Whats the armageddon counter? I haven't been able to figure out. can someone tell me?

It is an indicator of the decline of the World and a merging with Hell. As it gets higher, life gets bad. (Blight, Pestilence, Horseriders of the Apocalyse...)

The higher the counter:

The more damage the world spell World Break (Sheaim) causes.

The more hell terrain will spread (I forget the teirs, but at a certain point hell terrain spreads to evil lands, then neautral then at a higher level to lands of good empires).

xienwolf has a very nice manual in his sig (see above post) - the counter is explained around page 193.

Cheers!

Tony

The more hell terrain will spread (I forget the teirs, but at a certain point hell terrain spreads to evil lands, then neautral then at a higher level to lands of good empires).

The levels are as so:

At 25, hell terrain will spread to Ashen Veil state religion civs.
At 50, hell terrain will spread to any evil civ.
At 75, hell terrain will spread to neutral civs.

It never spreads to good civs.

Word of warning though: Hell terrain and burning sands can be really hard on the graphics. If you want hell terrain in the game, then try to lower the counter using sanctify (life 1), and convert desert to plains with spring (water 1).

Otherwise, you can use the 'no hell terrain' option when starting up a game to remove it entirely.

And Xienwolf's guide is a really useful help for beginners, so have a look.

Hope this helps

Wyrmhero

And regardless of the AC, no Hell Terrain will appear at all until Hyborem comes into the Game (Game Option "Compact Enforced" must not be turned on, and someone needs to research Infernal Pact -- The Ashen Veil only Technology)

Whats the armageddon counter? I haven't been able to figure out. can someone tell me?

Xienwolfs document is awesome. You can also find most FfH specific concepts (inlcuding the Armageddon Counter) explained in the Game Concepts section of the civilopedia.

Thanks alot!

uhhh 25AC means it spreads to unowned lands

Yeps, if you are Ashen Veil and live next to Hyborem, you are majorly raped in the ass. It will always spread to Ashen Veil lands and all infernal lands are permanently hell terrain.

It gives the game a powerful sense of direction, a purpose. You will either try to destroy the world (make the AC high) or save it (low AC). OTOH, in some games, the AC won't budge very much (you still occasionally get a world with mostly two religions, Fellowship of Leaves (FoL) and Runes of Kilmorph (RoK) in which case, the AC will usually rise only when a city is razed or a good civ destroyed).

Yeah, those Fellowship games are boring.

What I want to see once is a giant Octopus Overlords religous empire. It always seems to get overlooked by the AI - the last game it was a real factor for my was when *I* created it early (yay Sidar culture wars!).