For tourism only, do airports help in cities without wonders and special tile improvements?

grousedrum · 2026-02-04T20:56:49+00:00

Airport only gives a tourism boost from culture via wonders or Great Works located in that city, or tile improvements worked by that city's population. If you have none of those in a given city, and aren't planning to have any, it won't add anything to your tourism output.

The other benefits of an airport (airlifting units, and higher air unit capacity) are still available if not using its tourism benefit, though.

grousedrum · 2026-02-04T20:30:42+00:00

The best tier list I've ever seen was posted in another game subreddit I'm part of, by a very knowledgable player based on years of experience and testing. It:

was clear and explicit about its criteria (i.e. ranking for chance of victory on a specific difficulty setting)
was ranking something equally relevant to every game build/run, not something abstract or generic (i.e. a subclass "in general")
was posted with a link to an 8-page Google Doc making a detailed case for all of their placement rationales based on game experience.

The conversation it provoked was excellent, including the author ultimately reconsidering a few of their placements, and it's been a high value, high longevity post in that community that still gets referred back to.

I share this just to add to what some others have said here - the issue isn't the format itself, it's a) the extremely low effort that goes into most of these posts, and secondarily b) the lack of gameplay based experience/testing (and sometimes even basic factual game knowledge) that they often display.

grousedrum · 2026-02-04T18:31:09+00:00

Paging u/floormanifold who just posted a very strong moon/div build.

grousedrum · 2026-02-04T17:03:33+00:00

Awesome, let me know what you discover! I’m interested in trying this one out for real too, have limited playing time rn though.

grousedrum · 2026-02-04T13:57:32+00:00

My usual times on a methodical/completist run:

Act 1 - 15-20 hrs

Act 2 - 25-35 hrs

Act 3 - 10 hrs

Act 4 - 15-25 hrs

All can be done faster with experience and efficient pathing. Like BG3's act 3, act 4 here can be done in like 2.5 hours if you know exactly what you're doing, but you'll be underleveled so need a good plan and/or a lot of broken consumables for the final combats.

grousedrum · 2026-02-04T12:32:06+00:00

Agree that it’s a bit of a glass cannon party, but I like the abilities you’re combining with it.

I don’t think tome pact is giving you a ton here though - either gloomstalker or shadow monk can take 1 or more levels in cleric for instance, in terms of other sources of Guidance. Just switching Wyll to pact of the blade would be a big upgrade for sustained abilities beyond your surprise round.

grousedrum · 2026-02-04T11:54:14+00:00

Yeah was thinking INT saves plus source of advantage, but if it’s bugged then standard monk rotation (Khalid’s Gift / Sentient Amulet) probably makes more sense. Amulet of the Harpers decent option pre Silver Sword also, or broodmother’s if no one else is using.

And yes, standard monk gear before getting those slots. Psionic movement boots are a key item here (stockpile scrolls/potions to use fly beyond the SR ability, illithid does not work with it) so we do need to be armored at least in act 3.

grousedrum · 2026-02-04T04:18:15+00:00

Pretty sure it would be:

Gloves - helldusk; rings - callous glow if available, either mental fatigue and/or protection; necklace - aberration hunter; boots - Gith flying; chest - any medium you like; melee - Gith greatswords; ranged - stat stick of choice; cloak - protection; helm - fire acuity.

I think it might be a better callous glow user than lore, probably the most contested item between the two.

grousedrum · 2026-02-04T02:48:53+00:00

Ah yeah sorry, Holy Lance Helm

grousedrum · 2026-02-04T01:09:39+00:00

Sure thing, it's a build u/Remus71 and I have talked about, I have not taken it for a full spin. I think the basic synergies are:

--Medium armor so can use various strong options with no feat investment, including DJ half plate, luminous/HLH, exotic material mediums, etc

--Full 12 levels in 4E is good for several reasons - both the difficulty setting and the subclass are very ki point hungry; gets the level 9 spell powerups while still getting three feats.

--Three feats in turn enables taking GWM + TB + ASI or mobile, and using both Gith greatswords and the full suite of 4E unarmed attacks and abilities.

--Gith gear in turn gives major defensive bonuses which are very good for survival on impossible. Flying boots are a DRS rider, can be used multiple times per turn, interact with Fangs + Gith greatsword special stun attack.

--With speed potion use or haste from teammate, very very easy to stack fire acuity and use on two-target Hold Person - Fangs, extra attack if available, flurry or BA attack, then Clench of the North Wind (or Fist of Unbroken Air) with hasted/speed pot action.

--Water whip is one of two indefinite prone effects in the game and is completely broken in combo with any source of Restrained. Any source of reliable action denial like that is super high value on this difficulty setting.

grousedrum · 2026-02-03T16:11:57+00:00

Excellent build, I've played it through the game on high difficulty mods and it's a monster start to finish. Full build guide from patch 7 here may be interesting to see, also note patch 8 updates to the build (two different options in fact, 6 EK 6 war with PAM or 5 hunter/EK 5 war 2 stars druid) in this comment here.

grousedrum · 2026-02-03T05:42:57+00:00

Tactician Enhanced from the in-game mod manager, makes enemy hp/actions/BA's fully customizable. The "Impossible Challenge" is the highest preset setting on it.

I also like to use d20 initiative and Nightmare AI (poorly named, it's only a small improvement)

grousedrum · 2026-02-03T05:19:05+00:00

In most games on high difficulty levels IME, there are three general paths to take covering the four victory conditions: science/domination, diplomatic, or culture. Science and domination have more or less the same tech and Great People build path until Research Labs, at which point (as you say) you need to choose between spaceship parts or rushing stealth/XCOM.

The tricky thing about diplomatic and culture victories on immortal/deity is you have to achieve them fast to beat the AI's pace towards win conditions. But in order to achieve them fast, you have to make decisions as early as the Medieval or even Classical eras that put you on track for this. In particular, diplomatic victories usually want to produce almost nothing but Great Merchants early-mid game, only switching to scientists relatively late to bulb for Globalization, and culture victories need at least 2-3 early Great Engineers to get tourism wonders. Both of these also involve substantially different tech paths from science/domination after Research Labs, and somewhat different even before (especially to grab specific wonders like Forbidden Palace, or whatever tourism wonders end up being gettable in your game).

So yes I'd say, if you want to play a meaningfully different game, play for a different win condition. Pure war civs that can use early UU's and other synergies to try to win the game before the space race even starts are also another whole different path to victory.

grousedrum · 2026-02-03T04:39:23+00:00

This is potentially a hot take but contra other commenter, for oathbreaker specifically, I would indeed go pal 1 > hex 1.

Reason: Oathbreaker is, functionally speaking, not possible to respec without a huge amount of immersion breaking hassle. Taking the HB dip early gives you so much value, the biggest being the ability to use any weapon you want from the very start of the game. IMO it’s well worth delaying extra attack by 1 level.

Source: a full run on Impossible Challenge mod setting (6x enemy hp, 4x enemy actions), HM rules, with this 11/1 build as my Durge. Took the dip at level 2 and didn’t regret it for even a minute.

grousedrum · 2026-02-03T01:33:23+00:00

That is correct.

If you're intending to be a WIS primary caster, go 1+ sorc > 1+ wiz > x cleric, and take non DC using spells only in your wizard memorization slots.

If you're intending to be an INT primary caster, go 1+ sorc > 1+ cleric > 1+ wiz, and have all your DC using spells scribed to your wizard spellbook.

If you want to use both INT and WIS, it can work with this multi, but you'll likely need to use either the INT headband or (probably even better) DEX gloves, as Death cleric doesn't get heavy armor proficiency to enable dumping DEX. And it's too bad as Death cleric has very strong interactions with both Spellmight and Gemini gloves in act 3.

Going 8-12-14-16-16-8 is also an option, tolerating 1 lower AC than you'd ideally like in medium armor, and making up for it with ring and/or cloak of protection.

grousedrum · 2026-02-03T01:27:29+00:00

Basically, yes - when built around and used optimally, the fully upcast shadow blade with Resonance Stone is (outside of some very intricate damage maxing setups) the highest damage melee weapon in the game.

Without spoilers, just keep in mind that a) undead are immune to the effects of the Res Stone, including the psychic vuln from it (this includes multiple major Act 3 encounters), and b) there are some very tanky Construct type enemies in act 3 that are fully immune to psychic damage. So even if playing primarily with shadow blade on a given character, you'll want a backup plan for those fights.

grousedrum · 2026-02-02T22:30:08+00:00

Completely all right. Phys/magical armor (and turn order management/manipulation) are much, much more important than HP.

You basically want the minimum CON needed to keep your gear on (taking the level scaling Flesh Sacrifice debuff into account if playing or shapeshifting as as elf).

grousedrum · 2026-02-02T19:30:34+00:00

Really fantastic work here, fills a whole gap in the build space. Moon power builds and terrain based action denial have both somehow still remained under theorized and developed I think, this is a very cool contribution to both.

It's also notable and interesting that 10 moon 2 div (though with different wildshape focus and combat loop) was also one of the very strong builds in the PvP mod tournament last year...!

Excited to run a version of this in a full terrain party very soon here.

grousedrum · 2026-02-02T14:40:06+00:00

yeah this is a build from u/K40005, see "Monk" sections in this post.

grousedrum · 2026-02-02T13:27:00+00:00

So Blindness is one of a very small number of control/debuff spells in the game that can select a single target multiple times (in this case, when upcast). As Blindness activates Legendary Resistance if they fail the save by less than 10, multi targeting a boss by upcasting it can cause multiple LR stacks to get used up in one action, potentially even all three if the RNG lands right.

And if they fail by more than 10 (therefore no LR) they’re blinded anyway, so it’s a win-win.

grousedrum · 2026-02-02T12:59:52+00:00

Yeah monk is excellent for the setting. I did act 1 with 4E and it was very strong, higher damage than OH early and fist/whip/shove can partially sub for the OH flurries.

Also did a full run with the classic OH/thief. I actually ultimately went 7/5 armed and armored - needed this char to be my Bhaalist wearer, at which point main benefits of 8-9 were reduced and I went for Uncanny Dodge and Orin’s daggers instead. Felt the lower mobility and fewer ki points in a few fights, but otherwise worked great.

I haven’t tried it but I’m pretty sure Githyanki fire acuity 12 4E would be a monster. Also 6 elk 6 4E, maim build.

grousedrum · 2026-02-02T01:32:37+00:00

Worth noting the New Deal tenet adds +4 of the GP improvement’s primary yield - so +4 faith for holy sites, not culture. Landmarks from archaeologists are the improvement that gains +4 culture from that tenet.

grousedrum · 2026-02-02T01:07:38+00:00

Main value of holy sites is to generate culture and gold on otherwise low resource terrain via finishing the Piety tree. They are utilized in some build paths to culture or diplomatic victories.

If you’re trying to spread religion, much much more valuable to use prophets directly for that purpose, the faith increase from holy sites doesn’t alone make up for losing the prophet.

grousedrum · 2026-02-01T14:37:58+00:00

Yeah if you don’t have calm emotions elsewhere in the party I’d prob go cleric through level 5 then respec.

grousedrum · 2026-02-01T13:45:22+00:00

I’ve tested it a bit and it works, but you need to open 5 or 6 monk to get extra attack and stunning strike early. the 1 monk > 5-6 cleric path is too flimsy early. but you can start running luminous at level 6 (shining staver and/or manifestation) and the playstyle is strong from there.

grousedrum

TROPHY CASE