Why Kairos is the worst Lord choice in Immortal Empires

[SpiffyGonzales]

He starts surrounded by 3 factions who all want to wage war on him on a continent going in a straight line from past the edge of lustria to past the edge of nehekara, Which is a huge span of land for the number of settlments on the continent. Plus you also get enemies on other places who want to attack you, but since they travel to your cities faster than you can you simply cant get there in time, and you can really only go 2 directions wheras they can attack any city on the continent.

A way to bypass a lot of the b.s is to pay slaanesh for non aggression then bum rush the lizards to the west then bum rush the elves to the north. The issue past this point is that you will inevitably find yourself at war with friggin 3 more lizard factions, possibly also one in lustria. So for like 100+ turns you're fighting 90% lizards on multiple fronts with limited income. which is frustrating, even when you're winning. This isn't empire or ME2, variety is the name of the game, so when im fighting lizards upon lizards i get friggin sick of all the lizards and want to kill literally anything else. Legit, I have quit Kairos campaigns while winning just because I got sick of all the lizards.

On top of that, Kairos' changing of the ways SUCK. Yea yea "oh but he stole a minor city from me one time, SO OVERPOWERED"
Nah, it sucks.
.Open gates is useless since everybody has ladders plus most of tzeentchs army is either infantry or flying anyways, Id replace this with the beastmen ability that can destroy walls, THAT actually helps in sieges. Plus its the tzeentch ability for them anyways, how did that not get thought of?
.force rebellion is useless because the rebellion will be both hostile to kairos (it will even declare war on the 1/20 chance it takes a city) and insanely easy to kill
.Track Army us useless because we already have reveal faction intentions (one of the 2 useful abilities kairos has, the second being halt faction)
. force war coordination is useless because the A.I can literally choose to simply IGNORE it. Like legit, they can just decide "nah, I know grimors are a pain to get and you just spent some to do this, but I don't feel like it atm, so ima do my own thing"
. Transfer settlement is semi useful but the list to actually use it is b.s You cant be at war with them, it cant be a faction capital, it cant be a provincial capital. Now bear this in mind. YOU'RE A DEMON FACTION.... AND YOUR MAIN ABILITY... REQUIRES YOU TO NOT.BE.AT.WAR..... so yea, there goes that.
. Force war can go upwards of 20K grimors, even more in the late game. Huge friggin LOL right there.
. Break Alliance I have legit seen pass 100K.... ONE.HUNDRED.THOUSAND GRIMORS.... hey, sure thats the highest ive ever seen. But the average for main factions? Like 40-80K. Absolutly absurd.
. reveal shroud is decent... until you realize that it opens up diplomacy, and remember, your a demon faction. So opening diplomacy basically means opening up more wars...

So yea, a solid 80% of Kairos MAIN FACTION MECHANIC sucks. Either because its useless, counter intuitive, or literally impossible to use more than once (if that) in a campaign.

Now lets look at his cults. the first one gives you a WHOLE 10 grimors.... the next gives you a whole 20 if Winds of Magic are high. The third yeets itself and boosts all winds of magic to be at the highest setting... yea... that thing kairos can legit do as a faction mechanic.... Imagine if you gave the wood elves a building that blew itself up and gave them the ability to fire while moving, or gave empire handgunners... you can already do it, whats the point?

Well what about his unholy manifestations? All the chaos gods have some good ones rights?
.something of insanity: Honestly useful. No complaints here.
.Mutagenic energies: enables attrition regardless of territory: Theres this thing called encamp stance, theres these other things called cities... I wont say useless, but so situational its a joke. You can legit nullify its entire affect by just having your army sit around, and yes the a.i does
.Magic Flare: Increases barrier hitpoints: Honestly decent. Not as good as I would hope, but i suppose its fine how it is. def has helped me in a jam a couple times
Night of Madness: An absolute friggin joke! THREE TURNS your army is disabled. Guess what you get? Extra tzeentch corruption, winds of magic increase, and gives -50 control to an enemy province. So basically.. TWO THINGS YOU CAN DO ANYWAYS... FOR FREE... plus a janky rebellion army thatll die in 1 turn, and even if it magically takes the city, you'll still need to take it later cuz odds are the rebellion guys will be hostile to you. And again, INSANELY small chance that they'll actually take it at all. Bear in mind too that this is for a province you ALREADY HAVE AN ARMY IN. You could legit just take a city and get all the affects this promises... well except taking the city would actually do something.

Well what about his army? his military is good right?
Finally we get to a point where I have to agree with the internet peoples. his army is decent. he lacks a formidable front line early game, but makes up for it with a sort of semi skirmish weird playstyle that I think actually fits both thematically and combatatively. However despite being the literal god of magic, Tzeentch only has access to 3 lores. Plus, theres nothing to increase the total winds you can actually hold with additional wizards. Now sure, thats not exactly a negative, its the way every faction is. But for all the boasting about his magic, Kairos is about the same as vampires in terms of how effective it actually is. Only better due to the +20 WoM technology. My advice here is get the one cultist on his final mount, and basically just use him for the extra spell power that it gives. It should also be noted that his summoned lord of change doesnt get bound spells for whatever reason, so honestly once you get to the end game and have lords of change id just replace him or put him in a weaker army.

Also it HAS to be said that kairos being forced to replace his best spells for other ones with his skill tree is kinda dumb. He really should be able to bring 1 extra lore to the battlefield rather than being forced to pick and choose between his best spells.

Finally any and all "kill nurgle" techs, skills, abilities, and whatever else that Tzeentch has is useless. Its not like were talking all elves or all humans or all lizards or all rats... nurgle isnt even half as widespread as hed need to be to justify a whole technology and skill being used just to fight him.

[Zeek]

I agree with most of this, particularly the lackluster campaign mechanics (change of the ways). I've said for a long time the VAST majority of them are useless or worse, not useable due to ridiculous grim cost stemming from obtuse corruption AND relationship requirments.

I also think all the daemon factions have useless Unholy Manifestations and need to be scrapped and replaced with something else.

All in all, Nurgle and Tzeentch need the most love and thankfully it looks like Tzeentch might be the first to get it in the next major patch.

[Longman]

Originally posted by SpiffyGonzales:

On top of that, Kairos' changing of the ways SUCK.
.Open gates is useless since everybody has ladders plus most of tzeentchs army is either infantry or flying anyways, Id replace this with the beastmen ability that can destroy walls, THAT actually helps in sieges. Plus its the tzeentch ability for them anyways, how did that not get thought of?
. force war coordination is useless because the A.I can literally choose to simply IGNORE it. Like legit, they can just decide "nah, I know grimors are a pain to get and you just spent some to do this, but I don't feel like it atm, so ima do my own thing"
. reveal shroud is decent... until you realize that it opens up diplomacy, and remember, your a demon faction. So opening diplomacy basically means opening up more wars...

...

Finally any and all "kill nurgle" techs, skills, abilities, and whatever else that Tzeentch has is useless.

Since you put effort in your rant, I've cropped it to the points I agree with. Fingers crossed, CA will look into a couple of those.

Would be a dream come true if they removed bum ladders.

[KoboldUtopian]

I mostly agree. He's pretty boring to me and his cultists are useless. Though some of the CotW are more useful than you credit: open gates means you don't have to wait a turn building a ram that you immediately drop, reveal shroud is great for knowing whether you can advance quickly and exactly how many armies your enemy has, force war doesn't necessarily make them attack but you do get positive rep with the faction for having a shared enemy and gives you some more control over who you are fighting.

The "kill nurgle" techs aren't that useful, but they are loreful and you can ignore them anyway.

Also the start is tricky but not so bad. Here are my tips for starting:

• Take out the Nurgle faction
  
• Let Sarthorial die
  
• Try to get NAP with Slanesh
  
• Attack Teclis
  
• When the minor Tzeench faction to your west is down to its last city, confed it (for money) then immediately sell their capital city to Oxy for an alliance, Boom, Western border secured.
  
• Slanesh will probably attack but you should be able to afford a second army by this point.
  
• Continue moving north.

[Skydan]

What kills it for me is the lack of casualty replenishment. Everything else I can deal with.

[Lamp]

Yeah it was bit silly when they decided his start was too hard to they moved him over like one city. Glad they're giving him a whole revamp.

And never been into how much the faction relies on his magic in the earlygame. I mean you don't have to but it's his best bet to take the fewest losses. Is much more micro than say, Skarbrand, and wayyy less fun, (at least the AI can't dodge a giant demon running at them.)

[Hex]

3 whole hostile factions?!?!

Try Imrik or Grombrindal my guy lmao.

[Lamp]

Originally posted by Hex:

3 whole hostile factions?!?!

Try Imrik or Grombrindal my guy lmao.

Both easyish- especially Grombrindal. Maybe not so much Imrik, but his early units still make things a lot easier than flying Kairos around manually for the first quarter of the game. Grombrindal though is very easy, dude's a legend. Have had plenty of Grombrindal campaigns.

[Hex]

Originally posted by Lamp:

Originally posted by Hex:

3 whole hostile factions?!?!

Try Imrik or Grombrindal my guy lmao.

Both easyish- especially Grombrindal. Maybe not so much Imrik, but his early units still make things a lot easier than flying Kairos around manually for the first quarter of the game. Grombrindal though is very easy, dude's a legend. Have had plenty of Grombrindal campaigns.

Not the point, he can still only be in 1 place at once. You have to manage your enemies because of where you are.

[The Sand Witch]

Originally posted by Zeek:

I agree with most of this, particularly the lackluster campaign mechanics (change of the ways). I've said for a long time the VAST majority of them are useless or worse, not useable due to ridiculous grim cost stemming from obtuse corruption AND relationship requirments.

I also think all the daemon factions have useless Unholy Manifestations and need to be scrapped and replaced with something else.

All in all, Nurgle and Tzeentch need the most love and thankfully it looks like Tzeentch might be the first to get it in the next major patch.

like giving access to god-related arena, like a bound to the main campaign so they can gather XXX there? cuz, yeah, buffs upon buffs stacked with more buffs overall buffed and buffing the whole thing on top of having no opposition. Kinda an overstack of redundancy and unpractical uselessness.

[Kapika96]

Yeah but, he's not a Bretonnia LL! So there are at least 4 LLs that are worse choices than him!

[Hex]

Originally posted by Kapika96:

Yeah but, he's not a Bretonnia LL! So there are at least 4 LLs that are worse choices than him!

What do you mean? Repanse is mad strong. Her campaign is complete faceroll.

[CrucialEnd]

I agree his campaign mechanics are extremly bad. His armies lack synergy too. Skirmish units with low ammo, low range and no fire while moving along with a weak barrier and almost no replenishment. I rather have replenishment than those barriers to be honest. His skill tree is is a mess too, who the hell would want to put points to increase melee stats for flamers? Why cant Kairos and daemon lords have paragon of change? Why cant I play tall and scheme with the one faction that is supposed to be the best at? The whole faction needs to be reworked and I hope we see significant changes with the patch.

Playing Kairos campaign feels like playing a game 1 race that is still waiting on its rework.

[SpiffyGonzales]

Originally posted by CrucialEnd:

I agree his campaign mechanics are extremly bad. His armies lack synergy too. Skirmish units with low ammo, low range and no fire while moving along with a weak barrier and almost no replenishment. I rather have replenishment than those barriers to be honest. His skill tree is is a mess too, who the hell would want to put points to increase melee stats for flamers? Why cant Kairos and daemon lords have paragon of change? Why cant I play tall and scheme with the one faction that is supposed to be the best at? The whole faction needs to be reworked and I hope we see significant changes with the patch.

Playing Kairos campaign feels like playing a game 1 race that is still waiting on its rework.

lol, I didnt include tech tree because I already know I come off as ranty, and it would have doubled the amount of text lol.

[SpiffyGonzales]

Originally posted by Hurricane:

No he's op... you're bad. His spells are the best the game... that eye vortex melts everything!!! Literally wipes out full units no survivors and he can fly.

Army has shields... nearly the best cav in the game.

Overall easy mode.

in Milti I agree. The lord himself is good. His army is good, weird to play but in a good way, which makes sense.

But I highly encourage you to play his immortal empires campaign.

[SpiffyGonzales]

Originally posted by CoerciveUtopian:

I mostly agree. He's pretty boring to me and his cultists are useless. Though some of the CotW are more useful than you credit: open gates means you don't have to wait a turn building a ram that you immediately drop, reveal shroud is great for knowing whether you can advance quickly and exactly how many armies your enemy has, force war doesn't necessarily make them attack but you do get positive rep with the faction for having a shared enemy and gives you some more control over who you are fighting.

The "kill nurgle" techs aren't that useful, but they are loreful and you can ignore them anyway.

Also the start is tricky but not so bad. Here are my tips for starting:

• Take out the Nurgle faction
  
• Let Sarthorial die
  
• Try to get NAP with Slanesh
  
• Attack Teclis
  
• When the minor Tzeench faction to your west is down to its last city, confed it (for money) then immediately sell their capital city to Oxy for an alliance, Boom, Western border secured.
  
• Slanesh will probably attack but you should be able to afford a second army by this point.
  
• Continue moving north.

a couple things here. The force war one was actually the war coordination. basically two factions that are already at war, you can make one target the army or city of another. But the AI can legit just ignore it.
The force war itself is good, my issue with it is the cost. Same as break alliance.

As for the start I gotta disagree with you my man. I find that outright non agreession with slaanesh then IMMEDIATELY charging the lizards is the best way to go. Youll be at war with everybody, so itll be the only real way you can gain a lot of cults + tzeentch corruption. Plus its the only real way to use his transfer settlment ability without giving it from one enemy to another (at least till you meet khorne or TK).