Golems: how do I make them work?

[Zenzei]

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.

[Shovah32]

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.

[Juzza]

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!

[Valandil]

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

[Micah]

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)

[Kuritza]

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.

[RonD]

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.

[Morkilus]

Gee, I thought the whole point of golems was to teleport them on top of fleeing sages and Lore Masters

[Baalz]

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.

[Shovah32]

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.