Scions - how do YOU set them up?

[TimSLS]

One thing to mention is, as the scions there's a lot more value to plopping your cities down on a prime square. Hills Plains is great for the extra production in the city square. Or on an appropriate recourse that will give it extra commerce or production point (whereas in some other civs you might be inclined to save that recource for the greater benefit of being worked after improvements). And, echoing earlier comments, I also don't worry about conflicts in city crosses, prefering to have many smaller cities, preferently on hills (and then use spells to make them plains).

On another note, I do tend to focus on awakening spawn, and usually press it up to 30% or so by around turn 200 on normal speed. Though I haven't really tried using reborn production much, as I have trouble keeping interest in a game much beyond turn 200. Though I'm sure you can get it going full swing earlier if you focus on it, and I am going to try that soon.

 

[Valkrionn]

Ahh. I usually play Scions as a slow, marching army of death as opposed to rushing with upgraded Alexi (I assume she's now called Korinna? Why the name change?)

D'oh. I keep forgetting about the name change. Was my first question when the Scions were incorporated lol. Apparently, Vehem kept confusing her with Alexis.

 

[Vehem]

D'oh. I keep forgetting about the name change. Was my first question when the Scions were incorporated lol. Apparently, Vehem kept confusing her with Alexis.

A pair of not-quite-undead-but-live-practically-forever ladies with one letter between their names? Who wouldn't be confused

 

[Moos]

This might be an propriate thread.
I'm wondering a bit of what units you folks go for whan doing conquests?
I find the Scion's axemen and champion replacers to be greatly annoying with the extra support.
(unless I'm working on a hugely outdated source that is)

 

[WarKirby]

This might be an propriate thread.
I'm wondering a bit of what units you folks go for whan doing conquests?

Necromancers.

I got a few of those, with summon skeleton, combat III, cannibalize, etc. Basically, I just taught them death and corpus magic, and otherwise focused on combat abilities. After killing things, they get a stupidly powerful AOE spell for a while. Which you use to weaken things enough to defeat in direct combat.

I just walked all over the archos empire with that as my main offence. Aside from them, Korrina (black), and a few praetorian guards and archers for defending my mages.

 

[Iceciro]

This might be an propriate thread.
I'm wondering a bit of what units you folks go for whan doing conquests?
I find the Scion's axemen and champion replacers to be greatly annoying with the extra support.
(unless I'm working on a hugely outdated source that is)

No, no. You really can't march a horde of Honored Band or Principes around because of the Heavy Formation/Increased support. My attack stack is generally made up of Necromancers with summons and Korinna.

If you're playing as Korinna, you can take Order and use Crusaders as your main attack force, a personal favorite of mine.

 

[Randomness]

I beeline to sorcery-commue with nature. I horde death mana, and use uber redactor, lich, necromancer armies. In fact, with my army of 2 redactors and a lich, I reduced Ljolsfar from ten cities, to a capital, 3 times... Yay uber summons!

 

[DirtyFinger]

I cage alcinus in a small pocket of land and wait till he goes insane. He tends to summon skeletons to harass my troops instead of attacking himself.
Good way to train your troops.

 

[Iceciro]

Lately, I've really discovered the might of using the combination of
Apprenticeship - 2xp (a minor production debuff the Scions easily overcome)
Theocracy - Korinna (or Xiven T'nava in Fall Flat, once your Awakened spawn counter's dry) = 2xp
Command Posts - 2xp (Korinna or Xiven)
Conquest - 2xp (The scions don't eat food! Free XP!)
Charismatic Trait (The Risen Emperor and Xiven T'nava both have it!)

Lets you build, with the right order, highly experienced troops out of the gate. While the Honored Band aren't something you want to bring a LOT of, 1-5 highly promoted HBs can wreck things, since they'll do just fine on the defensive for your stack. City Raider 3 HBs are 8 offense in cities, 6 defense troops. And you can easily build those out of the door. If you're using the leader that follows/uses religions (Korinna in Fall Further, Xiven in Fall Flat) and you follow Order, Crusaders make a fantastic low-maintenance alternative to the upkeep costs of Honored Bands. And the Order Temple's production buff for military units cancels out the penalty from running Apprenticeship.

 

[zup]

I skip honored bands completely, unless I really need them. Perhaps one or two to keep Alcinus in check. Or if I need the defense that badly. I like units that are good for attacking. Generally I avoid war and building armies because there are just so many buildings to build and only so little population to build them. Perhaps if I built lots of doomies to get me reborn, gotta try it sometime. But usually any city of mine that has real production capability is building reborn.

 

[cIV_khanh93]

what is this corpus magic you speak of?

 

[Valkrionn]

It's the Scion only version of Body magic.

 

[Iceciro]

I usually build Honored Bands because they're pretty good offense with Cursed Weapons - unless I'm playing the Scion leader that can take religions, because then I can use that religion's troops as frontliners.

Lately I've discovered the viability of rushing down the recon line first, because the skirmishing scion troops are pretty solid, and Haunted Lands makes you 1) nigh-unattackable and 2) gives you money to support a massive research + Principe army.

 

[zup]

Come to think of it, with implaceable the Scions don't need melee as badly as other civs. Fast healing units who don't have to stop are pretty important imo.

 

[sable_twilight]

so here is a question for all you Scion players: hills with forests. Mine, Lumbermill, or Cottage (since I've noticed that cottages can be placed anywhere with the Scions.

 

[Valkrionn]

so here is a question for all you Scion players: hills with forests. Mine, Lumbermill, or Cottage (since I've noticed that cottages can be placed anywhere with the Scions.

Personally, I'd convert it to a Haunted Lands and THEN build either a mine or a cottage.

 

[Nadrak]

Korina -> god king (scientist from hut) -> RoK

At pop 5 wait until 4awakeneds are spawned (after pop 6 %chance for an awakened is dramatically lowered). Then build 2 new cities -> writing (Great library), or if you have lot of build only one city(for Alcinus), rest put in capital and go for Catacombs.

Between this build warrior spam and around turn 80 you could be able to kill your closest neighbour and grant yourself another city.

From this point, you will be most likely leading a scoreboard and ahead of everyone. This is how I usually start Scions.

 

[Cuteunit]

Risen Emperor because I love Rahserat's funny combination of mighty power and extreme naievete as laid out in the In A Bright Land story (I love that story, right up there with Mammon Cycle. Seriously, it took him how many centuries to figure out he didn't actually Fall yet?)

Rush mining, mine everything. I always go for the Red Korinna because the Black freaking sucks for early conquests and I play on crowded maps where early war happens fast. I kind of put off the Nature line because ghostwalkers suck for spreading the Haunt and natural Haunt spread makes little sense and is illogical... compare it to Auric's snow spreading or Priest of Leaves forest planting, neither takes six turns per square.. zzzzzz. By the time you get a few squares done with Ghostwalkers you've teched up to Redactors, who are hundreds of times more efficient in tiles per time, and they get Summon Wraith right away... they're the best Druid in the game. They're insane.

I wish Korinna the Black was immortal. The ability to turn into a ghostapult is not as cool, Implacable takes a long time to open up, and with such a low base STR she can't kill anything by middlegame anyways to need the healing. I also wish Korinna's voice reponses were not those of a german man

I keep one Honored Band in each important city because they are crazy hard Tax expensive for being a +1 defense -1 attack Axeman ( seriously why is the Scion melee line a defense line not an attack line?).

Focus on getting the beakers wonders into my capitol quickly since the Scion capitol basically is their empire and the other towns are afterthoughts at best. silver Circle, Crown of Akharien ( overpowered wonder that), settle great scientists down as they come.

Scions absolutely fall flat when Guilds come into play because other civs can take and control fifty cities each with 6 hammers and some large amount of Tax from Stonefire Smith in every town while the Scions float with their 4-6 cities shaking an angry fist at the sky.

 

[nzk13]

Ah, the scions. So much fun.

-I always play as the Emperor Reborn. Flavor wise, it fits as I've never felt comfortable spreading any religion in my cities. Strat wise, it ensures that I have a high strength unit that is able to wreak havoc once I've teched her free.
-I focus on a good starting site [up to 5 turns before settling if I can't find an insta-settle spot]. I then max out the capital as quickly as possible. Usually pop 6 by turn 100 [marathon].
-After that, I settle based on *production* and tech mining. Little cities of 2-4 depending on terrain. These cities start focusing on producing my endless hordes of Headless infantry.
-Tech to God King, and make my capital commerce city. This funds my first expansion wave and the extra production from GK allows me to pump out Reborn slowly but surely.
-By ~500 I've usually got the leaderboard, and can sit back and cruise to victory. I try to capture a complete continent, then engage in punitive wars against mine enemies IOT stock my population.
-I've stopped trying to keep the spawn counter up lately, which has changed my teching and building. Once I actually saw the numbers for them, I realized I could get more cumulative growth by teching towards conversion abilities and engaging in "lifocide".

I play like this, except I do an Axeman UU (forgot the name) rush when I get the tech. (With Korinna, of course.)

 

[sable_twilight]

So Scion players, what route do you go in terms of cities? A small handful of high population cities? Or a larger number of very small cities?

Scions absolutely fall flat when Guilds come into play because other civs can take and control fifty cities each with 6 hammers and some large amount of Tax from Stonefire Smith in every town while the Scions float with their 4-6 cities shaking an angry fist at the sky.

That's why I send Korinna (often with Bridget and the Baron in tow) to kill them, kill them all...