Falamar and the Fellowship

[ironmetal250]

I was wondering if anyone else has tried using the Fellowship of Leaves as a state religion for the lanun? Although it isn't the best fit thematically (though I feel like the Overlords isn't either for Falamar), it definitely works. The reason is that, except to grab resources, the lanun barely ever have to build land improvements with their pirate ports and +1 per water tile. If you have lakes, even less so.

All of your cities should be coastal for the and pirate ports, and therefore probably all of your cities will be starved except for the heron throne city, which is often your capitol. The ability to turn every land tile in a city's big cross into an (often lumbermilled if you have enough workers on top of it) ancient forest is immensely helpful in this regard, giving at least three per square (I believe. On a grassland it might be 3 2.) The extra and from the forests also allows you to use all the extra food you're getting from your water tiles to make all of your cities super cities, which imo is much better than rushing the Tower of Complacency for one super city.

Not to mention how awesome Priests of Leaves and Summon Tiger are.

Aside from this, what is the actual downside to ? Aside from looking all nasty it doesn't really seem to do anything, and while I generally try to avoid it because I like to roleplay a good leader, I would like to know if there is a mechanics-related incentive to do so.

[scutarii]

Originally Posted by ironmetal250

I was wondering if anyone else has tried using the Fellowship of Leaves as a state religion for the lanun? Although it isn't the best fit thematically (though I feel like the Overlords isn't either for Falamar), it definitely works. The reason is that, except to grab resources, the lanun barely ever have to build land improvements with their pirate ports and +1 per water tile. If you have lakes, even less so.

All of your cities should be coastal for the and pirate ports, and therefore probably all of your cities will be starved except for the heron throne city, which is often your capitol. The ability to turn every land tile in a city's big cross into an (often lumbermilled if you have enough workers on top of it) ancient forest is immensely helpful in this regard, giving at least three per square (I believe. On a grassland it might be 3 2.) The extra and from the forests also allows you to use all the extra food you're getting from your water tiles to make all of your cities super cities, which imo is much better than rushing the Tower of Complacency for one super city.

Not to mention how awesome Priests of Leaves and Summon Tiger are.

Aside from this, what is the actual downside to ? Aside from looking all nasty it doesn't really seem to do anything, and while I generally try to avoid it because I like to roleplay a good leader, I would like to know if there is a mechanics-related incentive to do so.

Yeah, you can build lumbermills before converting to Fol but you need blooming forests so you have to convert to FoL - to get some FoL priests, then switch back to nonFoL - to avoid ancient forest before lumbermilling. and after blooming and lumbermillig you have to switch back to FoL - to spread ancient forests.

in many cases you have to cut ancient forests, bloom new forests and to build lumbermills quickly

God knows, is it all worth of micromanagement.

but overall? why not to use FoL? FoL is useless only for infernal and for sheaim - assuming this civ is played with purpose to bump up AC.

[Pickly]

Originally Posted by ironmetal250

Aside from this, what is the actual downside to ? Aside from looking all nasty it doesn't really seem to do anything, and while I generally try to avoid it because I like to roleplay a good leader, I would like to know if there is a mechanics-related incentive to do so.

Any net unhealth (unhealth-health) costs the city an extra food.

[Monkeyfinger]

The Lanun's drawback is a weaker version of the champion unit, so I'd much rather adopt a religion that gives them something good to fight with in that era (Empyrean, OO, AV). At most I could see using FoL as like a 10 turn stint strategy: Rush priesthood, get FoL, run it for a little bit and build a few bloomers while researching my real religion. This would also not work with OO since it's an early religion you want to commit to before priesthood.

[DaveGold]

Fellowship of Leaves and the Lanun have nothing in common, so you'll have a spread of abilities across water/land, economy, mana types, and combat units that generalize in everything and specializes in nothing. It might work if you've inland cities but you'll probably miss the military engine of the other religions which is usually stronger than FoL. Arete with mines provides better production for Lanun land.

[Monkeyfinger]

Arete with mines provides better production for Lanun land.

Nah. If production is what you want, forests wherever you want > a boost to just hills. The real reason to run RoK as Lanun is to get the mines of Gal-Dur so you can completely skip smelting/iron working, since unlike most civs the Lanun don't get a very valuable unit from those techs.

[Azhral]

Except their Civ Hero...

[Mailbox]

Originally Posted by Azhral

Except their Civ Hero...

I'd rather tech to Guilds for killer workshop production than Iron Working for one unit. Eventually you'll want Smelting for the workshop boost but honestly you could go a game without Iron Working if you have the MoG.

[Monkeyfinger]

Yeah some units are worth researching a tech branch for by themselves (they tend to cast spells) but Guybrush the somewhat above average melee unit isn't one.

[ironmetal250]

Originally Posted by Azhral

Except their Civ Hero...

Kithra or Bambur are both better 'early' heroes than Guybrush imo. And Yvain definitely is. I played a duel on Prince (yeah, I know, sue me) against Tebryn the other night and didn't tech iron working until the very end, when I had already won. (I had several level 9-10 tigers and around 60 priests of leaves, that along with a few Life 2 mages were pretty unstoppable.) Guybrush is basically an adventurer upgraded to a normal champion.

Also, if you have a large stack of workers following your Priests of Leaves around, you can build a lumbermill in one turn once the new forest converts to a regular forest, so you can have a lumbermilled ancient forest. It doesn't work all the time, but it works enough times that it's reliable enough for this strategy.

I'll have to try using RoK, it might be interesting. And when you have as many high pop cities as Falamar does (expansive, charismatic, guardian of nature), your research rates can get pretty ridiculous. And hunting -> way of the forests -> hidden paths is just as 'out of the way' of the naval technologies as mining -> way of the earthmother -> arete.

And yes, I usually go Empyrean with the Lanun (or OO if I'm Hannah) for Rathas or Stygians (and, of course, Chaild). That's just getting a little bit boring.

[ironmetal250]

Also, are there still 'Falamar events?' I've read about them in past threads, and I usually play as him, but have gotten no such thing (I always have blessings of amathon and living world on).

[franconbean]

I think the boarding party is great fun. They are there to allow you to capture other Civs navies, which they are pretty good at until man'o'wars start throwing their weight around.
But yeah... i guess they arent too great on land, like the faction they serve :P
But still as regards to guybrush, a hero is a hero, and the more the better.