First game with Voice of El: Impressions

[ArkhanTheBlack]

So, after Druid and High Cultist I gave Voice of El a try. The be precise, I was my third game since I made two restarts because I forgot to convert settlements in the first and had an auto lose start in snow terrain where my gold income was reduced to almost nothing. Third start in desert was okay although I'd prefer if the classes would start in a region that would fit their class better.

Anyway, I played a mid size map with three knight opponents. The first AI was a Priest King if I remember right. I was lucky and caught him very early with my main army in a weakened state.
Dwarves and Senator were much more difficult and spammed huge amount of troops against me almost the whole game. And it was a very long game since both seemed to focus on me and I was stuck in defense a very long time.

Voice of El has some very interesting game mechanics. Some were pretty cool, others not so much.

The good:
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The church tithe was really cool since you get more money from your current converted settlements and you still get it even if those villages are taken ower. That ensures a rather nice gold income.

The arch bishop is kind of a tricky mage class. They can be devastating when they play human units since they can take convert them with conversion. Mass conversion was essential for my over the Senator since I couldn't have fend off his huge armies without converting half of them in my own troops. It didn't work against dwarves but they didn't send armies of that size so I could fend them off with my own troops. The Cardinal's Bless Army was also nice. No idea what Divine Word does since combat spells don't have descriptions and it's pretty much just guess-work from the title of the spell.
Unfortunately they have limited use otherwise. I they go against armies where coversion or banish doesn't work, they are more or less useless.

The two best rituals they have besides Convert Settlement are Start Crusade and Call Inquisition. Both summon a huge AI controlled army for an incredible cheap price of 200 and 250 or even cheaper with a Pontiff for 100 and 150. They were my game winners. Those armies have almost everything ranging from catapults, mages, templars and even paladins. If you would have to buy the armies yourself, you can probably add a zero to the price at least.

Bolster devotion is also decent ritual since you can improve the blessing abilities with it. That way Temple Guards and later Templars get more and more powerful.

Not sure 100 % anymore what made Templars available. I think it was the upgrade from Arch Bishop to Cardinal I think. Templars are pretty much the best troops you get. But if those are not enough you're more or less dead. Fortunately, they are pretty good.

The bad:
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Okay, now to the not so great stuff: The Seals. It somehow sounds good on paper but the first thing that's bugging me is that you try break the Seals to a plane that doesn't exist in the game. Because while we have everything from Inferno to the Void there's no heavenly plane since 'Elsium', the original heaven in mythology, is pretty much midgard or the normal earth.
The next thing that's bugging me with it is that it worked more like breaking the gates to hell or the void.

The first 1 seals was still kind of okay since you get flagellants as cheap protection of your settlements. Not sure about the "Increase divine Favor" effect. I had the impression it was worth the first time but not more.

I was able to break the 4th seal in the game which took an insame amount of time and was very expensive and pretty much all I got was a bunch of idiots (They are all tagged as stupid). Even angels are stupid, and they REALLY are. The ultimate highlight was an angel that grabbed a small army of my templars and fed them to a dragon in a suicide attack... *gasp*. I also got a stupid arch angel once very late in the game who did nothing useful. There was also one of the Apocalyptic Horsemen who wiped out one my Inquisition armies *bravo*.

Overall, if felt more like breaking the seals to the void or to hell. It would be a cool game mechanic for High Cultist or Demonolgists. Just replace the sprites with horrors and demons and you're fine. The angels behaved like horrors anyway and the flagellants would be lunatics or obsessed satanists.

Furthermore, since you can't use anything from the seals besides flaggelants or an occasional Paladin, the class is weak against powerful enemy spell casters or monster armies which aren't banishable. If you can't beat them with Templars and Arch Bishops you can give up.

I'd really like to get 'normal' angels somehow and not this pseudo horrors. Even demons are more reliable than that. Although I wouldn't mind to have a certain risk for fanatical avenging angels to appear. The horsemen looked a bit too much like they came straight from Hades to be from a heavenly plane.

Anyway, I still liked the class more than the High Cultist since the whole tithe, crusade and inquisition game mecahnics were kind of unique. But the seals somehow didn't fit and the angels were borderline insulting.

So for now: Druid >> Voice of El > High Cultist.

So, next class to try will be an evil one. I guess it'll be either Necromancer or Demonolgist.

[amuys]

The Crusade and Inquisition are no jokes

[niddhoger]

I'm not 100% sure what controls their size, but late game my crusade was 75 or so units. The inquisitor commander had mass converstion, too. I noticed several brigands in his army when he knocked over an enemy settlement.

Let that sink in, though. My 75 strong "stupid" army had knights and catapults. I bought it for only 100/150 gold and no iron. I don't think want to think of the turn/resource cost that would normally cost.

[I have no idea what I'm doing.]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von niddhoger:

I'm not 100% sure what controls their size, but late game my crusade was 75 or so units. The inquisitor commander had mass converstion, too. I noticed several brigands in his army when he knocked over an enemy settlement.

Let that sink in, though. My 75 strong "stupid" army had knights and catapults. I bought it for only 100/150 gold and no iron. I don't think want to think of the turn/resource cost that would normally cost.

If I'm not mistaken (and I may very well be mistaken) the size of the crusade/inquisition is related to devotion, i.e. the more you bolster it, the larger the armies tend to be the same way more devotion means more freespawn.

[♔ Affable 7th Wave Teaboo ♔]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von I have no idea what I'm doing.:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von niddhoger:

I'm not 100% sure what controls their size, but late game my crusade was 75 or so units. The inquisitor commander had mass converstion, too. I noticed several brigands in his army when he knocked over an enemy settlement.

Let that sink in, though. My 75 strong "stupid" army had knights and catapults. I bought it for only 100/150 gold and no iron. I don't think want to think of the turn/resource cost that would normally cost.

If I'm not mistaken (and I may very well be mistaken) the size of the crusade/inquisition is related to devotion, i.e. the more you bolster it, the larger the armies tend to be the same way more devotion means more freespawn.

I'm not sure. I've seen first crusade be considerably bigger than the second. My theory was that was tied to how strong the enemy was, perhaps(since my first crusade weakened the target significantly)?

Or perhaps it's a combination of devotion and RNG?

But from what I've seen, devotion alone in not the full story.

[♔ Affable 7th Wave Teaboo ♔]

I just have to share this - as El, I managed to catch and covert a Senator into the faith. Now I have Senator/El monstrosity going. And by the looks of it, map has a captol, so... Holy Emperor of El , here I come :D

http://steamcommunity.com/app/403950/discussions/0/485622866447749452/#p2

[Devin]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Διογένης Κυνικός:

Yeah, so I finished my first Voice playthrough and it was the most hilarious thing I ever seen.

While I was building up, my first Crusade wiped out the only enemy left (he wiped out the other two AI) and won the game.
That is, I won the game vs three AI without ever meeting either of them.
Had a gooooood laugh...

Fun, strong faction, and I love the fact that most of freespawn are "wild" and do their own thing. Good times.

That's pretty much my experience too.
One of my enemies lost to a crusade, one lost to the inquisition, and the third lost when Pestilence wandered into their last citadel.

[I have no idea what I'm doing.]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Διογένης Κυνικός:

I'm not sure. I've seen first crusade be considerably bigger than the second.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Διογένης Κυνικός:

Or perhaps it's a combination of devotion and RNG?

I've had this experience before as well and that's what I was thinking. Devotion being a dice modifier, but the bulk being largely RNG. Their constitution might also be RNG since the number of siege engines and paladins varies wildly.

[Orion @ UVA]

Necropost: I think seals past 2 are mostly for fun? I imagine the winning strategy is to unlock templars and flagellants and the just max out your bless, grabbing favor whenever it's way cheaper than devotion.

Does anyone know what favor does?

[♔ Affable 7th Wave Teaboo ♔]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Orion the Celestial Carp:

Necropost: I think seals past 2 are mostly for fun? I imagine the winning strategy is to unlock templars and flagellants and the just max out your bless, grabbing favor whenever it's way cheaper than devotion.

Does anyone know what favor does?

Favor increases frequency and quantity of freespawn (after 1+ seal is broken). Possibly quality of freespawn as well, hard to say. Max favor will have you spawn over a hundred some turns but it varies wildly.

Everything but the final seal is not so bad. 3rd seal will burn forests (great for us!) and releases first Horseman who'll run around and smack everyone. Since you'll generally have spawns taking over everything, you can cope with that better than most - sometimes it would spawn so far away I would never have to deal with him.
Subsequent seals just add more Horsemen to the mix, add more global disasters, but also introduce higher level spawns. Celestial Lions would not come at 2 seals, and they are pretty scary, especially with high bless. Low tier angels are definitely "meh". Again, higher tier angels come with more seals, and are a big improvement over little ones.

I would say that gradually ramping up all aspects of El is a good strategy. Going past seal 2 is probably not the way to go till you have decent bless and high devotion though.

Unless you are battling a Druid, in which case, mass forest fires may be very helpful.

Not a lot of reason to go past 3 seals without maxing out devotion and big bless first.

[Orion @ UVA]

Yeah, I know favor is supposed to make you spawn more, I just have no idean how much difference it makes. I didn't notice a huge change when I boosted it.

[Orion @ UVA]

Also, I wasn't sure what to attribute to favor vs. expansion. Do you get more flagellants and templars if oyu have more converted settlements?

[niddhoger]

Flag yes, Templar... Probably not. The higher tier angels are holy terrors. You can get a tier 3 pyromancy with tier2 prayers. At that point on the game, you stop manually collecting flags, and just let your stupid commanders lead them.

It's entirely possible for the horsemen to spawn on islands, though. They can also spawn/wander into enemy territory. As El, you have several freespawn armies roaming the map to help gain territory or recapture settlements, so its not so bad for you.

[Orion @ UVA]

I just got a paladin and templars with only 1 seal broken. Never saw that before, and since the templar recruits unlock with the second seal I figured it wasn't supposed to.

[Althaea]

Templar recruits are unlocked by having a Cardinal, I'm pretty sure.

[Orion @ UVA]

Didn't have that, either.

Speaking of hierarchy and promotions, though: is there any reason to make a pontiff if you're the only Voice of El? You get a discount on crusades and inquisitions, but it doesn't pay back the cost of making a pontiff in the first place, and you should probably already have called the inquisition by the time you get your pontiff.