I really don't like Basium, playing with him, as him, or against him. He seems to block whatever you're trying to do, be little help whatsoever, and not bring about the end of the game as he should. I might like playing Basium except I despair at the AI wasting all the good work I put into the motherland. Hyborem really is more fun as you get to see the armagedon counter in all it's glory, hopefully. His tactics are quite novel as well. It's not complicated to get them. Just beeline for a the techs and wonders involved. With the mercurians you're trying to build an advanced host nation and use Basium to clean up, best used against good opponents (which doesn't make much sense). With the infernals you're trying to build a weak host nation which can unleash Hyborem the fastest. You don't want the host nation to outperform your infernal nation as it leaves you wondering why you ditched them. The Infernals of course work best against lightweight evil opponents (which does make sense).
I don't really like trying to get them because It isn't very fun for me to tech to them and then use them. I do enjoy seeing them pop out of the other civs, though, and seeing what problems they pose for me. Hyborem typically becomes aggressive to me (I usually play Elohim), and Basium is variable (which makes sense. While he's good, he will stomp over anything to slay Hyborem).
I've never played as either, and am looking forward to trying Lanun/Infernals soon - other thread lists Kurios as likely top rushing civ for powering out the Infernals asap, but Lanun seem a little more balanced if you want to grab a bit of extra research to make Hyborem's entrance easier - Bill Bisco noted that Seems like Lanun's financial/coves approach, as opposed to a Philosophical rush, would provide the better tools for grabbing extra techs - I might add Warfare to that for Conquest. Anyway, super basic question: for generating manes/angels, does it count when you kill a unit with an ability (spread religion, settle a city, sac to Demon's Altar) or only combat? Seems like Infernals should be able to crank out high pop cities pretty easily if it does.
The Infernals' units are not living, and so nothing they do with them will create Manes. Just encourage other AV nations to get into wars (or attack them yourself if necessary) and the Manes will flow in. I do not belive that settling or spreading a religion will trigger the creation of an Angel for the Mercurians. Sacrificing the unit at a Demon's Altar probably will, although access to a Demon's Altar could be a problem. They can always just suicide their living units into an enemy, though, so there's not much need to go to any tricks to find an Altar.
Just wait until you're playing on an Erebus map with a tundra nation and no potential. That's the time to rush out Hyborem and ditch your old nation, whatever it is, for something that surely has to be better. If you have a great starting position you often waste it by going for Hyborem, so asking how fast can you rush Hyborem is almost as relevant as asking whether you can burn your Yggdrasil down?
Basium is my favorite to play, and ranks in my top 5 civs overall. If you check the 10 tips thread, I wrote a piece for the Mercurians. Both the Mercurians and the Infernal are extremely militaristic; you need to war almost non-stop to benefit with them. The exception to this is if you want to switch into economic mode with Hyborem long enough to grab Fanaticism so you can get Malevolent Designs when you build the Infernal Grimiore. Building lots of Priests with Basium is good regardless of your religion, because when they die they will rejoin you as Angels(assuming you are RoK, Order or Empyrean; CoE, OO or FoL Mercurians, while possible, removes this powerful source of reinforcements for your army). I say Priests because they gain experience when idling unlike Disciples, and they have decent strength on their own and thus can fight, so when they die and become Angels they can start with quite a few promotions. If you are desperately short on Angels, then build Disciples instead; they won't have any experience(other than what they gain from wonders/civics), and are much weaker than priests, but they are cheaper to build and can be suicided to gain Angels. Just remember you're feeding EXP to whatever is killing them.
Basium is my favorite to play, and ranks in my top 5 civs overall. If you check the 10 tips thread, I wrote a piece for the Mercurians. Both the Mercurians and the Infernal are extremely militaristic; you need to war almost non-stop to benefit with them. The exception to this is if you want to switch into economic mode with Hyborem long enough to grab Fanaticism so you can get Malevolent Designs when you build the Infernal Grimiore. Building lots of Priests with Basium is good regardless of your religion, because when they die they will rejoin you as Angels(assuming you are RoK, Order or Empyrean; CoE, OO or FoL Mercurians, while possible, removes this powerful source of reinforcements for your army). I say Priests because they gain experience when idling unlike Disciples, and they have decent strength on their own and thus can fight, so when they die and become Angels they can start with quite a few promotions. If you are desperately short on Angels, then build Disciples instead; they won't have any experience(other than what they gain from wonders/civics), and are much weaker than priests, but they are cheaper to build and can be suicided to gain Angels. Just remember you're feeding EXP to whatever is killing them.
