Sheaim - no training yard?

ohh come on xanaqui ,

please tell me it was a time when all your cities are popping planar gate critters which you then move to your capital to sac for hammers and research.... only to have them reborn as undead (i really need to try mokka's, not gotten there yet).

i still say the sheiam and the calabim are currently broken as all hell.
 
daladinn said:
ohh come on xanaqui ,

please tell me it was a time when all your cities are popping planar gate critters which you then move to your capital to sac for hammers and research.... only to have them reborn as undead (i really need to try mokka's, not gotten there yet).

i still say the sheiam and the calabim are currently broken as all hell.
Click to expand...

maybe most other civs just aren't done yet in comparison?
 
daladinn said:
ohh come on xanaqui ,

please tell me it was a time when all your cities are popping planar gate critters which you then move to your capital to sac for hammers and research.... only to have them reborn as undead (i really need to try mokka's, not gotten there yet).
Click to expand...
I'm afraid that I didn't think of that - Even if I didn't have the Cauldron (I don't recall), I had Demons' Altars, which would have given me something for the sacrifice. On the other hand, by this point, it was largely irrelevant - I could easily have taken on all the remaining players combined.

By the way, when you're ready, your Sheaim strategy tips are a bit out of date. I'd be happy to update them, but other than the obvious (Sheaim don't get Axemen any more), I don't think that I'm the best one to comment on Sheaim strategy.
daladinn said:
i still say the sheiam and the calabim are currently broken as all hell.
Click to expand...
I agree with the Calabim; they have no real disadvantage until they gain Vampirism, and once they do, they're overpowering. I'd guess that they're even worse with the new Sacrifice the Weak civic (I haven't played them since .16). I think I'm going to have to improve my Sheaim game before I give an opinion on that one.
 
Well, loads of stuff to chew on here. I thought there must be more to this faction than first appears, and obviously this was the place to come to prove that! I'm not quite sure what the "broken-ness" is - is this a wonder exploit? My knowlege is somewhat less encyclopaedic than you guys!

I was actually playing the Ljosalfar (spelling?) the last few days (boo! hiss! silk-pants wearing tree-hugger!) and by chance found the Sheaim on another continent. They were at war with a friend of mine, so I sent in an experienced mage and hunter who were over there exploring, to help my chums out. A Sheaim conjuror ripped my hunter limb from limb! My mage wisely cast escape, and back in the capital suggested that God King Amelanchier set his foreign policy to "fend for themselves"!
 
so here's a somewhat related question:

Pyre Zombies. I was just playing around with them for the first time. They don't seem to be doing much collateral damage at all. I attacked a stack of a hunter plus a few warriors with three pyre zombies earlier. All 3 died... the first two dealt no collateral damage at all, and finally on the third one of the warriors was dropped down from 2 strength to 1.9.
Later, I attacked a single warrior with a pyre zombie, 75% chance to win. I lost, the zombie exploded... and the warrior was unharmed.
Considering that the pyre zombie has to die to deal collateral damage, that seems kinda weak.

Have they always been like this? Or am I just having bad luck this game?
 
In the middle game (tier 2-3 units) all you have to do to have a decent army is:
- Build Wyrmhold to have 2 Chaos Mana.
- Build Adepts and make them fight Goblins if possible. Give them combat promotions.
- Upgrade Adepts to Conjurers and summon swarms of Chaos Marauders.

If you also build Stigmata of the Uborn then you'll have Entropy Mana, which is good for conjurers too (Wither + good summons). And the Stigmata promotion has a very good sinergy with Sheaim.
 
Ringtailed said:
so here's a somewhat related question:

Pyre Zombies. I was just playing around with them for the first time. They don't seem to be doing much collateral damage at all. I attacked a stack of a hunter plus a few warriors with three pyre zombies earlier. All 3 died... the first two dealt no collateral damage at all, and finally on the third one of the warriors was dropped down from 2 strength to 1.9.
Later, I attacked a single warrior with a pyre zombie, 75% chance to win. I lost, the zombie exploded... and the warrior was unharmed.
Considering that the pyre zombie has to die to deal collateral damage, that seems kinda weak.

Have they always been like this? Or am I just having bad luck this game?
Click to expand...

Yeah they don't help much with the explosion. And considering they can't be upgraded makes this unit a bit pointless IMHO. Either the explosion should deal a lot more damage or they should be upgradable to Eidolons like Diseased Corpses.
 
I was curious about these Sheaim, so I scrapped my Calabim game, installed patch 'f' and started a new game. After getting a few planar gates built, I have marauders and witches to spare, and some other new creature started popping out just before I quit for the night. I'm thinking about declaring a war just to keep them busy, and maybe lose a few to drop my maintenance.

So marauders don't have a support cost? Do they count as defenders for city happiness? (at work ATM, can't test it out)
 
Marauders do, I think, since I don't think they're demons - demons and undead don't contribute protection happiness.
 
Well, I've now returned to the Sheaim to try out the advice found here. Now that I understand the real value of the planar gates, I'm getting my own force of marauders and Mobius witches, which makes quite a difference.

It's still a bit of a struggle to get established. I'm researching up to Knowlege of the Ether together with some basics (agriculture, education, exploration etc) and festivals to start, but I'm finding I still need some luck as my warriors often seem to have the life expectancy of a soap herring. Once KotE is done, I try to use adepts in place of warriors, so they get the xp, but when the infrastructure is still in its infancy, the loss of an adept hurts a lot more than a warrior! These pressures ease considerably once summoned units start appearing from the gates, but that makes for a pretty fragile start.

One idea I've been trying out is to nab Warfare and the Form of the Titan early, for the xp bonus, assuming I can get a unit up to lvl 6 by then (a lot easier with Tebryn than Os-Gabella, since adepts will naturally grow in xp faster anyway, though they'll still need some "field experience"). In retrospect, I wonder if this is worth the effort, since I don't think summoned creatures (either from a planar gate or by spell) benefit from it, much like they don't benefit from apprenticeship. Adepts do however, so if I usually treat them to Combat I strait out of the guild. I still have a nagging suspicion I could be spending my time and effort better on something else. Anyone care to offer an opinion?
 
TravellingHat said:
Well, I've now returned to the Sheaim to try out the advice found here. Now that I understand the real value of the planar gates, I'm getting my own force of marauders and Mobius witches, which makes quite a difference.

It's still a bit of a struggle to get established. I'm researching up to Knowlege of the Ether together with some basics (agriculture, education, exploration etc) and festivals to start, but I'm finding I still need some luck as my warriors often seem to have the life expectancy of a soap herring. Once KotE is done, I try to use adepts in place of warriors, so they get the xp, but when the infrastructure is still in its infancy, the loss of an adept hurts a lot more than a warrior! These pressures ease considerably once summoned units start appearing from the gates, but that makes for a pretty fragile start.

One idea I've been trying out is to nab Warfare and the Form of the Titan early, for the xp bonus, assuming I can get a unit up to lvl 6 by then (a lot easier with Tebryn than Os-Gabella, since adepts will naturally grow in xp faster anyway, though they'll still need some "field experience"). In retrospect, I wonder if this is worth the effort, since I don't think summoned creatures (either from a planar gate or by spell) benefit from it, much like they don't benefit from apprenticeship. Adepts do however, so if I usually treat them to Combat I strait out of the guild. I still have a nagging suspicion I could be spending my time and effort better on something else. Anyone care to offer an opinion?
Click to expand...

I am trying Sheaim for the first time as well. I had a struggle to survive raging barbs until I was able to produce Rangers, then I started expanding, and finally got the ether, and started building planar gates. Although I do have the techs for summoners, I have so far only build a couple. The gates are pumping out so many creatures and I ended up over-expanding. One of the AIs got annihilated and when I got to his area the barbs had three of it's former, decent population cities occupied. I couldn't resist taking them even if it did force me into city-states. Of course now I have been forced into research and building strictly financial buildings for the last 100 turns or so, and still struggling as the gates keep pumping out more creatures and I still have to expand my base (IE- more settlers and cities) so that I don't end up falling behind. So this is definitely a different type of game than I am used to. I don't see the Sheaim as a defensive civilization at all like somebody earlier mentioned. I have more troops than I know what to do with so I just sent a huge stack towards the Malakim, the number 2 civilization, because if I'm going to be paying maintenance on them I might as well use them.

I do realize I will have to take over their cities and that will further strain my economy until I get markets, courthouses and money-changers built, but if I just raze them the other AIs will just re-settle the area.

Oh, I did also detour long enough to summon Hyborem. I figured I better get him out while there was still a bit of unsettled land in the middle of the map. He started right next to the Balseraph. Poor Perpentach :mwaha: I am wondering how the hell terrain will affect my economy when it eventually spreads. Going to be interesting, that's for sure.
 
Aside: elves really need to be added to the list of overpowered groups, due to their strong economy from the get go and the absolute horror of their economy once they terraform everything. They can also run Liberty/Caste while still using their happiness generating religious civic to seal the deal.

But we were talking the Sheaim. If you're upset about economy issues (which is a very real problem if you beeline arcane techs and forgo Currency, Trade, etc.), there's no real winning with them - you can either expand and take on additional city maintenance, or raze enemy cities and drive up the armageddon counter, causing your Gates to spawn more units and cost you more maintenance. On the other hand, gaining total control of your continent is a beautiful thing, and once you plunk down your 3 palaces in a triangle you'll be alright.

Hell terrain screws food production and also brings fire, destroying many improvements. Since you're going to be eating it anyway, you might as well make everyone else eat it by driving the Armageddon counter up (Good civs never get it, but eventually the rest of the world gets it), the moreso because your Sacrifice the Weak civic lets you adapt to the lower amounts of food while everyone else suffers massive setbacks.

I usually try to kill Hyborem, just because I don't like the idea of him getting stronger every time I lose a unit (unless there's Permanent Alliances as an option). I just don't trust the guy... there's something about him.
 
Most civs have some very powerful aspect balanced out by a deficiency in some other area. The pyre zombies are pretty bad, but I would consider this a balancing feature of the Sheaim.

Ljosalfar have slow workers and take a while to get up and fully running, and until they get Mages have trouble with invading enemy stacks covered with Woodsman units since they can't build catapults.

Calabim... ok they don't really have a drawback except for anti-undead spells which the AI doesn't use.
 
I've now started a new Tebryn Arbandi game (having just had those damned goodies trash my wonderful elven campaign with their accursed altars! grr!).

Working on the advice given here, and aware of early vulnerabilities, I largely bee-lined Knowlege of the Ether, with a brief detour through agri/edu and writing first (get the free sage for an academy in my capital to leverage God King's commerce bonus).

It turned out I had the Elohim on my doorstep, and since they beat me in my last game, I wanted revenge. With a mage guild up, I cranked out three adepts before going for the Catacomb, meanwhile researching festivals, necromancy and up to bronze working. At this point I had four cities and two mana nodes (essential for death and entropy).

The barbarians all seemed to want a slice of me, but I'd stocked up on basic warriors. I took some loses and had to rebuild a little, but I survived the onslaught. This slackened off by the time I could get pyre zombies, so I attacked the Elohim...

...and went through them like a hot knife through butter! My pyre zombies just ran around razing everything in sight (to make up for my woeful income!), while my adepts went from city to city. Much as summoned skeletons aren't much of a match for a promoted fortified warrior, I could instantly replace my loses, and the Elohim couldn't. Also, contagion and wither helped reduce their defenses beofr sending the bonies in. It took time, but as I progressed from one city to the next, I bolstered my offensive army with Mobius witches, and so more skeletons, making each successive siege that much quicker.

The Elohim have now been wiped from history, I've got a decent city base, I've just founded the Ashen Veil and the Cult of the Dragon, and I'm replacing my warriors with a garrison promoted archer in each city, plus a few tar demons. Research is running at 50% though, so I'm cranking out courthouses and need to do some economic recovery before the next putsch. This is looking a lot more promising than my previous forays with the Sheaim.

I think the main thing I've taken from this thread is this - use summoned forces, and use them aggressively.

Hopefully things are looking rosy for my foul little coven! Of course, there is the small matter of that dragon that just moved in next door, but into each life a little rain of fire must fall.
 
I don't have any luck beelining magic - anything above Noble I always feel the need for a religion early to allow for more happiness among my surly people.

Here's my early Sheaim research goals, in order (skipping prereqs save for where there are options).
Writing - free great sage = free academy.
OO - my favorite early religion - slaves really help out your early improvements, and the Drown are a nice alternative to Pyre Zombies when you want stackable disease immune units.
KotE - start cranking out adepts so they have some levels by the time you have something for them to do.
Mind Stapling - yay! Excess population becomes your friend.
Necromancy.
Mining.
Summoning.
Bronze Working.
Priesthood - so I can crank out a couple Cultists for later.
Trade and Currency.
Veil.

It takes longer to get to the Sheaim strengths this way, but at the same time the Drown and Saverous really shore up your early weaknesses. I use Saverous, Mobius Witches w. Contagion, and Summoners to defeat my least favorite local trade partner (or the one with Reagents) before switching to Veil. It's sad to lose Saverous, but Tower of Complacency + Sacrifice the Weak makes me feel better (tends to hang around 40 pop or so before the lack of hygene limits growth).

Elven followup - I find the whole construction tree is a much later priority for elves, given that they don't need bronze working for dealing with forests, and that they really even don't need much in the way of mining given their excellent forest production (Ancient Forest / Plains / Hill / Town is still 1 food / 3 production / 5 gold). Their slow workers are a drawback, but one I'd happily make for any other race given their ability to build in forests.

But I don't tend to use catapults that much for any race - I much prefer Contagion for pretty much anyone with either Undead/Demons or Divine spellcasters with Life.
 
The Sheaim is the one civ where I'd seriously consider skipping everything and just rushing for magic.
Play as Tebryn.
Get: Exploration, Necromancy and Summoning.
Hook up a death mana and build conjurers with Death II, Dimensional I, Spell Extension I and rest combat.
Go to war. That's it, you just won the game, unless there are multiple continents or you're facing real people.
 
ok, big big things to consider and try for as sheiam...

1 - get death mana ASAP since adepts can make skeles and these can easily fend off barbs.

2 - the veil is honestly the only religion to choose , and damn near worth rushing for.

try this tactic guys ,
1- agriculture (you need food)
2- mysticism
3- build the 2 buildings that allow for great people, start putting both on great people
4- knowledge of the ether, make adepts and get death mana for skeletons. if you can build the planar portal also
5- try to get up to 3 cities (mroe cities is more free units)
6- beeline for corruption of spirit. by now you should either have popped a great sage (used for holy city) or popped a priest (used to speed research)
7- build rosier
8- priesthood . fear , fear , fear .... the ritualist (there is a good reason they need reagents, get these fast btw)
9- beeline for highpriests. start pushing holy wars

man i love the sheiam.
 
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