Synergies

[Bastian-Bux]

What great synergies have you found?

Lets start with a few obvious:

hidden nationality on an hero unit: get above the 100XP limit without starting a war. Also works for other units if you leveled them up on barbs.

vampirized werewolves: attack, use the ravenous werewolf for a snack, attack again. Even worse if your weres got mobility, and your other units are vampirized.

graft flesh and different unit classes: the common magical ones are clear, but now imagine flesh golems where one part is a shadow?

Now lets combine this three and work as a team: a mobility greater werewolf grafted with a blitzed shadow (plus the usual promotions for higher strength, numerous first strikes and such), plus a vampirized mobility high damage dealer grafted with a blitzed shadow. You sneak in both close to a large stack. Your were picks out all easy units, producing ravenous weres on the way. After he is done, your DD takes over, using the weres as snacks to replenish life when he runs low. If both are hidden nationality, you won't even start a war.

 

[hegemonkhan]

delected by me

 

[attackdrone]

1. Runes of Kilmorph and anything/anyone. Because everything is better gilded.
2. Ljolsalfar and Fellowship of Leaves. Tree-houses. Silly elves.
3. Kuriotates, Ashen Veil, and Law Mana. Size 82 Cities anyone?
4. Calabim, The Order, and Altar of the Luonnotar. Vampiric Crusaders anyone? Vampiric Confessors?
5. Council of Esus and any National Unit. Who cares if twenty Heavy Crossbowman of Edge die?

 

[vorshlumpf]

From my last game:

Abashi built in the Veil holy city. The stigmata promotion can give him up to another +50% (with no other promotions, this is an effective STR of 30).

 

[eerr]

hidden nationality units cannot produce were-spawn

 

[Bastian-Bux]

Ahhh, thats interessting. I suppose they neither can't enslave?

 

[eerr]

Ahhh, thats interessting. I suppose they neither can't enslave?

invisible units can't capture workers or slaves i belive(is invisible given by a promotion now?)

 

[xAlephx]

1. Zealot + Cultist for war cleanup. Use the ability of great works to squash rebellions, followed by sacrificing a low level cultist for religious spread and temple creation. Any religion can do this, but OO's culture specialization is best for driving back encroaching enemy boundaries and getting defensive bonuses quick.

2. Cannibalize + Fear + March, achieved by promoting a Drown to Stygian Guard after taking Cannibalize. A brutal attacker which is exceptionally difficult to drag down, since waves are countered by both Fear and Cannibalize.

3. Ritualists stack + summoned Imps + summoned Nightmares (best for cultures with Summoner). Imps are weaker than Ritualists and therefore grab assassin attacks. They also pick up free promotions which you can use for whatever level one spells you might want. Nightmares are stronger than Ritualists and therefore pull most attacks, few of which get through Fear. While RoF is no longer game over, it still stings.

4. Golems + mobility promoted boar riders. Golems are as tough as they are slow. Use an iron golem or two as mobile bulwarks for your boar riders to jump out from, pillage, and return to.

5. Contagion + Golems + Bombardment option of choice. Contagion is a lot weaker now, since directly targeted spells cannot kill, but this also means that there are more chances for disease immunity to shine. Between 40% damage and 30% disease penalty, you're looking at roughly a 40% reduction in overall power of defenders.

 

[Twilight Falls]

Play as Hyborean on large maps with lots of desert and little water (to discourage players from building water mana and to ensure that overland transportation is the only viable way of transport for most of the world). When Hell eventually reaches these desert tiles, it turns them into Burning Sands. This has many benefits for the Infernals: Burning Sands are impassable for most units, including workers and settlers, without fire resistence (unless your opponent has water mana, of course - Hell is actually pretty bad for the Malakim, because they usually prefer to have desert tiles outside of their cultural boundaries and the Burning Sands negate their advantage). Especially on arid maps, you can prevent your opponents (and 'allies') from reaching large areas with either military units or settlers. I've even seen a few pre-existing cities on non-arid maps completely cut off from their civilization by the flames, which makes it much easier for you to invade. Burning Sands can also provide a tactical advantage, because your enemies can't attack your units while they stand in the flames.

 

[Blakmane]

Capital city, Soulforge, demon's altar and 3 immortals. You can sacrifice each one once per turn. Can anyone say tower of mastery in 10 turns?

 

[much2much]

Play as Hyborean on large maps with lots of desert and little water (to discourage players from building water mana and to ensure that overland transportation is the only viable way of transport for most of the world).

Don't understand your logic here. Lots of desert means everybody is keen for water mana for Spring spell.

 

[daladinn]

Capital city, Soulforge, demon's altar and 3 immortals. You can sacrifice each one once per turn. Can anyone say tower of mastery in 10 turns?

wont work , the immortal promotion is not triggered when you suicide. i tested this with losha and with hyborem. i am pretty sure it applies to immortals also.

 

[daladinn]

i have nto tested this yet , but i am "dieing" to ...

as khazad build mokkas caulron and the soul forge in your capital. then start funneling your sacrificial dwarfs to sacrifice. (iirc you can pull it down to only losing 5 hammers total in transfer, and when they die you get a replacement troop)

 

[Blakmane]

wont work , the immortal promotion is not triggered when you suicide. i tested this with losha and with hyborem. i am pretty sure it applies to immortals also.

Not only did I win a game using this, but I just re-tested it using the world builder. Losha ressurects fine out of it, and adds research/production as per normal. Remember that she needs to kill something to gain the immortal promotion

One thing that is confusing me is what units you are allowed to sacrifice on the altar.... seems really random what you can and cannot sacrifice sometimes. Just then I could sacrifice losha, but not a warrior or a scout =/

 

[snarko]

One thing that is confusing me is what units you are allowed to sacrifice on the altar.... seems really random what you can and cannot sacrifice sometimes. Just then I could sacrifice losha, but not a warrior or a scout =/

Your unit need to be level 2 or higher.

 

[Blakmane]

Your unit need to be level 2 or higher.

thanks

 

[Twilight Falls]

Don't understand your logic here. Lots of desert means everybody is keen for water mana for Spring spell.

Good point ... It isn't really a synergy anways Just ignore that post, then.

 

[xAlephx]

In the other forum I'm in a post discussing using Amurites as a specialist/farm approach. Their intended combo (which I got almost entirely from Polycrates) is:

Philosophical Leader + Caste System + Agriculture + Scholarship + Sacrifice the Weak + Pacifism/Nationalism + Gambling Halls/Granary/Smokehouse.

Scholarship can come pretty early with great sage bulbs through philosophical, and when you're doing the majority of your research through sages and storing most of your cash the happiness effects of Gambling Halls become insane. Agriculture / Sacrifice the Weak / Granary / Smokehouse give you massive populations to whip or spec as needed, Nationalism gives you a nice boost to production and limits WW (as straight happiness from religion isn't as valuable given gambling halls) vs. Pacifism's higher costs and more GPP. Caste System is icing on your specialist cake.

This would work fairly well for other non-Alexis non-Grigori Philosophers, although Amurites have arguably the best whip-to-combatant ratio of the Philosophers.

 

[Grey Fox]

Can also use Republic for even more GPP, if you wanna push it.

Watch out for the Armageddon counter turning 40 though, as all your farms will be destroyed.

 

[xAlephx]

That's when you use all your population who are starving from lack of farms to whip out workers to rebuild your farms. Hey, they were going to starve anyway. Shut up and keep gambling, you whiners.

I have found thus far that with Gambling Houses the happiness hit from not having republic is fairly minor for a looong time, and the economic benefit of City States in paying off Pacifism's more substantial GPP bonus is more useful. To each their own, though. I suppose Republic / Nationalism is a good combo for wartime.