The Clan of Embers has too many disadvantages

[azatol]

I played my first complete game as Elohim and won fairly easily a domination victory by defeating the evil civs. With my archmages and prior to that confessors, I was able to remove defensive bonuses and deal tons of collateral damage in the late game. So I decided to try an evil civ. I picked the clan, and I'm really frustrated with them.

I had a starting position surrounded by a lot of jungle, and so I went for sanitation early, and I was unable to produce much of anything with so little good production sites, so the vaunted earlygame advantage of the orcs was pretty much moot. After I cleared the jungles, I might have had a decent tech advantage from all the cottages except orcs also get a 10% penalty to research (which usually turns out to be larger due to rounding down I've heard.

So I built axemen and defeated Luchoirp, but I was only able to build settlers to replace some of the cities I razed, because for some reason the orcs have to raze everything. Then I have a good political bloc on my side, but it ended up going south when I agreed to go to war in aid of an ally against the Elves. My first campaign against the elves went okay, except it was very hard to defend against their mobile units and they wrecked a lot of my improvements because they were so fast, and my fast units were weak.

I got backstabbed by Ulvin and had to go put him in his place, and so the late game came, and the next penalty came into place. I can't build mage buildings or any of those kind of units.

The part that frustrated me was when I went to war against, the Elves had a hero that had absurdly high strength. In order to defend my city, I had to sacrifice a ton of units, even though I have extremely experienced heroes going against them (the octupus one, and of course the orc. I had stoneskin ogres and they were even way outmatched.)

Then I went to war with the Elves but they continued to raid at will, and the built so many assassins. Every time I spent a ton of shields on a pitch wagon they killed it out of my stack, and they had so many assassins, I had no hope of reducing their city defense at all cause I also couldn't use fireball or any of that stuff. I basically have no chance now because the elves can build so much stuff that I can't.

I don't think its fair that the Orcs have so many disadvantages (no mages, -10% research AND must raze all cities.) Because of the razing, the AC is up to 60 and everyone despises me (-8 you are destroying the world) but I can't do anything about it. Why are the orcs so hobbled? I'm really frustrated and I've abandoned that game now, becuase I can't do anything about the Elves and another AI is up to the Altar(exalted) so it will probably be over eventually.

I don't have Bts yet, so I have Ffh 0.23, so maybe the Bts version has changed something?

 

[attackdrone]

I don't have Bts yet, so I have Ffh 0.23, so maybe the Bts version has changed something?

In the Beyond the Sword versions of the mod, orcs get a building called "Orcish Warrens" that give them two units for each one they produce. Build an axeman, you get two. Build a settler, you get two.

 

[Err0l]

The Orcs also lost Scorched Earth meaning they can keep the cities now.

 

[azatol]

Well good to know. I'll have to get Bts one of these days, playing the Orcs was fun with their phrases and the ogres and goblins and all that. Any changes to assassins in Bts? They really were a good part of the reason I was poed at the elves.

 

[Grunthex]

They also lost the mage restriction. I actually didn't notice that for oh, 2/3 of my recent 0.30 clan game. They still can't build mage guilds, so I assumed no mages, but they can just churn out adepts without buildings. I guess they were the shamans.

Really, they seem much stronger in BtS. The new decimal-point research calc suddenly means they really only get 10% (ok, and they can't build libraries. You could argue 35%). They get mages (and they look cool!), they don't have to burn cities, and the warrens are amazing for settler spamming. They're ok for raw units too, but the 'free' unit gets none of the free xp/promotions they would normally get for your civics, or the cities buildings.

 

[frenzyslave]

With Bts and advancement of FfH, the Clan rock now. Much more fun to play, and better balanced with the rest of the civs.

Warren spaming, their warmachine is incredible. They have lost the scorched earth trait (yay!), and you can shake the avatar of wraiths hand with your barbarian trait when he turns up (providing you are still at peace with the barbs). Just try the raging barbs option... Sure research is down the gurgler, but when you play the Clan you shouldnt go for a cultural victory.

If you can afford BtS, its definitely worth it for all the amazing cool stuff, they have done so much more with the civs...

 

[jwin]

You were also missing out on their big advantage in .23 (I thought they were very balanced and competitive in that version, and more now).

Once you get I believe necromancy, you can build barrows with your adepts. They will spawn loads of skeletons and get bumped out of your borders to the closest neutral or enemy territory. It gives a constant stream of undead from any unused square in your empire, and if you work it right, many if them will get stuck by your borders and the coast. When your culture expands, dozens of them can get kicked out at once.
Just make sure you don't have open borders with anyone, because they will come in and raze the barrows.

AV takes care of tech restrictions nicely, and gives you pwerful spellcasters.

In .31, the clan also gets the For the Horder world spell, which you can use to rush an enemy even on the other side of the world. Nice

 

[Soam]

Every time I spent a ton of shields on a pitch wagon they killed it out of my stack, and they had so many assassins, I had no hope of reducing their city defense at all cause I also couldn't use fireball or any of that stuff.

Yeah I always thought it would have been nice if the Orcs had a Giant or Cyclops or something that could lob boulders as a form of reducing city defences.

 

[Deon]

Or goblin sapper teams =).

 

[much2much]

Sanitation is too expensive to get early. If you have jungle heavy start restart. This happens rarely in FFH anyway.

 

[Grey Fox]

Sanitation is too expensive to get early. If you have jungle heavy start restart. This happens rarely in FFH anyway.

But now you can just use the Fire 1 spell (Blaze) which start fires in forests/jungle. When it grows back it's a forest. (And the clan start with Fire mana). Use Spring to turn out the fires (but that can remove the burnt forests, which means no forest if you wanted that)

Bronze working also leads to sanitation now, so you don't have to go Construction first.

 

[Slvynn]

Another strat is Fire fighting - using adepts + wolf riders stacks, adept for haste, adept for dancing sword, adept for blaze, worlfriders (warrens hey), + disciple (healing)
Once try to move onmly on forest tiles and ablaze them all while on enemy territory.
Once fires started you can just move into fires and you are invulnerable. Yuo can do pillaging actions, and attacks whenewer you want. + you destroying enemy infra this way.

 

[Zechnophobe]

Honestly the clan is so strong that I find them sorta boring. The early unit advantage allows you to absolutely demolish all nearby enemies and give you contact with all civs in the world (Good for tech trading). Get Warrens, put your incom to 100%,and then just start conquering punks. It's weird to not have science, but you will pretty much not need it.

 

[Milaga]

The Clan is a very unique civ. If they really removed all these restrictions they seem just like a warlike civ and not the "trash and burn" barbarians that I envisioned them.

It's kind of difficult to balance the "barbarians" because most veteran civ players don't want to see them win .

 

[Roghar]

I find them quite good, they are just a bit quirky in that they are not that strong straight up due to the science penalty. They are a real challenge up until you get warrens, at which point they can become very powerful

 

[SargatanasMinor]

Is it possible for you to gain control of Orthus by using the Clan's world spell?

 

[Gelvan]

in my actual game, playing the lizardmen from fall further (they rock!) and the creation-ff map (this generates valleys with different climae, surrounded by mountains) around turn 100 I've built 4 cities, but there's place for more. Thanks to a big valley of jungle/forest tiles. The Illian, starting in a tundra valley (creation-ff map is great!) built 3 cities, one of them was converted by the Clan of Embers, meanwhile CoE built 4 other cities, makes 5. Kyleen, starting in the same valley as Jonas was forced to build her 3 cities at the beaches. Aulric likes Jonas more than Kyleen. In the valley between the Illian and the Clan of Embers (where the convertion of Aulric's city took place) there is 1 barbarian city, both of my opponnents are at peace with them, so it's a funny playground for my Assassins. But: Auric and Jonas have a big problem regarding expansion, because the only way to fertile land, goes through my territory. I think either I give both of them an open border agreement or they will declare war at me. To save my skin I gave Aulric an open border agreement, which he uses (assumingly) to build a city inside of my valley. I see this as a kind of pre-vassalage .. however: I think Jonas does a good job so far, has plenty of units and good diplomacy to the other "barbarians" in our valleys to make me and Keyleen fear him. And: this is on difficulty warlords so on a higher difficulty or with aggressive AI (or ruled by a human) he would surely make it even better, and had declared war to me, before I would have been able to produce asassins.

 

[Muz]

Man, the CoE scares me every time. I really hate having them as the civ next door. Not only can they create double the amount of units, the barbarians actually walk peacefully through their lands and raid mine, unlike with all the other civs.

I was actually guarding an important mountain pass (that had a hill and forest) from barbarians once, when the CoE built a city there and kicked my warriors out of the pass into the open lplains. I ignored it for a few turns, then Orthus came and killed them, ran to my capital, slaughtered about 6 warriors and his buddies razed all my plantations and mines. It took me 20 turns to get my income positive again!

That wouldn't have happened if another Civ was next door and suffered the rage of Orthus. Heck, if there was nobody there my elven warriors could've blocked the mountain pass and injured Orthus more

 

[xienwolf]

Is it possible for you to gain control of Orthus by using the Clan's world spell?

No, For the Horde won't convert any unit with the Hero Promotion. But since Orc is the default race for the Barbarians, it will convert everything else.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Not everything else, since the barbs may also have skeletons spawned from barrows, specters from grave robbing, demons from hellfire, units that go barb from burning blood/enrage, those captured by the Avatar of Wrath, the Four Horsemen, etc.