What is a golem?

[rylen]

I'm experimenting with the Golem Cult. Machaka, with easy access to earth and nature seems a natural for it. But, I'm not always sure what is a golem. Here is what I've found so far:

Claymen
Enlivened Statues
Lumber Constructs
... are

These should be but I haven't checked:
Golems
Seige Golems
Iron Dragon
Mechanical Men
Clockwork horros
Crusher

These sound like they should be but arent:
Manikin
Mandragora

These might be:
Corpse Constructs

So, what do I need to add? And what can move from one list to another? And do any get special bonuses? I think I get a larger boost for Lumber Const then I do in Enliven Statues in the same domain. I'm checking that now.

Rylen

[Nagot Gick Fel]

rylen said:
I'm experimenting with the Golem Cult. Machaka, with easy access to earth and nature seems a natural for it. But, I'm not always sure what is a golem.



It's much easier to check this with a dedicated mapfile. Eg, make a copy of eye.map to golemcult.map, edit golemcult.map, change the title (#dom2title) to "Golem Cult", and add these lines:

#specstart 0 1
#setland 1
#commander "Golem"
#commander "Siege Golem"
#commander "Mechanical Man"
#commander "Corpse Construct"
.
.
.
etc. (add all the unit types you want to check as commanders)

Now design a new pretender for Abysia with the Golem Cult theme and a high dominion, start a new game on the "Golem Cult" map, be sure to leave the "Special start locations" enabled (it should be by default).

Generate a few turns, and look at your commanders. If their hit points have increased, then their unit type is affected by the Golem Cult theme.


[Edit: for this test, it'd be better to choose a high-number province as your starting province. Starting in 1 will give some of your commanders an heroic ability in turn 2, which might turn out to be 'heroic toughness']

[Cainehill]

If that works, the description of Golem Cult when creating a pretender is incorrect, as it says "All golems and other mindless constructs will receive an increased number of hit points when created inside a friendly dominion."

"When created" implies that the extra HPs come from the dominion strength at creation time, and commanders already on the map won't be considered to be "created", I don't think.

It also means that once created in a high dominion area, you can freely move them to hostile dominion without losing the extra HPs.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Cainehill said:
If that works, the description of Golem Cult when creating a pretender is incorrect



Never believe the blurb texts http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif. Golem Cul's unique effect is to give your constructs extra HPs, depending on your dominion strength in the province they're in. They aren't affected by adverse dominion (their HPs will only go down to normal here, and will raise again when you bring them back home).

[Wauthan]

I wonder if Golem Cult works in conjunction with the global spell "Mechanical Militia"? Both of them give you a solid defence (which is the best kind of offence) so if they work together your opponent would pay dearly for every province he invades inside your dominion. I can see Iron Faith Ulm being particularly strong in this strategy since their priests get the inquisition bonus.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Wauthan said:
I wonder if Golem Cult works in conjunction with the global spell "Mechanical Militia"? Both of them give you a solid defence (which is the best kind of offence) so if they work together your opponent would pay dearly for every province he invades inside your dominion. I can see Iron Faith Ulm being particularly strong in this strategy since their priests get the inquisition bonus.



Golem Cult requires a magic scale, Iron Faith requires drain. You can't pick more than one theme anyway.

[Wauthan]

Nagot Gick Fel said:

Wauthan said:
I wonder if Golem Cult works in conjunction with the global spell "Mechanical Militia"? Both of them give you a solid defence (which is the best kind of offence) so if they work together your opponent would pay dearly for every province he invades inside your dominion. I can see Iron Faith Ulm being particularly strong in this strategy since their priests get the inquisition bonus.



Golem Cult requires a magic scale, Iron Faith requires drain. You can't pick more than one theme anyway.



Doh! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif Never post until you checked the facts first. I'm writing this at work so my mind was a bit distracted.

Then what faction would make best use of Golem Cult? Vanheim perhaps? Marignon are the best Dominion pushers but they don't get good access to the magic needed. Vanheim got fairly durable priests and the dwarves can pump out even the higher tier golems. I know I've used Claymen en masse as Atlantis but Lumber Constructs are not interesting enough to sacrifice nature gems for.

More research into the nature of what is a "golem" seems to be needed. Seems Rylen hit a nugget. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Wauthan said:
Then what faction would make best use of Golem Cult? Vanheim perhaps?



Vanheim, Arco, Machaka. These are my Favorites Golem Cult candidates. I also got surprisingly good results with R'lyeh the one time I picked Golem Cult, based on the premise that many constructs can go wet, and often are either mindless or magic or both (all of these being good things for the squids).

[Endoperez]

Interesting thread. I'll be trying W9E4 Cyclops with Vanheim Golem Cult when I have time! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Cainehill]

Wauthan said:
Then what faction would make best use of Golem Cult? Vanheim perhaps? Marignon are the best Dominion pushers but they don't get good access to the magic needed. Vanheim got fairly durable priests and the dwarves can pump out even the higher tier golems. I know I've used Claymen en masse as Atlantis but Lumber Constructs are not interesting enough to sacrifice nature gems for.




Pangaea and Man might also, given cheap temples that allow them to build their dominion quite well. A bit harder to mass the mages required to do the castings though, I think.

[Endoperez]

Naah, Cyclops was too expensive. I would have to take Cold 2 or 3, and that would put the Cyclops at disadvantage. Production AND Magic severely limit the scales you can take down. Dragon was somewhat cheaper, and immune to cold, but it was hard to expand rapidly and research fast when your only ressearcher is a dragon... and I had to dump Earth 4, so the Vanir took hit from cold instead.

I tried Caelum, and they have Son of Niefel. He seems to be best chassis for Water9-Earth4. Temple Guards rock, a frontline of 7 of them held heavy cavalry of the first farmlands I took, and I think they even killed most of them. Unfortunately, my prophet was on 'hold' rather 'hold and cast', so they weren't blessed... I lost 2. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Still, Claymen are quite weak as they have bad def and even less prot I thought. 25 hps don't help much. I don't think W9E4 for claymen and uber-Temple Guards are competitive enough in serious multiplayer. If I could take him with Vanheim it could be worth it... Anything with W9 and Vanir can't totally suck!

[archaeolept]

meh. even though it sounds cool, 50 pts for golem cult and forced production scales hardly seems worth it; especially since the real gain occurs only on defense.

on the positive side, having wasted all those points, you have a better chance of needing them defensively...

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Endoperez said:
Anything with W9 and Vanir can't totally suck!



When trying Golem Cult with Vanheim I'd rather take advantage of the required high production to use Einheriar instead of Vans as my main shock troops. They're truly awesome troops, especially when you have mages who can enhance their lethality even further with spells like Weapons of Sharpness, Strength of Giants, etc. And don't forget to give each army commander his Staff of Storms. W9 isn't a requirement, what you really need is a strong econ to push the research fast, and preferably a high dominion strength.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

archaeolept said:
meh. even though it sounds cool, 50 pts for golem cult and forced production scales hardly seems worth it; especially since the real gain occurs only on defense.



Not only in defense. A teleporting Golem, a squad of flying Iron Dragons will still have increased hitpoints when they land in enemy territory. It take several turns for their hitpoints to go down to normal in enemy dominion.

[Wauthan]

Endoperez said:
Naah, Cyclops was too expensive. I would have to take Cold 2 or 3, and that would put the Cyclops at disadvantage. Production AND Magic severely limit the scales you can take down. Dragon was somewhat cheaper, and immune to cold, but it was hard to expand rapidly and research fast when your only ressearcher is a dragon... and I had to dump Earth 4, so the Vanir took hit from cold instead.

I tried Caelum, and they have Son of Niefel. He seems to be best chassis for Water9-Earth4. Temple Guards rock, a frontline of 7 of them held heavy cavalry of the first farmlands I took, and I think they even killed most of them. Unfortunately, my prophet was on 'hold' rather 'hold and cast', so they weren't blessed... I lost 2. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Still, Claymen are quite weak as they have bad def and even less prot I thought. 25 hps don't help much. I don't think W9E4 for claymen and uber-Temple Guards are competitive enough in serious multiplayer. If I could take him with Vanheim it could be worth it... Anything with W9 and Vanir can't totally suck!



If you are going Clayman you're better of with Atlantis-Nereid with Water9. Earth sites are suprisingly common underwater and you just need 50 of them for her to start cranking them out by the dozen.

In the MP game where I went "clay" I had two armies with about 400 Claymen in each. Sadly I didn't use Golem Cult and the small force (around 80 Claymen and 20 casters) in my capitol didn't Last against the massive amount of undead the Orchish Empire threw against me. With twice the HP (dom 10 in HQ) and with a few other "golemish" bodyguards things would have been different.

[rylen]

I've been focusing on early golem production w/ Machaka still. Currently using F4W4A4 Son of Sun to expand quickly and the cultures nature and earth gems for Lumber and Crusher constructs. They're good damage sinks, even if they don't attack that accurately. I had good sucess w/ a W2E9 cyclops where I rushed to E6 for Statues which seem far better.

Corpse Man Construction does not produce golems.

Rylen

[Endoperez]

I have had great fun with W9E4 Daughter of Land and Machaka. She can pump out quite a number of claymen, has high starting dominion and generates her own gems! A simple Water Sword gives her defence of 16 which becomes almost 18/19 (?) without shield. Hide/Eye shields have 0 enc. and can be done with national gems, but earth shields would work too, esp. after she can Summon Earthpower. And Ironskin with a shield (weightless tower shield, IIRC) gives her nice protection.

Next, I will try... dual W9E9 Daughter of River! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Endoperez]

Ah, pity... I can afford to take W9E9 with Golem Cult. E9W4 or smthng Cyclops could be interesting, still. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[Zooko]

Well, what's the answer? What things are golems?

[Ironhawk]

Golems are constructed beings that are endowed with a certain level of intelligence.

Edit: Oops! I thought you were asking for a definition. I dont know the official list of whats a golem and whats not. :}

[rylen]

Endoperez said:
I have had great fun with W9E4 Daughter of Land and Machaka. She can pump out quite a number of claymen, has high starting dominion and generates her own gems! A simple Water Sword gives her defence of 16 which becomes almost 18/19 (?) without shield. Hide/Eye shields have 0 enc. and can be done with national gems, but earth shields would work too, esp. after she can Summon Earthpower. And Ironskin with a shield (weightless tower shield, IIRC) gives her nice protection.

Next, I will try... dual W9E9 Daughter of River! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif



Nifty. What scales are you using with her? I tried Fortress (60), Golem Cult, Heat 3, and a touch of order and barely managed Dominion 4. Its a neat idea, but how do you afford the Big Spiders when you've got her?

Rylen

[Endoperez]

I decided it isn't worth doing. You have to have Order, Magic and Golem cult. That leaves you for scales to use for extra points, and you need lots of money for those Black Hunters...

I decided to try E9 Cyclops with Water 4-9, depending from points. That reinvigoration would be really nice for Pythium, but I'm trying to use C'tis too. Both have access to cheap communicants, and C'tis has better holy unit. That would also allow me to try and use Poison Slingers. And C'tis can use Enchanment much better than Pythium.