I remember back in vanilla, over a year now, every game I saw Monty I knew I was in peril. Monty would always declare war on me. Always.

If Tokunaga was also in the game I usually restarted.

I don't do that in FFH anymore. I never re-start. But also I haven't seen any AI that always tries to pick on me. I will be at war with many, and I will also start wars. Maybe I'm better player now. I win easily on prince, duel map, 7-8civs, agressive AI. I can also win on monarch though I hate losing many good units with 75% chance of vitory. Even attacking at 99% with the Baron against a warrior fortified on a city... it happens too many times in my games at monarch. Back to topic.

I've seen many times the clown declaring war. Doviello, Sheaim and vampires will usually declare war. But it's not like they are Monty.

He was a looney, always war and always asking for goods, techs and luxuries. Have the AIs been changed so drastically from vanilla? Is there a leader civ you always hate?

In vanilla I couldn't stand Monty, Tokunawa or Isabella.
In FFH I have no "greatest enemy"...

I've heard that many hate Varn Gosam, but since I always play him... I don't know.

the balseraph insane leader is really hard to get along with. he usually always hates everyone for no reason and ends up getting himself overrun by enemies sooner or later due to his very limited diplomatic skills :crazyeye:

os gabella has issues too, she usually hates everyone wether they are good or evil. "you are only a man", what a disadvantage for the AI if the leader gets hostile against everyone who is only a human :crazyeye:

if you think it out of the box, the evil civs really have disadvantage in game because evils are much more likely to hate everyone or atleast majority of rival civs (even other evils), where good and neutral civs tend to like other civs who are similar to them. good civs usually never hate eachother or declare war against eachother unless something very strange happens.

if you are playing good or neutral, it usually is hopeless to start accepting evil civs threats because they usually wont change their attitude towards you and just keep asking for more and more until they get advanced enough to destroy you.

Every game I have played the Svartlafar have declared war on me .. and other civs as well too. They are often overmatched and seem to have a death wish. They will attack, get creamed, sue for peace, and declare war again when the 10-term peace treaty is up.

I've also had Lanun attack me quite a bit too.

I often play Einon-Logos/Elohim/Good.

My number one enemies are the Hippus led by Rhoanna, and -though not in the same sense- the Khazad led by Whoever.

Rhoanna *always* techs up enough, builds a force of raiders, then declares war on me and pillages all my improvements. No exceptions - not even good relations, a common enemy and half a world between us can save me!

The Khazad found the runes whenever I want to rush it. Usually one turn before or on the same turn - this obviously(?) forces me to go to war to raze all their cities and scorch all their lands, as well as to exterminate any other civs having good relations with them. (They're always randomed into any game where I want runes, of course.)

Three recent games have ended with Rhoanna backstabbing and killing or weakening me while my main forces were away killing dwarves...

Charadon almost almost always attack me early on (as expected). In a recent game with aggressive AI turned on, he actually walked through Rhoanna's borders attack me, even though I was playing Os-Gabella and had been playing nice with the Doviello. Fortunately, his attacks are normally weak and poorly executed, so it ends up being a good way to blood my troops a bit.

The real problem, at least when playing an evil civ, is Sabathiel. If I fall behind in the power ratings, he'll load up a huge army and come kick my butt. He tends to use a nice mix of troops in his stack (including assassins :mad: ) so unless I resort to relying on RoF, I'll lose a couple cities before I can drive him back.

I made the experience that your alignment (good/neutral/evil) and the alignment of your enemies is the best indicator of whether you'll get along with them. I don't want to single out any leader as backstabber as they may behave nicely you just weren't so damn evil yourself...

Btw: the battle odds are not influenced by your difficulty - if the odds are the same, you won't lose more battles at higher difficulties. And if you hate losing units with 75% battle odds, just keep in mind that it's perfectly normal to lose one out of four with these odds.

Varn Gosam, definatley. If you don't kiss up to him at every waking moment, he turns on you faster than a starving dog on a t-bone steak.

The Lanun are really devious. They almost never actually do anything war-wise though, they always just set me on edge, make me uneasy. Kind of like the Chinese in Vanilla.

os gabella has issues too, she usually hates everyone wether they are good or evil. "you are only a man", what a disadvantage for the AI if the leader gets hostile against everyone who is only a human :crazyeye:


Os Gabella has a diplomatic penalty with men (Varn Gosam, Tasunke, Charadon, etc.) and no such penalty with women (Aerendel Phaedra, Rhoanna, Alexis, etc.).

I hate Varn Gosam and Arendel Phaedra. They only pretend to be the good guys...

My hate for Varn goes deeper than words can describe. He is the most selfish leader ever. As an experiment I once gifted him all of my techs (I had a significant lead on him) then asked for one lowley tech i could research on my own in one turn, and he refused. what a dick!

Cardith annoys me to no end, he's not hard to get along with, but the neverending spamming of settlments is frustrating.

The vampires are actually pretty good allies as long as you don't let your power level fall too far. Them Bannor and Lucuirp are my favorite allies.

the elves are annoying too, but only because they're always insanely powerful, and any time I try to play as them I can't figure out how they do it.

the elves are annoying too, but only because they're always insanely powerful, and any time I try to play as them I can't figure out how they do it.

FoL, Druids, Ancient forest spam :assimilate:

I actually- when I get to that point in the game I can afford it- send a werewolf, druid and 3 (or more) workers and go through my cities one at a time using the wolf to pillage my own improvements on non-forest tiles, druid casts bloom and the workers re-build - then move on to the next tile. Obviously skip mines/ watermills/ flood plains.

Can easily get 30 pop cities if I let em grow. Lately I've been halting their growth when I run out of great prophet slots- as I try my hardest to train up prophets for the altar. I did find a cool new trick though- Archmage with domination and AI civs holding onto their prophets. Stole 2 that way :D Now if only the Calabim would only bring out a vampire or two for me to steal!

The Khazad found the runes whenever I want to rush it. Usually one turn before or on the same turn - this obviously(?) forces me to go to war to raze all their cities and scorch all their lands, as well as to exterminate any other civs having good relations with them. (They're always randomed into any game where I want runes, of course.)

Sounds like someone is using the World Editor to put them in the game and give them a boost when you're not looking. Do you have any malicious roommates? ;)

- feydras

I've not yet found a leader that is my Isabella (HATE her. Any game of Vannila (Well, Warlords) that I play I send the Legions after her ASAP). Though I do think Rhoanna is the one most likely to take her place... But so far I have been lucky in that she always starts far away from me...

Can easily get 30 pop cities if I let em grow. Lately I've been halting their growth when I run out of great prophet slots

I assume you have a reason to avoid religious discipline?

Falamar!; in any game that he appears in with me, he always pesters me aboot something or another. Always demanding gold and hitting on me...pshaw; Damn pirates. :gripe:
Hit and quit I tell ya.

I hate leaders like charadon, perpentach, and varn gosam.

Charadon and perpentach are war-crazy, and impossible to please (even if your evil!).

And varn gosam will hate your guts no matter what if your a different religion. I beileve the negative modifier for a different religion can go past -8! :eek:

Anyone with the raider trait - Mahala, Irin, Tasunke (they always make a bee-line for your workers when they cannot possibly see them! Aaargh!). I try to take the raiders out of the picture asap. Doviello you have to watch out for, prone to warlike skirmishes. The Calabim and Malakim are competition for the mid-late game, so I try to put them to the sword as well.

I'll chime in and include myself with the Varn Gosam haters. That elf must be on mushrooms always babbling about light and dark. Keep an eye on him because he and his Malakim cult of followers will turn on you in a second. It doesn't matter if you are the Bannor or Sheaim.

Personally I hate the Hippus. The raider horsemen really irk me. They do just what they are supposed to. Get in, pillage and get out.

ya, the hippus are the biggest pains, cant keep an improvement around when at war with them.

cardith is my favourite leader to hate on, everyone one always hates him cause of his massive borders, so i like to join in on the hate anytime anyone asks me to declare on him or cancel such and such treaty. hating cardith lorda is a great way to get in everyone elses good books heh

doviello aren't too bad if you get a big army going.

balseraphs are impossible to be safe from, they'll declare at any point for any reason, and always manage to have swordsmen early.

and elves suck if you want leaves for yourself, the only way ive found that i can get the holy city is to take a worker of theirs as early as possible, then continue with the war to start taking the holy city before they even get it lol

Hippus. Hippus, and Hippus.

The initial wave of commando + mobility 2 raiders rampaging around my lands is most painful. It does make the eventual counterattack and victory that much more rewarding though.

Why is everyone hating my best friend Varn Gosam. He saved my hide more than one time from the evil. Hippus are more despicable. I had no game so far where they didn' attack me sooner or later, even if we were best friends till then. Someone seems to hire these mercenaries in every game to get rid of this annoying human player.

I don't like Varn Gosam, the elves, the clowns or ht hippus. They can pass me very fast in the power graph. But... but they are not as painfull as old Monty or Isabella (I think).

Does anybody know if the team has changed the AI scripts from vanilla? or are the leaders taken from vanilla?

Nice to know many people hate/dislike the same leaders...

And maybe the leaders we don't care are the ones that don't increase their power/army as fast, so they should be checked to be improved.

I don't like Varn Gosam, the elves, the clowns or ht hippus. They can pass me very fast in the power graph. But... but they are not as painfull as old Monty or Isabella (I think).

Does anybody know if the team has changed the AI scripts from vanilla? or are the leaders taken from vanilla?

Nice to know many people hate/dislike the same leaders...

And maybe the leaders we don't care are the ones that don't increase their power/army as fast, so they should be checked to be improved.

being peaceful AI doesnt mean hes not a threat or any less powerful than the aggressive ones :crazyeye: . they often get more advanced technology than the others and usually have allies.

Yup, we need a Mansa Musa in this mod. Though I must admit that Morgoth sometimes comes close.

I concur that Varn always gets on your nerves, since he has a 'good' alignment I expect him to help out the other good civs, but all he does is break treaties and pillage, attacking the other good AIs more often than evil ones on many maps. I should read his backstory again, maybe there is a hint as to why he is so untrustworthy. Cardith is the same way to a lesser extent.

The Svartalfar love sneak attacks but that is pretty much expected, same for pillaging by the pirate and mercenaries (lanun and hippus). So I still have respect for them (unlike Varn).

Actually I found one of the best ally in the game to be Sheelba for some reason (if you are also evil). She has never betrayed my civ before. My mages also have great respect for her fire resistant troops. Has anyone else had this experience?

I have found Sheelba to be a good friend - she seems to agree to defensive pacts and even permanent alliances quite easily, and, as you said, she doesn't seem to backstab much.

I don't like Varn Gosam, the elves, the clowns or ht hippus. They can pass me very fast in the power graph. But... but they are not as painfull as old Monty or Isabella (I think).

Does anybody know if the team has changed the AI scripts from vanilla? or are the leaders taken from vanilla?

Nice to know many people hate/dislike the same leaders...

And maybe the leaders we don't care are the ones that don't increase their power/army as fast, so they should be checked to be improved.

There isnt a set AI for different leaders. Firaxis made a pretty cool system and created tons of variables that control a leaders behavior. Changing those variables effects all of the qualities we are talking about (often in byzantine ways since there is no documentation on them).

We tried to tune those to effect different things, I think we are probably due for someone to go over them again and adjust for the different leaders.

I am always fighting with the male vampire (dont speak his name, its bad luck!). Roanna is a ***** as is Faeryl Viconia i really hate her. Varn, i dont like either but only was in war with him once. He is just anoyingly good.....

My greatest friends (always!) are Falamar, Casiel, Tasunke and Dain.Always, who ever i am playing...really weird

I don't think I've ever played a game that was on land where Dov HASN'T delcared war on me within the first 20 turns and moved a scout and a warrior outside my city and sit there in a terrain I can't attack (take around 4/5 warriors to deal with them), and only agree to ceasefire when I move a similar amount of units outside their base...

Im curious to see what people experiences are since patch "e" changed a lot of the AI values. Are you noticing any differences?

yeah, netrual civs can't make up their mind with good/evil civs. First they try to be friendly, then they change their mind and cut open borders, then back again etc.

And good and evil civs still ask me open borders even if of the opposed alignement.

Actually I found one of the best ally in the game to be Sheelba for some reason (if you are also evil). She has never betrayed my civ before. My mages also have great respect for her fire resistant troops. Has anyone else had this experience?

Actually, I just had Sheelba convert to runes (neutral) and break our open borders treaty (I'm Calabim). Hasn't attacked me yet, because I sent Larry, Curly and Moe to empty all of her cities of defenders, so they keep going around in a big circle hitting each city taking out its defenders. All she can do is keep rebuilding more of them for me to take out. She dropped from third to 11th (out of 12) since betraying me!

AI still seems to be very happy to change religions without much reason. Varn in my last game had a single RoK city, and 5 leaves cities, yet he decided to change to runes. He was already at war with the RoK holy city owner, and subsequently went to war with his former leaves allies as (including me). I defeated him shortly afterwards.

True, the religious thing is weird, I remember founding AV in a Island map, where I spread it to Faramir, and he converted after two cities (said not enough at first) then it appeared in the Lurch and Rhos city, and they both instantly converted, which I loved, but found bemusing...

It seemed that Val had taken all the other "good" relgions and was hating everyone, while Alex had OO but took heed and converted! Strange though that the others just wanted a religion...

The same effect in my games has AV rarely getting researched because every evil civ has converted to Runes. Last game Mahala ended up converting to AV from OO after I used the Worldbuilder to add it to 3 more of his cities (he had the holy city), but he refused to research Infernal Pact.

In another game, Perpentach had AV in every one of his cities, but wouldn't convert from leaves. Same with the Faeryl Viconia in the game with Mahala. In the other games I've played since patch e, I've never seen AV get founded at all. It's getting frustrating trying to get the AI to summon Hyborem without rigging it by hand.

EDIT: I should note that I favor maps with single landmasses like Pangea and Lakes since the AI doesn't invade well by sea, so early religions spread very quickly and Runes gets founded early all the time.

It's getting frustrating trying to get the AI to summon Hyborem without rigging it by hand.

Tell me about it. Playing Epic as Doviello, and AV is founded by the Balseraph in yr 465. Noone converted to RoK or the Order all game, everyone was either FoL or OO. Never saw Hyborem, finishing the game in yr 566 due to accidentally winning by Domination (I was retaliating to being dogpiled from the Tower of Mastery near completion).

My favourite allied civ is the Onion (Elohim guy). Cant beat dominating all his great persons! I rem one turn when I dominated 6000gp (great merchant) lol

Im curious to see what people experiences are since patch "e" changed a lot of the AI values. Are you noticing any differences?


The early religions, specifically RoK and FoL, are still dominating the game

In my recent game (Large Fractal, Normal, Monarch, 14 Civ, RB and PA), here's what was going on.

Found Dates : Rok 72, FoL 76, OO 176, Order 216, CotD 223, AV not founded (in turn 283!).

Thessa founded FoL and immediately converted. Morgoth has no state religion, and Cardith recently converted to Order from RoK.

The other 9 civs all have RoK as the state religion. That includes Keelyn, Flauros and Os-Gabella. I'm playing as the Clan, and converted to RoK just to keep my trading paths open with my (formerly) evil buddies.

Dain, who founded OO, never converted. Garrim founded Order but never converted to it.

Some thoughts:

Octopus Overlords just isn't on equal footing, accessibility wise, with the other early religions. In my game for instance, it was founded 100 years after RoK and FoL. I'm not sure why this is for the AI, but for my part, I find that being unable to work water tiles at all at the beginning of the game is a major detraction. It makes me hesitant to found coastal cities, especially with Fishing being a fairly expensive 2nd tier tech. No coastal cities means no incentive to research fishing, and hence no OO.

Leaving the civs open to multiple possibilities (instead of hard-coding religious preferences) is great, but it seems to me that they always choose the path of least resistance, which is always RoK and FoL.


The AI is more diplomatic

After clearing out some space (cya, Varn), I decided to play nice and try some diplomacy. I was able to trade techs effectively with my friends and stay near the top of the race, even as the Clan.

I was able to sign defensive pacts with multiple civs, and finally was able to enter a permanent alliance, with Arturus, no less (The Dwarf-Orc alliance!). I was also able to ask civs to declare war, as exepected with the new patch.

That's it for now. The latest patch is a definite upgrade :goodjob:

Can it be that the AI is not attracted by AV because the Holy Wonder provides science instead of gold ?

I (playing as Capria) recently started a game in the classical era (it's the second era) and everything worked fine with the whole hyborem summoning thing (Alexis, Os-gabella, Charadon and Keelyn adopted AV). With starting later, you can outmanouver the problem that only the early religions (RoK, FoL) are spreading across the map.
I know you are missing the first phase, but it is a better way to start if you want Hyborem and Basium in the game.

Can it be that the AI is not attracted by AV because the Holy Wonder provides science instead of gold ?

I suspect that they don't factor that in to which religion they want to found...

And I'm thinking that Fishing should cost quite a bit less than it currently does. That'd solve a few problems.

And I'm thinking that Fishing should cost quite a bit less than it currently does. That'd solve a few problems.

I'd argue that Fishing should be returned to a Tier 1 tech. Why should I have to learn to build roads to throw some nets in the water?

More basic than that, though, is the inability to work water tiles at the start of the game. This just seems like piling on, what with the increase in strength the Agriculture Civ already provides to land tiles. Coastal cities should be early growth centers.

I'd argue that Fishing should be returned to a Tier 1 tech. Why should I have to learn to build roads to throw some nets in the water?

More basic than that, though, is the inability to work water tiles at the start of the game. This just seems like piling on, what with the increase in strength the Agriculture Civ already provides to land tiles. Coastal cities should be early growth centers.

Considering the improvements to food on other terrains, I'd be tempted to suggest this:

The ability to work water tiles either included from the beginning or with Exploration. Then, have the Fishing tech give +1 :food: per water tile so that they're self-sufficient. Then, the lighthouse building with Sailing could add an additional +1 :food:... Hum, also perhaps replace the Lanun +1 :food: per water tile with +1 :commerce: or maybe even +1 :hammers:... though that'd be of terciary importance.

Considering the improvements to food on other terrains, I'd be tempted to suggest this:

The ability to work water tiles either included from the beginning or with Exploration. Then, have the Fishing tech give +1 :food: per water tile so that they're self-sufficient. Then, the lighthouse building with Sailing could add an additional +1 :food:... Hum, also perhaps replace the Lanun +1 :food: per water tile with +1 :commerce: or maybe even +1 :hammers:... though that'd be of terciary importance.

have fishing give +2 commerce with water instead of food?
fish will still be a viable rescource in the beginning

I was playing a game as Calabim, I founded Order, and Varn Gosam founded FoL. To my amasment, I got him Friendly to me. Eventually, I even got him to take out Svaltfal for Sorcery and Summoning. He actually was a very good ally, even with the religoin difference.

I hate Cardith Lorda. Not because he's a warmonger or a backstabber (in fact, he's usually quite a reliable friend), but, because everyone else hates him. Seriously, it seems like every game I play every other civ pops up and says "Ya know, if you cut your deals with Cardith we won't get angry at you", and normally I do. If I don't, well, suddenly I'm as much of a blacksheep as he is. :lol: The worst thing is, with his expansive empire, he usually has a few resources that I want :(

As for people who backstab me, it's rather dependant on who I'm playing. I've noticed that Faryl doesn't need much incentive to go to war.

Doviello always declares war on the lowest score guy eventually. And if I play Immortal, I usually am the lowest score guy in the early game.

So I'd have to say Doviello, by both leaders.


I usually play Aggressive AI, so anyone can be a war starter. I've even had a game where Einon Logos and Cardith Lorda ganged up on me, and I was Khazad! And I had good relations with them!

And when I played as Calabim, it was ALWAYS Cardith Lorda that started wars with me.

Other than those. Any evil leader seems keen on war.

When I play as Amelanchier and if Faeryl is in the game I always try to get good standings with her. In my latest game I even turned evil for her sake! :)

<3

I hate Varn with a passion. :mad: He reminds me a little of Huayna in Vanilla; they always seem to have any tech I happen to want and be totally uninterested in trading it to me. They'll found another religion just so they don't have to convert to mine - twice lately Varn's founded something else as soon as my disciples got near his borders. Add to that the fact that he's usually doing well in the research department and pretty aggressive about where he settles, and he's a complete pain. There's no way to stay on his good side so far as I can tell.

I'm starting to be a little worried about Alexis, too. She seems to be the most committed of the Evil AI's - she and Charadon are the only ones I've seen go ahead and found the Ashen Veil on their own, and Alexis actually researches things like Infernal Pact unprovoked. She's also got a habit of declaring war on me whether or not it makes any sense based on our overall score - I've had her do it when I had three times hers. That's probably based on the power rankings, though, as I tend to run a lean military unless I'm bent on conquest during a particular game.

When I leave things random, though, I don't see much of the Evil leaders other than Auric, Faeryl, and Sheelba, which is getting kind of monotonous. That said, I'm sort of glad Auric's not done yet - he does rather well with what he's got now. I think Sheelba's the second-weakest AI after the Luchurip, so I'm coming to dislike her for quite the opposite reason. I'm developing what I have to admit is an inordinate dislike for the Good civs in general just because I see them so often.

ya, the hippus are the biggest pains, cant keep an improvement around when at war with them.

cardith is my favourite leader to hate on, everyone one always hates him cause of his massive borders, so i like to join in on the hate anytime anyone asks me to declare on him or cancel such and such treaty.But in mp vs AI, I assume you still hate Mogroth the most? ;)

I agree Hippus are a monsterous pain. It sure is fun to play as Hippus and become the pain, though.

Every game I have played the Svartlafar have declared war on meYeppers. She ran across the whole damn continent, past two other civs, to come harrass me last game. Fortunately I was prepared for her wanton mayhem and had a forward strike force near her civ that was able to take a key city out.

All that had to be done then, was to gift the city to Varn and establish an alliance against the wicked elves. Then I was free to go about my business while lame-o and Drizzt's sister duked it out in a never-ending blood bath.

Anyway, the difference between our experiences is that the Svartlafar always seem to prevail in the games I play. Usually they end up taking from others instead of losing.

Anyway, the difference between our experiences is that the Svartlafar always seem to prevail in the games I play. Usually they end up taking from others instead of losing.

Same here, Svartalfar almost always does well in my games.