After you have a chance to play a game or so, please check back here and give your impressions on what was to powerful, and what you may have just avoided for being to weak.

Units, like those following the CoE, should not be able to declare nationality on the same turn in which they attack (in the same way in which ghosts can't go hidden after an attack.)
Exploitive vs. the computer. Humans wouldn't put up with that kind of silliness.

On Hamachi (network FFH3 pw ffh) we play with 1500 advanced start points.

Recently we have come into the issue that players can buy 12 axeman, 14 centaurs, or 18 warriors with this number of points (only in regard to # of cities and unit requirements/production) on turn 0.

However, the "peace" timer is only 10 turns regardless of the number of points. We are finding unless all players know someone is doing this kind of advanced start, the game is ruined. At turn 10 multiple civs have numerous units sitting on their borders ready to invade.

My suggestion/recommendation/plea is to implement "# of peace turns" into all advanced start games. This will enable a fair game for everyone to know what round you can be attacked.

Thank you, love the game.

Please add reagents (/incense?) into the 'strategic resource' catagory so that all players (with game resources=balanced) receive copper/iron/mithral/horse/reagents/incense so that you can ensure all players have whatever "war" resource they require.

Find us at Hamachi network FFH3 pw ffh.

I played a tiny map with a central sea just to work through new features. Khazad was next to me and founded Runes/Kilmorph. I was surprised to find out that iron isn't usable until after finding the resource AND researching iron working. I didn't have horses or copper within my empire.

I can't remember if this is how it was before (it seems not) but this makes for a LONG period when copper is king. Considering copper is +33% strength to a warrior or +25% to an Axeman it makes it quite a powerful resource.

I think it would balance better if iron weapons were allowed once iron was found + smelting (or require a forge as well). I'm not 100% convinced of this, though, as it was a bit of a special case and you can always beeline to OO or Runes in order to have religious units that are good without copper.

EDIT - Another issue that fit better in the balance thread than a bug thread:
‘For the Horde’ was cast on turn 13 (not a bug per se but something that needs improvement eventually)

I played a tiny map with a central sea just to work through new features. Khazad was next to me and founded Runes/Kilmorph. I was surprised to find out that iron isn't usable until after finding the resource AND researching iron working. I didn't have horses or copper within my empire.

I can't remember if this is how it was before (it seems not) but this makes for a LONG period when copper is king. Considering copper is +33% strength to a warrior or +25% to an Axeman it makes it quite a powerful resource.

I think it would balance better if iron weapons were allowed once iron was found + smelting (or require a forge as well). I'm not 100% convinced of this, though, as it was a bit of a special case and you can always beeline to OO or Runes in order to have religious units that are good without copper.

That is intended and it was always so. OO and RoK have nice religious specific units but the rest of the religions also have an equivalent.

with barbarian world on the barbarians created the dragon within 9 turns... to early in the game for a dragon to be running around (guarding a city lol)

This is a discussion already made thousand times but i think it's important to reintroduce it again.

Orthus is IMO too easy to kill....i have played 2 games so far in Shadow and as in my Fire games, Orthus get killed as soon as attacks me or another AI, so he lasts in every game just the turn necessary to move and attack an enemy city.
In one of my games he attacked my city and i just lost the first warrior killing him the next turn.

I think that the real problem is that he just attacks without a stack of other barbarian units, so he has a chance to survive only if he attacks a city defended only by 2-3 defenders and he doesn't get hurt during one of his attacks.
Giving him a small horde of barbarians like 2-3 warriors or 4-5 goblins which stacks, could make him a bit more deadly

Yeah, Orthus needs to learn how to rally a horde.

Shouldn't Crossbowmen be national units?

Cult of the Dragon doesn't seem to add anything except frustration.

Barbatos was standing next to my starting settler, I find that a balance issue. xD

Are temples of the empreyan not supposed to give +1 happy with religion?

Hi hi,

I have been playing Sidar and I have found two issues. I am still not sure if they are unbalancing but they might be so:

- Arcane and disciple units keep getting xp points (until 100xp as far as I know). That means that a powerfull strategy is to rush for adepts (maybe with Catacomb Librarus) and build tons of them. This ensures that in mid-game you are going to have tons of shades and as a consequence tons of great bards/engineers/... on any city you want. Also, with the Altar of the Luonnatar disciple units get a huge amount of XP from the beginning, so you could potentially build a shade farm.Is this intended? I haven't tried this stategy at any high level (I was just testing the civ) but it seems quite powerful to me.

- Hero units can also turn into shades. I am not sure if this is a good idea, as you might push the button by mistake and lose a hero. On the other hand, you can use this ability with religious heroes / units, and when they are level 6 you can just turn them into shades and switch religions, so you take "shade advantage" from several units that you would lose by switching religion.

Well, I don't know if these two issues are intended, but if they are please move this post to the strategy forum ;-)

Grigori can build Temple of Empyrean, and probably one of Esus.

I think it's easier to farm barbarians than it is to get level 6 units out of any of your methods. Maybe with an arcane leader it would be reasonable to use adepts, you'll get there faster with warriors probably. Ambushing your allies with HN units gets you loads of level 6 units too.

I played a tiny map with a central sea just to work through new features. Khazad was next to me and founded Runes/Kilmorph. I was surprised to find out that iron isn't usable until after finding the resource AND researching iron working. I didn't have horses or copper within my empire.

I can't remember if this is how it was before (it seems not) but this makes for a LONG period when copper is king. Considering copper is +33% strength to a warrior or +25% to an Axeman it makes it quite a powerful resource.

I think it would balance better if iron weapons were allowed once iron was found + smelting (or require a forge as well). I'm not 100% convinced of this, though, as it was a bit of a special case and you can always beeline to OO or Runes in order to have religious units that are good without copper.


I think a large part of the problem is that warriors are able to use copper and iron weapons. It means that once you get copper (or iron), you can pretty much just use hordes of warriors to solve all your military problems through to the midgame, since they're decently powerful and dirt cheap. I now always edit the game to prevent warriors using weapons, and I think it makes the early game MUCH better; it means that you really do need to focus on improving your military early-game, and you actually get to use more of the diversity of the early units.

Blinding light is far too powerful. A single blinded unit in the (AI's) entire stack keeps AI from moving the entire stack. This allows a few unit to pick off unit from the stack one by one. So the super stack stacks the AI builds can be held in your territory, forcing the AI to pay gigantic unit maintenance costs, not mention leaving the AI's cities underdefended

So, there is no benefit to spreading the Guild of the Nine other than its 'event strength' and the ability to hire more mercenaries? It seems pretty expensive for just that (I'm paying 120 gold for a basic merc in a Normal speed game). Perhaps a mercenary could have a 'spell' to spread it, and it would cost money to do so (though not as much as it cost to get the unit).

A small reply to the mercenary comment above... I found that the Guild of the Nine saved my butt when I got one of the most impressive amphibious assaults I've ever seen in FFH take place on my Sidar, courtesy of the Lanun. Most of my advanced units were finally taking out Acheron on my frontier, who I'd been content to keep out there as a big barbarian cultural buffer against a couple of otherwise aggressive civs who kept wasting their time on the dragon, and not me.

Lanun come ashore, see juicy wonder filled cities with just old archers and idle workers in them, I have each of those units hire a mercenary (i.e., maybe 8 new iron-toting mercenaries for 8x120 gold.... better than losing a production hub).

Guild of the Nine seems okay by me as a last-ditch defense thing as long as you keep a lot of $$ on hand. After that, I had the surviving mercs spread Guild of the Nine to other hubs I'd hate to lose, again, just as a panic button type function.

Are temples of the empreyan not supposed to give +1 happy with religion?

Go ahead and put that in the bugs thread.

I think the AI civs are too quick to use their world spells in the early game rendering them less effective.

i was playing a game and Khazad founded both Empyrean and Esus, but didn't adopt either.

wouldn't have been so horrible except it was OCC, and given that researching honors/deception doesn't give you any way of spreading the religion to yourself.

id like to see all the holy city wonders counting as items you can retrieve, and for researching those techs to give you a unit capable of spreading the religion to yourself (honor gives no units at all, and the deception unit cant spread it to you unless you have it as your state religion)

General FFH balance issue:
as with the other thread i am inclined to agree that the Drill promotions tree is not useful enough, particularly now it is easier to get first strikes and become immune to them (with the spell system blur / blades / treetop defence)

Religions spread way too fast. They were quick in .25, but it seems like they are on Meth now.

Granted, I play most of my games on Marathon, and accept that they will spread faster than other settings due to the upped research times. But, even on Epic, the first religion spreads across continents (long before any contact is made) in under 10 turns. And, even intercontinental, they spread before you have trade routes.

Which brings me to my next point...the "uber-switches" of the Order and AV religions. In my last game, every good civ switched over to AV after Keeyln founded it. Again, the spread was across oceans before contact.

This seems the antithesis to the point of the setting.

When a good civ switches to OO, they only go neutral..same for evil switching to RoK...so, here's my thoughts...

One step rule:

Either the AI will not adopt a religion that moves them further than one step along the alignment chart, or if that is not possible, they only move one step.

So, a good Civ adopting AV would only move to neutral. But, added to that, if that civ researches Malevelont Designs, they move the last step.

On the flip-side, an evil civ moves to neutral with adoption of the Order, but moves the last step with Righteousness.

A neutral civ would move to either good or evil, depending on religion adopted.

Also, the Cult of Dragon is way to early and spreads without trade routes as well. In the last game, my capitol was hit about 10 times between turns 55-80. Twice, I got the pop-up while still in "revolt" from the previous one.

I think it would be cool to see it move to a "barbarian tech". When the barbs build Archeron, it should be founded in that city and start spreading from there. Coupled with the culture from the hoard, it would wreck some pretty good havoc around the dragon lair.

In this, the Kuriorates and the Sheiam would still not be affected, and the cult would survive the capture/razing of the barb city.

Finally, even with raging barbs on in two games, I've seen maybe a total of 5 barb, non-animal, units in both games combined.

Also, I think founded religions should have more weight for the founders. Without a full understanding of the mechanics, it seems to me that , despite having the holy city, it still only counts as "one". Meaning, if a civ has two FoL cities, and founds the Order, they don't convert as most of the populace is still considered FoL because of the "2 to 1" ratio. The holy city should count as multiple cities when factoring in religious influence.

When I played a late start (medival) game, I started with two Baron Halfmoons! My neighbor, the ljosalfar started with two Gilden SIlveric. The other civs had longbows and warriors. Needless to say, I steamrolled them all with Halfmoon.

Maybe have a look at the new level 1 Fire spell. As posted under the original FfH 2 thread, I managed with 2 casts (on neighbouring fields) to burn down a whole continent within 12 turns (i.e. remove all jungles and forests, because it was something of a woodland continent with 70% trees).
It did hurt my enemies too of course, but I lost something like 70% production capacity real fast and was in turn overrun. Thats a pretty powerful effect for a level 1 spell.

Sidar shades do seem potent...esp. early on, when a scout became a hero by event...and raging barbs to tone up the warriors...

..could they be geared to number of turns maybe?...same way you need to wait 10 turns to change civics...maybe wait x# of turns before turning a shade into a gp???

Should crossbowman be more defensively capable than arquebuisiers? I mean, it seems odd that if someone wants late-game defensive units, he would use crossbowmen instead of gunpowder unit. ;)

Alright, this isn't uniquely relevant to 030, but for lack of a better place, putting it here. Barbatos and Orthus are causing serious issues seemingly on even more of a widespread scale since Shadow came out. I've seen AI's wiped out on turn 1 by Barbatos, had him in sight of my initial settler and wipe me out a few turns later, had Orthus with his Combat 5 come and burn down my capital within the first 150 turns without taking even a scratch from five defending warriors (As in, 100 HP when I checked odds on attacking him on my next turn.)

I understand barbarians are supposed to be vicious; but still. When your group gets together for a civ game, the sheer frequency of times you get wiped out essentially due to a random event is pretty harsh. 3/7 games this past week, offline and on, were basically decided against me because of an early elite barbarian wrecking me. I know some AI civs got destroyed, too. So perhaps a switch could be added to delay or outright remove just those two barbarians? The fact that Orthus/Barbatos spawning ten tiles away from you and deciding to destroy you is basically up to an RNG that lands on 'kill' this often really takes away from the enjoyment of the game. Since with Combat V, I've not had luck even defending against Orthus with anything short of Shock-capable Copper Swordsmen/Axemen, which basically requires Aggressive as a trait to get in any meaningful quantity. And a downside to not being aggressive should NOT be '43% chance of being destroyed by barbarians regardless of what you do.'


The second issue is something relevant to 030, however. Cult of the Dragon. It really needs to be told to not spread to civilizations on other continents from the founder. Two civilizations that were on a different continent from the founder suffered rioting within 100 turns of it's founding, long before anyone had even built a single ship.

Barbatos and Orthus are causing serious issues seemingly on even more of a widespread scale since Shadow came out.

This is something. My one encounter so far with orthus (around turn 50), he walks up to my capital ,which had three fortified warriors with no promotions, and offs himself on his first try.

I have finished a Svartalfar game on a medium Pangaea map, Monarch difficulty. I had a lot of fun, but had a few issues.

1) Alazkan (sp?) is incredibly powerful. I love him as a hero. He was my only attacking unit in a conquest victory, and it was easy. Part of it was just how the game set things up for me (giving him Orthas' Axe and getting the shrine of Sirona half-way through my game helped), but there is one thing I think needs to be changed about him. Namely, his mirror image can declare nationality. I would camp outside of a town while still at peace, destroy most of the civ's units, and then declare war. While Alazkan killed the rest of the units hiding in the cities, his mirror could declare nationality and capture/destroy them. Since Alazkan is still HN, I could move into the next Civ's borders and do it again. I annihilated 5 civilizations this way with only Alazkan, and then moved an archer into each city when I was done.

2) I had both the Assassins guild and the Rat Catchers guild very early on. The entire time with them, I had ONE event with either of them. And it was a common event, just with an extra option (the event was the one when your farms are being raided, and you can send soldiers or pay to solve the problem. The Rat Catchers Guild let me make 5 gold off of it raiding.) The Civilopedia entries for both of these guilds say that the main strength of them is their events, so I was very disappointed that nothing came of either of them. I am now playing another game with extra events turned on and the Assassins guild, and I still have yet to receive an event from it at turn 300+.

In summary, I think Alazkan's mirror should not be able to declare nationality, and the Rat Catchers Guild and Assassin's Guild need more events.

Also, Alazkan's mirror can be effected by dragon fear. Is that normal?

Perhaps Alazkan's mirror should mirror the neutral/hidden nationailty of Alazkan? Otherwise Alazkan could declare while his mirror didn't, and you just get the same situation?

Perhaps Alazkan's mirror should mirror the neutral/hidden nationailty of Alazkan? Otherwise Alazkan could declare while his mirror didn't, and you just get the same situation?
Yes, but you could only do this once. You can do the other every turn, if desired.

I'm going to third the annoyances with Cult of the Dragon. It seems to be founded in the first 20 turns every game and then attempts to spread to all cities in the world constantly. It's extremely frustrating and not at all fun.

The turn after the Mercurians cast Divine Retribution, both Hyborem and Stephanos died. I don't think anyone was at war with the Infernals, and Stephanos seemed to be doing pretty well before, so I think that spell alone killed them both. That's pretty powerful, and especially unfair to the Infernals who lost their traits and hero through no fault of their own.

Colonies are somewhat overpowered for a human. What makes them somewhat exploitable is that the human can demand palace mana from their vassals. It would help if the resources that are granted by the palace could not be demanded/traded away.

This is not a Shadow issu but related more to FfH2 in general.
I'm been using Sacrifice of the Weak in last games and it's really OP.
It needs really some nerf, its upkeep should be medium or high at least, there should be also some :mad: per city considering the theme of this civic, or an event like what we have for Slavery in BtS.
Other Compassion civics are honestly not that interesting, which makes Sacrifice of the Weak a no brainer for any AV player.

I really don't think Ancient towers should be upgrading into Castles outside of cultural borders...Forts upgrading into castles, and castles upgrading into citadels is fine, but the ancient towers should just be ancient towers until someone actually starts to use them.

I agree that ancient towers should only upgrade while in someone's cultural borders.

There should be a way to spread the Council of Esus before it becomes you state religion. Requiring the Undercouncil Membership Civic instead of CoE state religion would be nice.

(I think that having Undercouncil votes based on how many of your people worship Esus, like how the AP works in BtS, would be appropriate too. Everyone should still be equal on the Overcouncil.)

It seems a little odd to me that Vicars have Law magic just like Confessors do. The only difference between them is that Vicars have Sun instead of Spirit. I think the main sphere of the god each religion worships should be available only to that religion's priests. The Spirit sphere would fit the Empyren's priests much better than Law would.

What happens to the units in a city when it reverts back to its old owner through culture? I think my cultural influence completely destroyed the Giant Gorilla Barbarian Hero Beast (Gurid, is it?). It doesn't seem like culture should be able to recapture a city held by such a unit, and it definately shouldn't destroy world units completely.


I too find the Cult of the Dragon annoying/not fun.

I think Colony liberation should be re-written, without the arbitrary requirement that they consist of 2 or more cities on a different continent. The AI should also be taught how to liberate better. (The Khazad should liberate cities if their Vaults get too low, the Lanun should liberate most of their landlocked cities but keep the coasts, etc.) Some events that practically force the player (human or AI) to liberate cities might be good too.

Barbatos and Orthus are causing serious issues seemingly on even more of a widespread scale since Shadow came out.

What difficulty are you playing on? Are you playing raging barbs or just normal? How many warriors are you building in your cities in preparation of orthus?

Because i'm just about to report the opposite problem. Monarch difficulty, raging barbs, barbarian world, wildlands. Orthus rushed my civ alone and killed himself after taking down a single bait warrior. The barbs themselves are weaklings that are still sending goblins after me while I have assasins. Animals are virtually non-existant. So far i've found a single bear camp, and no other animal types or units. Playing as svartalfar, this is annoying- I empty out multiple cities using HN units, but then the barbs walk right by them to raze farms or attack my units.

*edit*

also, to the person complaining about sacrifice the weak, It's a powerful civic because you cannot acquire it without also summoning hyborem into the world, which will convert all your land into hell terrain (which is detrimental). On a religion by religion basis it's no more powerful than, say, guardian of nature or social order (which kicks arse now- no unhappiness ever ftw?)

I also don't understand these barbatos issues. If he spawns near you, just move your settler 1 turn further away? then later you get a free XP farm, and after that a free death mana/item.

Seems I'm not the only one who thinks CoD needs an overhaul. Yes, it should cause trouble for anyone not the Sheaim or Kuriotates. Heck, it should probably give them a culture bonus based on how much gold, gems, etc. to which they have access per the corporation mechanics of BtS. However, seeing it spread over otherwise impassable ocean squares is a bit disheartening, as it makes the AI constantly have revolt problems and makes human players' cities have similar issues to prevent the spread of those dang lizard-lovers. Perhaps it could be coded to spread only along trade routes? Or if that is too much trouble, then make the cult more like a vanilla corporation, with a unit required to spread it. The current mechanics are a bit much.

Speaking of Dragons: Please, please, please, please, please reinstate the mithril in Dragon's Hoard. :cry::gripe::wallbash::please:The same argument that I've seen on various threads regarding Mines of Gal-Dur and Iron would need be implemented, of course. One should not have mithril weapons without Mithril Working, naturally. As the Doviello's mechanics have changed somewhat since the initial whining, I do not see how this could imbalance the game. Sure, you could rush Acheron early with a ton of encouraged axemen or whatever, but the mithril will do you no good until you have the appropriate technology to work it. The enchanted weapon thing just isn't nearly as flavorful.

Guilds seem to need some serious balance work. I love the ideas behind them, but having the Guild of Nine be founded by the first to reach Currency takes all the fun out of mercenaries. If you aren't the first one to reach that technology, how are you supposed to utilize mercenary units? Perhaps a simple free mercenary on researching Currency would fix this. Sure, you don't found the Guild of Nine, but gaining access to mercenaries with the proper tech would be more balanced and interesting. HN ftw. :spank::ninja::backstab:

The other guilds face similar issues. I'm not sure how the Ratcatchers are coded, but it seems to make sense that any city with a sufficiently high crime level should have access to the spread event. Yes, I am suggesting that this work across unpassable terrain. Yes, I know that I have said the Cult of Dragon should not. Yes, this does make perfect sense to me. The Ratcatcher's Guild seems to represent a Thieves' Guild type organization, which could form in any city with a sizable criminal population. The Cult of the Dragon is a very specific religious following designed to give power to two specific civs, or at least to make their enemies suffer. I feel that if one has no contact/trade with a CoD city, one should have no chance of having to tolerate their mockeries.

On the other hand, thieves, mercenaries, and assassins are everywhere. The Ratcatcher's Guild, while specifically named, should be as liberal in spreading as the other guilds should be. Perhaps rework the rest of the guilds to spread as the Cult does now. It makes more sense for them to be able to do so. The Cult's spread should be based on trade routes (utilized or not) between Cult cities and potential recipients.

That's my two cents' worth. Thanks for always caring enough to listen.

While I'm ranting... I caught another couple of issues from the other posts after typing out my previous monstrosity. Alazkan's mirror should have the illusion promotion and other failsafes to prevent possible abuse. Also, ancient towers which are not within someone's cultural borders should not be upgrading.

I must confess I have not built Alazkan yet, but reading these other posts concerning his apparent brokenness, I am inclined to agree. The mirror of such a hero should be restricted insofar as which actions it could take. The potential for abuse of Declare Nationality makes this apparent. Perhaps it could be coded so that if either declares, both do? Or perhaps the mirror should operate as illusions in certain tabletop games do (i.e. physical contact disrupts and dispels them). This should make the unit retain the intended function for both the AI and human players, if coded properly, but I'm no programmer. I trust in the team's skill to find a way to make it work, though. Otherwise the Svartalfar get two heroes for the price of one. It's better than that, actually, but I think you can see our point.

As far as ancient towers go, it doesn't make any sense at all that they spontaneously upgrade themselves without some people to work them. Even barbarians are smart enough to build up fortifications, but when the things are sitting idly outside anyone's borders, it's silly to watch them grow into citadels seemingly of their own accord. I have a feeling the reason they were implemented this way is that it would be difficult to code otherwise. If that's the case, I understand, but given your past exemplary work with the nuances of this game, I can only hope that you will correct the issue in some later patch.

Again, thanks for all the hard unpaid work guys. After 100,000 downloads, you clearly have created the best Civ mod ever made. Cheers to all of you, and my unending thanks.

I agree completely. (Although I would also love it if the Doviello were given a special mechanic where their units could steal the weapons promotions from those they defeat, without needing the tech normally required.)

Oh, is there any way to know a city's crime rate? That would be very useful in deciding what buildings to build, whether you are trying to reduce the crime or get the Ratcatchers Guild's headquarters.

Might be better if the Kurios/Sheaim had an invisible, enter rival territory "executive" type unit which spread the CotD, then the owner of the city it was being spread to would get the events.

I also support any one researching currency getting a free merc, or else events added that spreads that guild, or else add back the mercenary conversion chance upon defeat.

This is an interesting idea as well:
There should be a way to spread the Council of Esus before it becomes you state religion. Requiring the Undercouncil Membership Civic instead of CoE state religion would be nice.

Absolutely! An "executive" type unit to spread CoD! Perfect! Hidden, nasty, and still irritating to non-draconic people, but in a believable and reasonable way. Dragon Disciple. Marvelous.

Yes, having the Undercouncil civic as a prereq does make more sense, and lends the Undercouncil the power it needs to oppose the other religions in the game. I recently played a hotseat game with a friend, and managed to found the Undercouncil as the Amurites. His Grigori joined me after I gave him Deception for later Iron Working, but I had to wait for the religion to spread via shrine and such to several AI players so I could give them Deception and thereby make the Undercouncil interesting. When it was founded, I was the only member and voted myself leader. That reminds me of a cosmetic issue I'll post in the appropriate thread...

Mercenary conversion chance wouldn't be bad either, but I think it needs a bit more umph than that in order to return mercenaries to their former glory. I once relied on them, which makes it curious that I can't seem to get into the Svartalfar yet, but that's another matter.

Thanks for your input, Knight. Good to know I'm not totally unreasonable with some suggestions. (Well, at least only unreasonable in similar manner... heh)

Council of Esus civs needs some way to get rid of other religions in their cities. Since they don't have any priests, they cannot get inquisitors.


Giving a free mercenary that can found the Guild of the Nice instead of just founding it would be nice, and Mercenaries should be capturable again (I would like the return of HN status too, but that might be too much).

Actually, I would much prefer it if mercenary was a promotion rather than a unit. The Hire Mercenary spell should trigger an deal-type event (basically the types of events that the guild makes available randomly should be triggered by the spell instead) allowing you to hire units with the Mercenary promotion (which would allow spreading the guild, and make the units fairly likely to switch sides if defeated) instead of paying a fixed coat for a fixed unit. These could be pretty much any unit available to any civ at its current tech level, meaning you could sometimes hire dwarven siege units or elven archers as mercenaries. Actually, I think it might be better still if the units you could hire were those available to be built in other Guild of the Nine cities. Sometimes they might come with xp or promotions, but at higher cost. This would give you a god reason to spread it to rival civs, despite giving them an advantage too.

Giving a free mercenary that can found the Guild of the Nice instead of just founding it would be nice, Well, that was originally the case, but the ai was running around with their free merc, never founding the guild. It was changed to auto-found to ensure it would be founded, however I think that this is one that wouldn't bother to be exclusive, but want to spread.

Playing my first game of Shadow (before technical problems noted in the FAQ thread), I am seeing the same problem with AI reacting to raging barbs.

I am playing Elohim, huge Fantasy (land) map, Monarch, 9 AI civs (default), Epic, raging barbs/aggAI, Wildlands, and Barb Cities.

I was just approaching turn 300 and five AI civs have been eliminated by the raging barbs leaving only Sidar, Calabim, Sheaim, Amurites and myself.

It did seem like the raging barb onslaught was definitely delayed coming only around turn 200. But, when it came, it featured barb Lizardmen in addition to the expected goblins and warriors.

The AI had expanded like crazy having 5-6 or more cities. Most had one or two warriors as defenders. When the barbs came, down they went.

So, again, if I ever get up and running, it looks like yet another Conquest Victory is in the works compliments of poor AI vs. raging barbs.

I have to say the game was challenging for me protecting my two cities and improvements as the barbs sent many units, including stacks of up to 10 units my way.

Oh yeah, in another unfortunate repeat of .25, there is a huge Bear population explosion in open territories and zero other animals, except for a few Elephants. :(

Other Compassion civics are honestly not that interesting, which makes Sacrifice of the Weak a no brainer for any AV player.

That's the bigger problem in my opinion. Sacrifice the weak was nerfed to 4 unhealthiness and no longer gives you the slavery option for free, which were great changes, but protect the meek and public healers still both suck. This also makes the expansive trait not as useful.

There should be some kind of warning before a civ finishes the altar of the Luonnotar (and wins the game). I think something along the lines of "most advanced altar of the Luonnotar" in the victory screen would be nice.

It is an important aspect of the game that the victory screen tells you (well in advance) who is about to win, so that you can react to the 'threat'. It's like in racing - it's much more fun/exciting if you can actually see your competitors and try to overtake them instead of running on your own, hoping that you're faster than them.

I'm calling this a balancing issue since a 'weak' civ won my last game. Had the other teams known that it was about to finish the altar, they could have crushed it in no time (this might also be an AI issue. The AI should behave the same way as if the civ was about to achieve a cultural victory. I don't consider this to be a priority though).

like how everyone declared war the moment someone is building the tower of mastery? yeah, should happen. still, imho it should only show once someone starts building the final altar, not before that point (not sure if this already occurs or not)

Actually, this might already be implemented, since three out of five AI teams did declare war on him (I just didn't know why at that point). But he used this world spell to survive for a while:

Elohim- Sanctuary: Kicks all non-team units out of their borders and makes all non-team unable to enter the players lands for 30 turns

In hindsight, quite clever :)

Has anyone been able to get the Circle of Gaelen to be founded? I played 300ish turns from the first event (willful apprentice) and the others never happened. Also, are we going to see more events involving the guilds other than CotD?

Hm, im wondering, how many flurries are the elves allowed to build????

http://hades.at/flurry.jpg

this is no fun...

Got gibbon the first time. I can safely say impersonate leader is the worst feature in shadow. Vs AI, you get screwed by it handling your civ. Haven't used it multiplayer, but jacking an ai civ seems suicidal and taking over another players civ is just wrong. Seriously getting to take over a human players civ? WTF?

Sorry about that post. Having the computer kill off my civ kinda ticked me off.

Doesn't sound like fun.

Has anyone been able to get the Circle of Gaelen to be founded? I played 300ish turns from the first event (willful apprentice) and the others never happened. Also, are we going to see more events involving the guilds other than CotD?

I have not, I suspect a bug...
But yes, there will be more events!

Oh, is there any way to know a city's crime rate? That would be very useful in deciding what buildings to build, whether you are trying to reduce the crime or get the Ratcatchers Guild's headquarters.

If you mouseover the city bar on the world map it appears in the little box on the left.

ok. Thanks.

Currently whoever founds Empyrean typically founds Esus right after (or the other way around), which is a huge pain since theres no way to get the religion unless it spreads to you.
The AI who founds them both usually sticks with their old religion too so I rarely see either of the new religions in my games unless I rush them.

So two huge issues that are just making both religions pointless and nonexistent:
1. a single AI founding both Empyrean and Esus and adopting neither
2. no reasonable way to get the religion yourself after its been founded

1 happens because of Neutral AIs, like Khazad (and even Grigori can found them) in my games, founding both Empyrean and Esus, and adopting neither. This makes both religions unattainable except through waiting for a random spread. For Neutral AIs, there should be a tendency toward one or the other, but not both, or better yet, make it so you can't research either tech if you already have a state religion, or if thats too restrictive, then if you already have a state religion and its holy city.

2 happens because no disciple is given out on gaining the Honor tech (which is like the way all religions used to be, which was horrible), and because Esus' unit puts you in the situation where you can only spread it if you already have it as a state religion, so you're back to hoping it spreads to you. So these techs need to give units that can viably spread the religion to yourself.

Some thoughts:

I think the technology "engineering" combines too many positve effects:

especially granting a free engineer with the quite powerful wonder "guild of Hammers", which founds the guild...so with a single tech you get better specialists, a free forge in every city and a city where your upgrades are cheaper... simply TOO much.

Though it fits the flavour to put all these things into the tech engineering, i would recommend to move either the wonder or the free engineer to a diffrent tech.

Right now I often beeline for engineering, stop researching, upgrade my axeman to champions and beat down the AI... (on monarch)

After having played a few games (standard speed, more 300 rounds each), I still wait for ANY event concerning the guild of nine, the ratcatchers guild or the guild of hammers...i would like to see a little more action with the guilds...doesnt has to be of great impact, just for flavour...

What difficulty are you playing on? Are you playing raging barbs or just normal? How many warriors are you building in your cities in preparation of orthus?

Because i'm just about to report the opposite problem. Monarch difficulty, raging barbs, barbarian world, wildlands. Orthus rushed my civ alone and killed himself after taking down a single bait warrior. The barbs themselves are weaklings that are still sending goblins after me while I have assasins. Animals are virtually non-existant. So far i've found a single bear camp, and no other animal types or units. Playing as svartalfar, this is annoying- I empty out multiple cities using HN units, but then the barbs walk right by them to raze farms or attack my units.

*edit*

also, to the person complaining about sacrifice the weak, It's a powerful civic because you cannot acquire it without also summoning hyborem into the world, which will convert all your land into hell terrain (which is detrimental). On a religion by religion basis it's no more powerful than, say, guardian of nature or social order (which kicks arse now- no unhappiness ever ftw?)

I also don't understand these barbatos issues. If he spawns near you, just move your settler 1 turn further away? then later you get a free XP farm, and after that a free death mana/item.


I lost to Orthus on my second game. He attacked with three other units, and had lots of upgrades. I played on Monarch, normal speed, Lakes, standard map size.

I'm not complaining, I do view that FFH has more randomness than normal BtS, so I recognize I'm going to lsoe some to bad draws and maybe win others.

Best wishes,

Breunor

2 happens because no disciple is given out on gaining the Honor tech bug.

Currently whoever founds Empyrean typically founds Esus right after Hrm, that's probably because they trade for way of wise/way of wicked after researching trade, meaning the second prereqs are unimportant here. I wonder if there is a way to mark some techs untradeable, and if that would be desireable on Way of ... techs.

After having played a few games (standard speed, more 300 rounds each), I still wait for ANY event concerning the guild of nine, the ratcatchers guild or the guild of hammers...i would like to see a little more action with the guilds...doesnt has to be of great impact, just for flavour...Yes, more events are needed (and coming)

Noble. In this case, it's also a slight matter of WHEN exactly Orthus comes.The worst time, really, is 27 turns after he shows up, right after he's picked up Combat V. I had six-eight warriors in the city, all fortified, a few with various promotions but none better then Combat II/Shock, and they got pounded into the dirt by Combat V/Shock Orthus. If Orthus actually rushes you early with only Combat I/II, then he's strength 8.4 or 9.8 abouts - not too much for a stack of warriors. If he shows at strength 15+, then you get into the case where you're going to get pounded. I did start spamming warriors when he showed up, for efficieincy's sake (The garrison bonus and lower production time, basically.)

And Barbatos' wraiths MOVE. You're still going to take it up the ass. See the whole contest about 'dueling with Barbatos right next to your cities' and see how hard it was for them when that's all they did. Orthus can be argued for to some degree, but Barbatos really is a problem that needs to be fixed as much as Acheron running around was, IMO.


Lastly, a note on Raging Barbs - judging from bug posts/other reports I've heard, while I haven't fooled around with it myself (And my box with Civ 4 on it isn't here, so I won't for about a month anyhow), it looks like that Raging Barbs is outright busted. I've never heard a report of it working right, although this might just be report bias. (You don't report things that aren't a problem.)

Is there a reason why Altars of the Luonnatar don't show up in the Victory screen? I mean, it shows the final form, but that's a bit unhelpful. Shouldn't it show the highest stage and who's at it instead? I mean, you show individual Towers, so I dun think you're doing it for hidden-ness reasons..

Some thoughts:
After having played a few games (standard speed, more 300 rounds each), I still wait for ANY event concerning the guild of nine, the ratcatchers guild or the guild of hammers...i would like to see a little more action with the guilds...doesnt has to be of great impact, just for flavour...

I have seen two events for the guild of the nine. The first gave me the option for a champion (which I couldn't get because I was Sheim) or an assassin (which I couldn't afford). The second gave either 2 archers with city guard or a water 1 adept (which didn't get the water 1 promotion).

Have occasionally seen an event for someone else saying "The guild of hammers may spread to a city of the ...", but never anything after that.

Still waiting to see the circle of gaelen get founded and see anything from the ratcatcher's guild.

Hrm, that's probably because they trade for way of wise/way of wicked after researching trade, meaning the second prereqs are unimportant here. I wonder if there is a way to mark some techs untradeable, and if that would be desireable on Way of ... techs.


For a single previous version, wasn't it the case that you could only research one of Way of the Wicked/Way of the Wise?

I posted this also on the bug forum, not sure if its a bug or a design intent, but the Larun spell Raging seas is too powerful. In my last game, it hit units on land also, and just devastated my empire, and I suspect it basically won the whole game. It may be 'only' be hitting units on the coast, but it is too much; I lost 2 of my 3 heroes.

Best wishes,

Breunor

PS I just reloaded -- it is hitting units not only on the coast but every unit.

I posted this also on the bug forum, not sure if its a bug or a design intent, but the Larun spell Raging seas is too powerful. In my last game, it hit units on land also, and just devastated my empire, and I suspect it basically won the whole game. It may be 'only' be hitting units on the coast, but it is too much; I lost 2 of my 3 heroes.

Best wishes,

Breunor

PS I just reloaded -- it is hitting units not only on the coast but every unit.

Anything that is next to a coast gets hit. One of the perils of fighting Falamar or Hannah. Just be prepared for it.

Oy, here's a lesson not to learn the hard way--don't leave an un-upgraded adventurer by the coast with the Lanun in the game...

And some other thoghts:

-Great Library seems too strong. Two free specialist, which last for the whole game is quite good. But now it also offers another bonus...making this wonder almost a must have...furthermore it gives writing an enormous impact. Free sage , librararies and a must have wonder....right now i almost all the time beeline for writing...

My ideas:
- remove the boni from the GL and add another perhaps minor wonder that gives this bonus to specialists

- something has happened to the AI. I all of my games (monarch to emperor) the AI was WAY behind. I suspect the keyproblem is that they almost NEVER research Bronzeworking. In all of my games (ok, only 4) no civ had bronze working on turn 200! (normal speed)

I would rather remove one of the free sages, personally.

Anything that is next to a coast gets hit. One of the perils of fighting Falamar or Hannah. Just be prepared for it.

I guess the reason it was so tough in my game is that I was on an islands' map; the Larun was already in first place, but I was ready to win. There are very few units that aren't adjacent to the coast in the 'normal' course of business on this map; on an islands' map, there just aren't that many squares that aren't next to the coast in the first place.

When I thought about it, I realized that this Lanun spell's power is VERY dependent on the map type; on a Pangaea game, it probably isn't very strong.

So, I have a suggestion. The Lanun are already very, very powerful on Islands or archipelago maps and are weaker on a Pangaea map. Maybe their 'world' spell should have a balancing impact, instead of reinforcement impact. That is, for game reasons (although I recognize this may not be as good from a flavor standpoint) their world spell should kick ass on Pangaea and be weak on Archipelago. Giving them even MORE power on archipelago means we are practically playing at a higher difficulty level on this map.

Best wishes,

Breunor

The Clan is too much penalized in research. -35% becomes really heavy after a while and the barbarian trait doesn't help as much. I would suggest giving the Clan a number of free military units support.

Oy, here's a lesson not to learn the hard way--don't leave an un-upgraded adventurer by the coast with the Lanun in the game...

Does it matter if the units are upgraded? It didn't seem to, although I admit my strongest hero survived; I may have just gotten unlucky. If damage is based on 'raw' non-upgraded strength, the heroes are vulnerable. Note that both heroes were uninjured and one was fairly highly upgraded.

Unfortunately, not having the heroes on or adjacent to the coast meant they are pretty useless on this map script.

The REAL killer is if they are on transports. To be honest, I now know how to 'fool' the computer. I go out with a few good units on transports, make the Lanun AI use its spell, and get the heroes later. I didn't check, but I think the units on ships die at sea if their ship dies, even if there is extra capacity on other ships. So (I think) bringing extra ships doesn't help either. However, I think the destruction of ships at sea is closer to how I viewed the the design of the spell (which may be flawed).

Best wishes,

Breunor

The Clan is too much penalized in research. -35% becomes really heavy after a while and the barbarian trait doesn't help as much. I would suggest giving the Clan a number of free military units support.

I agree. Add to this the fact that the AI Clan always seems to declare war on the barbs for some reason early in the game. This negates the positive part of the Barbarian trait while retaining the negative part. Just a wasted trait IMO.

I mentioned this before as a bug, but it never received a comment or change. Maybe it is just a balance issue.

When you summon Basium via the Mercurian Gate, you usually take over that city he appeared in.

My question is why, after taking over the city, are so many buildings eliminated and require building again. Some stick around, but some like an Elder Council, Oblisk, Market, Pagan Temple, etc are gone. Others like Temple of Kilmorph, Granary, Smokehouse, Siege Factory, are still there.

What determines what goes and requires re-building and what stays?

It seems to me in a peaceful takeover from an ally like this EVERY building should stay. If you conquer a city, OK, I can see starting over again from scratch...I think.

The other thing is why does Hyborem enter the world with 400 or more pts. (in my Epic games anyway), while Basium starts at 0? The Infernal often have more pts. than many of the AI civs that have been around since the start of the game. I know pts. don't mean much, but you would think both should start at 0.

In previous versions of FFH2 I always raced to get Feral Bond and bring my good friend the Baron into the world. I loved the game within a game of building up a strong Werewolf army and going after AI civs while leaving my other army at home to defend.

In my first game of .30 I have to say the Werewolf Game has really gone awry.

First, you don't get Werewolves that much anymore. It used to be that lychanthropy would spread almost every time a Werewolf killed another living unit. Now, in my game, it seems like it is more like 1 in 7 conversion rate.

I wouldn't mind this, but...

Every Werewolf except the Baron comes with the Enraged promotion. And, in my game, EVERY damn werewolf over time has turned into a barbarian Werewolf unit. Some Blooded Werewolves turned rather quickly, but even more agonizing was when powerful promoted Greater Werewolves turned and wreaked a little havoc before being killed. Every Werewolf turned! It is frustrating to lose experienced units every time like this.

OK, I know someone will say, just get Law Mana and lay Loyalty on each new Werewolf. Voila, problem solved. However, what if you have no mana nodes (this is mid-late game) and simply cannot get Law Mana? Then, I guess you are screwed and you just have to take the Baron out of the game, right?

But, how about this suggestion...let's go back to the way it was a few versions ago. Don't give every Werewolf the Enraged promotion and for those with it, let it wear off after time. Then, they might stick around awhile. Otherwise, you might just as well make each converted Werewolf a barb unit immediately because that is what they will become in time.

Yes, if you can get Loyalty, fine, but if not, this would make playing with the hairy guys a lot more fun like before. :)

I agree. Add to this the fact that the AI Clan always seems to declare war on the barbs for some reason early in the game. This negates the positive part of the Barbarian trait while retaining the negative part. Just a wasted trait IMO.

The biggest problem though is not being able to build libraries and the great library. While it makes sense from a roleplaying point of view, it is strategically too harsh. I mean, this isn't balanced by anything, the barbarian trait is balanced by the -10%. If the Clan would get a (high) number of free military support at least, they could keep their science spending as high as possible.

In previous versions of FFH2 I always raced to get Feral Bond and bring my good friend the Baron into the world. I loved the game within a game of building up a strong Werewolf army and going after AI civs while leaving my other army at home to defend.

In my first game of .30 I have to say the Werewolf Game has really gone awry.

First, you don't get Werewolves that much anymore. It used to be that lychanthropy would spread almost every time a Werewolf killed another living unit. Now, in my game, it seems like it is more like 1 in 7 conversion rate.

I wouldn't mind this, but...

Every Werewolf except the Baron comes with the Enraged promotion. And, in my game, EVERY damn werewolf over time has turned into a barbarian Werewolf unit. Some Blooded Werewolves turned rather quickly, but even more agonizing was when powerful promoted Greater Werewolves turned and wreaked a little havoc before being killed. Every Werewolf turned! It is frustrating to lose experienced units every time like this.

OK, I know someone will say, just get Law Mana and lay Loyalty on each new Werewolf. Voila, problem solved. However, what if you have no mana nodes (this is mid-late game) and simply cannot get Law Mana? Then, I guess you are screwed and you just have to take the Baron out of the game, right?

But, how about this suggestion...let's go back to the way it was a few versions ago. Don't give every Werewolf the Enraged promotion and for those with it, let it wear off after time. Then, they might stick around awhile. Otherwise, you might just as well make each converted Werewolf a barb unit immediately because that is what they will become in time.

Yes, if you can get Loyalty, fine, but if not, this would make playing with the hairy guys a lot more fun like before. :)

In lieu of a fix (Whether it comes or not doesn't bother me), bring a Ranger with Baron. They start with Subdue Animal and can easily take down Werewolves, so you can get them back.

The biggest problem though is not being able to build libraries and the great library. While it makes sense from a roleplaying point of view, it is strategically too harsh. I mean, this isn't balanced by anything, the barbarian trait is balanced by the -10%. If the Clan would get a (high) number of free military support at least, they could keep their science spending as high as possible.

CoE has a huge early advantage with Barbarian trait and For the Horde, not allowing CoE to build libraries or Great Library is not a great deal because this civ is supposed to be expansionist and aggressive, allowing them to have also well developed cities would in my opinion make them too strong........btw CoE perform really well in all my games.

The other thing is why does Hyborem enter the world with 400 or more pts. (in my Epic games anyway), while Basium starts at 0? The Infernal often have more pts. than many of the AI civs that have been around since the start of the game. I know pts. don't mean much, but you would think both should start at 0.Hyborem is often too much of a pansy, probably due to low score when he enters, so I think his score is artificially increased.
Basium has a teammate and warscript to keep him active, so his score is less important.

I'm playing Svartalfar (raider), Emperor, Marathon, Huge, Raging Barbs, and raced to Way of The Wicked for Slavery. At about turn 250 the raging Barbs started to kick in.

Its now turn 400, Most of my Hunters are 150xp+, Warriors are 100 xp+, Ive built 4 wonders ( with 2 more on the way) and best of all if you can stay 50% ahead of your nearest rival it sems to increase the barb activity :)

This particular game is possibly an exception as I've got Clan and Dov to the West in an enclosed area (who dont kill barbs) and I've killed 2 civs to the East, thus increasing the catchment area of my training ground. Also Elves have increased mobilty in woods so they can attack and return in the same turn.

It's not an exploit or bug, just the synergy of these factors gives a HUGE production/ XP gain. The nail comes when I cast the world spell and these Hyper units go HN.

Ps Anyone noticed the AI doing silly things like declaring war on other AI's half a continent away?

I managed to steal the baron using the capture animal mechanic with a Satyr, ie I stole the key to the enemy city's defence and used it against them. It seemed far to easy!

Also, overcouncil and guilds seem to almost never give events for me- I'm in about turn 7-800 and have had maybe four events from them. Could this be because I'm playing with no settlers and no city razing? The AC still got up to Armageddon just fine on that setting btw :D

When I play the Bannor/Order combo I don't find Champions that useful. I much rather build Crusaders and wish I had Pikemen. Eariler, in another thread, I said we'll get used to the change. :lol:

CoE has a huge early advantage with Barbarian trait and For the Horde

what is this HUGE advantage ? For the Horde could resemble to something close to a good advantage if at least it would convert Orthus, but it never does.

not allowing CoE to build libraries or Great Library is not a great deal because this civ is supposed to be expansionist and aggressive

that's kinda the reason why I proposed the free military support. You've got to give them something for what you take away. This is still a strategy game you can't pretend that one plays a game aggressive and expansionist just because the roleplay would want so.

allowing them to have also well developed cities would in my opinion make them too strong........btw CoE perform really well in all my games.

I miss the point of well developed cities, anyways play CoE, especially in a multiplayer game, get your ass kicked from the middle of the game and on and come back to discuss ;)

what is this HUGE advantage ? For the Horde could resemble to something close to a good advantage if at least it would convert Orthus, but it never does.



that's kinda the reason why I proposed the free military support. You've got to give them something for what you take away. This is still a strategy game you can't pretend that one plays a game aggressive and expansionist just because the roleplay would want so.



I miss the point of well developed cities, anyways play CoE, especially in a multiplayer game, get your ass kicked from the middle of the game and on and come back to discuss ;)


On a competitive game you are not forced to roleplay them but CoE is stronger in early game and you should take advantage of that or you are hurting yourself particularly if you are playing against another human which can benefit from your mistakes; so you are not forced to rush, harass enemy, razing other civs cities, but if you don't do that you are certainly not playing them very well.

The barbarian trait would be really powerful if barbarians would be more dangerous (I admit that at least in my games they are always cannon fodder needed to give experience for my units) and For the Horde is probably one of the best world spell though its not probably well implemented considered that relies too much on what map are u playing and AI don't take advantage of it.

To summarize, this civ needs to be played differently from other civs, it's in my opinion the opposite of the Sidar.
If in mid/late game you get your ass kicked by your neighbours because CoE is less competitive at this stage, its probably due to the fact that you didn't raze their cities when you had and you are now paying consequences.
From a flavour perspective they are also perfect, probably they are the best implemented civ in the mod.

I managed to steal the baron using the capture animal mechanic with a Satyr, ie I stole the key to the enemy city's defence and used it against them. It seemed far to easy!

Also, overcouncil and guilds seem to almost never give events for me- I'm in about turn 7-800 and have had maybe four events from them. Could this be because I'm playing with no settlers and no city razing? The AC still got up to Armageddon just fine on that setting btw :D
That first one sounds like it qualifies as a bug to me, go ahead and post in the bugs thread if you haven't.

That first one sounds like it qualifies as a bug to me, go ahead and post in the bugs thread if you haven't.
I'm pretty sure it's not a Bug. He's an Animal Unit, IIRC, vulnerable to Rangers and whatnot. I know his spawned puppies are capturable, never had cause to test the Baron himself, but if he's an Animal Unit, it shouldn't work any different from other Animals; He's just got high Strength.

To summarize, this civ needs to be played differently from other civs, it's in my opinion the opposite of the Sidar.
If in mid/late game you get your ass kicked by your neighbours because CoE is less competitive at this stage, its probably due to the fact that you didn't raze their cities when you had and you are now paying consequences.
From a flavour perspective they are also perfect, probably they are the best implemented civ in the mod.

Problem is, peace with barbarians drops your rate of XP acquisition at the start of the game quite dramatically, as you can't rake in the goblin/orc/skeleton kills. This actually hurts your early game, because at the moment even on raging barbs/barbarian world, barbarians are no danger whatsoever- they're just free XP farm. The barbarian trait is MUCH more useful as a lategame trait (IE hyborem) as it lets you take full advantage of the rampaging horsemen and avatar of wrath. Unfortunately the -10% science means you'll have a hard time ever getting to this point.

Personally I think the barbarian trait needs a major reworking. No other trait in the game has a negative effect- I think the 10% science penalty is entirely uncalled for, considering there is no 'extra' bonus to even it out (remember, a trait is supposed to be in the end, a positive bonus. It's not supposed to break even). Also, the breaking of peace when your score reaches a certain amount above is one of the most annoying mechanics in the game, because it forces you to artificially (and un 'roleplayingly') manipulate your and other's scores in order to keep the peace. Also, it's actually punishing you for doing well! Perhaps this could be changed to break the peace if the civ ever changes it's alignment from evil, or something similar.

If you want an example of just how poor the barbarian trait is at the moment, just look at the doviello AI. With charadon, they will often end up at the very bottom of the list, and miles behind in research. However, with mahala they are often one of the most successful civs in the game. This beautifully emphasises how poor this trait really is.

Finally, don't accuse people of just 'not using the right tactics' in multiplayer, especially if you don't play multi yourself. The CoE are commonly considered the worst civ to play in multiplayer- when compared to a calabim farm strat, elohim monkskreig or ljosalfar gilden rush they fall very, very short of the mark.

Whether or not the -10% science is needed depends on your settings, I think. If you have less civs than the recommended amount per map, you can take advantage of the barbarians keeping other's scouts at bay to pick up more huts (or that's the theory, I guess.) If you put extra ais, like I usually do, it doesn't add up for them, I expect.

1 thing i noticed that felt unbalanced, the khazad spell that gives 10g for every mine you control? that is soo weak. now i have not tested it yet to verify that it does not add 10g per turn per mine (which would be broken the other way imho). but if it awards 10g to the coffers per mine then the number needs to be greatly increased to 50g or even 100g to keep it even remotely inline with other world spells.

comparison point. one spell gives a str5 unit for every town or city you control.
a mercenary is a str5 unit that cost 120g
120g per mine could be considered balanced.


on a side note .... the barbarian trait is still VERY strong if played well. its not about early xp its about early cities. and the clan has it even easier with rantine.

try playing raging barbs and/or where the barbs start with cities.

as far as avoiding high point totals with barbs , simple , don't develope culture.

Is it just me, or is slave trade just freaking amazing? 10 gold for 10 hammers, anytime I want it? (this is on quick speed, i don't know what the correspoding values are, since I can't stand the the longness of anything slower than quick)

I imagine that slave trade is quite nice, but I dropped and broke my laptop just before patch b fixed that vote, so I don't really know.

I really think that HN units should be able to capture units, at least slaves if not werewolves, speders, etc. (I don't see much of a problem with letting HN units capture units now that mercenaries aren't HN and there isn't a wonder that would give only one civ an advantage. Capturing slaves seems very Esus-appropriate.) It is quite realistic for those capturing slaves not to let you know who they are working for, and would make the Council of Esus "mask" spell and the Svartalfar world spell more useful. (I guess that their slaves would need to be HN units so that the HN capturers aren't identified immediately, but I don't think that would be a problem since they can't attack anyway. Of course, upgrading slaves to Lunatics might be a problem then.)

In lieu of a fix (Whether it comes or not doesn't bother me), bring a Ranger with Baron. They start with Subdue Animal and can easily take down Werewolves, so you can get them back.

Is this true?

It seems like I have attacked werewolves before with Rangers and they were killed and not subdued.

If it is true, it just seems annoying to have to go through this exercise to get back your units.

I still like my idea better of not giving the Enrage promotion to all werewolves and having the promotion, if received, wear out over time.

Hyborem is often too much of a pansy, probably due to low score when he enters, so I think his score is artificially increased.
Basium has a teammate and warscript to keep him active, so his score is less important.

It's been mentioned before, and I agree, that having a teammate when you build the Mercurian Gate can be more of a negative than a positive.

The AI of your ally, whether it is the Mercurians or your former civ, is just horrible.

Here are two examples from my current game:

1. My former civ is using some sort of bizarre Bear Strategy where it is capturing every damn Bear on the map - and there are plenty of them. They must have at least 50 Bears driving up Maintenance and causing our 'team' Research to plummet. The Bears are just wandering around not doing anything. I wish I could kill them off.

2. Leaving defense of HIS cities up to me. That's right, he is leaving cities without defenders in favor of leading small groups of Elohim troops out to be slaughtered by stronger enemy units. I have to stick a few Angels in each of his cities or they would be quickly taken.

I agree that score is less important, but I was just wondering why they both don't just start out at Zero.

Problem is, peace with barbarians drops your rate of XP acquisition at the start of the game quite dramatically, as you can't rake in the goblin/orc/skeleton kills. This actually hurts your early game, because at the moment even on raging barbs/barbarian world, barbarians are no danger whatsoever- they're just free XP farm. The barbarian trait is MUCH more useful as a lategame trait (IE hyborem) as it lets you take full advantage of the rampaging horsemen and avatar of wrath. Unfortunately the -10% science means you'll have a hard time ever getting to this point.

Personally I think the barbarian trait needs a major reworking. No other trait in the game has a negative effect- I think the 10% science penalty is entirely uncalled for, considering there is no 'extra' bonus to even it out (remember, a trait is supposed to be in the end, a positive bonus. It's not supposed to break even). Also, the breaking of peace when your score reaches a certain amount above is one of the most annoying mechanics in the game, because it forces you to artificially (and un 'roleplayingly') manipulate your and other's scores in order to keep the peace. Also, it's actually punishing you for doing well! Perhaps this could be changed to break the peace if the civ ever changes it's alignment from evil, or something similar.

If you want an example of just how poor the barbarian trait is at the moment, just look at the doviello AI. With charadon, they will often end up at the very bottom of the list, and miles behind in research. However, with mahala they are often one of the most successful civs in the game. This beautifully emphasises how poor this trait really is.

Finally, don't accuse people of just 'not using the right tactics' in multiplayer, especially if you don't play multi yourself. The CoE are commonly considered the worst civ to play in multiplayer- when compared to a calabim farm strat, elohim monkskreig or ljosalfar gilden rush they fall very, very short of the mark.


I mostly agree with what you say, but what i wanted to point out is that it's not CoE which are weak by themselves but the implementation of combat experience and promotions which make them weaker than what they should be........if barbarians would be more than xp farm, Barbarian trait would be a really nice trait, while For the Horde needs some reworking.
Considered that on Marathon speed combat is a lot more important, CoE is probably even weaker at this speed but as i said before it's not due to their design but general game balance.

I mostly agree with what you say, but what i wanted to point out is that it's not CoE which are weak by themselves but the implementation of combat experience and promotions which make them weaker than what they should be........if barbarians would be more than xp farm, Barbarian trait would be a really nice trait, while For the Horde needs some reworking.
Considered that on Marathon speed combat is a lot more important, CoE is probably even weaker at this speed but as i said before it's not due to their design but general game balance.

Yeah, true there. I think it's got to do more with the barbs not being as much of a serious threat as they could be more than anything. Something as simple as a tweak that encourages barbs to form stacks might be appropriate.

On a side note, I've released a very mini mod for those who dislike the declare war mechanic. Now the barbs will declare war based on alignment rather than score.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=6290240#post6290240

I think the Charm Person spell is a bit too strong for a lvl 1 spell. I think that the success rate should be a bit lower, so that you can't protect yourself from a 20+ unit stack with only 1 adept.

True, it doesn't affect non-living units but they are usually not the majority of early armies.

In a similar fashion I find that the Wind II sorcery spell, push? or whatever it's named is a bit too strong too, since it got 100% success rate. You can totally control the enemies movement with it.

EDIT:
Oh and I'm not sure if this has changed since 0.25 yet, but Heroes need a slightly higher chance in Defending. As it is atm, they can't even be used as stack protectors since they seem to be the last guy to defend.

I've lost entire stacks this way.

On a competitive game you are not forced to roleplay them but CoE is stronger in early game and you should take advantage of that or you are hurting yourself particularly if you are playing against another human which can benefit from your mistakes; so you are not forced to rush, harass enemy, razing other civs cities, but if you don't do that you are certainly not playing them very well.

The barbarian trait would be really powerful if barbarians would be more dangerous (I admit that at least in my games they are always cannon fodder needed to give experience for my units) and For the Horde is probably one of the best world spell though its not probably well implemented considered that relies too much on what map are u playing and AI don't take advantage of it.


No, you do not have any initial advantage, not anymore. Animals and Giants attack you as anyone else, so you need defense in SP, and you need it anyways in MP. Another player with no barbarian trait has the SAME exact chances to harrass you as you have. But in turn he can research faster in the beginning, and overwhelmingly faster after that. When barbarian orc units start appearing they won't be any nuisance anyways, as you mentioned. The only real advantage of the barbarian trait is late in the game, not early, when the apocalypse knights start to appear. Early on, it is only counter-productive. You don't research and you can't make experience with pansy goblins. For the Horde is also an utmostly uselss spell, I don't know how can you consider having a bunch a units spread and disorganized and unpromoted accross the world "one of the best spells". As I said it would be ok if it had a chance to conver barbarian heroes, but apparently it doesn't.

did you actually play the Clan in 0.30 ?

Slave trade has got to be imbalanced. On my current epic game, its 10 gold for 22 hammers. When gold rushing with the button, the ratio is more like 3.5 gold for each 1 hammer. There's no point in me rushing buildings with the button, i'll just trade for 50 slaves for 500 gold and get 1200 hammers.... wonders can be rushed so much faster this way. I don't really see how a good civ can compete with the hammer-generating ability of a money-focused neutral or evil civ.

(my game settings are epic monarch, on nikis-knights map, as the Lanun)

Just playing aroung with the Ljolsalfar: They are just AWESOME at the Moment...

I think it is just TOO much that they can now build ANY improved under woods AND JUNGLE! This means very early Mines, even if there is Forest on them), with another later boost (ancient woods), being able to build gem-mines early under jungle, access to calender-resources like dyes, banana, even if there is jungle on them etc.

Any other civ has to trade produktion for Food (--> mines). But the Ljolsalfar can just build mines on a grassland hill and get 2 food (with ancient forest) and 4 Production. Simply just TOO good...i will continue the test and will try e.g. "Highlands". I am pretty sure that with this combination, the elves will almost outshine the dwarves concerning production, due to their larger an healthier cities...

And in former versions, the Ljolsalfar were quite slow to develop (beeing dependant on cottages, slow workers). But with this new jungle boost, their development should significantly improve...

Last point: A quite strong civ with an awesome world spell. I know the the game is balanced for standard sizes and normal speed...but i just achieved my earliest deity victory...arboria, duell...the treeants killed my oponent in turn 27...:crazyeye:

For all other cardtypes: the ljolsalfar should be able to cripple or even eradicate ANY close opponent at almost any time...nobody can withstand an army of treeants by turn 100...i dont see any counter against this.


Furthermore, my elven workers were able to remove jungle just from the beginning, but thats probably a bug, so i will put it there.

I would recommend the follwing things:

I personally think that the Ljolsalfar are quite a strong civ, so the ability to build mines under woods and to build anything under the jungle should be removed.

Further i would tie some worldspells to certain techs (perhaps even if ANYBODY has this tech...) or scale them, e.g. with no tech the march of the trees summons SOME least treeants (about str 5) form SOME (not all, just too much, you never can afford SO many units at this time of the game), with another tech (be it FoL or anything other suitable) you summon some more lesser treeants (about str 7-8) and in the late game (with suitable tech) you have the current effect. This way the Ljolsalfar have some handy extra defenders on their hands, but not THAT EXTREMLY POWERFUL invasion army.

I admit, that this variant makes this worldspell more complicated, but i think it balances the spell quite well...

To add something: it might be an idea to allow GOBLIN/orcish workers to build something under the jungle...

I can't see how Treants that last 3 turns and start further than 9 tiles from the enemy can become an invasion army?

Is there a balance reason why Myconids (Khazad Beastmasters) don't start with Subdue Animal/Beast like others?

I'm pretty sure it's not a Bug. He's an Animal Unit, IIRC, vulnerable to Rangers and whatnot. I know his spawned puppies are capturable, never had cause to test the Baron himself, but if he's an Animal Unit, it shouldn't work any different from other Animals; He's just got high Strength.

I don't think it's a bug, but it did finish off that civilisation. Maybe the beast domination shouldn't be permanent? Or maybe only usable against barbarians?

I can't see how Treants that last 3 turns and start further than 9 tiles from the enemy can become an invasion army?

Ok, a part of that army will never see any action...but the treants last 5 turns, so they will actually reach some cities, probably the most well defended enemy garrisions...and for midgame: haste em.

myconids have the spore ability which roots any units in its AOE for 3 turns on a failed save. i did notice a bug with the myconids though , they are "dwarven" but don't seem to be getting the double move in hills.

CoE have lost their earlygame harrassment advantage because goblins no longer become wolf riders when they kill a wolf. This is the mechanic that made them so powerful earlygame- not the barb trait.

Actually, I would much prefer it if mercenary was a promotion rather than a unit. The Hire Mercenary spell should trigger an deal-type event (basically the types of events that the guild makes available randomly should be triggered by the spell instead) allowing you to hire units with the Mercenary promotion (which would allow spreading the guild, and make the units fairly likely to switch sides if defeated) instead of paying a fixed coat for a fixed unit. These could be pretty much any unit available to any civ at its current tech level, meaning you could sometimes hire dwarven siege units or elven archers as mercenaries. Actually, I think it might be better still if the units you could hire were those available to be built in other Guild of the Nine cities. Sometimes they might come with xp or promotions, but at higher cost. This would give you a god reason to spread it to rival civs, despite giving them an advantage too.

I agree with this and it shouldn't be hard, it could be done like it was in Rhyes and fall of civilization.

Slave trade seems pretty broken. For 10 gold I get a unit that i can sac for 15 hammers (and theres no stop to the number of slaves i can buy each turn.) So in the end i payed 600 gold for finishing the winter palace instead of the 3600 normal rushing would have cost.

How can i build the smugglers port? We voted for it in the undercouncil (I follow overlords - but it nowhere states that it needs the new evil state religion).

Shouldn't vassals give up their techs? Whats the point of sparing them when they refuse to give techs because I'm there worst enemy...

I think there should be an option the force neutral vassal to join the other council. (So when neutral civ from the overcouncil are vassals to an evil civ they should also switch membership.)

Council of Esus brought a strong balance change towards religious victory. To pay 25 gold is much easier then to build a sacrificable disciple. And it is not limited with your borders like for the Order. Plus you have no religion penalty with other religions and can support open borders more easily. Plus there is a Troyan Horse for non-open-borders civs. Overall with CoE religious victory now is the easiest one despite of more religions in shadow. Especially with slower speed.

And yes, surprizingly there is no option in trade screen to adopt membership.

Shouldn't vassals give up their techs? Whats the point of sparing them when they refuse to give techs because I'm there worst enemy...

I think there should be an option the force neutral vassal to join the other council. (So when neutral civ from the overcouncil are vassals to an evil civ they should also switch membership.)

agree with both of these.. Actually I find my vassals will never do anything I want, haha

Ever since 0.25 the AI have become greedy with resources. If I suggest a resource trade, for example Gold for Wine, they say its not enough and want my only source of Copper, Cows, Wheat, Horses, Silks, and some more resources. But sometimes THEY offer a fair trade, but only if THEY suggest it. And if you happen to negotiate that trade they are back at the 1 for 10 resources trade again.

agree with both of these.. Actually I find my vassals will never do anything I want, haha

The Sidar asked to be my vassal. I gave them techs, resources and spread our common religion to all their cities. This moved them from last place to middle of the pack. Their attitude went from Pleased to Cautious. :rolleyes:

Ever since 0.25 the AI have become greedy with resources. If I suggest a resource trade, for example Gold for Wine, they say its not enough and want my only source of Copper, Cows, Wheat, Horses, Silks, and some more resources. But sometimes THEY offer a fair trade, but only if THEY suggest it. And if you happen to negotiate that trade they are back at the 1 for 10 resources trade again.

I also noticed this. Especially irritating is when you (accidentally?) click negotiate, and the same trade they suggested is not good enough for them.

This is a problem introduced by BtS patch 3.13. Bhruic patch fixes this, so Kael & C. can look into that and grab the code (the source is available).

Please report it in the bug thread, since it is a bug.

nevermind ^^

Are Assassins really supposed to target (and destroy) dropped equipment? This kinda ruins the assassins job at killing damaged units in the city if you want to capture the equipment after taking over the city. Since if you wanna keep it, you have to stop attacking with the assassins.

This is a problem introduced by BtS patch 3.13. Bhruic patch fixes this, so Kael & C. can look into that and grab the code (the source is available).

Please report it in the bug thread, since it is a bug.

I installed Bhruic's patch before I installed FfH and it works fine. I don"t know how it would work the other way.

Best wishes,

Breunor

Dwarven smithy (- 1 healthy, +10% hammers, +10% hammers with copper, +10% hammers with iron, +10% hammers with mithril)

vs

Forge (standard) (- 1 healthy, +25% hammers, +1 happy from gold, removes the 'rusted' promotion)

The smithy which replaces the forge has neither the 'Removes rust' nor '+1 Happy from gold' bonuses at the same cost as the normal forge (250 hammers, - 1 health)

This makes the dwarves at a disadvantage (most of the time - unless player has all metal resources) on a building where you would expect them to be assisted.

suggestion
- dwarven smithy adds +1 happy to gold, removes rust, cost 300 (from 250 hammers)

Both smithies were originally only 10% prod. bonus, so since the normal one has been changed, the dwarven should reflect this change too.

I installed Bhruic's patch before I installed FfH and it works fine. I don"t know how it would work the other way.

Best wishes,

Breunor

you can't do it that way, Bhruic's .dll is not loaded with FFH which has its own dll.

Slave trade seems pretty broken. For 10 gold I get a unit that i can sac for 15 hammers (and theres no stop to the number of slaves i can buy each turn.) So in the end i payed 600 gold for finishing the winter palace instead of the 3600 normal rushing would have cost.


I agree w/ you, see my prior post. It really needs fixed, unless there's another mechanic that gives the overcouncil a great advantage (which I haven't really seen...)

Council of Esus brought a strong balance change towards religious victory. To pay 25 gold is much easier then to build a sacrificable disciple. And it is not limited with your borders like for the Order. Plus you have no religion penalty with other religions and can support open borders more easily. Plus there is a Troyan Horse for non-open-borders civs. Overall with CoE religious victory now is the easiest one despite of more religions in shadow. Especially with slower speed.


But CoE doesn't get Inquisitors. On big maps, Inquisitors are a MUST for a religious victory, since populations follow each religion in a city in an euqal percentage.

There's two glaring issues I've noticed playing multiplayer games:

1) the AI absolutely cannot deal with raging barbs. On a huge custom continents, 4 teams of 3 each, half the AI's die to barbs.

2) 1-tile and small islands. This is the most glaring. I just finished up a game with the same settings as above - 4 teams of 3, custom continents (1 per team), and 6 of the AI's started on 1-tile islands and never placed their settlers. One AI started on a 2-tile island and never placed a settler. Is there a mod or a way it can be coded so that settlers do not appear on small islands? It's pretty ridiculous and aggravating at the same time, playing up through turn 2-400 and finding out one who team is just standing around on 1-tile islands without ever placing a settler.

1) the AI absolutely cannot deal with raging barbs. On a huge custom continents, 4 teams of 3 each, half the AI's die to barbs.


Yeah, I stopped turning on Raging Barbs from FFH2 0.21, because the AI evidently performs worse with it (it doesn't necessarily die to barbs, but it does perform worse). Plus it was mind numbingly borning for me too to deal with all those barbarians.

The Slave Trade should have a limit to how many slaves you can buy per turn. As it is now it's so powerful it's almost game breaking. Even the limit per turn would still make it very powerful, unless it's a VERY low limit (3 or below).

Chalid Astrakein is one strong hero - both melee, magic (summoning) + fire damage.

Now, i like his style, but for some reason i don't get to it why the +to Fire is increasing/decreasing sometimes (?)

played with a friend he got >40 +fire dmg

maybe its a bug, if not, it's to powerful.

In general, the AI doesn't build enough units, doesn't always build enough workers and doesn't deal with forest/jungle at all well.

Slaves should be more expensive to buy, say 50 gold, and also more expensive to sell (Why would I want to sell them for 5 gold? It is so humiliating cheap I'd rather disband them :) )

Slaves should be more expensive to buy, say 50 gold, and also more expensive to sell (Why would I want to sell them for 5 gold? It is so humiliating cheap I'd rather disband them :) )

Slaves should change so they give, say, slightly more hammers than the equivalent cost for gold rushing the building. Since they can't rush units, perhaps they should be able to rush buildings in 3/4 the time as standard gold rushing?

In general, the AI doesn't build enough units, doesn't always build enough workers and doesn't deal with forest/jungle at all well.

I agree about forest/jungle.
Have you tried playing with agressive ai on, though? I see lots of units.

In solo games, it seems like an exploit to trade your religion tech. This leads to massive and easy spread of your religion, and you get a tech in return!

In solo games, it seems like an exploit to trade your religion tech. This leads to massive and easy spread of your religion, and you get a tech in return!

Yeah I figure they shouldn't be tradeable (except Honor and Deception perhaps). Might slow down the spread of the early religions too.

A lot times the greedy AI Civs won't give you their religious tech but they sure want yours.

Concur with a couple of posters re: how the slave trade works. Turning 10 gold into 10 hammers for rushing buildings is a great & unlimited bargain. Same with deciding you need to spruce up your empire, buy dozens of slaves and automate them... again, too cheap NOT to squeeze every last bit of use out of the function.

Maybe some restrictions like raising cost, limiting how many per turn can be purchased, or even having a civic requirement (like slavery running?) would help.

I find myself wondering what happened to elven workers. In pre-BtS games, they were able to build most improvements in forests and ancient forests, but mines still required clearcutting and the bronzeworking tech, and jungles still had to be cleared with sanitation. Now, Elven workers can build mines in forested squares and can build freely in jungle squares, though it seems they are unable to clear jungle even with the necessary Sanitation tech. The game would play a whole lot better and be more balanced if a way could be found to recode the elven workers to function as they did in Fire.
Just my thoughts on it.

any chance for more reagents?
i've never seen them in my game (in ffh since 0.23)...

It has been roughly determined that the reason for some people not getting reagents is changing the default number of civs on the map.

Not being able to get CoE religion spread to you without having it adopted already really limits how fast the religion gets spread. The only time it seems to be spreading is if the human player founds it. Which isn't all that easy on the higher difficulties. In my current game, Grigori seems to have founded it, and well, I guess that means noone will have the religion.

The Guardsman promotion is more a disadvantage than anything. Marksmen units show up late in the game, but anyways this part of the promotion is ok. What is not ok, is that a guarsman unit will practically always defend first even if the odds say that another unit should. This means building anything else than melee unit as Bannor is stupid because it will decree the death of your most experienced melee units. Or vice versa it means you shouldn't build melee units. I think that this promotion would work fine if it only was designed against marksmen units, but the rest is really frustrating. If you play for example on level Emperor with aggressive AI and no building reqs., to have a challenge, the AI will come at you with big stacks of units every 2 turns, and all your melee units, even the most promoted ones, are deemed to fall in defense because they will try to defend even with a 1% odd, while the archers are sitting idly and watching them die.

any chance for more reagents?
i've never seen them in my game (in ffh since 0.23)...

i dont see them in games with the default number of players either.

im pretty sure that reagents started becoming scarce to nonexistent when cotton was introduced.

there needs to be a check that theres atleast a few on the map, im constantly in the situation where i want to go AV or build archmages, and cant find any anywhere and yet ill have 2 incense near my start.

The Guardsman promotion is more a disadvantage than anything. Marksmen units show up late in the game, but anyways this part of the promotion is ok. What is not ok, is that a guarsman unit will practically always defend first even if the odds say that another unit should. This means building anything else than melee unit as Bannor is stupid because it will decree the death of your most experienced melee units. Or vice versa it means you shouldn't build melee units. I think that this promotion would work fine if it only was designed against marksmen units, but the rest is really frustrating. If you play for example on level Emperor with aggressive AI and no building reqs., to have a challenge, the AI will come at you with big stacks of units every 2 turns, and all your melee units, even the most promoted ones, are deemed to fall in defense because they will try to defend even with a 1% odd, while the archers are sitting idly and watching them die.

ya, its even worse on the royal guards, even if you get all three together they just get worn down and butchered because theyre defending all the time even when other units could win the fight.

Sureshot, I actually see more often reagents than incense, since reagents are allowed to spawn in more plots than incense. There is a decent amount of reagents. Maybe incense could use some help, or just remove it as prereq. for T2 Priests and keep it for T3 Priests, like Mages need no reagents but Archmages do.

This is a screenshot of a standard map with 9 civilizations (+Basium as of late).

I counted all the Incense and Reagents, there are exactly 12 each unless I missed any.

thats really weird to see, im getting no reagents and usually about 6 or so incense but im usually playing small maps in multiplayer.

Alright, i just ran through a bunch of mapscripts, and it seems like incense and reagents are actually perfectly balanced so long as you don't use the Blessing of Amatheon option.

The Blessing Option (which all my previous games always used) seems to, without fail, make about 7 incense or so, and 0 or 1 reagents tops. I'm going to post this in the bug thread, since I doubt thats the intent of that option.

edit: a fix for making the Blessing Option work as intended without skewing the amount of reagents is to select "Balanced" resources.

I play the elves almost all the time, and it occurred to me that one thing I rely on, rather unfairly, is the ability to use my Priest of Leaves to plant new forests everywhere, with no possibility of them getting pillaged. I think they should be open to getting pillaged, and a warring civ should be likely to do so, when fighting elves.

I think that the AI needs some tweaking in knowing when to seek peace. In my current game, the Hippus -- a medium weak civ -- declared war on me -- a fairly strong civ, and continues to send stacks of horsemen and chariots at me. Early on, I was not totally prepared, and they had a small chance, given their speed. However, they have become nothing more than an experience farm for my civ. They send stacks, I choose which units to kill them with, and I never lose a unit.

I suspect that they are waiting for me to take a city before looking on this as a losing proposition, but I don't want their cities, and I don't want to raise the Armeggedon counter.

This is a screenshot of a standard map with 9 civilizations (+Basium as of late).

I counted all the Incense and Reagents, there are exactly 12 each unless I missed any.

what I was saying though is that reagents are more spread accross the world because they can be in more common terrain plots, and you can see it from your screenshot too.

what I was saying though is that reagents are more spread accross the world because they can be in more common terrain plots, and you can see it from your screenshot too.

That's true. But usually when I don't have regeants myself, I can usually trade it from a friend. And if I can't do that, well then I have to adapt. Maybe go to war for some, or manage without. It's not really game breaking if you don't have regeants, cause you can still play without the units that require it. It's just easier with those units.

Alright, i just ran through a bunch of mapscripts, and it seems like incense and reagents are actually perfectly balanced so long as you don't use the Blessing of Amatheon option.

The Blessing Option (which all my previous games always used) seems to, without fail, make about 7 incense or so, and 0 or 1 reagents tops. I'm going to post this in the bug thread, since I doubt thats the intent of that option.

edit: a fix for making the Blessing Option work as intended without skewing the amount of reagents is to select "Balanced" resources.
yes, i've always used 'blessing' without 'balanced' (- till now, thanks). worldbuilder was the only rescue for sheaim. issue should be fixed, nevertheless.

I play the elves almost all the time, and it occurred to me that one thing I rely on, rather unfairly, is the ability to use my Priest of Leaves to plant new forests everywhere, with no possibility of them getting pillaged. I think they should be open to getting pillaged, and a warring civ should be likely to do so, when fighting elves.
Anyone with fire mana can "pillage" forests by way of the lowly Blaze spell (Fire I). Ancient Forests don't burn as readily as their normal counterparts, but they do burn, and it is quite crippling to surround an elven city in flames...