The Chief
Jonas Endain is Spiritual, Expansive and Barbarian leader.
I prefer him because I don't like straight warmonger approach, even playing for orcs.
Spiritual trait gives cheap temples, fast and experienced priests, and no anarchy. The last ability should allow to play freely with different civics and religions, so our game could be more flexible.
Expansive gives cheap settlers, granaries and harbors. Also it gives +3
to every city. And this could be valuable in late game, especially, if we convert to Ashen Veil, when every additional health equals an additional worker.
Barbarian gives peace with all those annoying hordes that attack all other nations, so the early game should be much easier with building and exploration. On the other hand, we have -10%
penalty and no starting technology. Add to this lack of libraries, and you'll come to conclusion, that you should compensate low research efficiency with fast and wide expansion. Because of peace, Barbarian leader do not afraid all Horsemen of Apocalypses, so rising AC is quite safety to orcs. Barbarian State will declare war if Player's score is 50% above Second Place's Score. Once lost, it is impossible to return to Peace with the Barbarians. Penalty to
continues to apply even when Peace is lost.
So, the idea to use such a brilliant leader is early exploration and expansion, rising commerce for compensate science penalty, adopting or even founding religion or two.
Since we play for increasing AC and sooner or later will get hell terrain, we shouldn't be forest oriented and therefore Fellowship of Leaves or lumbermills have no sense for us.
The Palace and its Magic
The Clan of Embers Palace gives -40% War Weariness. This ability could shine in late game, when the war amongst Good and Evil will become permanent. So, it could save us a couple of
Also, Palace produce 3 kinds of mana: Body, Nature and Fire
Body gives +5% healing rate(cumulative) within our borders and access to spells:
Haste (+1
for 1 turn)
Regeneration (can heal while moving, +10% healing rate until fully recovered)
Graft Flesh (Create Flesh Golem)
Haste and Regeneration are very usefull spells for attacks, where you should move quickly and heal quickly. While Graft Flesh could create a real Machine of War, combing early, weak but experienced units with late, inexperienced but strong.
Nature gives access to spells:
Treetop Defence (Fortifying in Forest)
Poisoned Blade (+1 Poison strength to Recon units)
Vitalize (Upgrading terrain)
Generally these spells are good for neutrality and defence. Although Treetop Defence and Poisoned Blade could be useful in attack too, we need only 1 or 2 such spellcasters.
Fire gives access to spells:
Blaze (create Smoke in Forests or Jungles. Smoke add -10% tile defence and produce fire with a time)
Fireball (Summons Fireball: 0
+ 4Fire, 2
, flying, collateral damage (max.30%), and could bombard city defence -10%)
Summon Fire Elemental (Summons Fire Elemental: 6
+3Fire +1Fire Affinity, 2
, collateral damage (max.30%))
This mana is one of the best and suits orcs very well. Blaze could be useful in attack, destroying opponents forests. Also it could block paths with a fire, making flaming tile impossible to walk through for many races, while naturally fireproof orcs could easily move back and forth. Also, Blaze could be used in houseworks for clearing our territory from forests and, more valuable, from jungles. So, we could even not research Bronze Working for removing jungles. Fireball is universal and very useful magic weapon and does not need any recommendations. Fire Elemental is tough enough to kill or damage very strong defenders. Note, Angels and Demons have resistance to fire, while frostlings are vulnerable.
So, the most useful is Fire Mana, followed by Body and with Nature in the end. Most of our shamans(as many, as possible) should be Fire oriented, 3-4 (for a number or attacking stacks) - Body oriented and only 1-2 - Nature oriented. Also, it has a sense to have some additional Fire Nodes - it will give free spell promotions and will make stronger Elemental of Fire.
Considering obtaining Tomb of Sucellus (Life Mana Node) on the opposite coast, we will need only one type of Mana, Enchantment, to build Tower of Alteration. This will make our units more spell resistant and our spells stronger. Also, Alteration could be easily discovered by Great Sage. Anyway, Life Mana and Enchantment Mana could be very useful to Clan of Embers.
Also we could try to obtain all elemental mana - Fire, Water, Air, Earth - to give all elementals +1
. Water and Earth could be obtained in Octopus Overlords and Runes of Kilmorph holy cities. Another way - building nodes. But the most orcish way - vassalize opponents with that kind of mana. The potential victims:
Air Mana - Balseraph, Hippus, Lanun, Ljosalfar
Earth - Bannor, Doviello, Khazad, Luchuirp(they also have Enchantment), Mercurians
Water - Elohim, Gregori (they also have Enchantment), Kuriotates, Lanun
As we see Lanun, Luchuirp and Gregori could be very useful vassals giving us two types of mana we need. The first two could be easy targets, sinces they have hard start. On the other hand, vassalize needs Feudalism technology, that could be researched only in middle game.
to be continued...
vs usual 80
