sunrise089 Wrote:AV allows the 1-food-per-pop civic which sent me into vast unhappiness. Is the key just gambling houses + conquest civic? Is that civic worth giving up the awesome Chalid hero?.
Gambling Houses, Theatres, Carnivals, lots of other religions with their temples (incense gives +1 per each temple). Or use the population in other ways - Slavery or vampire-feeding if Calabim.
sunrise089 Wrote:Also, how do you survive an early-ish AI attack? On Monarch AI armies seem to be roughly 30 units reasonably early. My tech path doesn't have powerful casters out in time, and if the AI pops out away from your army it seems hard to not loose at least once city. Should I be teching to longbows/hunters early to have lots of defenders? That seems to slow the already slow building even more.
Essentially, it is very easy to fall behind in the early game of FFH where you think you are doing just fine - and then the AI blows you away. You can't really keep up with their armies in sheer size; so you have to outtech them.
For basic defense, I would tech to Bronze Working early and pick up a city site with Copper, as this turns your Warriors into 25-hammer, 4-strength units. This is very good. If you are Sheaim, you also have pyre zombies at this stage, which have collateral damage. That should be enough to counter most early stacks.
sunrise089 Wrote:FYI, my approximate tech path: Ag->AH->Chants->Education->CoL->Exploration->Crafting->Mining->Calendar->Fishing->Hunting->Masonry->Mysticism->Writing->Philosophy->Early Religion if applicable->Bronze Working->Adept tech->Late religion if applicable->Sorcery/Iron Working->Engineering->Meethril/Gunpowder/Archmages. I generally backtrade for stuff like Math, Currency, Market tech, Sailing, other stuff I've not listed.
I will point you to my earlier post in this thread about FFH early game being all about getting the early commerce going, and comment from that POV:
Why Animal Husbandry so early? It does not give you a commerce advantage, health isn't generally a problem in early game, and smokehouse is not a must-have. Skip it.
Mysticism is very late - get those Elder Councils out, the earlier the better.
Exploration can wait until your workers have nothing better to do (like build farms, plantations and mines). I normally grab it to help strategic or happiness resources come online once I'm hitting the happy cap, or mined the copper, and aim to go for Bronze Working next.
Code of Laws is early - presumably you go for Aristocracy and farms? Then you want to prioritise Calendar as well, to go for Agrarianism. If you don't go for Aristocracy, then you don't need Code of Laws in this tech path at all (pick it up in trades).
Fishing and Hunting are expensive techs, taken together, and they don't provide a combat advantage. Do Bronze Working after Mining if you have Copper instead. Even if you don't have Copper nearby, go for it - Pyre Zombies will help you.
Masonry - useless. It can wait.
Philosophy - why? It gives nothing to you at this stage.
Early religion - if you are going for FoL\RoK\OO, then get it after Hunting\Mining\Fishing. If you are Sheaim, why do you need any of these, though? Having two religions is a luxury, the second to be picked up later at your leisure when it takes a turn or two to research.
No Knowledge of Ether - consider grabbing it instead of an early religion. Build a few adepts to raise skeletons; either Death or Entropy spheres (what do Sheaim have these days?) will provide you with what you need.
Calendar - if you have a nearby city location with Calendar resources, take it and prioritise this tech. Your second and third cities should pick up commerce and copper, ideally.
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