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

[Maksim]

So all these conversations and thinking led me to put the Civ 4 DVD back in, and fire up the good old FFH.

I never had much success with the Ilians before, so I decided to go with them and try the approach from this game - rush to Philosophy, fire off an early Stasis to slow down my opponents and send the three Priests of Winter to knock some heads together.

I then got sidetracked and dutifully spent the next two hours rolling maps and hacking around in Erebus Continents mapscript trying to figure out how to avoid having everybody build their capitals bordering each other (may have had some success there - but that's a separate topic).

Anyway, this was probably my best game of FFH in a long, long while. The whole approach oozed synergy.

The key technologies are: Agriculture (starting tech), Ancient Chants, Mysticism (Elder Council, tech rate increase), Calendar (for Agrarianism and any happiness resources), Education, Code of Laws.

Starting location should ideally have a Agriculture-based food resource and riverside tiles (to pick up the odd coin); having a Calendar resource not covered in forests is pure gravy. Prioritise Calendar if there's a resource for it, Mysticism otherwise; farm every riverside tile and run a scientist - an early Academy will turn your (8 palace + 3 riverside + 2 elder council + 3 scientist = 16) sixteen commerce into twenty-four, which is indeed sufficient to get to Code of Laws without building any cottages.

Philosophy rush may or may not be optimal - it would be nice to have some production going for the White Hand project, so a detour to pick up Crafting and Mining may be in order (in my case, second city had two wines, so this was the natural choice even before CoL).

I revolted twice - once to Agrarianism, once to Aristocracy\Apprenticeship. Kicked in Stasis slightly later than in this game, but did get me a faster expansion compared to AI's.

Pretty much every land location makes sense to build cities on - with a farm and a couple of mines, they can build a Temple of the Hand, which instantly turns the surroundings into happy-Ilian-land.

In medium-term, it's worth noting that cities will grow quite fast, and I've been running into happiness problems a lot faster than with other civilizations (the other large-city civilizations, such as Kuriotates and elves, have their own solutions to that). The Ilian solution, of course, is to go and use those winter priests to hammer a nearby neighbour that has some additional happiness resources. Later on they can go to Mathematics, which gives Gambling House (+1 happy per 10% commerce spent on gold!).

So, having seen all that for myself, I now have a newfound respect for the Ilian strategy, and am looking forward to see how it is going to play out this game.

[Ilios]

I had some happyness issues as well in my latest Illian game (no religion really sucks), so I was using Slavery to democratically kill off all those protesters, until I got Currency for the Consumption Civic (+1 happy, and +1 happy for Market, Theatre and Inn).
The Civic is also very handy because not a lot of early buildings increase gold (Consumption gives a 20% bonus to gold in all cities).

I tend to be careful with the Temple of the Hand, because the Ice removes all river side commerce bonuses. It's nice the Illians don't have to run and terraform deserts.

[Maksim]

I tend to be careful with the Temple of the Hand, because the Ice removes all river side commerce bonuses. It's nice the Illians don't have to run and terraform deserts.

Yes, Temple of the Hand is a situational building.

Icing everything around the city makes it all grassland-equivalent, but you lose the riverside bonus and the worker rate on ice is abysmal (about 50% slower, I think).

So, build improvements on all the good tiles first before going for Temple of the Hand.

Good city placement for an early Temple of the Hand:

1) Edge of tundra, especially if you can pick up furs and\or deer with the city
2) Edge of jungle\marsh - jungle will turn into forests, instantly turning it from a useless to useful terrain

In both cases, I try to have a farm or seafood and a couple of mines up and running to build the temple in a reasonable timeframe.

[sunrise089]

How good is the Illian "cool the world" wonder?

Does it do:

Desert->Plains
Plains->Grassland
Grassland->Tundra
Tundra->Ice

If so I don't think it's amazing - floodplains and low-food cities actually get BETTER. Am I wrong about the mechanics though?

[sunrise089]

Also - how does Mana work?

If I want to cast Earth III do I need an Archmage and three sources of Earth mana, or only one source? If only one source, is there anything gained from getting more than one source other than the small civ-wide bonuses (like +3% research rate, etc)?

How do you guys promote spellcasters? Should summoners only promote the line they want to summon plus combat (for empower promos on the summons)? What promos level the caster and what don't?

[darrelljs]

The Illian rituals (other than the one that gives the winter priests) aren't worth it.

You only need one source of mana to take promotions in that sphere, all the way up to Earth 3. Multiple sources have benefits though. One, free promotions. Two sources and you get Earth 1 for free, three gives Earth 2, and four gives Earth 3. You can get this when building a new Adept, or when promoting an Adept to a Mage or a Mage to an Archmange. Also, mana sources often have bonuses that stack. For earth mana, an increased chance of popping resources from mines. Finally, Earth Elementals and Dwarven Druids have an affinity for Earth mana, meaning they get a point of strength for each source of mana you control.

Darrell

[Maksim]

How do you guys promote spellcasters? Should summoners only promote the line they want to summon plus combat (for empower promos on the summons)? What promos level the caster and what don't?

Darrell already covered this but here's my take on mana nodes + spellcasting.

Essentially, at some point in the game I decide whether I want to go for mages or not (by the time archmages come around, game is usually won or lost anyway, so they are less of a factor). If I'm not going for mages, what I will do is research Knowledge of Ether and perhaps one of the Alteration\Divination\Elementalism\Necromancy techs to build some extra nodes just for the Adept-level spells.

Ones I tend to go for:

Water - irrigating deserts to turn them into plains is good. More importantly, irrigating floodplains turns them into 4-1-1 monster tiles. Oasis (4-1-2) is very nice as well.

Enchantment - spell grants +20% on melee units; very useful. Also grants +1 happy faces, I believe.

Spirit - Courage is very good to have on your units. With it, even severely wounded units heal in 2-3 turns.

The good thing about Enchantment and Spirit is that they are not micro-intensive - just park an adept or two in your HE city that produces units, and on each produced unit, wake them up and cast.

Other useful level 1 spells are Haste (Body I), Inspiration (Mind I), Dance of Blades (Chaos I) but they are more situational, or more micro-intensive, so less of a priority for me. Dependent on which map types you play, you'll end up with a varying number of mana nodes in your empire - three seems to be a reasonable number for me in mid-game, so these are usually the ones I take.

My Adepts pick up their primary sphere for the spell they will be responsible for (usually each Adept gets their own sphere), then Mobility I to become a two-mover, then a backup sphere, or just remain with open promotions in case I change my mind and go for mages later.

---

If I am aiming for mages, I tend to build more Adepts straight away, get some doing Adept-level duties, and several more just sit around and gain XP. When the time comes to pick up Sorcery, I make sure to have a Fire node or two, then promote the adept-mages to Fire II, Mobility I and as many Combat promotions as they have.

All other mana types are situational - you could have one mage with Nature II for dark elves (+1 Poison combat on recon units), Enchantment II for normal elves (+1 for Archers). I'm not a big fan of summons - prefer to use fireballs and let my normal units clean up for experience points instead.

However, I will freely admit that I probably have not thought about second-level spells all that much - there are likely to be many interesting strategies - and I certainly hope to see some in this game.

[darrelljs]

I pretty much agree with Maksim, except I feel Archmages come into play with a focused beeline in some of my games. My take on the top 5 spells for each rank.

Level 1
1. Haste (Body). Mobility is incredibly important in FFH, and this lets you move one extra tile per turn (you can cast it after you stack runs out of movement), making it even better than advertised.
2. Raise Skeleton (Death). Permanent summons makes great fodder.
3. Courage (Spirit). The +10% healing is very useful, the immunity to fear is useful, the ability to build the Shrine of Sirona is somewhat useful.
4. Enchanted Blade (Enchantment). +20% Strength is great. For the Lurchip Enchantment is first since Repair works on Golems.
5. Spring (Water) - This is near the top if you have a lot of desert.

Level 2
1. Fireball (Fire) - Bombards defenses and causes collateral damage. Great spell.
2. Summon Spectre (Death) - The affinity for Death Mana means you can build a strategy around this spell, especially if you are a Summoner. The best example is Tebryn Arbandi, who is both Arcane and Summoner, and as a Sheaim leader his Adepts start with Sundered!
3. Maelstrom (Air) - The biggest problem is the lack of control...its easy to accidentally declare war when using this spell. The damage delivered has been reduced quite a bit as well, but it is still useful.
4. Dispel Magic (Metamagic) - This spell is really situational. Basically, if you are going for a Tower of Mastery victory as a builder, this is your ticket. If not, you don't need it.
5. Destroy Undead (Life) - Again very situational, basically it kills the Sheaim and anyone doing a Death Magic focus (Keelyn for example). Part of me wants to put Stoneskin (Earth) here, since it can save your bacon against Assassins.

Level 3
1. Lichdom (Death) - Don't like the limit on Archmages? Double it with this spell . As a bonus Vampire Lords can cast it. Mmm...vampiric Archmages.
2. Domination (Mind) - Stealing premium units? Oh yeah, that's useful. You can violate the national unit limit of 4 as well. The downside is that if the spell is resisted, you lose the ability to cast it.
3. Snowfall (Ice) - Only usable by Illians but it packs an insane punch.
4. Summon Wraith (Death) - Again...the Death affinity is just so useful, making this the best summons. Fire Elementals are close with their collateral damage, but you already have fireballs for that.
5. Vitalize (Nature) - Terraforming is fun, unfortunately by the time you can do it the game is probably over.

Darrell

[Maksim]

Here's an interesting thing I've noticed whilst looking at the various maps of starting locations.

There is no Copper in sight near any of the players' starting locations. It is possible that there is no Copper on the entire map, in fact.

That is important, and changes the early game somewhat.

What does Copper do in FFH? Well, you can see it with Mining, and you can actually use it with Bronze Working which comes a bit later in the technology tree, but still very much in the early game.

Its primary effect is to give +1 Strength to your melee units, including warriors.

This is a very big thing - if you have Copper in the early game, and the enemy does not, you are very difficult to rush. Warriors with bronze weapons are strength-4 units with +25% city defense that cost 25 hammers, and can be built in any city.

What can break them? Axemen are strength 4 units (5 with copper) that get +10% city attack that require a training yard (100 hammers) and are 60 hammers to build. Horsemen are strength-4, move-3 units that require a stable (100 hammers) and are 60 hammers to build. Hunters are strength-4, move-2 with -20% city attack. No good choice, is there?

Without it, barbarian lizardmen (strength-4, move-2) units, which have begun appearing, will be more threatening to players, who will likely hesitate to risk costly axemen/hunters/horsemen but may not be able to develop surrounding land.

Essentially, copper makes FFH early-mid-game barbarian and enemy defense a lot easier. Not having it means that defenses will be weaker, and melee line less powerful in general. What are the consequences for the players?

Dwarves - very, very bad. Dwarves rely on the melee line, and not having copper will make them weaker. They still get Combat I from being aggressive, though, so they should be no push-overs. They do have Iron within settleable distance, and are likely to go for it, to make up for this weakness in later game (or just get Mines of Gal-Dur).

Hippus - not much of an effect immediately; however, if Hippus decide to get aggressive, they will need to consider defensive units to accompany their horse archers, otherwise they will be very vulnerable to counter-attacks. In the short-term, they seem to be suffering from barbarians already; if lizardmen are wandering around their territory, they may never recover.

Ilians - Priests of Winter are coming. Every turn they will summon three throwaway Ice Elementals (strength-5). With no copper, warriors will likely die to them even when fortified in a city. Archers or hunters would have better chances, but will take far too long to build. The Ilian rush will gain greatly, and see its lifespan extended - I wouldn't be surprised if Selrahc recognizes this once he gets Mining, and changes his plans somewhat.

Vampires - they will get Mining sooner rather than later for that excellent Gold resource, and realize they have no Copper. Vampires themselves are melee units, so they will be weakened by this. With a lot of open ground to the east, I expect that vampires will see a lot of barbarian activity, and will be forced to research horseback riding sooner rather than later (likely to go for it, as it is on the tech path for Feudalism and vampires) and get some horsemen out for a mobile counter-attack force.

Kuriotates - relatively unaffected. Centaurs receive defensive terrain bonuses, so they will likely aim for Horseback Riding quickly. Primary risk is that Ilians rush them but if they do, even strength-4 warriors would be merely a speedbump.

Elves - not likely to be going for Mining anyway. If they are planning a Fellowship of Leaves beeline, they will be using 5 attack/4 defense hunters (remember, they get +1 attack strength on recon units), which with careful counter-attacks can gain experience and provide for a barbarian shield - however, it will be a costly one. If Ilians rush them, as they seem inclined to do, it's game over, of course.

[Ilios]

Yeah you're right Maksim, no copper at all. Darrell, would it be possible (and necessary) to ask for the save and worldbuilder them in?