Wow, I feel almost like I'm spamming the boards with my noobishness, but I can't find a thread about FFH religions in here. So, I'll start this one with a question: What's a good religion for the Balseraphs? I've seen the Lanun synergy with OO and the Sheaim pretty much have to get the veil, but what about everyone's favourite hedonists?
Which religion?
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The Balseraph's are interesting and can be played a lot of different ways.
The are actually quite good for a culture victory, and if you play for that, the overlords is very good; obviously, if there are a lot of coasts/naval it is even more so.
If you have Keelyn, the Veil can be very nice, as summoned Balors will stay around longer. But there really are a lot of choices here, see how you are playing the game (what strategy is being used) and plan accordingly. I usually take the Veil or the overlords, but those choices may be guided by role playing.
Best wishes,
Breunor
The are actually quite good for a culture victory, and if you play for that, the overlords is very good; obviously, if there are a lot of coasts/naval it is even more so.
If you have Keelyn, the Veil can be very nice, as summoned Balors will stay around longer. But there really are a lot of choices here, see how you are playing the game (what strategy is being used) and plan accordingly. I usually take the Veil or the overlords, but those choices may be guided by role playing.
Best wishes,
Breunor
There is no best, they all work well, though some synergies appeal to some people, and some strategies, more than others. Balseraph are really flexible and have a lot of different strengths they can play to. I describe them in order of worst to best though, based on my own opinion, though on any water map (or one with lakes) I would rank Octopus Overlords as the best, depending on how much you can use tsunamis when attacking cities.
Fellowship of the Leaves I think is often the weakest for them, unless you capture some elven workers/slaves. Only workers with the elven race can build tile improvements without destroying forests, and ancient forest upgrades are usually the main reason for adopting this civ. This works for a Balseraph builder game, large dominating cities. Without being able to build the right kind of workers directly, this can be tedious, but that doesn't mean it isn't without merit. The religious civic, Guardian of Nature, gives happiness for forests, and thus bigger cities. But even without it running, you can usually get quite a bit of happiness in many other ways, so the biggest advantage is the ancient forestry upgrades.
A better solution sometimes is to consider making lots of lumbermills first wherever possible (no elves needed), and then switching to Fellowship of the Leaves temporarily, until they have all become ancient forests. You can't build the lumbermills after they've changed, but existing ones remain and boost the ancient forest's production. They change automatically over (a short) time when it is your state religion. Once all or most have formed, the religion can be abandoned. While this is overkill builder syndrome in most games, if I'm playing a heavy forest map like arborea, I often do this at some point because I've got forests all over anyway.
Also, if you have a Priest of Leaves (with or without the religion), you can spam tigers when you're bored, not just for the culture bonus in cities, but throw them in the arena, maybe a few of them will turn out ok.
The next weakest in my opinion is Runes of Kilmorph, though they have some merit too. Using their civic, you can crank out excellent production in cities with bonuses to mine production. Worth considering on a highlands map if the mining bonus sounds appealing. Their biggest appeal might be earthquake, cast by tier 3 priests, which unfortifies all units in a tile, reducing the enemy's defensive bonuses. Combine that with shadow mana (to remove city defensive bonuses) and maelstrom (air 2, to soften up the defenders with damage), and you don't need to be slowed down by catapults when moving your armies (when casting haste which doesn't speed up catapult movement). Also, you can build Mines of Gal-Dur, giving you three free iron and you don't need to research the iron working tech to use them. However, if you're doing it because you want iron badly, you can convert to any other religion after building it, and still receive the benefit.
One major downside in my opinion of all the good civs is just that I like the Undercouncil way way better than I like the Overcouncil. That may just be personal, but to me it's a factor.
Empyrean gives you access to one of the most devastating heros in the game, and I like the mounted units too (they cast blind, which makes units unable to move for two turns). The only other main reason is if you are facing a lot of shadows (I only ever care about this against players really), then this will help neutralize them.
Order is a favorite of mine in general, I love the bless bonus from tier 2 priests early on, and Unyielding Order from the tier 3's is great, especially when conquering new cities. I don't think there's a strong synergy with Balseraphs though.
So then my favorites are Octopus Overlords, Council of Esus, and Ashen Veil. If there's a decent amount of water on the map, Octopus Overlords can be very powerful for anyone. Their most powerful features I think are Tsunami and water walking, which you don't need to keep the religion for - you can stockpile cultists and stygian guards and then convert to something else. Building lunatics relatively early in the game can hold you over too, so it's not bad as an early, intermediary religion. I usually skip lunatics and spam cultists though. Saves a tech too.
The other, maybe bigger, reason for Octopus Overlords is to build Hemah, the hero caster. Twincast is an arcane promotion only purchasable by heros, and doubles their summons. Instead of one fire elemental, they summon two, for instance. Puppets summoned with twincast get it too. So Hemah can summon two puppets per turn, which can in turn summon two creatures each, for four total summons per turn. If you choose Keelyn as a leader, they stick around an extra turn, and you can end up with godly numbers of elementals running around, it's sick. 8 summons per turn, 2 turns duration, you can maintain 16 by the third turn I think. All from one hero. It's dangerous stuff.
Another choice is Council of Esus, which gives you Gibbon Goetia as an arcane hero to play with puppets too. If you found it, you can get Nox Noctis the holy building which makes all your units invisible within your borders, except the ones in your city (don't need to follow the religion for this). Council of Esus as a religion plays totally differently, and can be very fun, up to you. It lets you sneak attack (if you have open borders and have moved your units in, they don't get kicked out when you declare war).
The downside is that nightshades are pretty weak for what they're used for, and anyone can build shadows regardless of religion. If you spam recon units, some of them will be created with the religion, and will be able to get the hidden nationality promotion, so rangers, beastmasters, and assassins can be used without declaring war. Also, you don't get any good priests out of it, but if you're never going to see incense, I guess it doesn't matter much. It's a pretty limited religion, with some special features. I do think it's the best religion for Amurites though, because they can learn spells. Without spells, I think they get owned under hidden nationality too easily. The surprise attack is probably one of the really nice strategic advantages though, plus you can use the hidden nationality units to soften up defenses or improvements first.
Ashen Veil is a pretty awesome religion in general. Tier 2 priests spamming ae fire, Sacrifice the Weak civic, powerful late game units. If you don't have horses, Rosier is a good mid-level mounted hero (there's one for Order too).
That said, Balseraph has so many great things going for it, it's well-played with any religion. There's so much variety that if priests are an afterthought, or a support unit, they're still going to do very well. For Balseraph specifically, Ashen Veil and Octopus Overlords have the best synergy when using Harlequins to taunt. They both have attacks that will damage every unit in the stack severely, which you can use to soften them up before taunting. Then with taunt, you can hopefully kill off most of the defenders without ever even attacking with your own units. Maelstrom and to an extent Wither can also accomplish this.
With the summoner trait (Keelyn), arcane units are very powerful. You don't need a religion to make use of that, but it does give greater weight to Gibbon and Hemah. If you really like flesh golems, octopus overlords summon the strongest strength sacrifices (krakens).
Many times I don't worry much about religions when playing Baseraphs, and just focus on switching religions a few times to get good support priests for my units (Order for Bless, Kilmorph for the strength increase, Overlords/Veil for ae damage support, Empyrean for mounted blinding units). I may go for a religion just so I can found it and get the holy city, both for the gold boost it brings when it spreads, and for the extra mana. What religion I end up with might depend more on how the game develops, than on a pre-determined plan.
Also, one of the most powerful Balseraph tactics has absolutely nothing to do with religion anyway (imo). Dominate is the tier 3 mind spell that permanently gives you one of your enemy's units, but if it's resisted, the caster has to buy the promotion again (they lose the mind 3 promotion). But puppets are disposable, so if all you do is run around mind controlling the enemy without risking losing the promotion on your archmages, there ends up being no one left to fight! Give me mages and harlequins for air and taunt, some nice defensive units to make swiss cheese of attacking defenders, and a few other magely goodies, and I'm happy. Mimics are sweet fun too.
So, in a nutshell, if you want militant offensive priests, go ashen veil or octopus overlords. You can do it temporarily for the tier 2's, or enjoy other perks of the religion (such as water walking (EDIT: I mean kraken submarines) or hell hounds) at tier 3.
If you want to maintain special civic advantages, ashen veil lets you build heavy specialist cities, kilmorph gives massive production from mines, fellowship of leaves gives happiness from forests and gives you ancient forests, order lets you control happiness with military units (like hereditary rule from bts) as well as unyielding order from tier 3 priests (no unhappiness in the city, like the Globe Theater in bts). Council of Esus lets you mount surprise attacks from within enemy borders, a la the Trojan Horse.
Don't let that steer you away from say, Empyrean though...if you don't rely much on a specific religion anyway, then a hero like Chalid might be all the reason you really need in picking a religion, and letting him lead your armies. The rest can sometimes be gravy.
Fellowship of the Leaves I think is often the weakest for them, unless you capture some elven workers/slaves. Only workers with the elven race can build tile improvements without destroying forests, and ancient forest upgrades are usually the main reason for adopting this civ. This works for a Balseraph builder game, large dominating cities. Without being able to build the right kind of workers directly, this can be tedious, but that doesn't mean it isn't without merit. The religious civic, Guardian of Nature, gives happiness for forests, and thus bigger cities. But even without it running, you can usually get quite a bit of happiness in many other ways, so the biggest advantage is the ancient forestry upgrades.
A better solution sometimes is to consider making lots of lumbermills first wherever possible (no elves needed), and then switching to Fellowship of the Leaves temporarily, until they have all become ancient forests. You can't build the lumbermills after they've changed, but existing ones remain and boost the ancient forest's production. They change automatically over (a short) time when it is your state religion. Once all or most have formed, the religion can be abandoned. While this is overkill builder syndrome in most games, if I'm playing a heavy forest map like arborea, I often do this at some point because I've got forests all over anyway.
Also, if you have a Priest of Leaves (with or without the religion), you can spam tigers when you're bored, not just for the culture bonus in cities, but throw them in the arena, maybe a few of them will turn out ok.
The next weakest in my opinion is Runes of Kilmorph, though they have some merit too. Using their civic, you can crank out excellent production in cities with bonuses to mine production. Worth considering on a highlands map if the mining bonus sounds appealing. Their biggest appeal might be earthquake, cast by tier 3 priests, which unfortifies all units in a tile, reducing the enemy's defensive bonuses. Combine that with shadow mana (to remove city defensive bonuses) and maelstrom (air 2, to soften up the defenders with damage), and you don't need to be slowed down by catapults when moving your armies (when casting haste which doesn't speed up catapult movement). Also, you can build Mines of Gal-Dur, giving you three free iron and you don't need to research the iron working tech to use them. However, if you're doing it because you want iron badly, you can convert to any other religion after building it, and still receive the benefit.
One major downside in my opinion of all the good civs is just that I like the Undercouncil way way better than I like the Overcouncil. That may just be personal, but to me it's a factor.
Empyrean gives you access to one of the most devastating heros in the game, and I like the mounted units too (they cast blind, which makes units unable to move for two turns). The only other main reason is if you are facing a lot of shadows (I only ever care about this against players really), then this will help neutralize them.
Order is a favorite of mine in general, I love the bless bonus from tier 2 priests early on, and Unyielding Order from the tier 3's is great, especially when conquering new cities. I don't think there's a strong synergy with Balseraphs though.
So then my favorites are Octopus Overlords, Council of Esus, and Ashen Veil. If there's a decent amount of water on the map, Octopus Overlords can be very powerful for anyone. Their most powerful features I think are Tsunami and water walking, which you don't need to keep the religion for - you can stockpile cultists and stygian guards and then convert to something else. Building lunatics relatively early in the game can hold you over too, so it's not bad as an early, intermediary religion. I usually skip lunatics and spam cultists though. Saves a tech too.
The other, maybe bigger, reason for Octopus Overlords is to build Hemah, the hero caster. Twincast is an arcane promotion only purchasable by heros, and doubles their summons. Instead of one fire elemental, they summon two, for instance. Puppets summoned with twincast get it too. So Hemah can summon two puppets per turn, which can in turn summon two creatures each, for four total summons per turn. If you choose Keelyn as a leader, they stick around an extra turn, and you can end up with godly numbers of elementals running around, it's sick. 8 summons per turn, 2 turns duration, you can maintain 16 by the third turn I think. All from one hero. It's dangerous stuff.
Another choice is Council of Esus, which gives you Gibbon Goetia as an arcane hero to play with puppets too. If you found it, you can get Nox Noctis the holy building which makes all your units invisible within your borders, except the ones in your city (don't need to follow the religion for this). Council of Esus as a religion plays totally differently, and can be very fun, up to you. It lets you sneak attack (if you have open borders and have moved your units in, they don't get kicked out when you declare war).
The downside is that nightshades are pretty weak for what they're used for, and anyone can build shadows regardless of religion. If you spam recon units, some of them will be created with the religion, and will be able to get the hidden nationality promotion, so rangers, beastmasters, and assassins can be used without declaring war. Also, you don't get any good priests out of it, but if you're never going to see incense, I guess it doesn't matter much. It's a pretty limited religion, with some special features. I do think it's the best religion for Amurites though, because they can learn spells. Without spells, I think they get owned under hidden nationality too easily. The surprise attack is probably one of the really nice strategic advantages though, plus you can use the hidden nationality units to soften up defenses or improvements first.
Ashen Veil is a pretty awesome religion in general. Tier 2 priests spamming ae fire, Sacrifice the Weak civic, powerful late game units. If you don't have horses, Rosier is a good mid-level mounted hero (there's one for Order too).
That said, Balseraph has so many great things going for it, it's well-played with any religion. There's so much variety that if priests are an afterthought, or a support unit, they're still going to do very well. For Balseraph specifically, Ashen Veil and Octopus Overlords have the best synergy when using Harlequins to taunt. They both have attacks that will damage every unit in the stack severely, which you can use to soften them up before taunting. Then with taunt, you can hopefully kill off most of the defenders without ever even attacking with your own units. Maelstrom and to an extent Wither can also accomplish this.
With the summoner trait (Keelyn), arcane units are very powerful. You don't need a religion to make use of that, but it does give greater weight to Gibbon and Hemah. If you really like flesh golems, octopus overlords summon the strongest strength sacrifices (krakens).
Many times I don't worry much about religions when playing Baseraphs, and just focus on switching religions a few times to get good support priests for my units (Order for Bless, Kilmorph for the strength increase, Overlords/Veil for ae damage support, Empyrean for mounted blinding units). I may go for a religion just so I can found it and get the holy city, both for the gold boost it brings when it spreads, and for the extra mana. What religion I end up with might depend more on how the game develops, than on a pre-determined plan.
Also, one of the most powerful Balseraph tactics has absolutely nothing to do with religion anyway (imo). Dominate is the tier 3 mind spell that permanently gives you one of your enemy's units, but if it's resisted, the caster has to buy the promotion again (they lose the mind 3 promotion). But puppets are disposable, so if all you do is run around mind controlling the enemy without risking losing the promotion on your archmages, there ends up being no one left to fight! Give me mages and harlequins for air and taunt, some nice defensive units to make swiss cheese of attacking defenders, and a few other magely goodies, and I'm happy. Mimics are sweet fun too.
So, in a nutshell, if you want militant offensive priests, go ashen veil or octopus overlords. You can do it temporarily for the tier 2's, or enjoy other perks of the religion (such as water walking (EDIT: I mean kraken submarines) or hell hounds) at tier 3.
If you want to maintain special civic advantages, ashen veil lets you build heavy specialist cities, kilmorph gives massive production from mines, fellowship of leaves gives happiness from forests and gives you ancient forests, order lets you control happiness with military units (like hereditary rule from bts) as well as unyielding order from tier 3 priests (no unhappiness in the city, like the Globe Theater in bts). Council of Esus lets you mount surprise attacks from within enemy borders, a la the Trojan Horse.
Don't let that steer you away from say, Empyrean though...if you don't rely much on a specific religion anyway, then a hero like Chalid might be all the reason you really need in picking a religion, and letting him lead your armies. The rest can sometimes be gravy.
Excellent post, Goodwill!
If I play Bals, I want religion for one of following reasons:
1) gold and production bonus, so I can have more civ-specific units
2) archmage hero, for dominate and/or mighty summons; I prefer dominate.
3) culture, if I am going for culture victory
If I need 1), I will choose Runes of Kilmorph
If I need 2), I will choose Council of Essus for Gibbon, or Octopus Overlords for Hemah. But I prefer Gibbon - he is the fastest way to 'dominate' spell. I love to beeline for him, and... finish the game
(with a little help of civ-specific units)
If I need 3), I will go for Octopus Overlords (Hemah would be a nice bonus)
So, if I want to play 'normal' war, I go for RoK. Sometimes I also go for RoK for a few dozens of turns as an early religion, before going for CoE.
If I want to 'dominate' everyone, then I want to have CoE.
If I am going to build the most cultured civ on Erebus, I go for OO.
I do not like to go for 'good' religions, because I Like Undercouncil - but fortunately, it is possible to go for RoK and have Undercouncil
If I play Bals, I want religion for one of following reasons:
1) gold and production bonus, so I can have more civ-specific units
2) archmage hero, for dominate and/or mighty summons; I prefer dominate.
3) culture, if I am going for culture victory
If I need 1), I will choose Runes of Kilmorph
If I need 2), I will choose Council of Essus for Gibbon, or Octopus Overlords for Hemah. But I prefer Gibbon - he is the fastest way to 'dominate' spell. I love to beeline for him, and... finish the game
(with a little help of civ-specific units)If I need 3), I will go for Octopus Overlords (Hemah would be a nice bonus)
So, if I want to play 'normal' war, I go for RoK. Sometimes I also go for RoK for a few dozens of turns as an early religion, before going for CoE.
If I want to 'dominate' everyone, then I want to have CoE.
If I am going to build the most cultured civ on Erebus, I go for OO.
I do not like to go for 'good' religions, because I Like Undercouncil - but fortunately, it is possible to go for RoK and have Undercouncil
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If you're going for a cultural victory, you'll want to get all 6 religious temples in your cities for the culture bonus from each, although you might want to not follow either Order or AV to keep from getting the negative events.
Edit for clarity: Having both Ashen Veil and the Order in a city causes negative events to fire and results in the loss of one of those temples and some other stuff. I haven't seen the event(s) in a long, long time.
Edit for clarity: Having both Ashen Veil and the Order in a city causes negative events to fire and results in the loss of one of those temples and some other stuff. I haven't seen the event(s) in a long, long time.
I notice I don't get the benefits of the other religions in a city when I have a state religion. Having seen the abundant military on the only other continent, I think I'll use the OO as my state religion while pushing for a culture victory this game, especially as I razed the Rune's holy city. (It was working a bunch of tiles that would better benefit other cities I had.)
So, then, I should take Runes for production from mines, Hippy when I have access to elf workers for whatever reason, or need tigers for a cage, Empyrean for a great hero and rathas, CoE for sneaky ninjas, the Order for buffing my cities, and Ashen Veil and the Cthulu Cult for battle-priests? In general?
So, then, I should take Runes for production from mines, Hippy when I have access to elf workers for whatever reason, or need tigers for a cage, Empyrean for a great hero and rathas, CoE for sneaky ninjas, the Order for buffing my cities, and Ashen Veil and the Cthulu Cult for battle-priests? In general?
Sort of, it's still a case by case basis though. You don't need the religion as your state religion to build temples (but you do need the associated tech). If you build level 2 priests, such as the kind that summon tigers, you don't lose them when you convert religion. Alternatively, you can also get a good supply of tiger cages on some maps with hunters, or by capturing a Priest of Leaves. Not usually a must have though. Unless I was going for a culture victory, I wouldn't bother researching it unless it was for some other reason than tigers.
Also, Order priests do give a good buff, but as for buffing the cities (forced happiness), that is only for the most powerful priests of Order, and you will have to keep Order as your state religion or lose them. So if you decide to go that route, it should be for the long haul. Nothing wrong with that though, it's part of the fun of building a strategy.
Edit: Also something that hasn't been mentioned: juggling religions to get the best of all worlds is really time consuming, and is a decision in its own right. Sometimes it's better to not try to have everything, and focus on non-religious techs. It can be more of a luxury, and less worthwhile in the short term than building a powerful army, especially since Balseraph doesn't rely on religions much to begin with. Religion should enhance your growth, not serve as a distraction from it.
Also, Order priests do give a good buff, but as for buffing the cities (forced happiness), that is only for the most powerful priests of Order, and you will have to keep Order as your state religion or lose them. So if you decide to go that route, it should be for the long haul. Nothing wrong with that though, it's part of the fun of building a strategy.
Edit: Also something that hasn't been mentioned: juggling religions to get the best of all worlds is really time consuming, and is a decision in its own right. Sometimes it's better to not try to have everything, and focus on non-religious techs. It can be more of a luxury, and less worthwhile in the short term than building a powerful army, especially since Balseraph doesn't rely on religions much to begin with. Religion should enhance your growth, not serve as a distraction from it.
Another note: it is almost never a good decision IMHO to raze a Holy City. With it, you can get huge shrine benefits, free Mana among them.
If this city is working tiles that other cities can use, just stop working this tiles. Maybe this city will almost starve, but who cares? You can have religious shrine even in a city size 1.
EDIT: I would say that most reason for going CoE is Gibbon, not 'ninjas'.
It could be good decision to found religions that you do not want to follow (sometimes). I almost always try to research CoE first, for example. It's shrine is awesome.
Order is very nice to spam, because when you spread it to a city, you get free acolyte (and can spread it further). It is like epidemic
If this city is working tiles that other cities can use, just stop working this tiles. Maybe this city will almost starve, but who cares? You can have religious shrine even in a city size 1.
EDIT: I would say that most reason for going CoE is Gibbon, not 'ninjas'.
It could be good decision to found religions that you do not want to follow (sometimes). I almost always try to research CoE first, for example. It's shrine is awesome.
Order is very nice to spam, because when you spread it to a city, you get free acolyte (and can spread it further). It is like epidemic
I never seem to get great prophets though, or at the very least I don't get enough to build all the shrines.
Does Gibbon stick with you if you convert from CoE? Because otherwise I might as well take Hemah, because from what I understand the recommended strategy is to use G-man as a supermage, instead of killing him to steal a rival civ for a few turns.
None of the religious heroes will stick with you if you switch religions.
Selrahc
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Council of Esus is very nice for Keelyn. Units summoned by puppets lose the illusion trait, so getting a twincast archmage with puppets early is just game breakingly powerful, if you can give him some sort of summoning mana.
For Perpentach Ashen Veil works pretty well. As does Empyrean. He really is flexible enough that any of them can work though...
Meh. It's more fluff than an actual overpowering synergy.
Lanun work pretty well with FoL for the early game, to put a lot of ancient forest lumbermills on their land tiles to give them good production. they'll want to switch to a more warlike religion eventually to make up for their lacklustre unique units, but OO is only going to be your religion of choice for that purpose if a lot of conflict is going on at sea. Which will only happen against humans. If you really need to control the sea? Overlords every time. But normally the Lanun's biggest problems are on land.
Sheaim get some synergy out of AV since it raises the apocalypse counter and gives them diseased corpses... but there are other viable routes. Pushing complete arcane dominance with Overlords and picking up Hemah on the way works great for example.
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Even more powerful is twincasting puppets who cast domination because if a puppet loses Mind III, it's no big deal.
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Just remembered another reason to grab CoE (and Gibbon). If you're in a game where you're surrounded by floodplains getting Gibbon (and nature mana if you don't have it, for Nature III) can turn those floodplains into 4/1/1 or 5/0/1 base tiles, furthering that solid economic position. Also good for poisoned blade before sorcery if your civ is recon heavy.
The economic implications of an archmage early can sometimes be as big as the direct military advantages.
The economic implications of an archmage early can sometimes be as big as the direct military advantages.
If you're using Council of Esus then I'd suggest going through another religion and getting their priests first. You should be mutating all your units and you don't want the best ones stuck without disease cures.
I would recommend AV or OO since the Balseraphs can use all the evil stuff, profit from all the magic, and stay happy. They also combine well with ROK, perhaps covering each other's weaknesses.
I would recommend AV or OO since the Balseraphs can use all the evil stuff, profit from all the magic, and stay happy. They also combine well with ROK, perhaps covering each other's weaknesses.
Selrahc
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It's honestly kind of a toss up, and depends on just how strong the resistance to you is. If your summons are going to reliably get 90+% odds against the defenders, then they're probably more useful since they can kill two units with each spell. If your summons are getting poor odds on each attack then it becomes better value to dominate away defenders.
If you're honestly rushing to get Gibbon into play, then summons are probably the best option.
For my money, the very best thing Gibbon can cast is Summon Water Elemental, when the tower of elements is up and the water elementals are getting some decent mana affinity bonuses. But that is obviously more of a lategame thing.
1. Gibbon comes a lot earlier than Hemah. If you rush him, he is a game-breaker
2. There is nothing wrong with 'using up' Gibbon to impersonate leader. After his death, just switch to other religion (CoE is no longer as good as it was, when the Gibbon has died). For example, to OO - and THEN build Hemah
Excellent post, Goodwill!
If I play Bals, I want religion for one of following reasons:
1) gold and production bonus, so I can have more civ-specific units
2) archmage hero, for dominate and/or mighty summons; I prefer dominate.
3) culture, if I am going for culture victory
If I need 1), I will choose Runes of Kilmorph
If I need 2), I will choose Council of Essus for Gibbon, or Octopus Overlords for Hemah. But I prefer Gibbon - he is the fastest way to 'dominate' spell. I love to beeline for him, and... finish the game
If I need 3), I will go for Octopus Overlords (Hemah would be a nice bonus)
So, if I want to play 'normal' war, I go for RoK. Sometimes I also go for RoK for a few dozens of turns as an early religion, before going for CoE.
RoK gives you gold, so if you're having trouble with your economy do try it. RoK helped me through many of my early FFH games, when I was learning how the FFH economy worked and where the economy-related techs were located on the FFH tech tree (note that many FFH buildings give you actual gold, hammers, science, etc. instead of a bonus). It can give you Iron, through the Mines of Galdur, which you need for Mimics. There are many good reasons to get RoK.
However, their spells are not as useful offensively as those available to priests of other religions. And there's a domination strategy involving the hero of Esus that is extremely powerful. When you go for RoK as dwarves, you can avoid a large part of the magic tech line because the Khazad cannot upgrade adepts (I don't remember the tech tree for Luichirp). With Bals, especially with Keelyn, you need all of your spells and you need mages, so RoK, which requires you to go through the engineering tech line, can feel like a detour. FoL, which requires you to go through the nature tech line can also feel like a detour. AV, whose tech is on your magic beeline, can feel like a good fit.
But in part it also depends on your neighbors. You generally want to have a different religion from your neighbor (but that would be a whole other thread).
BTW, Keelyn's summon trait makes magic more desirable. If you go with Perpentech, make sure that you build the Command Posts when he decides to be Organized. They give you an experience bonus and help you build troops faster.
Finally, your choice of religion may depend on which of two core strategies you're using: mages with keelyn or mimics with either leader. Mimics are fun to play with. As long as they survive combat, they can obtain more promotions than any other unit in the game (except golems?).
