Random thoughts about the Luchuirp

[heisenberg]

Title says it all--was playing the Luchuirp late into the night, this post was fueled by the potent mix of the lack of sleep with caffeine from my numerous cups of coffee to keep me awake~

Brief overview of the Luchuirp:
From what I have seen from other threads (and I too believe), that the Luchuirp are one of the higher tiered civs simply due to their ability to sling fireballs around en masse. This has been nerfed in 0.34 by pushing blasting workshops to sorcery instead of elementalism. Not too great a nerf, but pushes the Luchuirp's military explosion slightly further down the line.

Their mid-game once they hit sorcery would be to simply mass-produce wood/iron golems, a maintenance crew of enchantment adepts, and march the fireball slinging army over to the next civ.

Their late-game? More of the same, maybe in larger numbers, maybe an odd nullstone mixed in, maybe the odd archmage, but essentially exactly the very same.

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If we examine their tech-tree carefully what would strike us immediately would be the numerous changes in placements of units/abilities.
I believe, (or at least the way I play the Luchuirp), that they are simply focused down the metal/arcane line.

I then made the following observations:


1. Once the Luchuirp hit their mid-game potential of wood/iron golems and blasting workshops, available at iron-working/sorcery,
mythril working, divine essence, mythril weapons, for that huge amount of beakers required, seems like an utter waste of time.

Maybe I did over exaggerate a little, but if we look at the main things unlocked:
Mythril resource--Only of use -if- you were just simply so unlucky not to get iron for iron golems, didnt build Mines of Gal-dur, weapon upgrade for their high tier mounted units (again, not a Luchuirp speciality)
Nullstone Golems--Str 13 unit, over a str 10 iron golem, cannot get upgrades, immune to magic, limited to 4.
Really the only reason why I build final tier national units are to get them highly promoted, thus multiplying their additional str manifold. The magic resistance is simply only situationally useful like when dealing with the riders with large magic bonuses.
Bone Golem--Another Str 13 unit, with cannibalize, and resurrects in capital when killed.
Once again non-promotable, cannibalism is useful on defense against stacks, being resurrected in capital upon death is really much less useful for a non-promotable unit. I must add though that personally I do like the cannibalism part of them but I really cant see how a magically bound bunch of bones would just reappear in the capital after they are scattered and destroyed. hehe~
Blood of the Pheonix would be really the only main thing going for these few techs, but really comparing the great beaker costs to these boni listed above, I really do not find them as appealing efficiency wise. Not to mention you need to have bothered going into Theocracy to research divine essence.

2. Recon/archery line is officially dead. Maybe unless you did go into CoE/poisons/guilds for those awesome dwarven shadows but... there isn't much to the recon line, unless you went for druids, which is another very considerable tech cost for almost zero mid-way benefits, since the Luchuirp lack rangers. What really irks me most is that to research machinery for their clockwork golems requires bowyers--which doesn't make sense except for their 4 crossbow units.

3. Warfare and Military Strategy feels really awkward without their city raider/blitz benefits. Though you still get those national buildings which still quite justifies their research.

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So after I was a little bored with my game and was sipping my coffee, I thought about these few issues and some random thoughts came to me...

Solving (2) should be easy, iirc FF has implemented machinery without the bowyer pre-req, but instead added the pre-req on the crossbow unit. This should pretty much make sense with a simple tweak.

The whole issue of fireballs/(1) was a bit messier...
I love the Luchuirp for their interesting style of golems, but after a while, it does seem that they are a one-trick pony. The ideal solution would be some kind of variation to the civ as a whole, and perhaps more late-game developments--other than perhaps a few national units (which cant get promoted )

I know these are going to sound kinda weird but I suppose I could toss a few ideas around to see how you guys think:

Fireballs/Blasting workshops: Since the whole civ is quite built around this mechanic, some argue that fireball-slinging golems are too overpowered, thus this has been pushed back to sorcery. However, this basically means that the Luchruip are more vulnerable early-game, but are still formidable once they hit sorcery.

I hereby propose an idea of upgrading golems.
Yes this is going to sound counter to that belief that golems cannot get promotions, but thematically I don't see why the Luchuirp engineers cannot outfit specific golems with specific upgrades--just like you would rig up your sports car for example (or as a geek like me would tinker with my PC)

To counter this problem with fireballs, we could possibly make the fireball-tossing an upgrade--you know like fitting the golem with a flame-thrower (or however the golems toss fireballs). Just charge an upgrade fee I suppose, or even keep the golem from moving for a few turns during upgrades, or perhaps force each blasting workshop to only upgrade one golem at a time (that would make sense).
Effect: You want that fireball-slinging army of iron golems? Pay for it. Take time to upgrade it. This could possibly limit the amount of fireball-golems the Luchuirp have, and perhaps make the destruction of the promoted golems more painful. (I sense all the Luchuirp lovers reading this coming at me with hatchets for suggesting such blasphemy )

Mythril. Seems like a very useless resource to the Luchuirp. For a metal that is supposedly stronger than iron, the benefits of having mythril is lost upon the Luchuirp over iron. If I am not mistaken, mythril doesn't even allow you to build any golems faster. For a civ of dwarven golem engineers, the total uselessness of such a precious metal over iron seems totally wrong.

Proposition: If we do not want to add free promotions such as mythril weapons on golems, I suppose we could unlock a new upgrade to golems with the mythril resource.
(Warning: tossing ideas around now) Maybe have some kind of a mythril armour plating for defensive upgrade? Mythril weapons of some sort for offensive upgrades? Maybe with say mythril and warfare we could have some sort of city-raider upgrade? With gunpowder and machinery some sort of collateral damage upgrade? lolgatlinggun
This could perhaps allow us to custom-make our own golems--I can vision a civ such as the Luchuirp having engineers trying to tinker with their creations for better efficiency to suit its combat purpose.

Balance: Of course we could also add in suitable prices for balancing purposes--forcing the Luchuirp to pay for such very expensive upgrades. Or maybe limit the number of upgrades--that should prevent creation of some supergolems, after all you cant cram every single weapon into a golem with a limited carrying capacity.

This could overall also improve the viability of national units, solving the problem I stated earlier such that they might be used instead of mass-producing generic iron golems.

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On a separate note, I found that the Luchuirp has a severe deficiency against assassins. There are simply no melee units which can take the guardsman promotion.
As it is now, a Luchuirp invasion force would be predominantly golems with its maintenance crew of adepts. I suppose the mages could get stoneskin for better defense late on but the adepts are practically naked against assassins.
They say that an army can only move as fast as its slowest unit. It also doesn't help that since the golems are non-promotable to even mobility I or commando, they basically have to move one tile at a time in enemy territory--easy fodder for assassins. The only possible way now is to bring counter assassins with commando to catch them, and it doesnt help that commando requires combat IV either.

Possibilities with an upgrade system would be perhaps to upgrade a few golems to guardsman for protection, or maybe to upgrade a few golems to mobility to catch assassins after they hit.

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So that was just a few cents of my suggestions on the Luchuirp.
I'm not sure if such an upgrade system could work for the Luchuirp, but for example, as shown in above instance when dealing with assassins, it is my belief that such a system could perhaps provide the kind of variation in the Luchuirp that is a hallmark of Fall from Heaven civilizations.

 

[slowcar]

at the moment you get fireball-throwing wood-golems - game won.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I always add a series of "Retrofit" spells that can be used to give golems specific promotions like Heavy, Light, City Raider, Fire II, Mobility, Blitz, Flanking, and Commando, most of which are mutually exclusive. These cost a little gold and a couple turns of immobility. Usually I make these castable only in cities with the proper UBs, but I've also considered making them available in the field when properly promoted dwarven adepts are present.

 

[heisenberg]

@slowcar:
which was kind of the point of this suggestion to try to limit the amount of fireball-slinging golems available, make it painful to lose promoted fireball-golems, and perhaps to slow the Luchuirp buildup of fireball-golems.
Just as 0.34 has done to push blasting workshops to sorcery but however it does not address the situation of overwhelming numbers of fireball-golems once the workshop is built.

@magister:
hehe the inclusion of properly promoted dwarven adepts (aka dwarven mechanics) in the field also sounds like an interesting addition to the idea.

 

[PotatoOverdose]

Well, you can always go for dwarven druids, add another unstoppable force to an already unstoppable force. Or you could just go down the religious line for the national/regular units thereof, none of them are golems. But really, once you get fireball slinging golems, it's game won for you unless you made some REALLY big mistakes early on. That's the reason I stopped playing as the chirp, inexpensive tech=win. Although in all fairness, against a decent human opponent, the new chirp have to survive to sorcery in order to win which does make them more balanced.

 

[nealhunt]

I largely agree with heisenberg. Luchuirp tend to play very much the same way each game because their options are quite limited.

More variety in golem promotions or unit types would be good. The obvious place to put them is in the parts of the tech tree where unit variety has been removed. The old buildings/promos or stuff like MagisterCultuum would help out.

Something like a mounted line with mechanical mounts would be cool, e.g. Horseman UU, Horseback Riding, Sculptor workshop, higher hammer cost (75?), speed 2, no resource requirement, living unit (only the mounts are mechanical). If you allowed the Warriors to upgrade to them you'd have a completely different military option, but it would still be thematic - gnomes using mechanical steeds running a trade empire.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

awesome post. I still think that wood golems should not be able to toss fireballs, only iron and above should. and btw every single golem type should have one single metal prereq imho ( can't remember right now the exceptions but I'm pretty sure that you can build iron golems with iron OR mithril, which sounds wrong to me. if you have mithril and no iron, build mithril golems instead. )

 

[smusebaer]

Cool idea, customfit Golems. One upgrade type for every unit they miss.
And just one upgrade for Woodgolems (yes and no fireballs) (and mudgolems)
two upgrade for Mitralgolems and three for the late ones.
And the changse to refit them in the citys.
That´s quiet cool.

 

[merciary]

The reason the mirthil is useless to the Luchuirp is mostly because of flavor. If you look at the mirthil golem's pedia entry it shows that without divine help it's impossible to make a golem out of mirthil. But I agree with the retrofit idea, as a big Luchuirp fan I've always found it irritating that none the Luchuirp engineers never found out a way to put armor, weapons, other spells, etc on there potentially versatile golems.

 

[heisenberg]

Yep, I do understand the part about mythril being somewhat resistant to being enchanted into a golem--as shown in the mythril golem pedia entry.
Which is all kind of good, but the main reason why I brought mythril up was to redress the lack of usage of such a "precious" metal, unlocked by a heavy beaker cost. The mythril golem avatar is cool, but how often does the AC get bumped up to 70 for it to be unlocked?

I could perhaps find mythril upgrades to be in sync with the pedia entry--not a full golem built by enchanting mythril(that would be the avatar) but mythril parts/weapons/pieces that need not be enchanted, just crafted.

 

[Deon]

Well, the author told about mythril as plating for golems, not essense. So, while you can't enchant mythril into golems, why not to give your iron golems mythril coats, hats and umbrellas to fight the rain of enemy troops?

I quite like the idea.

P.S. Magister, you're talking about your modmod here and there, that you make this and that... Where can I get it?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I probably won't post it until January. I'm really too busy to work on it during the school year. I've played around with implementing some stuff recently, but because of that I've gotten kind of behind on some homework.

 

[zup]

Well I like the idea of Luchuirp paying hefty amounts for golem upgrades. We have two kinds of dwarves then. Luchuirp who use their gold to improve their empire and Khazad who hoard their gold to improve their empire.

Off topic but once again I say: Change "dragon's horde" to "dragon's hoard" ... (Playing an older version, might have been changed already.)

 

[Gray-Z]

I was thinking there could be a late game Luchuirp only ritual that would make a number of your golems alive so that they can gain promotions like Barnaxus.

Available at omniscience or somewhere very late. Future tech?

Lets call it Anima Mercury.

Completing the ritual creates a number of items in the city and you can pick which golems you want to turn alive by picking them up with the golem. 4-8 or something. You could turn some of your T4 golems alive but not all of them.

Lore wise could be that the ritual specially enhances mercury to have a mind of its own. A sort of special golem blood when it runs inside the golem it becomes alive.

or i dunno. getting late. mind makes up crazy things.

 

[sputnik323]

What about the Luchuirp mimicking the illians and allow a more expensive ritual to unlock the mithril golem? Since there are counters to alruic assended, make the ritual really really expensive for hammers, and keep the option to make him cheaply if the AC hits 70. I have never even seen the mithril golem in play

 

[Deon]

Build Barnaxus.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I like Gray-Z's idea. it would be cool to turn your golems into sentient beings

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I doubt that the Luchuirp could ever make golems sentient no matter how many rituals the perform. Only gods (like Mulcarn) can do that.

 

[ushram]

at the moment you get fireball-throwing wood-golems - game won.

As I have stated previously the best way to fix this problem was not to move the tech req but to make the blasting workshops a national wonder.
Right now people(in MP games) are just massing stacks of 15-30 WG's and fireball'n other civs to death.

I like Hei's ideas on this topic as well.

 

[heisenberg]

Heh, I do remember you mentioning it a while back to me
It'll work for mid-gamish, but I would think it'll make the Luchuirp kind of weak lategame without counter-balances.

Suppose we compare late-game "basic" (massed) units of say iron golems (str 10, 180 hammers) and gargoyles (str 8), and those of some generic civ's metal/archery line for example of champions (str 6, 120 hammers), longbows (5/6).
(I'd be theory-crafting a bit here so please forgive me if i forgot a few things here and there lol)
Once everyone else gets iron (pretty common reaching endgame), you get champions (str 8, 120 hammers), and longbows (7/8).
By this time good old Barney should definitely already have combat V thus giving empower V to your golems-- +50% str.
At this time, I would say that the slightly higher base str of the iron golems (though 50% more expensive), would still balance out the lack of specific promotions compared to those champions with them.
However, as I did point out in my original post, that once T4 national units become available, Luchuirp's golem T4s are nowhere near in comparison to highly promoted phalanxes/immortals/berserkers/beastmasters for example.
Currently, this is balanced, perhaps overly so, by the fact that almost all of your golems are fireball-slingers, with a large enough stack (because dmg from fireballs become relatively weak later on).

Suppose blasting workshop was made a national wonder. By late-game after half or more of other civs has died out and empires becoming large, the raw output of units from your capital (or whereever you placed your workshop) becomes quite a small percentage of the empire output.
By doing so, with Luchuirp's T4 golems being inferior to generic T4 units, loss of a majority of fireballs (which are already weak lategame in damaging high str units), overall lack of mobility of golems (all movement 1 and cannot obtain mobility/commando), I would fear that the Luchuirp would be overly punished by this change in lategame, without suitable adjustments to Luchuirp lategame units.
Once a civ techs up to mythril working and create str 10 champions for 2/3 of the price of iron golems, and can gain specific promos from combat, its effectively the final nail in Luchuirp's coffin.

I'm sure there is the argument that there are still other dwarven T4 units such as druids, war-chariots, but those would require a massive deviation off the metal/arcane lines that I would believe is the general strategy for Luchuirp. Not to mention that the general bulk of their army would be much weaker, even with those T4 units.

I suppose we could then justify that by saying that the Luchuirp would then have to pursue an aggressive midgame strategy when its at its peak to dominate before the lategame. However, I do not really believe that any civ should really be punished in late-game potential--sometimes terrain factors/continental factor prevail in somewhat limiting midgame expansions. Making the Luchuirp much weaker than a generic civ during the lategame would make it horribly painful to even try to stand up against the lategame powerhouses (Calabim and the like).




(the worst late-game "punishments" off the top of my head would be perhaps... barbarian's -10% tech? then again the clan gets warrens to make up, idk about Charadon, I prefer Mahala anyway. (half-priced upgrades in the middle of a war with her running slavery and capturing slaves keeps her as a viable choice later on). And perhaps the lack of certain units lategame (like elves w/o siege, but they can run such massive cities!). Or if you consider having an early hero to be a disadvantage, since they become obsolete (gah that includes Luchuirp too). But I'd say that the above change would hurt significantly much more than these lol~)