Winter Wonderland: Selrahc's FFH 2 thread

[Selrahc]

Boring couple of turns have just passed which don't really deserve comment. My only unit outside of my borders has been stood still and healing after beating the lizard. A bear has been spotted on the northern border(bears are strength 5 in this game, but like all animals will not enter borders). Settler is still being built. Not even any diplomacy going on.

[Ilios]

How do you plan on promoting the Priests?

[Selrahc]

Promoting priests is a difficult issue. For the most part I find it works best to focus on making good Ice Elementals but there are a lot of nuances to what works in a given situation.

The first promotion for almost every priest is Ice 2 so that they can summon an Ice Elemental. Ice Elementals are base strength 5, so should have decent odds against warriors. Three strength 5 units/turn can take out defending units faster than they can be produced in the early game, without the priests getting involved at all.

For every promotion along the combat line taken by the priests the Ice Elementals gain a 10% bonus to their combat strength. This can leave things swayed heavily in their favour. Promoting priests to combat 5 means Ice Elementals are dominant over city defenders by a large margin. You could be looking at 80% odds as the base. Combat promotions also add 20% to the strength of the priests. A combat 5 priest attacks at strength 14 which practically guarantees 99.9% battles.

The other side though is survivability. I don't want to lose priests. To that end then promotions like Shock and March(Medic 2 plus March=Rapid Healing) can massively increase the staying power, and let them take attacks when necessary(which gives more XP for the next promotion).

What wouldn't I take? Command is interesting.(Provides a 10% chance to convert defeated enemies to your team) It's flavourful. The idea of convincing foes to serve their new god is very in keeping with the Priests. Ultimately though it is a luxury that can't be afforded. Make the ice elementals better, make the priests better. That is the goal. Guerilla and Woodsman I don't like. Slightly better at defence than Combat Promotions, but no help in breaking cities and don't improve Ice Elementals. The II promotions are locked to religions so can't be used for easy movement boosts. Mobility and City Raider sadly come later in the tech tree than the priests of winter, or they'd be worth considering. The drill promotions are good once the combat tree is finished, but are slightly too weak to take before then.

Ultimately I would want to give the Priests Ice II, Combat 1-5 then March. March or Shock might be brought in earlier to bolster survivability however. Although against Sareln there is a good chance shock would be useless.

[Selrahc]

So after a few turns of nothing we get a few significant events happening at once. The first of these kind of stretches the term "significant though". One of those useless star sign events that I talked about before. If I'd been in the Empyrean religion I would have gotten a free golden age. As I'm not, can never be and the religion doesn't even exist yet I left the event before taking a screenshot.

The next thing that happened was the discovery of another rival lurking in the fog, like some kind of evil fog lurker.

Hi ho, hi ho...

The dwarves have been contacted and I'll need to send them a diplomatic message of greeting.

An interesting promotion is on their explorer. The sort of blue-white pic next to guerilla in the list of promotions is called "Spirit Guide". It's a promotion that passes around the experience of the unit that holds it upon that units death. I believe it only passes to units on the same square... Combat wise it won't matter though.

What is interesting is the method of procurement. Spirit Guide is not gained through experience. The Elohim civilization have access to it through a special building but other civilizations only gain it through exploring dungeons. So we know that the Dwarves have been doing that. I would normally leave dungeons until I have a decent force ready to deal with potential enemies. They can give very good results like free great people and special items, middling results like minor damage to the unit or promotions like spirit guide, or they can give bad results. Bad results unleash powerful barbarian units onto the map. An early ogre or wraith can destroy civilizations. You are more likely to get good results with recon units, and higher level units roll on a seperate table. Hero units are best of all.

A lot of the unique features that we'll hopefully be finding are "epic dungeons" which contain only very good and very bad results.

Anyway the third big event of this turn is the fact that my settler is just about to complete. This means I need to have a second city location planned ASAP.


Here is the map of territory. There are some annoying blanks in there, particularly to the south west. After the elder council completes I'll be building some scouts to try and extend my view into those areas.

You can see there are a lot of food resources but not too many happiness resources around. Just incense and cotton easily. With the fact that I'm charismatic and the enchantment mana from the palace that should do for now, but in the long term I'm hoping that there is some more happiness nearby.

You can also see the three(ish) proposed city locations. None of them are west of my capital. I'll go over them more closely.




Location A was the first potential site I found. It eventually closes off the Northern passage with my cultural boundaries, and it has cotton and wheat immediately workable.

I'm discounting this location for the moment because of the Barrows. That just makes it too hard to defend.



Location C is decent. It has incense, a plains hill plant and corn, as well as nearby rivers. I think however that it doesn't really enhance my position much compared to location B.



Location B1 and B2 both push me towards the location I estimate Sareln to be in. They also help me to reach the Frigus with a later city plant. Both very useful as far as location goes.

Location B1 has immediate access to cows(which the capital isn't using at the moment) and will have later access to wheat. Location B2 has a plains hill plant and immediate access to (dry) wheat. Given that I want the city to quickly crank out a set of warrior bodyguards for my priests I'm leaning towards B2.

There are no rivers in the immediate area. The terrain can thus be safely terraformed in the near future with Temple of the Hand to remove that irritating desert.

[Selrahc]

Sent to Athlete/Cull

Greetings to the dwarf king and his advisers
The Illian empire has had the honour of meeting your scouting warrior. We have heard tale of your presence for many moons from our elven neighbours and it is a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance. Hopefully this will be the start of a long and profitable friendship.

Just as a friendly tip, I'd stock up on winter clothes.
Selrahc of the Illians

Basically just a fluff greeting. I don't think we have much meaningful to talk about yet. Except maybe...

Greetings to the court of the Pocketbeetle

As you know we've both been hearing rumours of stumpy little men to the far east called "Dwarves", and I'd like to say that their existence has been finally confirmed by brave Illian explorers. I've sent a greeting message to them, and if you have anything you'd like me to pass on from the Kuriotates I'd be happy to act as an intermediary until you can meet them for yourself.

Regards
Selrahc

Discussing a meeting with the Kuriotates. I sent this message off to pocketbeetle in case he wants my help in finding the dwarves.

[Selrahc]

Looks like a Khazad/Kuriotate meetup might be a bit hard to arrange since the Kuriotate is in the far north and the Khazad is far south.

The Khazad haven't met anyone else. it raises the possibility that they might be in the far east, with the Kurio's in the middle too. I'm sure it will all become clear eventually. It does make me want to research Cartography sooner rather than later, just to help clear up the mystery with map trades. It shouldn't be too important though.

The dwarves also report a nearby skeleton barrow. My bloodpet might even be able to clear it out relatively painlessly, which would help in the future. I'll go scope it out.

One thing to bear in mind is that with a bit of luck some of your early explorers and garrison can become very highly promoted and become the elite troops of your military. The XP cap for beating barbarian units is raised from 10 in Civ to 100 in FFH. This is less important for me as I'm focussing on arcane, which mainly gains experience from sitting around but I might as well try anyway.


The settler was completed, and taking Hail and Frost as bodyguards he heads to B2 to found a new city. An Elder council is due in just 3 turns. I've only got one warrior(Sleet) guarding the capital, but it has a promotion. The capital can produce a new warrior in just two turns so he won't be alone if there is a barbarian emergency.

[Selrahc]

People are being paid to do nothing but sit around thinking. We've finally reached true civilization.

Hum. Looks like I misjudged things by about 5 turns from optimal execution of the plan. Finished the elder council and set a sage specialist. It will take 17 turns to make a Great Sage and just 12 to complete Philosophy. As soon as philosophy comes in I want to be able to go maximum hammers, but I'll be forced to run a sage specialist for 5 turns(Or lose around 18 turns of academy research).

I can see where I could have saved some turns. If I'd only built one bodyguard for the settler then the settler itself could have been finished one turn after mysticism was finished, and the elder council could have been completed 3 turns earlier.

Ah well. Something to think about. It's all still basically on schedule, but by running the sage I'll probably be delaying the attack by a turn or two. Everything else is going about as well as it could be, barring favourable events. The capital is a very nice hammer location for building the White Hand fast so it should be a decently early build. I've been honing my priests of winter play with some classic era start immortal difficulty AI games. I really think that this first conquest should be relatively foolproof.

EDIT: Incidentally, I still need to actually find Sareln's capital. That is the job of the scout that I'm currently building. I don't want to go in blind.

[Selrahc]

City B2 is almost ready to go. Looks like the second escort was a good idea... There is a big nasty bear hovering near to the escort pair. With just one escort I'd be in danger of losing a settler.

Should be decent odds of both warriors survival though. I'm on a forested hill which gives me a fighting chance against the evil bears.


Somebody say "Rivers of Blood"?

Of course the big news will be if Bob has popped the cork on his worldspell, River of Blood. For those who don't know the Calabim worldspell adds two population to each of their cities and removes two from those of everyone else. Really good in the early game, as it removes critical early growth from the opponent while giving it to you. Very similar to stasis really, except it only takes a turn rather than 14.

If Bob has used River of Blood my entire estimate is significantly out anyway so I don't feel too badly about the "mistake". In fact if rivers has come now it really serves as a help in "operation kill Sareln". Losing the population is less important for me as I'm not working on anything too crucial right now, and have just finished two important builds(Settler and Elder Council). I've also got a bigger city size to regrow faster as well as a second city to help pick up the slack. This *should* leave everyone but me and Bob right back around square one.

[Selrahc]

We're sensing some kind of lime green aura to our south-west commander

And so the renowned Illian explorers find yet another civilization in these benighted snow-less wastes. This time it's Archduke. Just the vampires left to find.




And yes, the vampires have used their worldspell. I'm back down in second on score. Still leading in all important demographic stats though. And now I don't have a blade of Damocles hanging over my head.

The second city, Lapland, is founded but for some reason I forgot to take a screenshot. It's building an elder council first which it will follow up with warrior builds until the priests are completed. There are pigs just outside the BFC which I will hopefully be able to pick up with another city.

Overall it will never be a powerful city. It has only one resource, a dry plains wheat, it has horrible terrain and no rivers. Despite this it fills the need I have at the moment. It's a decent hammer city in a forward location and the terrain will be eventually replaced by ice to make it worthwhile.

[Selrahc]

Settling caused a bit of diplomatic kerfuffle.


Note: Must remember to buy bear repellent

Here is the city in question. I think I'm actually going to redo the names for all my cities to something a bit easier to sustain. Which you'll probably see on my next batch of screenshots.

Anyway, you can just see Sareln's borders lurking on the edge of the screen. Pretty much where I expected based on previous diplomacy. The fact that my city is close to his capital caused him a bit of consternation so he sent me an email.

Congratulations on getting your second city out before Bob popped river of blood. I suppose we should start talking about border negotiations, especially since we are so close together. Or are you more of the "who grabs it, has it" school of thought?

Border negotiations might lead into some talk of a NAP, which I don't want. If we start to talk about that then I risk revealing my intentions. I send him back what is basically an honest reply.

Concrete border negotiations I'd prefer to leave until I've got a slightly better idea of the map. I'd certainly be willing to negotiate at a later date to avoid clashes. Here is my starting position though: I need to have control over Frigus. Ice Mana is a resource I'd prefer to keep Illian only(Although the door is open for later trades). Once I've settled a city with control over Frigus that should take care of my immediate settling plans in your direction. If this is acceptable to you then we can delay creating a more extensive agreement until we both have a better idea of the map.

In other news then, I've contacted two more civilizations since we last spoke. The Dwarves and the Hippus, leaving just the Vampires unmet. I know you've already met the dwarves, but if you're interested in contacting the Hippus their capital is almost directly south of mine.

Regards
Selrahc

Leaving off heavy negotiation until later. Revealing my basic settling plan and obviously not telling him I'm planning to add his city (or more probably cities) to my holdings in that direction.

He gets a reason behind what looks like an aggressive plant, and hopefully I haven't revealed my plans.

Your initial bid is fine. Closest we'll come to contention is a
planned site no closer than 3 from fridgus, which should leave you no
difficulty in controlling the tile with a closer city. This is mostly
due to how sites fit between my capital and the location of existing
resources. I will endeavor to find a dot-map which does not get that
close.

I'll detail a unit to wander out to the hippus lands, thanks for the pointer.

-Sareln-

His reply is perfectly acceptable. If I wasn't set on a priests of winter rush I think this would be a good basis for negotiating future borders later.



These are the cities I'm planning on settling in the north. You might be able to tell that I'm really not focussing on getting a good coastal city.



And there is a more detailed view of my proposed Letum site. It would need to build a monument pretty quickly to get the food bonuses and ice mana into play, and a temple of the hand would make all that disgusting tundra terrain into lovely ice. Should be a decent city eventually.



Got some barbarian troubles back at the capital. Shouldn't be too big a problem however. Going to need to crush that barrow eventually though.


Diplomatically there hasn't been much going on apart from the Sareln situation. I've told Pocketbeetle that I met Archduke and the approximate location, and he told me where the dwarven capital is, basically directly east of the Elves. I also sent a greeting email to Archduke but haven't yet received a response.

What's odd is that I haven't met the vampires yet.. and haven't heard that anyone else has met them either. That makes me think the vampires are very isolated, which isn't a good thing. If they're allowed to build up an unstoppable vampire army all on their lonesome then they'll eventually wipe the map clean.