How do you beat the elves to FoL or the dwarves to RoK at high difficulties (emperor and above) where the AI gets a research bonus?

I wish that you could use great prophets (from pagan temples) to bulb religions but currently they bulb pilosophy after mysticism and not FoL or RoK.

You can bulb religions with greath prophets. You just need all the prerequisites (so fishing for oo and Mining for RoK).

But can it be that different civs bulb differently? I thought that they whouldnt but some things seem to me to run differently. Could be erring on that part though or the path has changed majorly during the revision of techs.

Anyways i for sure had the chance to bulb religions without getting philosophy first...

But don't try on immortal and deity even with bulbing.
Have seen RoK and FoL been founded around turns 50-60. Without insane luck from huts that seems impossible to beat. (oddly Varn Gosam AI sometimes beats Elves and quite often Dwarves to their religions at that difficulties. He sure is a tech-junkie...)

It's like trying to found Buddhism or Hinduism on immortal or deity. Why did you expect you could do it?

It's like trying to found Buddhism or Hinduism on immortal or deity. Why did you expect you could do it?

The issue isn't that i was expecting to; in fact i expect that i can't... unless there's some fancy trick. I was fishing for some fancy trick.;)

Escort your scouts with warriors so that they won't fall to the first bear and you may be able to pop quite a few huts and graveyards, with some luck you'll get prereq. techs this way.

Why do you want to beat em to it, anyway? You still receive a disciple upon discovery, and holy cities aren't THAT great.

Typically do advanced start games and give everyone lots of gold (and sometimes start in the Classical Age). I can usually manage to found both religions before the game even starts.

I have however found that Elves or Dwarves occasionally buy the tech before the game starst too. When that happens, it seems that it is randomly decided who gets the holy city and the other player does not get the free disciple. I find that quite annoying. You don't seem to get any free units for techs bought in advanced starts. That is the main reason I liked it when Kael moved the free great sage from Writing to Arcane Lore. (I almost always want Writing early so I can start out with enough libraries to build the Great Library Early, and often like to get Trade early too so I can get less essential techs from the AI.) I've also found that events that require techs don;t seem to trigger if the tech was bought. The Guild of the Nine can never be founded if anyone buys Currency, and I think that buying Sorcery stops the Gaelen events too.

Allow them to discover the religion, then claim their holy city in the name of manifest destiny. ;)

Allow them to discover the religion, then claim their holy city in the name of manifest destiny. ;)
Its not manifest destiny; you are liberating the holy city from the heretics who have corrupted the faith! ;)

"In the name of the most Holy Kilmorph, the true children of the Earth Mother free the Holy city from the Dwarven heretics. This is the word of Alexis."

Consider the implications of moving philosophy and priesthood until after the religions in the 'great prophet bulb preference list'.

I don't like having the religion founding techs on the bulbing list. If you are an EMpyrean civ trying to get Religious Law so you can get Chalid, priests may only be able to give you Corruption of Spirit.


I'd really like it if bulbing were completely reworked. Instead of having a set list of preferences, it should let you choose which tech to get research points towards. It would probably work best as an event triggered by a spell. A Tech's normal prereqs would also be the prereqs for choosing tat tech option from the bulbing event. Each great person would have a different spell, with different options.

Agriculture -> Ancient Chants -> Education -> Mysticism -> Religion

Worker -> Make 4-5 farms and build warriors while growing to work them (switch to agriculture civic while building the 1st farm) ->

Worker -> Spam cottages -> work cottages -> settler (slow because not all farms are worked).

Now, the farms that your capital is no longer working should be worked by the new city. It's pretty key to share at least 1-2 farms and preferably 1-2 cottages also between your 1st two cities.

This works best as elves, or other civ if a non-forest river and couple food resources to start and you kinda must start with ag or anc techs... no exploration or crafting civs need apply.

Now, why would you want FoL or RoK early if not the appropriate civ, aside from cheater ancients? I don't find shrines to be worth a poo (I'm a small empire kind of guy). How is it that they are so valuable (valuable enough to tard early econ/happy techs??) to you?

ps. AI on immortal is no longer a simple endeavor. For a simple, fun game I think I'm moving down to emp. It was a challenge on immortal and required luck on deity... lately I am requiring luck on immortal (and too much work).

I'd really like it if bulbing were completely reworked. Instead of having a set list of preferences, it should let you choose which tech to get research points towards. It would probably work best as an event triggered by a spell. A Tech's normal prereqs would also be the prereqs for choosing tat tech option from the bulbing event. Each great person would have a different spell, with different options.

From your keyboard to god's ears, I hope. And diverse birds. I'd also like to see dragons and other ground+flight units to be able to recon, causing 1tile damage, 9tile damage no damage or cast a spell - at recon mission destination - by choice. After you do the recon mission, the spell/ability the unit casts takes affect as if the unit is in the recon missioned tile. Now that's range spells. Give me flying mages casting at recon mission destination and I bet archers having a little range damage is no big deal. I wish to swooop in and cast terrible things! Flying I - IV promo. Levitate (air 2) gives Flying I, Swooping (air 3) gives Flying II (+1 for each of caster's spell extension promotions). Flying I - IV determines range.

Who doesn't want to fly around casting stuff at range?!

hmmm... from all this maybe i am overvaluing the shrine income.

i.

From your keyboard to god's ears, I hope.

I'll see if I can figure out how to implement it like that in my modmod.

And diverse birds. I'm planning a few of these too. The basic birds will remain the same (expect just being called "bird," "tamed bird," or "trained bird" instead of hawk, since some are parrots or ravens), but I'll probably add 2 new levels that can attack. I'll probably let them get promotions, and in fact have a level requirement for the top level bird.

I'm also thinking that I'll add a "Rok's Nest" unique feature that that can only occur on a peak, which would spawn a Greak Roc -- a powerful unitcombat_beast, domain_air, specialunit_bird barbarian hero which would harass units within its large range. (It is a good thing that Beastmasters can move impassible ;) )

I'm also going to look into allowing birds to rebase the way they could in vanilla civ.

I'd also like to see dragons and other ground+flight units to be able to recon, causing 1tile damage, 9tile damage no damage or cast a spell - at recon mission destination - by choice. After you do the recon mission, the spell/ability the unit casts takes affect as if the unit is in the recon missioned tile. Now that's range spells. Give me flying mages casting at recon mission destination and I bet archers having a little range damage is no big deal. I wish to swooop in and cast terrible things! Flying I - IV promo. Levitate (air 2) gives Flying I, Swooping (air 3) gives Flying II (+1 for each of caster's spell extension promotions). Flying I - IV determines range.

Who doesn't want to fly around casting stuff at range?!


Your references to "recon mission attacks" seems a bit odd, but I think I know what you mean. It wouldn't actually be recon, but something more like air combat. I've already given archers/siege/some ships ranged attacks, through the AirCombat tags. It works quite nicely, but it doesn't move the unit to that tile after attacking. The AI is already very good at using such ranged attacks, although it doesn't prioritize building them very much. (I think this is because Kael lowered their weighting since melee units are usually better in FfH)



I recently discovered (when I was trying to let Profanes act as nukes) that giving normal land units a <iNukeRange> value doesn't make them explode and cause fallout; instead it works a lot like you suggested flying attacks should. You move to the distant tile if there are no more enemy units there, and otherwise stay where you were. (You can capture slaves from a distance too, but I haven't yet tested whether </PythonPostCombatLost> or <PythonPostCombatWon> work this way.) It does still cause the whole map to shake violently though, so I think that method would only be appropriate for really powerful units, like Dragons.

I was planning to change breathe fire (which summons a meteor) to a more appropriate spell that works like Pillar of Fire, but where the Damage type depends on which dragon it is (Drifa should do Cold, not Fire). I have considered instead giving them ranged attacks (I was thinking it would AirCombat like I gave archers, but the Nuke route is so much cooler. :) ), but always ran into one problem: Acheron would never be able to attack, as he has 0 movement. I find is really annoying. Would people mind if I allowed Acheron to move (and make him, and all the dragons, much stronger), but made him more expensive so that he won't show up until at least midgame


I'm sure that the code used for recon missions, paradropping, air combat, and nukes could be borrowed for use in ranged/targeted spells, although that is still above my coding skill at the moment. (Since the AI is good at targeting ranged attacks, why shouldn't we be able to borrow that code to make it good at targeting spells?)

I have been suggesting that it be revamped like this for a long time. (Actually, I think I may have first suggested it while targeted spells were still present, since I thought that moving targeting to the SDK would make the game faster, more stable, and easier on the AI. Also, these ranges mimic the radius of a circle like a fat cross does instead of giving the unsightly square range.)

Promotions already have the ability to increase aircombat range, so (if this were borrowed for targeted spells) it would not be hard to let Spell Extension increase the range of targeted spells.

It does still cause the whole map to shake violently though, so I think that method would only be appropriate for really powerful units, like Dragons.
Cool Hand Luke sound bite ftw. "world shakers!"
Would people mind if I allowed Acheron to move (and make him, and all the dragons, much stronger), but made him more expensive so that he won't show up until at least midgame
From what I have heard, this could cause bad things. I think him running about crunching on cities is a good thing though... This is not supposed to be like BTS, all fair and balanced. This isn't fox news ( :mischief: ). This is dark fantasy and somtimes, in dark fantasy, bad things happen to good players; if a few perfectly innocent AIs get killed in the process who cares. Unleash the dragon, let the cities burn. You may want to tone him down a little if he is nuking from long range though. Acheron should cast crown and it affects wherever he recons to (as does whatever he casts).

OT fox news? bleah. i prefer CNN an unbiased news source.
back to topic, don't include the dwarves if u want ROK like wise for FOL

OT fox news? bleah. i prefer CNN an unbiased news source.

Communist News Network!!11!!

To OT with you!: http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=18

Holy cities are even more powerful in small empires. Maybe you're just not spreading your religion enough?

Any but AV in your capital running God king is 1.5 coin per city, that's oodles of extra units to support before you have to adjust your science level. Even if you're running a 3 city empire, you can spread your religion beyond your own cities.

Acheron moving is BAD. I lost a game because the barbarians rescearched horse back riding, and gave Acheron the Mobility promotions.

The issue isn't that i was expecting to; in fact i expect that i can't... unless there's some fancy trick. I was fishing for some fancy trick.

I'm reading between the lines, and fishing... not a fancy trick, but the AI founds OO considerably later, so shoot for that if you really want the early religion, for whatever reason. It takes just as long as FoL and RoK anyway.

It's possible to beat Khazad to RoK (not sure about elves and FoL but I would assume so). But it requires some luck and unless the Khazad are in a ridiculously bad starting spot or getting killed, you really have to use a great prophet to bulb Way of the Earthmother. Try to time it so that your great prophet appears as soon as you finish Mining (research Mysticism first). You're almost certainly going to have to skip education too.
Is it worth the trouble? Well... depends, I guess. Generally for me it's not because I like education better.
On the other hand, I find RoK and FoL holy shrines are good to have because the AI tends to adopt those religions, so you're earning income from the AI spreading the religion to its cities. Also getting the holy city means you get two cities with that religion to start with (holy city AND a disciple) which can help you spread it faster.

Doesn't the priest bulb philosophy before 'way of the earthmother'?

i.

Kael is right, just take it from them.

Kael is right, just take it from them.

True enough, but:

I't not uncommon that when you found another religion in your "original" empire it goes to the same city. Having 2 or more shrines and Bazaar of Mamon in the same city is a very good lubricant for anyone's war machine, especially on huge maps.

It's possible to beat Khazad to RoK (not sure about elves and FoL but I would assume so). But it requires some luck and unless the Khazad are in a ridiculously bad starting spot or getting killed, you really have to use a great prophet to bulb Way of the Earthmother. Try to time it so that your great prophet appears as soon as you finish Mining (research Mysticism first). You're almost certainly going to have to skip education too.
Is it worth the trouble? Well... depends, I guess. Generally for me it's not because I like education better.
On the other hand, I find RoK and FoL holy shrines are good to have because the AI tends to adopt those religions, so you're earning income from the AI spreading the religion to its cities. Also getting the holy city means you get two cities with that religion to start with (holy city AND a disciple) which can help you spread it faster.

I agree with everything written in this post.

This problem has been a pet peeve of mine since the very first version of FFH. However, you just need to adjust your style of play when you know the elves and dwarves have some 'unknown' advantage in founding these religions. (HINT: Unknown = AI Cheating :))

As mentioned, if you are near the elves with your capital city you can pull a mighty fine Pearl Harbor on them usually. They send all their Scouts out exploring leaving their capital city undefended. In a longer speed game like Epic, it can be quite a few turns before a defender can be built there. So, stroll on over, pay them a visit, and quickly take them out of the game. No elves and FOL is very attainable. If you don't take them out, I am convinced all those Scouts exploring get, um, divine help or something in popping Mysticism and Hunting from goodie huts, then it is a beeline for FOL the elves always seem to win.

This strategy doesn't seem to work with the dwarves and ROK and they are really hard to beat to the founding of that religion.

My strategy is just to adjust as I said. If I find there are elves or dwarves in a game (yes, I do take a peek at the World Builder), I just give up on founding FOL or ROK and focus on founding one of the other religions. It is usually easy to found one in a game - at least at Monarch, the difficulty I am using. Maybe it is tougher at the higher levels.

I just wish FFH had a level playing field when it comes to this, but it doesn't, so you need to adjust your game to compensate.

How do you beat the elves to FoL or the dwarves to RoK at high difficulties (emperor and above) where the AI gets a research bonus?

I wish that you could use great prophets (from pagan temples) to bulb religions but currently they bulb pilosophy after mysticism and not FoL or RoK.

Given that they start with a tech that they need, that the AI can build improvements without worrying about having the tech (so they can cottage without education, and so on), and that they beeline for it... well, you'll need a very large infusion of outside luck. A couple of lucky goodie huts might do :) Or some wine, gold and gem (without jungle) resources you could grab on the way to RoK, or some ivory and fur on the way to FoL, for extra commerce without cottage and without deviating from your goal.
Rather than a great prophet, I would use a great sage from the elder council and build an academy ASAP. If you start with Ancien Chants, it might come early enough to make the difference.