Golems: how do I make them work?
 

Hi!

I've read some guides and AARs and many of them mention using the golems, construction 7, in later stages of game. So I went off to test the clay dudes in sp and got mixed feelings as a result. Here's how I see the golem and what I tried with them.

Pros:
-high hp
-high strength
-mindless & lifeless
-fire & poison immune
-zero encumberance
-S2 mage

Cons:
-hopeless attack & defense
-low protection
-low APs
-no access to regeneration

In all of the following tests earth 9 bless was used.

Experiment 1: the normal thug/sc attempt
At first I tried setting up a golem sc.

Stuff: frost brand, charcoal shield, starshine skull cap, shrouds of battle saint, boots of quickness, amulet of antimagic, burning pearl.
Script: body ethereal, personal luck, astral shield, magic resistance, attack closest.
Result: disaster. The golem died in his third battle against some chafftacular mictlan troops. It got ganged and killed regardless of my efforts to improve the golem's defenses.

Experiment 2: trampling golem thug
This time I dismissed weapons altogether and tried to leverage the golems size and high strenght via boots of behemoth.

Stuff: vine shield, shield of gleaming gold, starshine skull cap, shrouds of battle saint, boots of behemoth, amulet of antimagic, bracer of defense.
Script: body ethereal, personal luck, astral shield, magic resistance, attack closest.
Result: this wasn't actually terrible, but it didn't convince me either. Because of the low action points, the trampling was slooow.

Experiment 3: tempest golems
My third attempt was much like the second one but I added a communion to cast astral tempest. The golem force included six slaves and one master.

Stuff (slaves): starshine skull cap, shrouds of battle saint, boots of behemoth.
Stuff (master): starshine skull cap, robe of etherealness, boots of behemoth, crystal matrix. I also packed some clam of pearls in order to not to have to reload for tempest.
Script (slaves): communion slave, body ethereal, paralyze, paralyze, attack closest.
Script (master): astral tempest, personal luck, astral shield, magic resistance, attack closest.
Result: this totally crushed all opposition but it costs a lot of gems and I have no idea of its effectiveness, or lack of it, in actual multiplayer game. This was a blast to use though!

As a general note I really liked the skull cap because it enables teleport. Shrouds + E9 bless also felt very good since it gave nice boost to prot without lowering APs and reinvigoration was excellent in erasing fatigue caused by spellcasting.

I would appreciate if some more experienced players could tell me if I'm doing it wrong and/or share some of their golem setups/strategies.

Thanks.

Re: Golems: how do I make them work?
 

Try experiment 1 with the following changes:
Marble Armour instead of the shroud(or any high prot armour)and amulet of resilience instead of burning pearl. Another option would be jade armour, boots of the messenger, amulet of antimagic and another useful misc item.

Re: Golems: how do I make them work?
 

You're using them the wrong waaay! think about it, age-less, Reliant compared to most mages, 0 encumbrance, give them

Rune Smasher, crystal tower shield, star shine skullcap, boots of the messenger, amulet of penetration and a girdle of might.

4 astral, 0 encumbrance, 10 reinvigoration, and just ahve them at the back casting soul slay or enslave mind. That's how I do it!

Re: Golems: how do I make them work?
 

Isn't that awfully expensive for a standard astral spell chucker? I mean, starspawn are nearly as good as that.

Re: Golems: how do I make them work?
 

Shovah's on the right track...of course your golem's gonna die with 6 prot and a horrible defense score. Marble armor gets you 23 body prot and something like 18 on the head...add in body eth and luck and you're pretty much set against any raiding force or PD. Though all of the talk about reinvig items is kind of not worth it on a golem, since they're 0-enc and you'll only get a bit of fatigue casting buffs (generally I just script BE and luck, leaving out astral shield, since crossing 30 fatigue is a bad idea, possibly worth it vs some low MR troops though)

Just to cover the basics all you need are a brand, a skullcap, and marble armor...add perks as needed for resists. Bone armor/marble boots gives you soul vortex, but is generally very much overkill.

Things you should do with your golem: Raid, kill enemy raiders, abuse the fact that they can cast teleport. Abuse lifeless/mindless (hitting blood hunters is great, since life for a life and leech won't work). Abuse the fact that they're immune to most remote spells (barring a whole bunch of seeking arrows)

Things you should NOT do with your golem: Go near most enemy mages, especially skel spammers or astral mages. Hold still. Think that he's an SC. Attack anything that might take longer than 50 turns to kill. Make it easy to guess where you're going.

Golems are excellent units, and some of the hardest to use properly IMO. They're the best raider in the game, but they are NOT SCs.

And Juzza, if you want to burn 100 gems on a golem and have him run around with your army so he can die to a random magic duel then be my guest...there's no sort of cost efficiency there whatsoever. Loading a couple of em up with eyes/smashers/skullcaps/crystal coins and having them be a mind hunt squad safe at home could work if you can't come up with astral mages any other way though. (Assuming an S/E pretender that can make some golems of course.)

The stupid Crystal Shield is also 8 points of fatigue per spell cast, dropping it for a Power of the Spheres cast (33 fatigue at S3) will pay itself back in fatigue in 6 combat rounds, and at one pearl/battle it'll be a long while before you'll lose out on gems. Also not sure how you get 10 reinvig from boots of the messenger (4) and a girdle of might (3)

Re: Golems: how do I make them work?
 

Ha, ha. Imho you just dont make them work as SC, they are thugs. With quickness etc you can bring Golem's low attack/defense to a decent level and use them as teleporting raiders, which can be damn effective sometimes (though expensive).
I had some fun with golems equipped with just starshine scullcap and eye of the void, scripted for soul slay. They accompanied my Helheim army - my national (or indie) mages couldnt cast soulslay, so my Golems were invaluable to me.
Also, they killed an Archdevil SC who tried to raid my lands. I dropped three golems on him, one of them with a lifelong protection to distract Archdevil with imps. SC removal is where Golems shine.

P.S.
The above poster summed it up very nicely.

Re: Golems: how do I make them work?
 

If you're facing a lone SC (or an SC without too much backup army), there's always the old classic dom2 Golem:

2x Sword of swiftness
Starshine cap
Jade armor
Boots of flying
2x Stone bird

Two of these guys teleporting onto an SC foolishly left out in the open field somewhere can wreck your opponent's day.

Not as good as in dom2 of course, with no astral weapon, but they still work often enough to keep them in mind.

And my favorite (though obviously something you can't plan on every game):

Sickle Whose Crop is Pain
Shield of Gleaming Gold
Skullcap
Jade Armor
Flying boots
Whatever you want in misc slots

This guy turns all you barbarian attack events into 20-30 death gem events. He turns your neighbor's militia / zealot events into death gems (either with or without splitting the haul, depending on your relations).

He also often gets in the HoF. In one MP game "Super-Golem" had ~220 HP thanks to heroic toughness.

Re: Golems: how do I make them work?
 

Gee, I thought the whole point of golems was to teleport them on top of fleeing sages and Lore Masters http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Golems: how do I make them work?
 

I've found boots of the behemoth work best for PD raiding (a thug's sweet spot). Something like charcoal shield, shield of gleaming gold, marble armor, boots of the behemoth, starshine cap. Script body ethereal, personal luck, attack. Teleport into your opponenent's back lands and stomp around avoiding armies - you should be able to wipe up almost any non-giant PD. If your opponent is likely to teleport a response team onto your golem (magic duel most likely) send him out with an astral pearl and after the first fight script returning - he'll be back at home and ready to teleport again the next turn. Can only attack every other turn, but virtually immortal if you're careful and you're taking enemy provinces at a cost of one teleport and one returning.

Re: Golems: how do I make them work?
 

Just to clarify, I tend to use my Golems - including those equipped as I said - as teleporting raiders. My previous post was more of a basic improvement than how to turn Golems into full blown SCs.

Re: Golems: how do I make them work?
 

Thanks for the replies guys, this is great advice. Indeed, my mistake was that I tried to use my golems for pretty much all the purposes Micah listed I shouldn't be using them for http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

But now that I've started to use them as raiders of lightly defended and hard to reach provinces they are working great! Can't wait to use them in mp.

As for the equipment, I hadn't realized,up until now, that marble armor gives additional protection as per stoneskin spell. I always viewed it as pretty sucktacular armor but obviously I was wrong. Very wrong. Heh.

Re: Golems: how do I make them work?
 

Marble armor is great! The nice part is that it effects your head as well as your chest, for a chest slot only item.

Jazzepi

Re: Golems: how do I make them work?
 

Which is particularly useful on a skullcap wearing golem.

Re: Golems: how do I make them work?
 

Zenzei:

I use Golem in one newbie game and I can send you trn files after that game is finished, so you can check it out. It probably wouldnt survive long against really experienced players, but it is still fun thing http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif And you can use poison golem basis to avoid that problems.

Re: Golems: how do I make them work?
 

@Zeldor: I'm waiting for it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Golems: how do I make them work?
 

Completely agreed http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Jazzepi

Re: Golems: how do I make them work?
 

My only problem with marble armour golems is that they pretty much need a frost brand. Its nice and all, but I personally prefer shadow brands.

Also, consider a crystal coin on your golem if you don't have a big weakness that you need a misc slot to cover. It can either free up his headslot for something else(horror helm ect) or give him a helpful boost in astral magic that stacks with the skullcap to reduce the fatigue from his buff casting and give him slightly more protection from random enemy astral mages(who you should avoid like the plague, but nevermind).

Re: Golems: how do I make them work?
 

boosters don't affect magic duel...

Re: Golems: how do I make them work?
 

Really? I find that quite strange. Is there some explanation for why boosters don't work or is it one of those things that just is?

Re: Golems: how do I make them work?
 

I don't see any large difference between frost brand and shadow brand D: To me their both the same.

Honestly if you're going to go marble armor, skull cap. Then you should just give him a charcoal shield, and a gleaming shield (the one that gives awe +0). I love double shielded thugs for killing armies.

I can't remember if golems can regen off of a ring of regen. If so, then you should definitely give them one. Otherwise just an amulet of antimagic and, well, whatever else you might want. Maybe a bracer of protection.

Jazzepi

Re: Golems: how do I make them work?
 

How many times are you going to prove me wrong today? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

And I like double shielding thugs too. But I wouldn't go with charcoal and gleaming as that seems a little counter productive. Maybe charcoal and vine with boots of the behemoth...

And I don't think golems can get regeneration(feel free to correct me Micah), so antimagic and something else - I still like crystal coin. It makes buffing with astral shield more viable which works with the trampling golem. Amulet of resilence could take the place of a crystal coin in that case, and for a lower cost.
In the crystal coins defense, does allow a golem to take the odd role of a supporting caster if needed. Granted, a golem making nation should have plenty of teleportable mages handy, but that doesn't mean its still not helpful to have a golem who can teleport in and cast vortex of returning/will of the fates ect. The golem's also handy in this role because hes tougher than most astral mages, not that it matters in the case of vortex of returning.

Re: Golems: how do I make them work?
 

I am 100% sure golem cannot get regeneration.