There was another thread on the strategy for the Calabim; however, I got just over half way through the last thread before I just gave up because of the senseless bickering. I could have posted this post in that thread, but I would like to get the discussion rolling in a more positive direction.
I play as Flauros because I prefer the economic advantage that he has because I know how to work it from my experience with warlords. I would like to present my current playing style and receive feedback. From that hopefully a good general strategy will emerge which can then be tested and benchmarked against other strats using the stats from the demographics, and military stat screens.
The Capital
Econ, or farm city?
In warlords I always make my capital my econ city. There is no question about it since bureaucracy gives an extra 50% commerce. In FfH, there is no equivalent civic. God king gives +50%
not +50% 
. Also, in warlords cottages are obtained earlier. In FfH education takes a while to get and I usually have my second city at that point. Thus, I tend to look at making my first city an agriculture city.
Other things that push me in this direction are:
- Slavery; I will want the extra food in order to recover population points
- Easy happiness; Calender comes sooner and thus so does extra happiness, not to mention the animals you can capture for cages and so growth does not need to be restricted as much as it does in warlords
- Increased settler production; As I will point out shortly, Flauros's cities are ridiculously easy to maintain thus you are going to want a lot of them
Essentially, my capital is going to be making settler's and workers all the time. When it needs to grow I build a bloodpet or begin work on a building. With city states, and organized the only kind of expansion that makes sense IMO is explosive.
Writing?
Is it worth going for?
When you get writing you get a free great sage which can build an academy. The academy will give you an extra 50%
. Every game I have played so far with my friends the person that gets this academy gets the tech advantage and since I am playing to control the tech advantage I will go for writing every time. The question is when do you go for it?
My answer, right away. My tech path is the following...
Agriculture (for farms)
Ancient Chants (leads to education)
Education (for cottages)
Writing (for the sage)
The only exception is if I can get more food from taking animal husbandry in the off chance that I do not have any food resources that can be improved with farms in my first two or three cities.
So, what am I missing out on? Mining? Fishing? Do I need these? No. Not right away. I will need fishing to get Message from the Deep, but I do not need to worry about that yet. Mining will not be needed as I can usually get the hammers I need from forests in the start, and slavery later on.
What am I gaining? Libraries ... +25% research (although they do not come into play until slavery is around [ie too many hammers]). A great sage +50% research in my best econ city. Well worth it imo especially since it makes other techs easier to get now.
City Specialization
Econ, Production, and GP farm ... oh my!
The next question is what kinds of cities will I need? The classics are production, econ, and GP farm.
The GP farm is generally taken care of in my first city. My next city is always econ as stated above. Now, the question is ... do I need production cities? Well they won't hurt to have, but in general I do not find I need them. Instead I spam econ cities. Why don't I need production? Slavery and food blows production out of the water.
Econ cities need very little. A library, an asylum, a farm or two, and maybe some happiness buildings. Everything else is cottages. I use slavery to grab the libraries and asylums. Keeping them defended is easy. Until slavery shows up the econ cities can spam bloodpets. The rest is trivial.
In place of production cities I have farm cities. These generally get granaries, smoke houses, breedings pits, forges, and happiness buildings using slavery. Eventually they will be food for my vampires so when slaving I usually do not even let my happiness recover.
Phase 1
Build an economy
I have given some arguments and explanations as to why I do certain things above, but now I want to put it into the context of a scheme. Phase one begins when the following conditions have been met;
- Education is researched
- Second city is settled
- A worker has been built
Phase 1 involves the following;
- Spamming settlers and workers in the capital to make econ cities
- Gathering happiness resources
- Working towards Message from the deep (not necessarily directly)
Phase 1 ends usually when I have message from the deep, or a sufficiently strong economy.
Phase 2
The dawn of the vampires
Phase two involves the following;
- Switching from spamming econ cities to spamming farm cities
- Enabling slavery
- Production of buildings (libraries in econ cities; granaries, smoke houses, breedings pits and forges in farm cities; governors mansions in all; happiness buildings always help)
- Pick up technologies Sanitation, and Feudalism
Generally, the spamming of cities is going to come to an end when it becomes time to begin slaving in your capital. Once feudalism shows up you are going to have to redirect your efforts to making vamps and thus end phase 2.
Phase 3
Conquest
Now you should have two kinds of cities ... farms and econ. Use the farms to feed your vamps and other vampiric units (I love vampiric bears, lions, and spiders
). Remember the higher the population of the city the more experience you gain. Also, do not worry about the happiness of your farm cities. Just crank the population. These cities generally grow one population a turn and can be culled to give vamps with 100+ XP. I culled a city from 25 pop to 10 and had a Vampire with over 200XP. Fifteen turns later I did the same for another Vampire. If you do not want to wait the turns for your happiness to recover go nuts; however try to feed in bursts so that you only get one +-
Feeding on multiple turns equates to lots of
Vamps and my hordes of bloodpets are usually more then anyone can handle. Generally my tech is also insanely high compared to the others in the game.
Aristocracy...
To bad city states is better
An argument in the other thread was about farms and aristocracy vs cottages. IMO cottages win out, not because they give more commerce but because city states is better and will afford you higher research and more cities which means more tiles for the econ bonus to apply too.
Too bad though ... because the idea of aristocratic vampires is what attracted me to the Cabalim in the first place.
Final Thoughts
Do not neglect adepts, since they can increase the number of skeletons your vamps can cast. This can be of great help when you need those skeletons to help break a strong city.
Please post your thoughts. I'd love to refine this strat more. Hopefully I didn't forget anything.
I play as Flauros because I prefer the economic advantage that he has because I know how to work it from my experience with warlords. I would like to present my current playing style and receive feedback. From that hopefully a good general strategy will emerge which can then be tested and benchmarked against other strats using the stats from the demographics, and military stat screens.
The Capital
Econ, or farm city?
In warlords I always make my capital my econ city. There is no question about it since bureaucracy gives an extra 50% commerce. In FfH, there is no equivalent civic. God king gives +50%
not +50% . Also, in warlords cottages are obtained earlier. In FfH education takes a while to get and I usually have my second city at that point. Thus, I tend to look at making my first city an agriculture city.Other things that push me in this direction are:
- Slavery; I will want the extra food in order to recover population points
- Easy happiness; Calender comes sooner and thus so does extra happiness, not to mention the animals you can capture for cages and so growth does not need to be restricted as much as it does in warlords
- Increased settler production; As I will point out shortly, Flauros's cities are ridiculously easy to maintain thus you are going to want a lot of them
Essentially, my capital is going to be making settler's and workers all the time. When it needs to grow I build a bloodpet or begin work on a building. With city states, and organized the only kind of expansion that makes sense IMO is explosive.
Writing?
Is it worth going for?
When you get writing you get a free great sage which can build an academy. The academy will give you an extra 50%
. Every game I have played so far with my friends the person that gets this academy gets the tech advantage and since I am playing to control the tech advantage I will go for writing every time. The question is when do you go for it?My answer, right away. My tech path is the following...
Agriculture (for farms)
Ancient Chants (leads to education)
Education (for cottages)
Writing (for the sage)
The only exception is if I can get more food from taking animal husbandry in the off chance that I do not have any food resources that can be improved with farms in my first two or three cities.
So, what am I missing out on? Mining? Fishing? Do I need these? No. Not right away. I will need fishing to get Message from the Deep, but I do not need to worry about that yet. Mining will not be needed as I can usually get the hammers I need from forests in the start, and slavery later on.
What am I gaining? Libraries ... +25% research (although they do not come into play until slavery is around [ie too many hammers]). A great sage +50% research in my best econ city. Well worth it imo especially since it makes other techs easier to get now.
City Specialization
Econ, Production, and GP farm ... oh my!
The next question is what kinds of cities will I need? The classics are production, econ, and GP farm.
The GP farm is generally taken care of in my first city. My next city is always econ as stated above. Now, the question is ... do I need production cities? Well they won't hurt to have, but in general I do not find I need them. Instead I spam econ cities. Why don't I need production? Slavery and food blows production out of the water.
Econ cities need very little. A library, an asylum, a farm or two, and maybe some happiness buildings. Everything else is cottages. I use slavery to grab the libraries and asylums. Keeping them defended is easy. Until slavery shows up the econ cities can spam bloodpets. The rest is trivial.
In place of production cities I have farm cities. These generally get granaries, smoke houses, breedings pits, forges, and happiness buildings using slavery. Eventually they will be food for my vampires so when slaving I usually do not even let my happiness recover.
Phase 1
Build an economy
I have given some arguments and explanations as to why I do certain things above, but now I want to put it into the context of a scheme. Phase one begins when the following conditions have been met;
- Education is researched
- Second city is settled
- A worker has been built
Phase 1 involves the following;
- Spamming settlers and workers in the capital to make econ cities
- Gathering happiness resources
- Working towards Message from the deep (not necessarily directly)
Phase 1 ends usually when I have message from the deep, or a sufficiently strong economy.
Phase 2
The dawn of the vampires
Phase two involves the following;
- Switching from spamming econ cities to spamming farm cities
- Enabling slavery
- Production of buildings (libraries in econ cities; granaries, smoke houses, breedings pits and forges in farm cities; governors mansions in all; happiness buildings always help)
- Pick up technologies Sanitation, and Feudalism
Generally, the spamming of cities is going to come to an end when it becomes time to begin slaving in your capital. Once feudalism shows up you are going to have to redirect your efforts to making vamps and thus end phase 2.
Phase 3
Conquest
Now you should have two kinds of cities ... farms and econ. Use the farms to feed your vamps and other vampiric units (I love vampiric bears, lions, and spiders
). Remember the higher the population of the city the more experience you gain. Also, do not worry about the happiness of your farm cities. Just crank the population. These cities generally grow one population a turn and can be culled to give vamps with 100+ XP. I culled a city from 25 pop to 10 and had a Vampire with over 200XP. Fifteen turns later I did the same for another Vampire. If you do not want to wait the turns for your happiness to recover go nuts; however try to feed in bursts so that you only get one +- Feeding on multiple turns equates to lots of Vamps and my hordes of bloodpets are usually more then anyone can handle. Generally my tech is also insanely high compared to the others in the game.
Aristocracy...
To bad city states is better
An argument in the other thread was about farms and aristocracy vs cottages. IMO cottages win out, not because they give more commerce but because city states is better and will afford you higher research and more cities which means more tiles for the econ bonus to apply too.
Too bad though ... because the idea of aristocratic vampires is what attracted me to the Cabalim in the first place.
Final Thoughts
Do not neglect adepts, since they can increase the number of skeletons your vamps can cast. This can be of great help when you need those skeletons to help break a strong city.
Please post your thoughts. I'd love to refine this strat more. Hopefully I didn't forget anything.
You just did say that.
).
