This is for posting strategy articles to do with EitB, or ones from BTS/FFH that are largely applicable to this mod. Many of these articles will, in turn, be applicable to strategy in vanilla or other mods, but that is by no means guaranteed. These do not need to be written with the intent of being a strategy article to apply - I'll try and find an example.
General Information is written with the intent of posts like DaveV's lair results - information about the mod that has been collected by forum users and is hard to access otherwise. If popular demand is for it, I may start an FAQ thread.
For ease of access, I'd ask that people do not discuss them in this thread, as this will create clutter. If you wish to discuss one, or disagree with it's content, either start a new thread or follow the link (if posted) to one.
(If enough people disagree that I think it's not worth putting here, I'll move/delete it.)
In the same vein, if people could spoiler posts and name them with something appropriate, that would be appreciated
I'll kick this off with a couple over the next few posts, including the ones that prompted me to start it.
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
Ellimist PM I was CCd in Wrote:Okay, first of all, you will generally want to process the raw demographic data to see how each opponent is doing. The game will always tell you how two of your rivals are doing, plus the average of all rivals. In a game with three opponents, you can determine the exact value for every player by multiplying the "rival average" by the number of opponents and then subtracting the rival best and rival worst from it. In a game like 41 with four opponents, you'll instead have to make do with something less specific, such as "A=55, D=23, B+C=67."
Now, the demographics screen itself doesn't tell you which rival is represented by each number. This is where graphs come in. (There are some elaborate ways to figure this out without graphs, but I usually don't find them to be worth the effort. A lot of it relies on data from scores.) Once you meet each person, you'll have access to their graphs, free. This lets you assign a name to each of the derived demographic values and also determine when the rival best/worst changes to a different person.
Graphs data is pixellated proportionally! If you know that your own power rating is 75, and the line height on your screen is X pixels, then the line that is 1.33*X pixels represents 100. You can use this to help determine who to attribute to each number, and to get better approximations for people who aren't rival best or rival worst. You can also use this to determine things like army composition, by measuring the size of the power rating jump when people build a unit(different units have different rating values.)
Keep in mind that graph data will usually lag behind the demographics numbers. Graphs are updated when the turn rolls over while demographics numbers are updated whenever their screen is loaded. This means that the best position to analyse the numbers from is first in the turn order, and second best is last. The reason this matters so much is because changes in the values are more important than the values themselves, so having completely accurate graphs can be an important edge.
As far as the ratings themselves go, power rating probably the most important to watch. It's something you should keep an eye on almost every turn. The first thing to understand is that the number displayed for "soldiers" should be divided by 1000. Once you've done that, the value each player has is determined by the sum of a few different variables, explained here. (2 population is also worth 1 power.) There can be a lot of noise in this data, but in general you can use it to determine how many (probable) units each opponent has of (probable) types. You can see if they're building up suddenly, or have had a sudden drop.
There is a second way to make use of the power rating information. The first way, obviously, is to gain information from your opponents, but the second is to send misleading information to them. As Sun Tzu put it: "All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near."
For example, in my FFH36 Sheelba game, I got a little unlucky and only managed to upgrade one goblin into a wolf rider. I was using this wolf rider to attempt to circumnavigate the map, and wasn't interested in using it to harass my opponents, but they didn't know that. Therefore, I timed things to purposely complete two warriors on the same turn, twice. This produced a noticeable jump of six power on my graphs, since warriors are worth three each. Goblins are worth two, however, and wolf riders are worth eight, so to anyone paying even a little bit of attention to the graphs, it looked like I had three marauding wolf riders that might show up suddenly from any direction. I needed the four warriors anyway, but my opponents probably ended up building more early warriors than they otherwise would have wanted to.
There are plenty of other ways to do this, of course. Temporary summons add to power rating, and usually serve no practical purpose during peacetime. This means that you can use them to show a bigger military than you really have, or hide a genuine increase by summoning fewer of them than before. Obviously, this is a "next level" play and a bit of an advanced technique, but can be very useful. Even if a person doesn't fall for that sort of tricks, it still tends to compromise their ability to see the true data.
There are two ways population is calculated. The first way, the way that matters, is the sum of the displayed population for each of your cities. If you have a size ten city and a size six city, then you have sixteen total population, and this is the number that will affect your score, your power rating, and the victory conditions screen. You can use this number on the victory conditions screen to determine total global population, and from there derive some useful data.
The total population shown on the demographics screen on the other hand, is heavily skewed in favor of larger cities. It's somewhat less useful unless you enjoy solving math puzzles. Here are the values that a size 1/2/3/4/5 city will have:
Theres a formula posted somewhere, but you can see the general idea. I don't worry too much about this number, except as a general indicator of whether my opponents are going wide or tall.
The main thing to know about interpretting GNP is that beakers are counted after any 1.2x prerequisite bonuses are applied. It's usually worthwhile to do binary research, so you'll see people's GNP numbers jump up and down as they turn science on and off. The exact GNP numbers that other people show is of limited utility in FFH, but you can look at your own GNP number to determine which technologies you're getting a "known tech" bonus for from your neighbors. This can make it pretty easy to know exactly how many people have a technology that you don't have yet(among those you have contact with.)
Production numbers are pretty straightforward. It's just the sum of total hammers across an empire. These are almost always calculated without multipliers such as Nationhood or Command Posts. I usually consider the person with the highest production to be the "winningest" at any given point, but food is probably equally important.
Food is similarly straightforward, but you may be interested in deriving their food surplus as well. To do this, you need to know their genuine population number. You'll either need a map of their cities, or for them to the rival best, if you want an exact number. There are a few other methods, such as using trade route data, but they probably aren't worth the effort. Obviously food represents both current population and the potential for growth.
Land area should be divided by 1000 to get the total number of land tiles. This one is pretty straightforward. The only tricky thing to be aware of is that there's a 20 turn lag before land is added to a person's score.
Life expectancy and approval rate are just proportions of your total healthy vs unhealthy and happy vs unhappy. They aren't super important, they just let you know how much room people's cities have left to grow and whether they're expanding enough. These tend to increase when people found more cities because new cities tend to have very favorable ratios for both.
Exports-Imports is based on foreign trade routes you have. If you don't have open borders with anyone, this will be zero. Take notice when this changes to something else, since it means people have set up open borders. "Exports" is simply the commerce a player is getting from foreign trade routes, while "imports" is the commerce their counterparts are getting. (A negative number isn't bad, since TRs are win-win.)
There are a variety of things you should be keeping an eye on, this is just a (major) component. You should try to keep track of every relevant variable that might affect your strategies. Sometimes you'll need to pay close attention and other times not so much. As Sun Tzu wrote: "Now the general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to victory, and few calculations to defeat: how much more no calculation at all! It is by attention to this point that I can foresee who is likely to win or lose."
Feel free to ask clarifying questions, or about some of the other techniques I've left off. There are a LOT of little ways to gain useful information in this game, and if you read some of my previous games you can see some of the effort I put into gaining it. In addition, there are several useful habits worth doing that let you take advantage of the information you gain, such as binary research or cancelling worker actions. I'm not trying to brag, but I've won a good number of FFH pbems and a huge part of that is due to the sorts of things I'm describing in this message.
"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."
(Yeah, I also recommend reading and rereading Art of War.)
(Also largely applicable to BTS, and entirely so for FFH.)
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
DaveV Wrote:I've seen a lot of confusion and questions about the power rating of units in the Fall from Heaven mod. Here's a table listing every single unit in Civ4UnitInfos.xml, along with its iPower number. I've put it in spoilers and attached it, since there are 325 units, along with the buildings and techs for completeness.
(November 11th, 2011, 12:27)DaveV Wrote: I've seen several people ask about lair results in Fall from Heaven, and have commented about them in spoiler threads. I thought it would be good to have a non-spoily place where the information was available; thus this thread.
First, hut results. First column is for non-recon units; second is for recon units (more specifically, units with the bNoBadGoodies flag set):
For lairs (this may not be much clearer than pasting the python code, but I hope it is):
For dungeons, barrows, ruins, and goblin forts, roll 0-99 and add the level of the exploring unit.
1-13: BigBad
14-43: Bad
44-73: Neutral
74-93: Good
94+: BigGood
The epic lairs (Pyre of the Seraphic, Bradeline's Well, Broken Sepulcher, and Maenalus) use the same roll, but have different results:
1-53: BigBad
54+: BigGood
BigBad on land tile:
.Main unit: Azer, Assassin, Ogre, Giant Spider, Hill Giant, Spectre, Scorpion
..(after grace period, add Air Elemental, Earth Elemental, Fire Elemental, Gargoyle, Vampire, Myconid, Eidolon, Lich, Ogre Warchief, Satyr, Werewolf)
.Main unit promotions: Mutated, Cannibilize, Mobility, Strong, Blitz, Command I, Heroic Strength, Heroic Defense, Magic Immune, Stoneskin, Valor, Vile Touch
..(after grace period, add Fire II, Air II, Hero, Marksman, Shadowwalk)
.Henchmen: Azer, Griffon, Axeman, Wolf, Chaos Marauder, Wolf Rider, Mistform, Lion, Tiger, Baby Spider, Fawn, Scorpion
...(after grace period, add Ogre)
.If the lair is on snow, add to henchmen: Frostling Archer, Frostling Wolf Rider, Polar Bear
.If the lair was a barrow:
..add to promotions: Death II
..add to henchmen: Skeleton, Pyre Zombie
...(after grace period, add to main unit list: Wraith)
.If the lair was a ruin:
..add to promotions: Poisoned Blade
..add to henchmen: Lizardman, Gorilla
...(after grace period, add to main unit list: Manticore)
.If AC > 40:
..add to main unit list: Pit Beast, Death Knight, Balor
..add to promotions: Fear
..add to henchmen: Imp, Hellhound
Lair is never destroyed
BigBad on water tile:
.Main unit: Azer, Sea Serpent, Stygian Guard, Pirate
..(after grace period, add Air Elemental, Water Elemental, Kraken)
.Main unit promotions: Mutated, Cannibilize, Mobility, Strong, Blitz, Command I, Heroic Strength, Heroic Defense, Magic Immune, Stoneskin, Valor, Vile Touch
.Henchmen: Azer, Griffon, Drown
Lair is never destroyed
Bad:
.Collapse: exploring unit is damaged up to 90%, lair is destroyed
.If exploring unit is level 1:
..Death: exploring unit is killed, lair is never destroyed
.If the exploring unit is living:
..Crazed promotion, 80% chance that lair is destroyed
..Crazed, Enraged, and Demon promotions
..Diseased promotion, 80% chance that lair is destroyed
..Enraged promotion, 80% chance that lair is destroyed
..Plagued promtion, 80% chance that lair is destroyed
..Poisoned promtion, damage up to 90%, 80% chance that lair is destroyed
..Withered promtion, 80% chance that lair is destroyed
.If the exploring unit is Melee type:
..Rusted promotion, loses Bronze, Iron, and Mithril promotions, 80% chance that lair is destroyed
.If the the lair was a shipwreck:
..Drown spawns, 50% chance that lair is destroyed
..Sea Serpent spawns, 50% chance that lair is destroyed
.If the lair was on a land tile:
..Spider spawns, 50% chance that lair is destroyed
..Spectre spawns, 50% chance that lair is destroyed
.If the lair was a Goblin Fort:
..Scorpion spawns, 50% chance that lair is destroyed (this is 3x more likely than other results)
Neutral:
.Nothing: lair is destroyed
.If the lair was on a land tile:
..Skeleton spawns, 50% chance that lair is destroyed
..Lizardman spawns, 50% chance that lair is destroyed
..Giant Spider spawns, 50% chance that lair is destroyed
..Glowing Portal: teleports exploring unit, lair is never destroyed
..Explore the depths: 50% chance of BigBad, 50% chance of BigGood, lair is always destroyed
..Dwarves vs. Lizardmen: get two dwarf axemen, three hostile lizardmen, or vice versa. Lair is always destroyed.
...If the player has discovered Bronze Working, the axemen will start with the Bronze Weapons promotion
...If the player has discovered Hunting, the lizardmen will start with the Poisoned Blade promotion
..Caged: the exploring unit is Caged, lair is never destroyed
.If the lair was on a snow tile:
..Frostling spawns, 50% chance that lair is destroyed
.If the lair was a barrow:
..Skeleton spawns, 50% chance that lair is destroyed (this is 2x more likely than other results)
.If the lair was a ruin:
..Lizardman spawns, 50% chance that lair is destroyed (this is 2x more likely than other results)
.If the lair was a goblin fort:
..Scorpion spawns, 50% chance that lair is destroyed (this is 3x more likely than other results)
.If the lair was on a water tile:
..Drown spawns, 50% chance that lair is destroyed
.If the exploring unit is living:
..The unit is Mutated
Good:
.High Gold, 90% chance that lair is destroyed
.Treasure Chest, 80% chance that lair is destroyed
.Experience, 100% chance that lair is destroyed
.If the exploring unit is living, and doesn't already have the Spirit Guide promotion:
..Spirit Guide promotion, 80% chance that lair is destroyed
.If the lair was on a land tile:
..Healing Salve, 100% chance that lair is destroyed
..Supplies
..If the player has discovered Mysticism:
...Disciple, equal chance for any of the six non-Esus religions, 100% chance that lair is destroyed
.If the exploring unit is Melee type, and doesn't already have the Enchanted Blade promotion:
..Enchanted Blade promotion, 100% chance that lair is destroyed
.If the exploring unit is Adept type, and doesn't already have the Spellstaff promotion:
..Spellstaff promotion, 100% chance that lair is destroyed
.If the exploring unit is Recon type, and doesn't already have the Poisoned Blade promotion:
..Poisoned Blade promotion, 100% chance that lair is destroyed
.If the exploring unit is Archery type, and doesn't already have the Flaming Arrows promotion:
..Flaming Arrows promotion, 100% chance that lair is destroyed
.If the exploring unit is Disciple type, and doesn't already have the Shield of Faith promotion:
..Shield of Faith promotion, 100% chance that lair is destroyed
.If the exploring unit can use bronze weapons, and doesn't already have the Bronze Weapons promotion:
..Bronze Weapons promotion, 100% chance that lair is destroyed
.If the exploring unit can use iron weapons, and doesn't already have the Iron Weapons promotion:
..Iron Weapons promotion, 100% chance that lair is destroyed
.If the exploring unit can use mithril weapons, and doesn't already have the Mithril Weapons promotion:
..Mithril Weapons promotion, 100% chance that lair is destroyed
Big Good:
.Treasure Vault (same as treasure chest?)
.Golden Age
(after grace period: Angel, Monk, Assassin, Champion, Mage)
.Technology
.If the lair was on a land tile:
..Jade Torc
..Rod of Winds
..Timor Mask
..Adventurer
..Great Bard
..Great Commander
..Great Engineer
..Great Merchant
..Great Prophet
..Great Sage
..If the tile has no bonus feature:
...Mana Node
...If the player has discovered Mining: Copper
...If the player has discovered Smelting: Iron
.If the lair was on a water tile:
..Friendly Sea Serpent
..If the tile has no bonus feature:
...Clams
...Crabs
...Fish
Lair is always destroyed
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
Warning: Derived from Beyond the Sword. Specific numbers and conversion rates will not translate entirely, though the underlying concepts remain the same.
(April 9th, 2012, 03:23)SevenSpirits Wrote: Civ is a game of investing. Citizens are investments which earn interest over time by working tiles. A university, to take a fairly simple building, is an investment which earns back its cost by producing beakers, and it has a better rate of return if the city's base beaker output is higher. Techs, units, and cities are all investments, albeit ones that are very difficult to analyze.
What makes Civ interesting is that it has an irregular and difficult-to-calculate set of available investments. How much return do you get from having Machinery? You wouldn't even know where to begin calculating that! (There are several quite complex things about it. Mostly, (1) it's required to research other techs in an incredibly long and interconnected chain and (2) it enables a military unit which has incredibly hard-to-judge value.) But even the straightforward investments (citizens, say) are not as simple as they look because investment costs are often large compared to per-turn output. For example, perhaps you have a city producing 5h per turn into a Library. It takes a dozen turns before the hammers you invested start compounding. You might as well have produced nothing for 11 turns and then 60h on the 12th. Compound interest is a powerful force and it's actually a pretty big deal to have an increasingly large pile of hammers sitting there in an incomplete building and not returning anything. The farther in the future the completion time, the more potential value you are forgoing.
So this is hard. We know that, and this is why we keep playing. It's deep. Also, trying to catch a glimpse of its true form, trying to gain little pieces of understanding, is pretty fun. Here is a tool I have been using to chip away at the mystery a little. It's some math and some estimates. They are wrong, but they've helped me wrap my mind around some things and their values.
Notes: 1h into a worker/settler is worth 6 points. Food is assumed to be granary-enhanced food at a city of approximately size 7 growing onto early-game grassland tiles. Food is obviously stronger at lower city sizes since growth is cheaper there, and is also affected by other factors such as available health/happiness and the strength of the tiles being grown onto (including bonuses from buildings). Also note that a population point costs 2f and 1b every turn (citizens tend to add about $1 each to total maintenance) i.e. 19 points.
Some examples:
grass river farm: net +1f -> 8 points
grass lakeside farm: net +1f -1b -> 5 points
lighthouse coast: net 1b -> 3 points
grass hill river mine: net -1f +3h -> 7 points
grass pastured pig: net +4f -1b -> 29 points
Does anything strike you? There are gigantic differences in tile value which you don't really notice until you subtract out the 2f and 1b. Rivers are a big deal. Resources are a humongous deal. You knew they were important but seeing that a 6/0/0 tile nets you almost six times as much as a 3/0/0 tile might be a surprise.
How did I arrive at these numbers? I looked at tile choices I and other tend to make, such as slightly preferring a lake to a forest. I also looked at the actual conversion rate you can get between food and hammers by whipping.
You may wonder how to measure a cottage. It's trickier, because cottages get better over time. But it's not THAT tricky...
[SIZE="4"]2. The interest rate[/SIZE] 1 per turn = 20
Notes: That is 1 per turn forever. This is for quick speed. And, it corresponds to a per-turn interest rate of 3.53%. (1.0353 ^ 20 is approximately equal to 2. Take $20 and invest it at that rate and after 20t you will have $40. Alternately Trade the $20 for $1/t, wait 20t collecting $20, and then trade the $1/turn back for $20 - you get $40 that way too. So they are equivalent. Note that this is based off the assumption that in the actual Civ game where you make $1/turn, you will not be able to continuously reinvest your interest for effect - see the intro paragraphs. All in all it's very hand-wavy but the important thing is that it gives plausible results.)
Examples:
You might pay 20 food to grow onto a river grass farm which nets 1f/turn.
You might whip away a 2/1/1 tile (netting -1h/turn) to gain 20h.
Got it? Now to apply this to cottages. A cottage is worth
1b/t +
1b/t 6 turns from now +
1b/t 19 turns from now +
1b/t 45 turns from now
How much is 1b/t 6t from now worth? We can just discount its value according to the interest rate we've decided on. So a cottage is worth:
which comes to just over 3 b/t. And naturally the civics help out even more, but you can see how it's worth about as much as a farm. What factors make farms better? 1) Production modifiers + whipping. 2) Small city size. 3) They become Bio farms, or other good late-game improvements later, while the increased strength of cottages is already accounted for in that 2.5-3b figure. 4) If you are not confident in being able to maintain control of that land or keep the tile from being pillaged, or you don't plan to work the tile as frequently. And what factors make cottages better? 1) Commerce modifiers e.g. Bureaucracy or libraries or banks. 2) Cottage civics late-game. 3) Faster build times. 4) No freshwater requirement. 5) Improved by Financial and/or golden ages.
How did I arrive at 1/t = 20? A bit of estimation based on whipping, and a bit of trial and error. You can see some of that trial and error in the way I played pbem 23. For various reasons (neglecting to consider that citizens cost about $1 in maintenance, and failing to account for the lack of continuous compounding), I was estimating then that 1/t was about 13 or 14. Which meant I overvalued lump sums and undervalued per-turn stuff. That's not to say that Novice and I didn't play that game really well, but you can see that at the end we were some giant number of beakers ahead but had a pretty poor tech rate, and it was costing us. And part of that was that I advocated not using a single great person for a permanent benefit, and another part was that I overvalued citizens working coast compared to buildings they could have whipped out.
... OK, I think that's all I've got that has crystallized into communicable thoughts. I'm not at all confident in these equations. But even though they are very inaccurate, and ignore so much context, I find them useful for getting a rough idea of how useful things are relative to one another. Thoughts?
P.S. Before anyone thinks that I play like a robot, in fact I play very intuitively, and that is the joy of the game for me. I love games that are deep enough that you simply can't play them by calculation. But I also enjoy analyzing what my intuition tells me - that's this stuff.
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
An Introduction to FFH/EitB: Differences Between Civ4 BTS and FFH/EitB
- by Ichabod
(April 21st, 2015, 18:34)Ichabod Wrote: What is Fall from Heaven/Erebus in the Balance? (or rather, what I think it is)
Well, FFH is a dark fantasy mod for civilization 4, as a quick google search will tell you. As a mod, it uses most of the empire building mechanics of Civ 4, but it really changes the empire you can build with these mechanics. If you are here, you probably know all this or at least know the base game, so I'll take that from granted from now on.
What are the biggest changes in the mod compared to Civ 4? Let's see:
*Civilizations are really different from one another. It's not only the fact that they can have more than one or two UUs and UBs, or that each civ has a unique World Spell and Hero. No. The core mechanics for each civilization can change, the whole way in which they work and play. For instance, there's a civ that doesn't use the food yield at all (Infernals, they gain population when units are killed/cities are razed); there's a civ that can build improvements on forests (elves); there's a civ whose most powerful units are spawned, not built (Sheaim); there's a civ that is friendly with the barbarians (Clan of Embers); there's a Civ that can transform they highly promoted units into Great Specialists (the Sidar). You see my point, right? For this reason, FFH games can differ a lot from each, based only on the Civs that were chosen.
*The technology tree in FFH is not "continuous", it's "branched". There's the arcane/magic part of the tree, the melee/production part of the tree, the recon part of the tree, the different religions - and, in most cases, you don't need to research the other branches to keep on going through one of them. This further differentiates one civilization from the other and each player's choice from the other, because a lot of times players can end the game with completely different technologies researched and, therefore, with different units, civics and abilities at their disposal to use.
See what I mean about branches?
These two things are, in my eyes, the biggest differences between BTS and FFH. There's a lot more, which include:
*Harsher barb/animal activity, which can lead to severe lack of exploration, constant pillaging/harassment and a very high risk of loss of badly guarded settlers.
*Combat relies more on promotions. Combat promotions are 20% bonus, not 10%; anti-something promotions are 40% bonus, not 25%. Units gain more experience from battle (some units gain XP passively, even), so they promote faster. There's also a lot of magical/resource promotions that further improve units, even their base strength. So, highly promoted units can cause significant problems and make a difference in a war, especially in the early game (which makes the aggressive trait - that still only gives combat 1 - better in FFH than in BTS).
*Collateral units, like catapults, are rarely used. Collateral comes more from spells, that damage all the units in a stack for a percentage (different spells have different maximum and average damage dealt), or summons, units summoned from magic that can be summoned again every turn.
*More mobility on combat: base horse units have 3 moves; mobility promotion is way easier to achieve and most units can get it (some traits give it for free to a class of units), even siege; there's a very easy to get spell that gives +1 movement; commando promotion is easier to get (there's a trait that gives it for free, also).
*Food management is pretty different from base BTS: granaries are nerfed and are not the single most important thing to build anymore; slavery comes later and it isn't as powerful as in BTS, due to the change of granary and the high cost of most units (settlers are very expensive) and buildings; there's way more food available faster (a very early civic gives +1 food to farms; there's a "classical era" tech that gives +1 food to farms).
*A lot more randomness, especially with our settings. Events, huts, lairs/dungeons/graveyards/shipwrecks (these are all map features that can be explored for a random result) - these can give you free GPs on turn 5 or can spawn a powerful barb that will beeline and destroy your Capital, again, at turn 5.
The reason I think those two differences above are the most important ones is because they change the game fundamentally from BTS. Why? Well, let me put it this way: BTS has Byzantium, a civ that gives the option of forgetting everything else while beelining to Cataphracts, a unit so powerful that can win you the game single-handedly, if no one calls you on it. There's hardly another case of such a civ in BTS, though - usually, you win by outexpanding and, later, outproducing your opponents, which is a gradual/snowbally process. FFH, on the other hand, is full of Byzantiums. While it's truth that most games of FFH are won by the players that outexpand and outproduce the others, just like in Civ 4, there's quite a lot of strategies that players can try that work like Cataphracts: "you let me reach that, now I'll go and I'll take your more improved land and cities and there's nothing you can do about it". The very different Civs and Tech options are what make a lot of combinations and different strategies possible and you always need to have your eyes open to catch opponents going for an unusual strategy/gambit.
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
The Elvish PoL is one of the fundamental aspects of the Elvish Economy (EE). Requiring the relatively expensive Priesthood tech, it's a substantial investment for every leader save Arendal Phaedra, and not one they'd ussually pursue. So why go for them? I'll first examine the unit in general, and then it's utility for the Elven player in two ways - economic and militiristic.
As with all other priests, it has the Medic 2 promotion, and the abilities to Cure Disease and found the appropriate temples. These are not-minor, certainly, but nothing to gush over in FFH. It also has 5str and 1 move inherent. [Add more after checking.]
Unlike other priests, however, it has two unique spells, Bloom and Summon Tiger. Bloom allows the creation of a New Forest, and ostensibly takes 2 turns, but on the turn after finishing it expends their casting for that turn. Summon Tiger does just that - create a 2-move, str 4 permanent summon, which can be either turned to combat, or added to the carnival for a small amount of culture and happiness.
What does it do for the Elves, then?
The obvious change is to the Bloom spell, and is twofold - firstly, it allows the PoL to Bloom beneath improvements, and secondly, as a result, it creates more forest tiles your workers can build improvements on.
For relatively obvious reasons, you should focus on the first half - forest tiles take a lot more improving, and you'll already be working those tiles.
So why do we do this, or how good is this in reality?
If we consider simply the hammer ouput, then we get:
Turns
1
2
3
...
21
22
23
Actions:
Casts
Finishes eot
Rests
Casts-Finishes-Rests
Rests
Casts
Finishes eot
Net hammers gained
-80
-80
-79
-78->-19
-12
-5
2
Resultant hpt
0
1
1
1->7
7
7
8
(I have an excel document with it all on, but I'm not copying out the rest because no one would read a 25 column build.)
So the hammer cost is paid off directly in 23t. This is reasonable because each PoL gets 2t movement in which to find an already-being-worked-improved-tile-that-isn't-an-Agrarian-farm to Bloom and, if you've really done all of those, then you don't have enough workers or cities. But why invest in something that doesn't start giving dividends for 20t - compared to, say, a worker, settler or market?
Of course, this is remiss in several areas. Firstly, and most obviously, it ignores the health, happiness (if in GoN), food (once grown) and strategic (movement, defense) value of the forest. I'll get to that in a moment. Secondly, it ignores multipliers to production, and the fact that the PoL is creating additional raw production (and the fact that this can be exported to new cities). Finally, and most importantly, it ignores the military value of the PoL itself. I'll address these in reverse order.
Fundamentally it needs to be remembered that this is not solely an economic investment. Iskender's FFH5 game as the Sidar, of all people, showed that PoL are boss units in their own right - and he did it without SPI, too. They're basically a slightly more expensive, stronger adept that can summon bleeding spectres from right out the gate - and they're available some 1500 beakers earlier, too. Sure, Tigers are permanent summons, so they don't give you frightening reach, and they take slightly longer to replenish if you want to use them as collateral. But permanent isn't entirely a bad thing, and you can end up with tigers rocking several promotions with very little difficulty. Plus, they can be deployed indefinitely, and range far from their creators.
Priesthood is only about 1000b from Mysticism, too, and is very easily bulbable with a GP frighteningly early in the game. So PoL are pretty badass units, and ones that can (and, generally should) be accessed during the tailend of the barbarian defense and copper warrior era, right when axemen, horsemen, and their ilk are appearing on the scene, and they have a very impressive shelf life too.
So when you build a PoL, especially, early on, you're not just building an economic investment - you're also directing your hammers into an impressive piece of military hardware, which you can turn pretty quickly towards defense and aggression as your needs require it. Compare to what purpose your opponents hammers, placed into axemen, for example, are serving - they're relatively non-productive from an economic perspective, meaning you're spending hammers you would otherwise still need to spend in an equivalent way on something which also offers an economic boon.
Furthermore, the above hammer analysis is lacking as I described. If you're in NH and not apprenticeship, say, you've spent slightly less hammers than shown, and moreso if in GK, MS and so on - and you can turn these hammers towards more useful cities (a GK hammer is worth far more, for example, but can be bloomed from other cities). It also is a way to grow on an economic investment (in general, buildings aren't a very good economic investment in FFH).
But this is all a minor point, really.
There's also the other benefits I ignored above. But I did that for a reason, really - it's relatively inconsequential. I don't have the numbers exactly for 23t, but the chance of going forest->AF is 3% per forest, and I think it's the same for New Forest->Ancient Forest. So there's a pretty high chance that none will go up at all.
Health is rarely a factor as Elves, and happiness is incredibly circumstantial in it's use and only even applies if the player is in quite a late-game civic. Strategic only applies to very specific tiles.
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
This is equally useful for FFH and BTS, but I'll post it here. Surprised more people don't do it, given the information advantage it yields. Slightly modified from a post in my old PBEM 54 spoiler thread:
Settler Scouting
Here's a demonstration:
Test Land:
All I did was give myself a lot of vision at the start, and then added some things via WB in the newly-defogged (but not currently visible) tiles.
I could build a city here:
Or here:
But not here, or here:
Reason:
Trying to peer into the completely black tiles shows me nothing:
There should be land there, but because I never had vision over it the game won't give me any spoiler info.
Scouting for barbs in FFH:
Note that you can't reveal invisible units this way, so you'll still be vulnerable to losing poorly-escorted units to them. Also be aware that this doesn't work if you place the hostile units via WB and then immediately try to settler-scout them; the barbs need a turn to move first. Not sure why that is, that's not the case for cities.
![[Image: TechTreeUnaltered.jpg]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125384613/Modding/TechTreeUnaltered.jpg)
