Here we go again.



I´ve been too fixated on districts, on the contrary of what I believed. Since instead of a sheer bonus to something, the Necro(ok)phages have a defficiency, expanding too soon is not worth it unless your initial district contains a couple of anomalies or great terrain with no food (which means more yielding).



The Necrophages relation with food is funny. In a way, if you have to choose between "meh food meh rest" and "no food ok rest", I think you should always go for the latter (in opposition to everyone else). Trying to settle food means throwing yields away.



At least while you don´t increase the productivity of your tiles, Necrophages shouldn´t really expand much faster than anyone else - if not actually slower in cases when you (luckly) move your capital to a region with three villages.



If you have clear indications that you´re adjacent to a production/science-rich region with 2-3 easy villages, I say at least offline it pays to try and go there. You´ll usually be losing little (if you even considered moving, you must not be in a great place) and simply having two villages in the capital instead of one is already absurdly better. If you do get three villages, it´s completely reasonable to try a one city approach until your first conquering expansion. You can grow to absurd heights even using Feeds only occasionally.



Well, to the game.



Turn 1 - No food, so I´ll be going for Monument(buying partly) - Seed Storage(buying partly)



Turn 3 - Sometimes the game helps



Turn 6 - Finding out what I need for Ka-Riss already



Turn 7 - Completing deed for Wine, all from quest.



Turn 9 - Their peculiar way to get food makes them more sensible to good micromanaging, a little like Broken Lords.



Turn 10 - Finding the rest of my domains



Turn 12 - Rushing other sides of the Necroes.



Turn 13 - Only drones can deal with those



Turn 15 - Avoiding trouble. I probably could kill one of these, but I would be going around outside my territory with low health in a moment they could be spawning. Retreating means I would be less able to explore, so it´s better to just stay away.



Turn 16 - Bzzz



Turn 17 - Settler real quick in the background.



Turn 19 - Once I can tame them, all these Haunts are actually very good news.



Turn 20 - Empire Plan. Much less influence, but I don´t really have any plans of building more units for a while.



Turn 22 - Nice place. Second city´s queue.



Turn 24 - I used to think this increase in damage was a horrible thing for Necrophages. In a way, however, it does stop you from killing off every single village in sight, which sometimes will alow more roaming units and more farming.



Turn 25 - Well, fighting it is then.



Turn 28 - I can take on some Dredgers



Turn 29 - Especially upgraded



Units - I got shots of my designs, in case anyone´s interested.

• Forager - Basic cheap cannon fodder, usually very light on strategics, it´s meant to be killed when someone will have to die anyway. They´re awesome during attrition warfare because you freaking eat them back into your economy.
• Scavenger - Light infantry, made to rush strategic positions and to be exposed at flanks, from where it can retreat when SweepStrikeback isn´t useful.
• Harvester - Shield-wall infantry, made to stand strategic positions from where Drones and Fighters can go out and back in, delay engagement and chase Ranged and Support units (improved movement later)
• Gatherer - Shield-wall infantry, made to impose attrition to lines threatening Proliferators and pick-up kills left behind by more mobile units.
• Necrodrone - Shock Glasscannon, you go in, you hope you don´t die, you go out and people die chasing you.
• Necrofighter - Attrition Glasscannon, for when things are going grim and it´s better to just stay in your corner opening a new champagne for every sweep strikeback
• City Swarm - You know in cartoons how beehives are always full of angry well coordinated and incredibly annoying drones that won´t leave you ever alone again, like, ever. Yep.
  
  

Turn 30 - Dwarf hunting



Turn 31 - I wish I could cut all the minor faction suffering, I´m such a great guy



Turn 32 - nope



Turn 34 - time for a unit, the others only after empire plan



Turn 35 - Keep the Bzziness going smoothly



Turn 37 - bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzziness



Turn 38 - Nice, he´ll be a governor, Fast Healer is more useful than xp imo



Turn 39 - Soon



Turn 40 - Empire Plan



Turn 41 - The question now is: do I invest these food packs that I´ll get now on my capital or on a third city? I usually go for the city, but I think I´ll try something taller now.



Hope this goes well. comments are welcome!

Hehe



Can someone guide me? I´m using these settings, two continents but with 70% landmass. I made it larger every time I got my..."abdomen" handed to me. Still no use.



My main issue: when I´m finally ready to start spamming reasonably strong units, and that has been around turn 60 so far without the Megapole, From Dust to Rust kicks in and I have to choose between investing the industry anyway and removing part of the strategic design (or "spam" 3 units and wait 15 turns), or delay the military, build up and focus my entire second third of the game on somehow completing FDTR.



The further I´ve gotten was turn ~125 and there was 1 contribution from the AI. By this point, I had taken a neighbor, but still couldn´t get units out fast in more than two of my cities, and I fell for the next invader.



I´ve been unlocking Ka-Riss aroun 30-40, taking Kruos´ advice, and building raw units then upgrading them at the start like Abmpicoli said it´s best. I´m still not sure if I should get two ministries on turn 20 and delay settling a bit, or if I should get the second city ASAP. I´m also not sure how worth buildings are in comparison to districts, maybe I build to many buildings.

Agreed there, I rarely ever get it.



I always wonder if there´s something I´m doing terribly wrong about the size of my cities/approval. I can see it being useful when conquering very tall cities, in order to avoid bringing the general approval down for some turns. But at least this application seems a little marginal.



I just got owned again by huge eneqa wings, not even worth posting about it. I think I never learned to play these guys properly.

- Why some people seem to love Demanding Gods ? It's an advanced technology, there are others excellent technology for hapiness (as the Market) at this era, and it's only give +30 in happiness, for one population point, for a limited time.



- The sewer system, level 1 tech, cost nearly nothing, and give +20 happiness.



- In my opinion the Demanding God bonus is not enough high and should be at least +40 happiness. Or maybe just +30, but reduce the expansion disapproval of District of 75 % (it would be cool if Necrophages could build enormous city, with tentecularous district forms, without respect for the sacro-saint "triangle").

I was swept by Broken Lords no amount of early foragers would have saved me



The static green to the east turned out to be an Ardent Mages. Sometimes I see them playing really tall builds, which is cool, but they usually lose to some brute like these Broken Lords.



I´ll try again! Perhaps pink is not the right color. or perhaps I need more districts.

Ok, so Amplitude managed to tease me. Let´s try this again. I just noticed I actually didn´t share the previous game (which I won´t continue because Megapole gameplay is peculiar), so here it goes. Dropbox as always.



Furude could perhaps stop showing off and help us get a better understanding of this beautiful disgusting faction.



So I started this new game. Pink Necrofages for the win.



Turn 1 - Another desert. The plan here will be starving for a while to rush the very meh district to the west, get pop while building a foundry, then use it to get a settler, while spending money on science and more money. I´m going for a more literate type of invertebrate here, which will clearly slow me down militarily at first. With this approach, I completely kill any possibility of a situational early rush on a different faction, so that means I´ll assume an isolation stance for a long while. There will come a moment when I´ll be more than happy to watch my units die, but for the beginning here with low production, I need to make the best not to lose any of the initial ones and get them to level instead.



Turn 3 - Getting whatever ruins I can in the first ~10 turns, while uncovering all my region and looking for foreign borders.



Turn 5 - Spending the ruin dust on the Memorial this time, less security but more science and food. I´ll expect I´ll keep the pattern throughout the game, basing it more on a high dust output than a high industry one.



Turn 7 - Militia tastes just like chicken



Turn 15 - I´ll hold the food package and send Feeds to govern with the food capacity. My plan is to settle the region I´m pacifying, but there´s the Geldirus from my own region in the way, I cannot handle them, and they might just force me into settling the desert to the east. It´s a terrible region (with Gold), so if I´m stuck there without a boost, things can start getting out of hand.



Turn 18 - I was delaying the settler until it had an escort. I thought it would take longer, but I took a chance there (i would never have taken online ) and managed to slip past some Arpuja, who are now following me. They do fly which is annoying. Two turns of Clicker Heroes.



Turn 20 - Just in time, if I was actually trying to lure them I´m sure i would´ve failed. Here´s the Empire Plan. I want at least enough science to get me Cannon Fodder before turn 50. I also need Apprentice´s Registry for my second city, so that´s a lot of research.



Turn 24 - Placement of the second city. Using wine before settling and sending the food to the capital. And here´s after it´s settled.



Turn 25 - Capital after the food boost. Now I can send a drone to unlock Ka-Riss when I have the dust.



Turn 26 - The Ice Wargs I´m afraid of.



Turn 29 - Almost there.



Turn 30 - Now I can use the units to finish the villages in my regions, get more districts in my cities, and consider an expansion. Those green to the east are suspiciously not settling in my direction whatsoever, so they might be cultists. If that´s the case, I´ll need another city.



Turn 31 - Winter comes



Turn 32 - Capital and Second City.



Turn 33 - My science is certainly better than the Megapole game, let´s see how it goes in the long term.





Comments and suggestions are always welcome. If I should be building more districts, please let me know.

To be honest, I don´t like Proliferators. ^^ They´re terribly useful, fit the cannon fodder strategy perfectly, and I´m sure they´re needed on MP. I just don´t like suddenly having a river of battleborns when I don´t really need them.



They´d be more useful offline, the way I see it, if they were weaker and earlier, so that you have another option in terms of how to compete against AI´s extra industry. Necrodrones are way too good compared to Foragers, they might increase the latter´s opportunity cost a little too much.

Hehe nice pic Furude, this is a nice bunch of bug you have here. ^^



Regarding the Battleborns I do the same, I fill all my garnisons with them, and actually they slowly replace my Foragers. Actually, even if Foragers are gearable and can be specialized for some specific role, I tend to not see any use of that.



Once at mid game my armies are generally composed like this :

- Proliferator armies : composed of Proliferators geared for damage essentially (2 at least) and Foragers/Battleborns geared for initiative. No heroes.

- Shock armies : only composed of Necrodrones geared for damage essentially, with a hero geared for initiative.



With this composition I do not see the added value of the Foragers (versus the Battleborn) or a specific thing that would make them interesting to build. Necrodrones or Proliferators are more interesting to build once at mid game, because the meat bag role is now filled by the Battleborn.

Hey there. Thanks for the comments.

I would say that this the key of this Necrophages strategy : expand to late and you take the risk to let some opponents become powerfull, expand to early and you take the risk to struggle a little for empire management (moral and armies volume).

Very true.



About Battleborns - I use them as garrison usually, or to fill the spot of some dead Forager until I can replace it. I don´t like walking around with a bunch of Battleborns.



I´ve stopped EL for a while, it was a nightmare trying to keep this game fluid with all the "join army->move" bugs. When I forget about it again, or the game gets fixed, I´ll be back to finish it.



The Vaulters kept banging their head against the bee hive, I think whenever I come back to this thread, I might try a different game without the Megapole, to be more of a guide.

Beat this - http://screenshooter.net/100256023/tqpcemw

Regarding armies composition, I have a question BPrado about how you manage your Foragers once the Battleborn are in the place. They tend to have very similar roles in my book, I wonder if our well loved little Foragers are not a little useless once in the middle game.



What do you think?

Interesting, I tend to adopt a similar strategy when playing the Necrophages.



In my games generally I have better results when developping Feeds' as a general, it allows more corpse and a more secure early game on overall, which is the weakness of the Necrophages. Well pexed and geared, Feeds' alone can farm villages and wandering units very efficiently also.



Regarding Ka-Riss, I would say that a T40 unlock is a good one, and after T50 is a little late, I use it as an indicator of how well my developpement is going. Ka-Riss means more corpse, which in turn means more fat cities, which is important for the incoming 'Demanding Gods' to be efficient. So, the sooner the better.



I build only one Settler, which I settle very early, around T12-16 generally, on the fattest spot I can found at that time (food&prod&villages). The plan is to developp only two cities and to reach 10 pop the sooner possible. At that point, I generally switch heavily on prod to recruit my proliferators. Why 10 pop? Because I think it is the sweet spot to use sacrifices -a key necrophages tool, every ten turn, allowing cities to be happy and continue to grow at the same time. Combined with some luxuaries it is very powerfull, your empire quickly become 'Fervent' while you keep expand from conquered cities to conquered cities, well used sacrifice is a very powerfull lever.



Once Ka-Riss is up with severall 6 units armies, and my two fat cities are using sacrifices efficiently, I generally switch in conquest mode, identifying the weakest neighbourg and quickly grabbing 2-3 cities to start the expansion. More battles mean more corpses and more foods, which is good, but also more moral penalties, this is why it is important to not switch in conquest mode too early, to handle the moral well.



I would say that this the key of this Necrophages strategy : expand to late and you take the risk to let some opponents become powerfull, expand to early and you take the risk to struggle a little for empire management (moral and armies volume).

Turn 2 - This over here is the kind of start that can be a trap. It seems good for all the yielding and approval, but it takes me farther from the other anomalies in the region. Also, settling on top of that titanium will instantly connect it, allowing me the opportunity at equipments. It will be a poor location for science, even after I annex the life tree to the west, but what can you do right? It could be worse, and its not like teaching bugs to read is going to make them that much better at what they do. Districts will provide some science in any case.



Looking for ruins before settling your capital can be extremely helpful. Every now and then you´ll get the quest to settle the own region you started at, and every now and then you´re bound to get some luxuries. Activating them will only cost 5 which means you can activate it twice in case the deed for 150x something requires it. It´s good to remember that food boosts from killing units counts as a luxury.



Turn 4 - When battling near your cities, make sure you use your Militia to its full potential - easy convenient food. Isolate them, hold Foragers back, force them into AoE attacks and defenses, expose them to disease, anything counts as long as they die. That´s how disgusting you are now. (: They´ll be back the next turn, so - working as intended.



Turn 5 - Luck helps a lot.



Turn 10 - I have little explanation for sometimes buying out these early units, instead of rushing memorials and foundries and libraries. Except that I preffer to have a low chance of losing my entire army while on a casual stroll through some ruins and ruining my game than to have a high one.



Turn 11 - These will help me finish the first food pack, and complete the deed.



Turn 12 - I´m often not able to kill both cavalry units of an army in the early game - those dead militia now add up to complete the boost a turn before I would.



Turn 13 - When the quest is to clear a region, that faction will attack your city, and there they are. Unfortunately it will take a couple of turns to get back there, but the healing will be useful.



Turn 15 - I kill the driders and then send Feeds to govern. I´m already considering the Megapole at this point, but I simply cannot make do without the wine region to the southeast.



Turn 18 - You need resources, approval, population, a mill foundry and start it before turn 20 - with whatever faction that is, you´ll have a high chance of getting the Megapole. Luck plays the larger part nonetheless.



Turn 21 - Second city, need to pacify those villages asap, I´m really looking forward to assimilate these.



Turn 25 - It might not show, but I have 20% more science. =[



Turn 29 - Finishing the ruins hunting, avoiding hard villages, now I´m able so I want to eat again.



Turn 31 - Cull the Herd, even without the Slavery trait from Necro governors, is an awesome trait. A big region with lots of villages will multiply its population really fast if you put some effort into it.



Turn 35 - See



Turn 39 - Winter happens for everyone, during the same period of time.



Turn 40 - Empire Plan



Turn 44 - Only advancing tiers now for the lack of libraries. I hope that the excess titanium and conquering the Vaulters to the east will eventually even that out.



Turn 45 - Reeeeeally should get some units instead, dumby me.



Turn 47 - Now I feel bad about it and retrofit the ones I have instead.



Turn 49 - Then I get scared again. Also, headed to open Ka-Riss.



Turn 50 - Damn yeah. My capital, and second city. War should come anytime now. It took them longer than usual; if I had to guess I´d say it´s because of the stink, or the disgusting homicidal and cannibal behavior my armies tend to display. But it could be forgiving AI. Drakken would surely be knocking on my door way earlier if they were my neighbor, to the point I would never have chosen to try the Megapole in the first place.



Turn 58 - Finally. I´m really not feeling like using the influence.



Turn 59 - So, I have this friend on steam, and he´s constantly playing a random game I have never heard about or seen, but it´s called Clicker Heroes so I assume it must very close to this.



Turn 60 - I already got a level of region healing on Feeds, so right now I want to lure a couple more of their armies into the nest. The first one panicked at the sight of my mighty horde and attacked the fortified city. It´s very useful to remember that, as much as EL really does lack defensive dynamics for tall builds, fortifications already present the AI with a huge difficulty on their choices. A player would, or should, never attack this city in this situation, and that prediction can only possibly be not considering the 100hp for every one of my units.



Let me make it clearer - if an enemy attacks a city that has reinforcements in range, the reinforcements will be effectively fighting inside the city, and thus will receive all of its fortification bonuses. Even if their Health bar during the fight doesn´t show the "grey amount"; whereas if the enemy engages an army out in the field and I choose to use the garrisons as reinforcements, they will not have any fortification because they´re fighting outside.



This here was the empire plan for turn 60.



Turn 61 - Military Overview - If I manage to kill more of those fast, she´s as good as cooked.