the Altar inspiration is needed because you won't assign sages that fast. And when you are settling near floodplains you need every you can get, and life grants just that.

Hm, apart from that there isn't much left to be mentiond. Maybe the "Citadel of Light" the Malakim can build with sorcery? It autocasts a weaker version of Chalid's "Pilliar of Fire" on the biggest enemy stack 2 tieles around your city iirc. (The civilopedia is horribly outdated here- one fireball per enemy would be too good.)

Religious Fervor gives 1 XP per city with state religon to all priests/assassins (with esus) that are "produced" with it.

Sand lions can hire mercs, iirc...

 

[DirtyFinger]

Oh yeah, the Citadel ... I wondered if that was a malakin only building but couldn't find any info on that. Didn't help me too much, though. In my last game Falamar took a giant lead and attacked me on my island. He couldn't do anything to me and his landing parties fell prey to a dozen fireballs, but killing his hundreds of ships with about fifteen mages (and badly promoted archmages) was too tedious.
But seeing the occasional ships go up in flames because he ventured too near to my capital was quite fun.

 

[Luckmann]

Adepts are not useless, if you are going on war scorch will help you. Also, as you are probably trying to build the Altar inspiration is needed because you won't assign sages that fast. And when you are settling near floodplains you need every you can get, and life grants just that.

[...]

I agree with you, and want to add the benefit of Mind mana. With adepts and Mind I, you should have an adept in every city - the more cities, the higher the benefit of Mind I and legions of adepts.

Having those adepts early on and keeping them fortified in cities for later usage will help in the long run once you upgrade to Mages, due to Sun II. Sure, Adepts won't be the immediate offensive powerhouses, but they are far, far from useless.

 

[JonathanStrange]

I sure would love to have Sun II: the Adept to Mage upgrade is a bonus for any civ.

 

[someone67]

Oh yeah, the Citadel ... I wondered if that was a malakin only building but couldn't find any info on that. Didn't help me too much, though. In my last game Falamar took a giant lead and attacked me on my island. He couldn't do anything to me and his landing parties fell prey to a dozen fireballs, but killing his hundreds of ships with about fifteen mages (and badly promoted archmages) was too tedious.
But seeing the occasional ships go up in flames because he ventured too near to my capital was quite fun.

Any chances for a first post update?

 

[DirtyFinger]

Any chances for a first post update?

done. anything else that should be included ?

 

[cabbagemeister]

One feature of the Lightbringer->Mage upgrade that you left out:

Unlike a normally-built Adept->Mage, your Lightbringer-Mages will have the Potency promo, meaning that even without the starting xp from the Altar, they'll be Archmage-ready very quickly, and will continue to gain rapid xp as archmages (C5 archmages, I love it!).

 

[MagisterCultuum]

That is true if you are playing as Varn, but not as Decius. Also, it is again no advantage over using a Savant instead of a Lightbringer.

 

[cabbagemeister]

Except that you don't have to go AV and see your pretty floodplain farms catch on fire .

Edit: forgot that you can build Savants without going AV. At least you don't have to research Corruption of Spirit.


@ DirtyFinger: You should also note that Summon Sand Lion can only be cast in desert tiles (I think). It's a good way to balance this powerful summon, and yet another reason to bring a Scorch adept along with your invasion force.

 

[DirtyFinger]

Except that you don't have to go AV and see your pretty floodplain farms catch on fire .

Edit: forgot that you can build Savants without going AV. At least you don't have to research Corruption of Spirit.


@ DirtyFinger: You should also note that Summon Sand Lion can only be cast in desert tiles (I think). It's a good way to balance this powerful summon, and yet another reason to bring a Scorch adept along with your invasion force.

thanks, added your and PekkaR's suggestions.


btw, do you go for philosophical or financial as first adaptive trait ? they seem like the best choices. I usually take financial=>charismatic=>financial again.
I'm trying philosophical=>charismatic=>financial now, for GP boosting.

 

[Senethro]

If you're using Aristofarms then Financial makes the most sense. Charismatic or Raiders both make good sense for the next trait. Any unit upgraded using your Financial boosted economy will acquire Commando promotion, its not just newly built ones.

 

[scutarii]

thanks, added your and PekkaR's suggestions.


btw, do you go for philosophical or financial as first adaptive trait ? they seem like the best choices. I usually take financial=>charismatic=>financial again.
I'm trying philosophical=>charismatic=>financial now, for GP boosting.

financial allows bigger but experienceless army, GP boosting for altar allows smaller but experienced army. I have preferred with malakim altar boosted army.

 

[PekkaR]

I agree about Financial as the best choice overall. No matter the strategy, for most of the game the extra research or money is good. Second best is Charismatic, worth considering if you have an experienced army that could use a little boost and addictive to hold on to. In the late game, I'm nearly always running one of these two. The early choices can be more versatile to accomplish something specific.

I've used both Industrial and Philosophical with good success at first switch. 2+ cities building wonders with Industrial and even early Marble is great. This needs a lot of planning to get the timing right (techs researched and able to afford the production) or the trait is wasted. Without Industrial Heron Throne, Great Library, even Bone Palace should still be considered if you see Marble when starting. I don't usually make big enough great person farms to use Philosophical beyond first few GPs. (Half the time I play teamed with a human ally and the GP points go a little different from solo.)

Aggressive and Raiders are nice but I can't usually justify the choice to myself for the 100 turns on Normal speed, even when producing a lot of units. I should perhaps pillage more rather than waiting to conquer. Aggressive can give a necessary edge when stuck in an early war against Doviello or Hippus.

Keeping Creative or picking Expansive are for aggressive early expansion when rarely given the chance. Since Creative is there for the first 95 turns (on Normal), I make a point of founding my second city soon after Orthus' appearance at latest to benefit from it. That's usually a good time anyway. Founding 2 more isn't out of the question.

What's left? I've never picked Organized over Financial. Should compare them more using the highest upkeep civics. I don't use Arcane since Spiritual is fixed for Varn Gosam and the Potency mages gotten that way are good enough.

 

[JonathanStrange]

The Raider trait, I've found, is particularly useful for weaker civs who are either cannot knock out a rival nor persuade them to go away and make peace: the 100% extra pillage goes along way towards financing research, troops, and maintenance.

 

[DirtyFinger]

Adepts are not useless, if you are going on war scorch will help you. Also, as you are probably trying to build the Altar inspiration is needed because you won't assign sages that fast. And when you are settling near floodplains you need every you can get, and life grants just that.
...

That got me thinking on my malakim deity strategy.
I usually go for priesthood to capitalize on my world spell. Now trying for early Sorcery, i.e. early Knowledge of the Ether.

1. research agriculture and mysticism. switch to god king
2. build worker after city reaches 3 (or later if you are forced to build more warriors)
3. research Calendar and switch to agrarianism. First floodland farm should be ready.
4. build desert shrine. switch to pacifism civic as soon as you start using priest specialists.
5. If situation allows, build first settler while researching Knowledge of the ether.
6. build adepts for every city you have. get Mind I promotion, cast Inspiration and park them. That's 2 1 for that town and a 3 unit for defense.
7. if you find graveyards anywhere, build adept with Life I promotion. Send adept to graveyard and cast sanctify for a permanent 5 Host of the Einherjar.
8. focus on production. You want great prophets and at most one great sage to hurry sorcery research.
9. at turn 96 switch to philosophical instead of financial. by that time you can have two priest specialists producing a total of 17 .
10. You'll manage to keep a decent research going even with a declining economy. At that time you should consider Code of Laws for a switch to aristocracy.

 

[DirtyFinger]

added the royal guards, which isn't anything malakin specific, but since they practically married to aristocracy the hope spell of the RG deserves mention.

also added the combat medic. Sure, seems obvious to you, but I was stupid enough for well over 200 turns to promote lightbringers directly to stygian guards. I was happy to get March for free after the promotion, so I never wondered if it can't get even better. well, promote to zealot and then to styg and you get Medic I, too. (Sounds weird to have a demon medic on board, but it fits with the novels )

 

[Ekolite]

One really important thing that the OP missed out is the Malakim's synergy with the overcouncil. Chalid gets an extra vote on the overcouncil, and so does Teutorix. This means that assuming you are playing the Empyrean you can completely control the Overcouncil and all the factions on it.