Am I missing something or is the Altar of the Luonnotar just a no-brainer?

It seems that you would want to get as far in the altar as you could regardless of what religion you are. It also seems ironically, that the Altar is most powerful in the hands of an Ashen Veil Agriculture Civilization.

Agriculture and Great People Production are intimately twined. And, I mean Great People Production as in production of Great People that produce hammers. Of which only the Engineer and Priest satisfy adequately.

So, the Altar increases the Hammers by Priests So, Priests will get spawned for eternity when combined with religious discipline.

Is there a more viable strategy?

completely agree with you here
so far the only solution seems to be to make a rule for yourself - pretend you can't get it at all and go for some other strat
I sorta helped hijack your old thread so I wanna be the first supporter this time

I wouldn't mind seeing the Altar requiring "no religion" and then (possibly) bring the happiness sooner (I'm not sure what levels happiness comes at right now). That way it would be an alternative to religion, which makes sense with its flavor. I don't see civs worshiping one angel or another while they're trying to bring the One back into creation. A less extreme approach would be to remove its benefits under certain religions, but that seems to just strengthen (or weaken, depending on how you look at it) one religion over another.

I'm not sure if it will continue to be a no-brainer. Agriculture is going down to only +1 food from farms, so all GP strategies will suffer somewhat. Also, going for priests limits other specialists such as sages which can really boost your research efforts. That's probably not as good long term, but it might give you an early edge which compounds itself throughout the rest of the game.

If you really want hellish resources, like Shuet stones and nightmares for their respective promotions, then you shouldn't build too many altars. And if you are Hyborem, you want the defensive bonuses from hell terrain and the protection of flames on the burning sands.

(One time I raised the capture chance of every building significantly using find/replace, and did not realized I'd made the altars capturable. the next Infernal game I played I captured a high level altar and was dismayed to see my precious nightmares had fled and that my lands were now best suited for food production.)

I wouldn't mind a no religion requirement for the altars or at least for the highest level or two). It would then fit better flavorwise with the Grigori and the Luonnotar. (I still think it needs to be changed so that it doesn't hurt the Cassiel by crowding out adventurers with prophets.)

I actually think that the altar fits well with Os-Gaballa, since she wants to destroy the world. The One isn't entering the world yet because in its state of corruption his presence would destroy it. Spreading Veil + bring back the One = > destroying the World

I guess you could always play with the Altar Victory not included.

I have found it pretty awesome when playing Einon Logos/Elohim. Not only can you get stronger Monks mid-game, but as a Philosophical civ, you get those Great Prophets much faster.

But, of course, getting that last Altar, which you have to build can be tough. I was helped my last game by having ROK and using Soldiers of Kilmorph to speed up production of the Final Altar.

I managed to build it once with the Malakhim too, but never tried it with any other civs.

I find the Altar too strong and just do not build it, I tend to not use exploitive strats like spells that I find to strong [RoF anyone?]

I wouldnt call it no brainer but yup, it is too strong. An altar victory is something else - that is off for me always, I do not like such early space race victory. ToM is to hard so it is on by 0.22 may change that.

One of the things about the Altar is that it kind of snowballs. Better Altar = Better Priests = More Priests = More Prophets = Better Altar.

I've been playing with the altar victory on, but I'm going to have to turn it off, I think, because it's benefits are good enough to build it even without the victory condition, and it really annoys me if I'm not building it myself when I finally notice that an AI civ has built like 5 pieces of it (duh, why didn't I see the earlier notifications?), and now I need to suddenly build an invasion force, put it on boats and send it halfway around the world in a race against the clock. Which can be exciting, but I usually lose the race and it's not even close.

The reason not to go for the Altar victory would be - because it is too easy currently. Agriculture (even nerfed) + great people + something what grants you unlimited priests (Religious Discipline for instance) and there you go. Also if you will enable this possibility your gameplay changes to: "kill all the comps before they complete it".

I would not say remove it completely. Maybe just make its costs stack. Levels 1,2 - 1 prophet, 2,3 - 2 prophets, 3 and more - +1 prophet. It might be a problem with the code, but for sure you would have to change your priorities.

Great Sage strategies are better anyways.

i think that evil sjhould get some sort of counter-altar thing that also acts somewhat like an altar of the luonnotar


like theres one level that requires a great sage an armageddon counter of at least 25 and evil alignment to be built that provides somewhat weak boni

then after that seperate types of altars can be built in that city by each kind of great person that uberizes that kind of specialist and in that specialists feild. each one of these increases the cost for any civ to build the altar by about 10% for each one that exists

then with a armageddon counter of 75 or greater and an evil religion (prehaps holy city) you can build another level that provides large civ wide boni and exp to arcane units and doubles the cost of altars of luonnatar for each one that exists. possibly as soon as this is built for the first time a bane divine effect could happen so the next level is harder to complete

then with an armageddon counter of 100 ashten veil religion and sacrificing a high preist of the veil, you get one that prevents production of all altars. it shoud also provide some almost game breaking effect (as it should be hard to get to this point because of bane divine/avatar of wrath/apocolaypse)
such as being able to build two things in your cities at once, spreading hell terain into good civs that border you, having no national limits on dycyple/ arcane units or somethign like that.


so its not actually a victory condition but it keeps others from winning another victory condition and gives each civ altar-like uberness or prehaps almost allows you to win very easily

I also always play without this victory condition, but always try for the alter (unless I really want to be evil)

I think the alter would be fine if it didn't add GPP . The extra priest yield is a nice boost, but what makes it snowball is really the GPP(since it allows extra priests, it would still get a little faster). They also get in the way of the Grigori adventurers, hurting the civ with the Luonnotar flavor (and unit)

I also always play without this victory condition, but always try for the alter (unless I really want to be evil)

I think the alter would be fine if it didn't add GPP . The extra priest yield is a nice boost, but what makes it snowball is really the GPP(since it allows extra priests, it would still get a little faster). They also get in the way of the Grigori adventurers, hurting the civ with the Luonnotar flavor (and unit)
Grigori adventurers can upgrade to Luonnotars who can build levels of the altar. So if the Grigori stick to just priests and adventurers, every unit they get can help them win an Altar victory. Otherwise, you could have one city focus on adventurers and another on priests and simply micromanage which one you will get.

But really, how many adventurers do you need? Other civs get two religious heroes and one civilization hero for three total. The Grigori could easily go for two adventurers before the level of the altar with GPP and then they could just maximize priests and adventurers. Eventually, the third one (and later the fourth in all likelihood) will pop out and you will still probably be ahead of the other civs for number of heroes while still getting the Altar built very fast.

Do you really sacrifice your adventurers to build the altar? I rather use them to convert city defenders to serve as my defenders in a war. You can have 3 Lunnothars at once so 2 go to fight my wars while my dragon slayers level up on barbs and build my altar. If you have the altar victory turned off then only happines and hammers for priests count.

Adventurers and Lunnoothars are to precious to be sacrificed like that.

Obviously you would only use the Luonnotars if Altar victory is turned on, but then I'd use every last Adventurer if it would speed up my victory.

Before I'd use up any adventurer, I'd just use all of the XP boosters to pump out lvl 6 units faster: Training Yard, Form of Titan, Command Post (either switch to Organized for a while or use a GC that you'll probably get (eventually) from the National Epic) Apprenticeship, Conquest, and Theocracy gives you 11XP off the bat. Take the Raider trait and trap some dens/wolf packs and you'll find the next 15XP come very quickly. Don't forget about Valor (Law II, you'll want Law mana for the priest specialists with Agriculture and Religious Discipline) and GC (if you get more than 1, say the free 1 from a tech, let whichever unit you're training use it). Alternatively, you could keep the units as warriors with minimal combat promotions and get ~4-6 XP per turn, only later upgrading to dragon slayers and then luonnotars. Fighting an actual opponent to gain more XP also works, but then there's a chance of losing the unit.

Ideally, you'd fight at ~96% odds which gives around 4+1*3 = 7 XP per battle for only 2-3 battles to get a level 6 unit. You could lower the odds, lose some of the units, but gain more to shorten the time.

If the Grigori can get the tech for the final level of the Altar, they would have to try to lose against AI opponents.

what is the story behind the altar? I can't seem to find any information in the manual...

what is the story behind the altar? I can't seem to find any information in the manual...

It's mentioned some place or other. There's a story in the pedia, made up of a number of different articles, and partway through, The One briefly enters creation. The Luonnotar believe the Altar is where he stood.

It's mentioned some place or other. There's a story in the pedia, made up of a number of different articles, and partway through, The One briefly enters creation. The Luonnotar believe the Altar is where he stood.

Thanks, I found some info on the web, although it wasn't much. :)

Is it possible to make the final altar with alter victory unchecked?

Yes, one can construct all levels of the Altar with the victory unchecked. One can also construct the Tower of Mastery with that condition unchecked also, which is an argument for the Tower providing benefits. Golden Age + Meta Mana?

I for one like making the Tower of Mastery apply the Channeling III promotion to units in the city.

I for one like making the Tower of Mastery apply the Channeling III promotion to units in the city.

Really?! I didn't know that! Every week I learn something new and interesting on the forum! I'm sure going to do the mastery thing! It's a lot of work though. Too bad I didn't uncheck the mastery victory conditions in my current game... But I'll just pretend like I didn't win the game. I think conquest is the only way to win.
With the altar and tower completed in my unit production city, I will be unstoppable!! :king: (of course by then, my victory is assured at least a couple of hundred turns already (on marathon speed), but that doesn't matter). :)
Thanks for the tip!

I think you misunderstand me. The Tower of Mastery has no such effect in vanilla FfH. That is my main suggestion for how to improve the Tower of Mastery, and is something that has long been a part of my personal modmod. (I don't recall whether any of the other modmods copied that change or not.)

That's a good suggestion! I totally misunderstood your post indeed. My bad..

Channeling 3 for everyone is a bit op i think, you might aswell win the game. ^^

Well, by default the wonder is supposed to make you win the game automatically, so it is not that over the top.

Giving only channeling 3 and not channeling 2 means that you still have to upgrade adepts to mages (or wizards) to gain access to the top tier spells. You'll also have to spend xp on the top tier promotions, as only arcane units with channeling III in their unit xml defines get level 3 spell spheres for free based on the mana you control at the time they are created.

of course you normally win the game when you complete the final tower. It's also the case for the altar, but when the victory condition is turned off I think the altar is still a nice addition for my unit production city. All priests specialists produce one more hammer and I get two more XP for my priests.. creating instant level 5 priests, which are 2 xp away from becoming a level 6 priests... which is important when you're playing with the sidar civilization. :)
A bonus for the Final Tower would also be a nice perk!

Yes, one can construct all levels of the Altar with the victory unchecked. One can also construct the Tower of Mastery with that condition unchecked also, which is an argument for the Tower providing benefits. Golden Age + Meta Mana?

you already need meta mana to get the tower of mastery in almost any case.

The near necessity of metamagic for the tower doesn’t make it an invalid reward though.