[SPOILERS] FFH II PBEM I Lurker Discussion Thread- No Players Allowed!

[darrelljs]

Oh, and the next "tutorial" I plan on typing up is world spells, but it won't be until I'm back from vacation most likely.

Darrell

[Ilios]

Oh, and the next "tutorial" I plan on typing up is world spells, but it won't be until I'm back from vacation most likely.

Darrell

Americans get holidays? What about your poor capitalist overlords?

[darrelljs]

Americans get holidays? What about your poor capitalist overlords?

Believe it or not I get 32 days a year. Of course, taking them all is next to impossible.

Darrell

[darrelljs]

Also it is quite difficult to get a proper idea of what to research after the few obvious (worker techs for your bonus).

Well, one key tech is Mathematics for Gambling House. Its +3 gold in the city and +1 Happy for each 10% of the slider on Gold! That's a great building. I tend to run Aristocracy/Agrarianism (especially if FIN), so I like to get Calendar/Code of Laws/Sanitation/Construction early in the game. Some civs really need a particular religion like RoK for the Khazad and FoL for the Elves.

Generally though once your economy and religion techs are behind you, beeline down a vertical segment of the tech tree (dependent on what civ you are playing). For example, you go towards Strength of Will (the arcane path) with the Amurites. For the Khazad, I actually go down the Commune with Nature (hippie path) because Dwarven Druids are so powerful. Other options are the mounted, archery and melee branches. Or the golem techs for the Lurchip. Etc., etc.

Darrell

[Amelia]

I've been playing FFH for a long time and i wanted to share my views.

I'm rather surprised at the dark elves / neutral dwarfs being chosen. Vampires / Horsemen have strong units in different ways, Illians have multiple stuff as advantages, while Kuriorates has their strong units, but i don't see the points in the other two, especially when other races such as Clan of Embers (Perfect military race), Sheaim (Summoners), and Balseraphs (Ok, maybe not, but as my favorite race i'm just putting it out) exist.

Clan of Embers, with their unique building the Warren (which basically means that any unit you build apart from Heroes build two instead of one), combined with their barbarian friendly, seems to me to be a top pick (behind Hippus and Calabrim, yes, but still), while Sheaim has those Pyre Zombies. 30 + mass produced Pyre Zombies destroy any hero, promoted stack, or well, anything, while their Spectres simply destroy everyone else.

Darrell, mind giving me your thoughts about this?

[Profane]

Well, one key tech is Mathematics for Gambling House. Its +3 gold in the city and +1 Happy for each 10% of the slider on Gold! That's a great building.
Darrell

This reminds me of something i've been meaning to ask - what does Crime Rate do, anyway? Is it bad to have it high?

Some miscellaneous questions:

Regarding factions that have the Barbarian trait: does this mean they can never capture barbarian towns like the Dragon Hoard city?

I tried my first game with Kuriotates and cottage spammed to research real fast - Went for Ashen Veil so I can get those 1-food consumption. Unfortunately this crippled my production so badly (didn't know hell terrain blows up some Happy resources and my forests!), but that was okay... till Stephanos (and some other flying demon hero) appeared out of the fog and razed my settlements. By the way, my core cities were defended by Warriors. The end.
So my question is, what are the very dangerous random events (such as Stephanos etc.) and their respective triggers?

In another game (as dark elves) I noticed that Alaskan couldn't be loaded onto a boat (disaster, because I had an isolated start - couldn't move him out till Obsidian gates). Can anyone tell me why?

[Amelia]

This reminds me of something i've been meaning to ask - what does Crime Rate do, anyway? Is it bad to have it high?(1)

Some miscellaneous questions:

Regarding factions that have the Barbarian trait: does this mean they can never capture barbarian towns like the Dragon Hoard city?(2)

I tried my first game with Kuriotates and cottage spammed to research real fast - Went for Ashen Veil so I can get those 1-food consumption. Unfortunately this crippled my production so badly (didn't know hell terrain blows up some Happy resources and my forests!), but that was okay... till Stephanos (and some other flying demon hero) appeared out of the fog and razed my settlements. By the way, my core cities were defended by Warriors. The end.
So my question is, what are the very dangerous random events (such as Stephanos etc.) and their respective triggers?(3)

In another game (as dark elves) I noticed that Alaskan couldn't be loaded onto a boat (disaster, because I had an isolated start - couldn't move him out till Obsidian gates). Can anyone tell me why?(4)

Based upon the red numbers, here are the answers (to the best of my ability)

1) Crime rate affects the random events that happen in your city. However, i don't know the random events which happen due to high crime rate, so i can't answer your second part of the question.

2) It is possible to declare war on the Barbarians if you're a Barb Friendly Civ (Right click on the Barbarian unit, then declare war, if i remember correctly, a few conditions like the unit must be outside but i don't remember all the conditions. However, should you do that, It's not possible to ally yourself with the Barbarians again). Also, if your score is highest, and is more than the second person by at least 50%, the Barbarians will automatically declare war on you.

3) The 4 Horsemen only appear when the armegeddon rate increases to a certain point (40/50/60/70) i believe, and the higher it goes the worse it gets. However, the Horsemen are easy to beat if you have the proper troops (say, champions), but they don't give anything to my knowledge. Also, they autoraze any city they're on.

At one point of the armegeddon, some plague still strike, giving all cities a 15 happiness penalty. This will cause mass starvation of the cities unless you are really prepared, use sacrifice the weak, or play as the infernals.

At yet another point of the armegeddon, an event will trigger half or 3/4 of the units on the map to switch allegiance to Barbarian. Heroes aren't affected, and non-living or demonic things aren't affected as well, but it's something to be careful of. (Hint: try not to increase the armegeddon rate at all unless you really benefit from it :Infernals / Sheaim).

At the start of the round, Orthus (a 5 strength melee Barbarian Hero) is spawned on the map, and he carries an axe which gives +1 strength. Since he's a hero he'll get stronger as time goes on, and if a Combat 5 Orthus reaches your city fortified with warriors, good luck. However, he can still be defeated (say by 7+ Warriors, 10+ if you're unlucky or want to meet him on the field), and he'll give you a lot of time to prepare as he has a preference to pillaging all improvements around your city first.

Since you talked about the Dragon Horde, i won't go into detail there.

4) Is Alaskan still a hidden nationality unit? Hidden units can't board boats unless the boat is hidden as well. (In fact i'm not too sure whether hidden units can board hidden boats).

Also, finally, be careful of hidden nationality boats. If they're all in a city and a person walks into the city, the boats will go down without a fight. (Losing the Black Wind this way [Lanun Hero] is embarassing)

[darrelljs]

Darrell, mind giving me your thoughts about this?

Apologies, not sure how I missed these posts!

The Khazad under Kandros Fir are my second favorite FFH combo, but that's for SP. You can really get them rolling if you have the time to setup. I am not sure what will happen in MP, it will to a large extent depend on diplomacy I think.

The Svartalfar are elves, so they have the whole FoL synergy (which again is good for SP but takes a while to get rocking with MP). They also have one of the better heroes in the game if you like to abuse the AI, but that won't work in MP at all.

Crime rate was never intended to have a major impact on the game, and for all intents and purposes you can ignore it. The events for a high crime rate actually help you typically (e.g. you have a chance to get a couple of cheap slaves).

Barbarian is a pretty lousy trait IMO, I like farming barbs for XPs, and you can get some really good things from ruins/forts/dungeons. You can run a farmers gambit which is nice, but really its not a very strong trait.

The one bad thing about Ashen Veil (for most factions) is the Armageddon events. Spreading AV raises the counter. Certain AV units/heros raises the counter. Founding AV raises the counter. Building the AV shrine raises the counter. Building a unit in a city that has the Prophecy of Ragnarok world wonder raises the AC counter. Killing a unit with War raises the AC counter. A list of the nastiness:

10 - Warning
30 - Blight. This is one of the worst, imagine ever city has a "poison water supply" espionage mission against it. I think the blight unhealthiness is equal to the city population plus a constant, and it goes away at 1 per turn. Oh, as a side effect all your units get injured. This can randomly strike if the AC stays above 30, but that's pretty rare.
40 - Stephanos
50 - Buboes
60 - Yersinia
70 - Ars Moriendi
80 - Hellfire. Creates spawn portals for Infernal champions all over the world. 2% chance per tile.
90 - Avatar of Wrath. 50% of your units become enraged (attack at random, effect wears off if they win a combat). This majorly sucks.
100 - Apocalypse. You lose about half your units and population.

Here are the bad guys:



I don't mind them actually. As long as you can deal with fear (Spirit Mana and Courage) you can kill them for good experience and a nifty item.

Darrell

[Amelia]

Well... Now i'm looking at the posts, i was thinking that a "For the Horde" when Statis is active (and barbarians are around already) might cause the death of at least 2 civilizations.

Cull almost had problems with the Barbs, while Sareln still has that Skele outside. If more barbs came (through ... human assistance), they would have died I guess.

Ok maybe i should shut it with the Clan of Embers and go to the next question.

Now that Statis is over, how much of a lead do you think Selrach got with that 15 turns? Enough to gain him a significant advantage, or almost nothing?

[darrelljs]

Now that Statis is over, how much of a lead do you think Selrach got with that 15 turns? Enough to gain him a significant advantage, or almost nothing?

Almost nothing. He still doesn't have a Worker apparently .

Darrell