The Care and Feeding of Arcane and Disciple Units

[Zechnophobe]

StW is just not as good as GoN except in the case of luxury rich Calabim players. Both will let you hit your population hard cap quickly (StW does it a bit faster) but with GoN that cap is much MUCH higher, and you'll work a lot more squares.

If you want to compare AV vs FoL for your empire, however, it really comes more from military aspects, not commercial. Ritualists are Freaking sexy-good.

 

[Wyrmhero]

StW is just not as good as GoN except in the case of luxury rich Calabim players. Both will let you hit your population hard cap quickly (StW does it a bit faster) but with GoN that cap is much MUCH higher, and you'll work a lot more squares.

Of course, you could always start as AV with StW, and then convert to FoL

 

[A_Hamster]

Suggestion for that: Hit FoL at some point to turn all of your forests Green,and then get AV. Don't waste time on Hidden paths unless you can't get AV very fast.

Is this for the health bonus? I started the game last night and have founded RoK for the gold boost. (Perhaps I'm not developing my economy properly, but ever since starting to play FfH, I've found if I don't grab RoK early, my economy lags. The downside is that it makes my early game look the same for every civ I play.)

I would generally suggest Vampires to Losha to Brujah, as the backbone of your army. Though, if you do go Adepts that definately works too. Archmages with Vampirism are AMAZINGLY strong.

Oh, I am so going for Losha. She's my girl! As the Bannor, my Priors converted with Command IV, a Vampire, 2 Brujahs, and Losha herself. She's pretty damn cool, especially with her dialogue. At that point in time my Paladins, Priors, and Splener were significantly higher level than she, so combatwise she wasn't that exciting, but for color and spreading the "dark kiss" ... well, the Calabrim might have been destroyed by a Bannor crusade, but the vampires live on.

I will go Adepts. Again, thanks to my first game where I slowed my stacks with siege engines, I'd rather use Fireball mages that can benefit from Haste. You can actually finish wars in a timely manner that way. I'm just not sure Skellies and Demons are worth slowing the assault for. So far I've been using magic in a support role, but a major one. Kind of like air power in regular civ: you can win without it, but it makes things so much easier.

 

[KingOfLands]

Click below for why you go Guardian of Nature. Example is from a Kuriotate game, so it's a little inflated from the results you get with others, but I think it gets the point across better.

Spoiler :

Reading again I notice that Zechnophobe at least is against GoN. Even without the bonus illustrated above, ancient forests are pretty excellent and if your long-range planning is better than mine was in the above game you won't end up cutting down a bunch of them to build cottages when you remember your cities will be working an entirely unreasonable number of tiles.

 

[daladinn]

heres the big thing between StW and GoN ...

GoN is good for really big cities making the most of your fat cross. when you look at the rings you have 8 in the first ring and another 12 in the 2nd. so you can have 20 people working the land and then any extras become specialists. sadly most civs dont have the elves bonus to working forests so for a LONG time GoN. basically GoN forces some pretty heavy trade offs for none elven civs.

StW on the other had is designed for SMALL cities not the big ones everyone things of. lets look at StW from teh perspective of the civ that gets the most out of it , the sheaim. if you plan on tight knit cities where your only working your 8 tiles your going to be well within the happy cap of StW , and you should have a low enough population that you can deal with unhealthy. so now all pop over 8 goes to specialists. ALSO with crowded cities come more trade routes and more portals , boosting your economy and your military.

now if you playing the kuriotates and are looking at maximizing the fat FAT cross , i would look to OO if your just doing a single city (allowing for all 36 tiles to be worked). if your planning on multiple cities and manage to space them out you should look to the order. during your build up you can use your troops to bolster happies until you get highpreists with unyielding order

 

[Zechnophobe]

So, before making my previous post, I actually investigated GoN and StW, trying to see which can make the biggest cities, if that is our goal with the calabim (For feasting purposes)

Basically GoN works better with:

1) Few luxuries or other sources of happiness (Public baths, gambling houses)

2) Plenty of Trees.

Whereas StW works a lot better with:

1) Plenty of other sources of happiness.

2) Few or mediocre numbers of trees.

In case it wasn't obvious from my post, I do suggest getting FoL, to turn all your forests ancient, but they stay that way even after you abandon the religion.

Look at KingOfLands screenshot. A size 20 city, growing at a rate of +11 food per turn. Notice he has +20 more happiness than his population currently needs.

If you were to switch immediately to StW, health would decrease by 9 (Still in the positive) and you'd have two unhappy people since you'll lose that +22 national parks bonus (-4 food, we'll say). However, you'd be growing at + 11 + 20 (Half consumption) -4 (Unhappiness) = +27 food per turn... more than twice the speed of GoN.

If you weren't playing the Kurios, you wouldn't even have any more tiles to work, so additional population wouldn't net more food, so wouldn't help the city grow (Meaning the increased happiness wouldn't equal out to greater growth in the long run).

Anyhow, long story short, you will end up with bigger cities with StW, especially if you Anciented your forests, than you will with GoN, if you have high non-forest based happiness.

 

[Zechnophobe]

Of course, you could always start as AV with StW, and then convert to FoL

Except that AV costs twice what FoL does. thrice, if you consider you need Infernal Pact for STW, but don't need Hidden Paths for Ancient forests.

Is this for the health bonus? I started the game last night and have founded RoK for the gold boost. (Perhaps I'm not developing my economy properly, but ever since starting to play FfH, I've found if I don't grab RoK early, my economy lags. The downside is that it makes my early game look the same for every civ I play.)

Just FoL, not Hidden Paths, unless you need it for the happiness (Completely viable, but I'm not saying it's required) will upgrade all your forests to Ancient forests, causing them to produce +1 food. Food is good for the Calabim .

 

[A_Hamster]

Just FoL, not Hidden Paths, unless you need it for the happiness (Completely viable, but I'm not saying it's required) will upgrade all your forests to Ancient forests, causing them to produce +1 food. Food is good for the Calabim .

Got it, thanks.

And yes, food is good for the Calabim. (Or at least the kine ... "Ah, a corn-fed peasant wench.") I'm going to have to try Calabim again, but on a different map. I'm playing on my favorite map type (Tectonics -- Mediterraean setting), and it put my starting position in the equivalent of central Turkey, (arid, lots of hills, little water). It was a slow start, and my cities are only now starting to be worth feeding on.

 

[Ringtailed]

That screenshot with 40 happy cap is great for growth, but 23 science from a size 20 city is really bad...

 

[KingOfLands]

That screenshot with 40 happy cap is great for growth, but 23 science from a size 20 city is really bad...

Yes, it is. Thankfully, that was my production town; the one with about a dozen Enclaves was taking care of my research needs quite nicely.