I've been playing Civ4 for a while and recently decided to try out FfH2. I've played a few games on Noble/Prince and gotten by without fully understanding or exploiting all the new game mechanics. I also have a nasty habit of reloading from saves or restarting altogether when the going gets rough, so I have yet to actually finish a game.
I'm going to play a game a few stages at a time and keep a running game journal going on this thread with screenshots and analysis. I hope it will make an interesting read, but I'm also hoping for strategic feedback from more experienced players. I have yet to try FfH on Monarch and usually play on Prince in 'regular' civ (actually Rise of Mankind, I haven't played vanilla BTS in ages), so without help or my usual reloading crutches I doubt I'll do particularly well. Whether you're new as well or a FfH guru, I'd appreciate your thoughts on my gameplay decisions, both past and present, as the game develops. If you're newer to Civ/FfH than I am and have questions for me or others, feel free to ask. Hopefully this game will serve as a diagnostic and a useful contextual example to explain some gameplay concepts to newer players.
Onto the game itself. I've started with myself and 7 AI civs on random race/leader, difficulty Monarch. Raging Barbs is on, no other checkbox options. Default Erebus map script, random climate and sea level, Standard size, Normal speed. If I left anything out here let me know and I'll clarify. I'm playing on the most recent version of BTS and FfH2 as of this posting, no modmods.
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I start as Elohim on some coastal hills, near a mountain and a couple water resources. My plan from the start is to go for a specialist strategy if possible (should be able to utilise all those tasty river tiles for early food) and aim for a religious win, although I don't really know how the mechanics for that and other 'builder wins' work in FfH so I hope I get some guidance later. Early on I'll focus on food, mining my hills for needed hammers and at least one early religion.
I decide to move my settler to the southwest, hoping to work some river tiles and avoid non-coastal water tiles and the mountain tile if possible. I find a nice stretch of coastal hills for my settler. I send my scout toward the hut and my warrior follows the settler to explore close by while being ready to defend in the event of an early game threat.
Since I'm not settling for at least a turn, I take the opportunity to switch to Nationalism for the military unit boost - I won't have much in the way of GP production to take advantage of Pacifism for a while yet anyway, and the swing from -20% to +10% will make a tangible difference for early game warrior production and such. Every turn counts, of course, but especially the first few dozen, and if I can cram a whole extra Warrior or Scout into my early game that could be a big help later on.
Sorry for the heavy screenshots, but the first few turns are crucial. If I find myself in trouble down the road, there's at least even money that I really lost myself the game in the first 50 turns, so I'm gonna play the early game very slow with lots of feedback.
I find a perfect spot one more turn away and go for it. I'll get almost all forested rivers and hills with 2 cotton resources in my BFC, coastal but with very few water tiles. My Scout pops a map which reveals a lush starting area of moderate size with what appears to be a point narrow enough to block off with one well-placed city right below the Tomb of Sucelius to the north. I'll plan to rush a settler north there, find a good spot or two further north to grab before anyone else gets there if I don't bump into another civ too close and then fill in my sealed off starting region at a slightly slower pace while developing my economy. If I start near a non-Good civ, I may take the chance to rid myself of a future rival and Tolerate my way right into a second Palace.
Here's the view right before I build my city, next screenshot will be if anything interesting happens early game or once I build my first Settler. I'll probably stop for feedback at that point and continue on later. I'll be gone this weekend so if I don't play again before Friday, don't expect to hear from me for a few days (and wish me luck in NYC competing to qualify for the National Debate Tournament!).
EDIT: Posted too soon, oops! I'll add in the view pre-city and the rest of my play tonight will be in a separate post in a little while.
My soon-to-be-city:
And the view my hut-popped map gave me of the north:
I'm going to play a game a few stages at a time and keep a running game journal going on this thread with screenshots and analysis. I hope it will make an interesting read, but I'm also hoping for strategic feedback from more experienced players. I have yet to try FfH on Monarch and usually play on Prince in 'regular' civ (actually Rise of Mankind, I haven't played vanilla BTS in ages), so without help or my usual reloading crutches I doubt I'll do particularly well. Whether you're new as well or a FfH guru, I'd appreciate your thoughts on my gameplay decisions, both past and present, as the game develops. If you're newer to Civ/FfH than I am and have questions for me or others, feel free to ask. Hopefully this game will serve as a diagnostic and a useful contextual example to explain some gameplay concepts to newer players.
Onto the game itself. I've started with myself and 7 AI civs on random race/leader, difficulty Monarch. Raging Barbs is on, no other checkbox options. Default Erebus map script, random climate and sea level, Standard size, Normal speed. If I left anything out here let me know and I'll clarify. I'm playing on the most recent version of BTS and FfH2 as of this posting, no modmods.
----------
I start as Elohim on some coastal hills, near a mountain and a couple water resources. My plan from the start is to go for a specialist strategy if possible (should be able to utilise all those tasty river tiles for early food) and aim for a religious win, although I don't really know how the mechanics for that and other 'builder wins' work in FfH so I hope I get some guidance later. Early on I'll focus on food, mining my hills for needed hammers and at least one early religion.
I decide to move my settler to the southwest, hoping to work some river tiles and avoid non-coastal water tiles and the mountain tile if possible. I find a nice stretch of coastal hills for my settler. I send my scout toward the hut and my warrior follows the settler to explore close by while being ready to defend in the event of an early game threat.
Since I'm not settling for at least a turn, I take the opportunity to switch to Nationalism for the military unit boost - I won't have much in the way of GP production to take advantage of Pacifism for a while yet anyway, and the swing from -20% to +10% will make a tangible difference for early game warrior production and such. Every turn counts, of course, but especially the first few dozen, and if I can cram a whole extra Warrior or Scout into my early game that could be a big help later on.
Sorry for the heavy screenshots, but the first few turns are crucial. If I find myself in trouble down the road, there's at least even money that I really lost myself the game in the first 50 turns, so I'm gonna play the early game very slow with lots of feedback.
I find a perfect spot one more turn away and go for it. I'll get almost all forested rivers and hills with 2 cotton resources in my BFC, coastal but with very few water tiles. My Scout pops a map which reveals a lush starting area of moderate size with what appears to be a point narrow enough to block off with one well-placed city right below the Tomb of Sucelius to the north. I'll plan to rush a settler north there, find a good spot or two further north to grab before anyone else gets there if I don't bump into another civ too close and then fill in my sealed off starting region at a slightly slower pace while developing my economy. If I start near a non-Good civ, I may take the chance to rid myself of a future rival and Tolerate my way right into a second Palace.
Here's the view right before I build my city, next screenshot will be if anything interesting happens early game or once I build my first Settler. I'll probably stop for feedback at that point and continue on later. I'll be gone this weekend so if I don't play again before Friday, don't expect to hear from me for a few days (and wish me luck in NYC competing to qualify for the National Debate Tournament!).
EDIT: Posted too soon, oops! I'll add in the view pre-city and the rest of my play tonight will be in a separate post in a little while.
My soon-to-be-city:
And the view my hut-popped map gave me of the north: