The Sheaim,
The Sheaim are the only truly evil race in all of Fall From Heaven. In order to master them you need to get into that evil mindset. I do mean the kind of evil that is typically written in capital letters , EVIL.
From the beginning you start with one limitation and an important choice. all of these can make or break you.
-- Your limitation is your need for Reagents. If you dont start with Reagents you know your going to war to get them.
-- Your choice is to go for the arcane or the religious path.Both paths are hideously powerful , however they work best with different leaders so its important to make this choice early.
Our leaders,
Tebryn Arbandi , the most powerful arcane leader in the game. He gives all arcane units under his banner the arcane promotion with greatly increases the rate at which they gain xp. He also is a renown summoner and allows for the summons of all his men to last a full three turns instead of the normal single turn. Leading an army of Eaters of Dreams and Mobius Witches Tebryn is able to move through the world like a swarm of locust.
Os-Gabella , The most powerful religious leader in the game. She just like Tebryn is a renown summoner and imparts this knowledge to her army. She however is more Spiritually inclined resulting in temples being built in half the time and suffering no anarchy period for changing civic. This spiritual trend also gives her disciple and preist units an extra point of movement , making her Ritualists a force to be acknowledged.
Things of note about the Sheaim,
Pyre Zombies - these are the Shaim replacement for axemen. They are supposed to explode in neat and cool ways upon death. This rarely works in any intended fashion in any version of Fall From Heaven. Besides why are you thinking about Troops in the first place?
Eater of Dreams - One Eater of Dreams and destroy a whole civilization and the Sheaim are allowed to have three in existance at a time. The Sheaim start with chaos and fire mana which allows these summoners to summon both Fire Elementals (have fire affinity) and/or Pit Beasts (continue to live if they make a kill every turn) if you so choose. What makes these sooo very NICE to have around is their ability to "consume souls" (reduces city population by one and allows the eater of dreams to cast again in the same turn). This ability can be used multiple times in the same turn , however you can not reduce a city to lower then a population of 4. yes taking a size 16 city from those goody two shoes elves next door will allow you to summon 12 pit beasts in 1 turn, all of which will last a minimum of 3 turns , some more then that.
Planar Gate - Both of our glorious leaders will require the Knowledge of the Ether which grants the building of this powerful artifact. the Planar gate works to bring creatures from the abyss to serve our masters in the coming wars. The more successful we are at raising the Armageddon counter the more frequently and in greater numbers these creatures will come in (scales from one to four of each type and the percent chance of spawning increases directly with the counter. the number is based on the number of Planar gates you have so two Planar Gates means two to eight creatures.). the Following is a list of what can come through
-- Mobius witch , mage guild is required and is therefore the most common type through the gate. These are T3 mage units that can come with random magic sphere promotions. the thing to remember is with 2 promotions these gain the ability to use fireball. Also because they are Demons they can walk on burning sands. These upgrade to archmages so these is never a need for mages to be built at all and all of your adepts can go on to become Eaters of Dreams.
-- Tar Demons . Temple of the Veil is required for these wonderful defenders. These mean you should never have to worry about building city defenders and you can often have enough to escort your casters around if needed.
*** these are supposed to split from a 2/7 unit into two 1/3 units upon death, last night I noticed this was not working***
-- Chaos Maurauder , A Carnival is required for these. Often not worth going out of your way for, but it depends on what is going on in your game. One really nice part is you can get these buildings for free sometimes with events.
-- There are several others that for the purpose of this guide i am going to skip, they are listed in the pedia but very rarely if ever seen in the game.
-- Abashi the Black Dragon , Legend has it that this is a Sheaim unit. Personally I have never seen it built. but I figured I would include it as an honorable mention.
Tactics,
The biggest factor on your survival as a race is going to be the rate at which you gain knowledge. For both of our leaders we are best using the same model of expansion and growth.
When building a city look at the "small box" , this is the city itself and the surrounding 8 tiles. We do not care about the big cross. our goal is to get as many cities into as small an area as possible. Here are the reasons for this..
1- every city that we have has a chance of spawning free units through the planar gate.
2- more cities equate to more trade between cities (for when your developing infrastructure.
3- every building that gives beakers and coin. more cities equals more buildings.
4- The AV holy shrine gives a beaker per AV city
When looking at warfare,
we need to keep in mind that the Sheaim are a very late game civ. our highest priority is going to be survival until we can get there. Until we get there we are dependent on warriors. This means the more warriors we have the better.
This basically means its necessary to get either conjurers or ritualists as soon as you can. These units are the forefront of your army and will be what holds the forces of light at bay.
Late game city busting. this is soo easy its almost comical. Your going to have one of 2 main army types so we can look at each
1- You have 3 Eater of Dreams , each one capable of casting a pit beast every single turn. If you have a city close to your nearest neighbor its worth sacrificing the city. The extra summons you get from the population will make taking the city that much easier. Once you take the city (take it , don't burn it). consume that city to take the next and so on .... act like a plague of locust and nothing can stand in your way.
2- You have 3-6 of your profanes (high priests) and/or inquisitors. these units are capable of summoning balors and casting pillar of fire. After casting 2-3 pillars of fire on a city it wont take many of your balor to kill every unit inside.
3- In both cases above you will most likely also have a small army of mobius witches which you can bring to bear casting fireball.
*** side note, our world spells is a great lead in to an attack. it casts a pillar of fire on each and every city in the world (strength is based on the AC, but its never what i would call weak)***
Thats most of it for now , I will look into adding more later
Daladinn
The Sheaim are the only truly evil race in all of Fall From Heaven. In order to master them you need to get into that evil mindset. I do mean the kind of evil that is typically written in capital letters , EVIL.
From the beginning you start with one limitation and an important choice. all of these can make or break you.
-- Your limitation is your need for Reagents. If you dont start with Reagents you know your going to war to get them.
-- Your choice is to go for the arcane or the religious path.Both paths are hideously powerful , however they work best with different leaders so its important to make this choice early.
Our leaders,
Tebryn Arbandi , the most powerful arcane leader in the game. He gives all arcane units under his banner the arcane promotion with greatly increases the rate at which they gain xp. He also is a renown summoner and allows for the summons of all his men to last a full three turns instead of the normal single turn. Leading an army of Eaters of Dreams and Mobius Witches Tebryn is able to move through the world like a swarm of locust.
Os-Gabella , The most powerful religious leader in the game. She just like Tebryn is a renown summoner and imparts this knowledge to her army. She however is more Spiritually inclined resulting in temples being built in half the time and suffering no anarchy period for changing civic. This spiritual trend also gives her disciple and preist units an extra point of movement , making her Ritualists a force to be acknowledged.
Things of note about the Sheaim,
Pyre Zombies - these are the Shaim replacement for axemen. They are supposed to explode in neat and cool ways upon death. This rarely works in any intended fashion in any version of Fall From Heaven. Besides why are you thinking about Troops in the first place?
Eater of Dreams - One Eater of Dreams and destroy a whole civilization and the Sheaim are allowed to have three in existance at a time. The Sheaim start with chaos and fire mana which allows these summoners to summon both Fire Elementals (have fire affinity) and/or Pit Beasts (continue to live if they make a kill every turn) if you so choose. What makes these sooo very NICE to have around is their ability to "consume souls" (reduces city population by one and allows the eater of dreams to cast again in the same turn). This ability can be used multiple times in the same turn , however you can not reduce a city to lower then a population of 4. yes taking a size 16 city from those goody two shoes elves next door will allow you to summon 12 pit beasts in 1 turn, all of which will last a minimum of 3 turns , some more then that.
Planar Gate - Both of our glorious leaders will require the Knowledge of the Ether which grants the building of this powerful artifact. the Planar gate works to bring creatures from the abyss to serve our masters in the coming wars. The more successful we are at raising the Armageddon counter the more frequently and in greater numbers these creatures will come in (scales from one to four of each type and the percent chance of spawning increases directly with the counter. the number is based on the number of Planar gates you have so two Planar Gates means two to eight creatures.). the Following is a list of what can come through
-- Mobius witch , mage guild is required and is therefore the most common type through the gate. These are T3 mage units that can come with random magic sphere promotions. the thing to remember is with 2 promotions these gain the ability to use fireball. Also because they are Demons they can walk on burning sands. These upgrade to archmages so these is never a need for mages to be built at all and all of your adepts can go on to become Eaters of Dreams.
-- Tar Demons . Temple of the Veil is required for these wonderful defenders. These mean you should never have to worry about building city defenders and you can often have enough to escort your casters around if needed.
*** these are supposed to split from a 2/7 unit into two 1/3 units upon death, last night I noticed this was not working***
-- Chaos Maurauder , A Carnival is required for these. Often not worth going out of your way for, but it depends on what is going on in your game. One really nice part is you can get these buildings for free sometimes with events.
-- There are several others that for the purpose of this guide i am going to skip, they are listed in the pedia but very rarely if ever seen in the game.
-- Abashi the Black Dragon , Legend has it that this is a Sheaim unit. Personally I have never seen it built. but I figured I would include it as an honorable mention.
Tactics,
The biggest factor on your survival as a race is going to be the rate at which you gain knowledge. For both of our leaders we are best using the same model of expansion and growth.
When building a city look at the "small box" , this is the city itself and the surrounding 8 tiles. We do not care about the big cross. our goal is to get as many cities into as small an area as possible. Here are the reasons for this..
1- every city that we have has a chance of spawning free units through the planar gate.
2- more cities equate to more trade between cities (for when your developing infrastructure.
3- every building that gives beakers and coin. more cities equals more buildings.
4- The AV holy shrine gives a beaker per AV city
When looking at warfare,
we need to keep in mind that the Sheaim are a very late game civ. our highest priority is going to be survival until we can get there. Until we get there we are dependent on warriors. This means the more warriors we have the better.
This basically means its necessary to get either conjurers or ritualists as soon as you can. These units are the forefront of your army and will be what holds the forces of light at bay.
Late game city busting. this is soo easy its almost comical. Your going to have one of 2 main army types so we can look at each
1- You have 3 Eater of Dreams , each one capable of casting a pit beast every single turn. If you have a city close to your nearest neighbor its worth sacrificing the city. The extra summons you get from the population will make taking the city that much easier. Once you take the city (take it , don't burn it). consume that city to take the next and so on .... act like a plague of locust and nothing can stand in your way.
2- You have 3-6 of your profanes (high priests) and/or inquisitors. these units are capable of summoning balors and casting pillar of fire. After casting 2-3 pillars of fire on a city it wont take many of your balor to kill every unit inside.
3- In both cases above you will most likely also have a small army of mobius witches which you can bring to bear casting fireball.
*** side note, our world spells is a great lead in to an attack. it casts a pillar of fire on each and every city in the world (strength is based on the AC, but its never what i would call weak)***
Thats most of it for now , I will look into adding more later
Daladinn
