My economy doesnt support research

The economics aren't really that different than vanilla Civ IV. The limitations aren't new in this mod. Your original mistake was expanding too quickly.

As far as making vassals... you just have have to try to be the one they capitulate to first. I've had AI offer to be my Vassal before I even started war with him. (I was just about to). In my games, they do war with each other.

To get all the different types of mana, you should first start with metamagic mana and get a mage that can cast "Dispell Magic" on nodes so you can rebuild them with whatever type you need for whatever tower you're building. Then dispell, rebuild again for the next tower. I haven't tried it myself, but I hear that's how it works.

Other victories are a little more diffficult if you haven't planned out ahead of time. Like I just finished a religious victory. But I knew from the beginning that I had to get the other civs to adopt and spread Fellowship of the Leaves. It was actually a lot of work to get 80% religious influence. I was churning diciples out like mad and trying to get access to rival lands to run 'Inquisition' on their cities.

I did a cultural victory once. But that was with the Sidar.... and a near unlimited supply of super-bards.

City Sprawl is a waste most of the time in civ 4 due to maintenance costs. Instead - focus on Specialized cities. One city makes nothing but commerce, the other nothing but hammers. This way you can really boost your economy with % increasing buildings in the commerce / science cities. And don't forget the city with all the food to make great people.

Kattelatte said:

The AI is far too fond of making defensive pacts and vassals, so if i declare any wars the entire set of AI players declare back on me...

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Now you have encountered the religion mechanic. One way to build an economy is to found a religion (especially kilmorph for money). One way to make friends is to convert them. Your enemies made friends with religion.

Next time, you will want to found a religion and spread it.

As as been said, expanding too fast will kill your economy, that was implemented by Civ4, not FfH2.

The way I would approach it at this point is, you've learned a lot about the game and now its time to start a new game to put what you've learned to use and see how much better you can do. Don't get discouraged if you can't finish the first game. A good game isn't supposed to be easy to win, its supposed to challenge you to improve.

I've heard it said that you can learn more by failing than succeeding.

Since you've been playing the Doviello, you might find THIS thread interesting. Mahala can make great use of a Pillage economy once your neighbors have some villages going and Charadon is good at taking his 2nd, 3rd, etc. cities instead of building them himself. The different civs in FfH2 definitely function better when you play to their strengths since they are each quite different from one another.

if u have a huge empire, u for the most part, MUST get maintenance cost to near 0%.

run city state civic, build courthouses (gah, i cna't think of their name..and i was jsut playing a game and building them...lol), move your capitol, build the national wonder that acts and a 2nd palace (if they still ahve it in the game), do anything/everything possible u can to get maintenance reduction. run cheap civics too. high cost civics can hurt u jsut as much too.

switch to the order state religion, so u can build basilica's

(i'm not sure if it's only the bannor civ or if it's the order state religion, but in older versions, i remember some civ could get 0% maintenance. not sure if thats still possible now)

get in a war, and LET ai take some of your cities, lol !!!

or maybe better...gift some cities to them via trade/doplomacy window (if this can still be done...)

As someone who experienced the same things when I first switched to FFH2 a few years back - a quick expansion both through conquest and city-founding often led me to a crushing economic crisis and stagnant research.

I agree with the above advice about quality vs quantity and choosing research and civics carefully with regard to specific goals.

One thing I would add is that just researching say Education for cottages (gives coins) or Agriculture (for city growth & with Aristocracy also gives coins) is not enough; one must also have the workers actually building the cottages/farms in sufficient numbers.

Heh, I'd research these techs but then only have one worker trying to rescue my economy, war effort and research. And then I'd scratch my head and wonder what was taking so long.

(p.s., a raider leader trait can often raise through pillage plenty of coin for quite some time, assuming you're razing towns and such; early game pillage of roads and farms is small. It's all relative though; if you're short 8 coins every turn, a farm or pasture pillage or two could pay your way. Not a long term substitute for lowering city maintenance or growing an economy).

jonathonstrange:

One thing I would add is that just researching say Education for cottages (gives coins) or Agriculture (for city growth & with Aristocracy also gives coins) is not enough; one must also have the workers actually building the cottages/farms in sufficient numbers.

Heh, I'd research these techs but then only have one worker trying to rescue my economy, war effort and research. And then I'd scratch my head and wonder what was taking so long.

HK (me):

that's a really good point. i always go a bit overboard with workers and tile improvement, but many many times i see/play with new people (in BTS or FFH2) who only have a few workers, far far far too few for their empire size (whatever size-stage it may be at).

if you're in conquest mode and keeping cities or expansion mode and spamming cities like crazy, u MUST have an army of workers mass cottaging your empire (or farms if using aristocracy?, the civic that gives +2 commerce and -1 food to farm improved tiles). SE doesn't work over the short term, since u can't waste or don't have time to build buildings for specialists since u need to make military units or the buildings jsut take too long to build and are too many of them. cottages are faster for commerce than specialists-farms are for commerce.

Oh, i think it's a really good thing to keep in mind: Law mana decreases empire maintenance by 5% per node. That's CUMULATIVE with other similar bonus' (Though I think it's multiplicative with city states and Aristocracy, meaning less valuable).

For example: Courthouse decreases Maintenance by 40%. 4 Law nodes would decrease it by another 20%.

Also, keep in mind that maintenance reducers approach zero, so that means each law node you build is more valuable than the last, in a quadratic factor.

good addition about law mana, we forgot to mention it.

though finding/getting/having 4 law manas (or 4 mana resources in general) can be quite hard or impossible depending on game type, settings, and such.

depending on factors, in some games, you're lucky to even have a single mana resource attainable.

and you're probably not gonna waste it on law jsut for the -% maintence reduction, since first of all "being lucky to even being able to attain 1 mana resource" usually means u don't have many cities/territory (due to map size, # of civs, difficulty, and etc type factors) and so u don't need -% maintenance reduction (law mana) anyways

The opposite is true as well though.

Those empires in most need of the lowered maintenance are also the most likely to have multiple mana. Making Law mana the real odd exception in that the passive effect is possibly by far more important than the spells it grants.
If your Empires spans a large continent or multiple small ones, spamming law nodes (especially if you have a mage or three with Meta 2 handy allready. ) might be the order of the day. Mind can go home in comparison.

Trade. Harbors. Inns. Taverns. Obsidian Gates.
Smugger's Ports if you're that way inclined. Trade is the key to wealth Who cares about maintenance when your cities are rolling in money?

Blackmantle said:

The opposite is true as well though.

Those empires in most need of the lowered maintenance are also the most likely to have multiple mana. Making Law mana the real odd exception in that the passive effect is possibly by far more important than the spells it grants.
If your Empires spans a large continent or multiple small ones, spamming law nodes (especially if you have a mage or three with Meta 2 handy allready. ) might be the order of the day. Mind can go home in comparison.

Click to expand...

Yeah, one odd trick I like to do is play the Clan by rapid expanding and plopping down Law nodes everywhere. They can expand on fairly empty areas at amazing speeds, and can build adepts sans mage guilds. If you ever get the magic 12 law nodes... Amazing things tend to happen .

Play Khazad, spam mines, build gold in your production cities occasionally, BAM, done!