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I tend to T1 build money buildings at least on each settlement. They're fairly cheap, and commandment +Charnel Valley Necrotect follower gets the cost down. Growth is nice but often you can't afford to upgrade the settlement by the time you have the pop surplus anyway.
It does suck that they're both ruins though. Being able to smash a T1 or T2 settlement builds experience for your Lord and gives a head start with buildings, while colonizing ruins costs more money and leaves you vulnerable.
In Vortex, those ruins are an extremely effective geographic barrier because it takes aaaaaages to move around them. Not only will they basically never pay themselves off, the Beastmen (in Vortex) will invariably raze them and your capital as well - unless you station Khatep to beat them off in which case S'sildra Tor will start annoying you immensely.
I think the best route in Vortex is to recruit a full stack ASAP, not even moving out of your home territory; this should be done by Turn 4 (if you're at 18/20 don't bother waiting to fill the last two).
In your capital, build the T1 public order and nothing else; you're not going to be able to hold it against the Beastmen unless you backtrack, and building T2 walls will probably not be enough to win. Don't bother upgrading the barracks; as you start with 1 Nehek Warrior anyway you're basically paying 3000 for 1 more Nehek Warrior... and they're not really very good anyway, slightly better skeletrash without shields.
Disband-recruit-disband Liche Priests until either a) it's a turn before you need to get going (so they'll embed in your army in time) or b) you find traits you like.
Really good:
- Wise
- Knowledgeable
Good:
- Treacharous (handy later game)
- Channeller
Bad:
- Anything that gives buff to armor / charge bonus / weapon strength. "Aggressive" is basically the worst trait you could hope for.
As for which dynasty to research, there are three choices:
#1 : Provides access to Proclamation of the First Dynasty which has a lovely +10% campaign movement range bonus
#3: Provides access to Proclamation of the Third Dynasty which has a lovely +2 public order factionwide
#5: Provides access to Setep, who gives +5 WoM factionwide and +2 Liche Priest recruit rank factionwide.
All of those are quite good!
Then go on a smacking spree down south. Titan Peak. Sulpharets. S'sildra Tor. Then smack Cylostra (unless you like vampiric corruption) over in Grey Rock Point.
From there, you need to determine:
- how much you like the Skaven and Clan Gnaw (for me, not at all)
- how much you like Hexotal and conversely how badly you want a Book of Nagash (for me, quite a lot, but also quite a lot; note that if you trade with them you will get Golden Idols for the crafting)
- where Cylostra Direfin is (for me, she had just taken Ziggurat of Dawn)
So it was a sensible step for me to sail over to Ziggurat of Dawn and smack Cylostra. In between, she invited Hexotal to declare war on me (what the heck? Maz, why are you even listening to Cylostra???). So given I was already in Hexotal's province, it was a simple strategic decision (but a very fiendish long battle involving large quantities of AI-abuse and full use of a Casket of Souls) to smack Hexotal itself. Then they also had Skeggi, so I thought I'd smack that instead of peacing out; and well to complete the province required whacking stacks of New World Colonies which is rather straightforward to do. It was also a simple step to murder Clan Gnaw with Khatep's stack.
At this time Beastmen had razed my capital, I'd recruited a second army to stop them, and S'sildra Tor had been razed by vampiric rebels (which was actually better than the faction re-emerging). I'd recruited a second stack of skeletrash to deal with the Beastmen.
The Necrotect rite; very easy to get, just perform an action with a Necrotect (and "an action" includes "embed in army") - will colonise your razed capital at T3 for the measly price of 225. I actually sent him to S'sildra Tor as I wanted that more. As it's T3 you can and should build the Ushtabi building.
Also, regarding skill points of Khatep:
- The first batch should go into Route Marcher + Soul Reaper (when maxed +20% casualty replenishment which is HUUGE) + one in Canopic Jar Hoarder -> Attend Me (+1 recruit rank, +1 local recruitment capacity) -> Lightning Strike.
While I want Renowned and Feared there's nothing very good in the second batch so it's not really worth wasting three skill points.
- The next batch should go into cool stuff that only Khatep gets. Two more in Mortuary Cult Scholar (+cool stuff) and Witness to the Golden Age (+more, minor, cool stuff) and he's Rank 10, which allows you to get his unique line Reainimator (+leadership for skellies).
The +LD/MA for horsies is terrible, don't get that, but the other three (+sandstorm, +recruit rank for Liche Priests, +2 Tomb Guard) are quite good - then you can get The Grand Hierophant (+20 WoM).
From there, it's red line. Buff your skellies then your Hierotitan/Ushtabi constructs and make your way to Reanimate Upgraded.
At this stage I could have pushed further south into Lustria. There are a bunch of reasons why I didn't:
- Equally good spoils can be found up North
- There is almost an entire ruined province between me and the nearest faction, The Blue Vipers; who thanks to a NAP quite like me and have enough enemies to worry about; so leaving Hexotal/Skeggi is basically a "safe frontier"
- All Dark Elves hate Khatep and as such it is invariable that one of them will feel confident enough to randomly declare war on you
- I want the Book of Nagash in the Ancient City of Quintex; not to mention the ridiculous landmark there anyway; also it makes you a ton of money.
Morathi is always a pushover this early as she never builds walls in her capital and high-ranked skeletrash (you were disbanding and recruiting if you could recruit higher than your current rank, right?) will beat trash Dreadspears in a 1v1.
By this time you should be sufficiently self-sufficient to need no more advice. Go forth and conquer!
(hmm... should make a Khatep guide)
-Early on you can bully Clan Rictus around because their early stacks are pushovers and I find them less annoying to fight then bajillions of Dark Elves. Invariably I got the Dark Elves off my back as a result. I liked to Sack then raze, then come back later and do it again when they recolonize. I was careful about settlements I was going to commit to actually occupying.
-If you don't have anything better to do, perform Treasure Hunts on ruins; 1,000g and a random item isn't bad early on when money is tight.
-Khatep's quest is easy to get going from your starting area, but at level 8 with basic units was a pretty difficult fight for me. A few levels and better units later I did it. His Liche staff isn't the most amazing item, but the +5 untainted and +60% magic item chance is useful based on where you are starting out. I also think repeatedly sacking the same settlement gives you a chance each time, so in theory having a high % to find magic loot greatly increases the chance of getting something good early on.
-Lich priests get a skill at rank 10 that gives you +2% research. Doesn't sound like much, but it adds up when you are getting a LOT of Lich priests. Another skill at rank 10 gives +1 starting level for lords and +1 veterancy for units in the embedded army. At rank 10, get one, rank 11, get the other, and rank 12 get Elixir of Immortality and never have to worry about re leveling up priests that got run over by a stupid doomwheel. Since Khatep and Setep both boost the starting levels of these guys, as well as max capacity, those little bonuses start to really add up. They also generate untainted, which is good considering you'll be huffing chaos and rat farts in your corner of the globe (Chaos and Skaven corruption).
-If your Lich priest is going to immediately join an existing army, put your starting skill points in spells and replenishment (depending on the lore of magic and your preferences). However, if you just have excess capacity and don't have anything better to do than have a free lich priest wheezing and smoker coughing around your settlements, put skill points in more jars primarily.
-The Jars Must Flow. I can't stress how fun it is to invest heavily in stuff that gives more jars, either passively over turns, or actions that give more. There is enough stuff in research trees to keep you busy and several dilemmas that give a much better outcome if you opt to spend jars. Sea treasure also means battles which also means MORE JARS. With Khatep, its friggin Pottery Barn with all the jars you can get.
Settra eh?
& yeah, military alliances screw you over - don't make them
If you're unsure about the ensuing consequences, don't go above defensive or maybe not even above NAP.
I'm doing Settra on legendary now and it's going fairly well. :)
Oh man, don't military ally with AI.
They are schitzophrenics and will declare wars on everything, and you are going to be the one paying for it.
For Military Alliances pick one strong faction who really likes you and then align your diplomacy with theirs from then on. You can still trade and NAPs with anyone you want but only ally with their allies for the rest of the game. This leads to powerful, long lasting alliances that should carry you through to the end of your campaign. Just be wary of alliances involving scheming Vampires...
As Khatep, you don't wanna leave your starting region for a good 15-20 turns or so. What you wanna do is
1. Attack the sildra-tor army right near you. If you get your campaign movement just right, you can fight them twice on turn one and wipe them out. Recruit archers. Build growth.
2. Attack the settlement just south of you and sack it. Recruit your fourth archer and from here it's just skele-trash for a while. On turn 3, destroy the archer building so you can build the money/movement range one. Sack the settlement to the south again.
Repeat this process for about 15 turns, returning home to take care of rebellions as needed. Spec Khatep towards his buffs to research and liche priests ASAP. By the time you're recruiting your second army, you should be able to recruit the lord at level 5 and units at level 7.
How do you achieve this? Thru skills in Khatep's skill tree you can have 4 liche priests unlocked at level 12 I believe. Get each of them to level 12 as well, and you they all give you facitonwide lord recruit rank and in-army unit recurit rank, as well as faster research. By using the sack-city, you can easily gain 1 level per turn on all of your characters. The research buffs will make your second army take only 19 turns instead of 21 (22? i forget but it helps).
3. Once you get a second army (2nd dynasty for the growth underneath it), fill it with trash and maybe some regiment of renown, grab that Ptra's necrotect, and send both to colonize and defend the settlement to the north of you. Meanwhile, you can finally occupy the one South of you with Khatep.
Now, it took you a while and it was a slow start, but on turn 20-ish, you have Khatep at level 20, 4 liche priests in the 10-20 range, a second army with a level 5 lord and a few powerful RoR units to back it up, and your starting province will be finally getting going. Build walls in your non-capital settlements, and go out to conquer dark elves.
And don't forget to cheese canopic jars so you can start buying armies, too. Just by giving all your lords and heroes the skill for it, you should be able to buy your fourth army at the same time you've researched your third, and from there you just steamroll.
Witch Hunters this is the Necromancer right here!
Why level up, when you could level up and take land at the same time?
I disagree entirely. TK have a very slow earlygame and are only able to field skelespam for the vast chunk of the early game, which means that turn 20 the DE around you will be fielding Black Ark Corsairs, which - particularly relevant to Khatep - you cannot do absolutely anything about.
Instead, fight them early, when your skelespam is still the same skelespam, but they're only using crummy Dreadspears and their Darkshards don't even have shields yet.
Also, Nagash should hire you as a necromancy intern, you've clearly got talent :P
Aye, after my current Arkhan ME run through, Khatep Vortex is definately next for me.