Lower Armageddon counter/Foreign Inquisition

I'm new to this mod, and so far in the game I've been playing, the Armageddon counter has hit 39, and lowering it is feeling impossible. There's hardly a list of stuff that will lower the counter. I've already burned down the holy city of the Ashen Veil, and I'm trying to remove it from other cities. However, apparently the Inquisition spell can only be used in your OWN cities, which it never said so anywhere. Is there a way to remove the Ashen Veil from other civ's cities/Lower the Armageddon Counter?

No way to remove it from other civs' cities, you'll need to take the offensive. Especially target the Sheaim who have a ritual for increasing it., the owner of the Proprecy of Ragnarok. Try and help the elohim get on their feet so that they can start producing the Lower Counter ritual.

black_imperator said:

No way to remove it from other civs' cities, you'll need to take the offensive. Especially target the Sheaim who have a ritual for increasing it., the owner of the Proprecy of Ragnarok. Try and help the elohim get on their feet so that they can start producing the Lower Counter ritual.

Click to expand...

So my current strategy was to take over as many cities with the Ashen Veil as I can, Get rid of the Ashen Veil, give it back to heal the tense political relations, and move on. This is the best way?


Also, are there any units that can cross through burning sands tiles? Some evil civ (Can't remember the name) showed up and built 2 cities in the middle of a bunch of burning sands. Is there any way to cross it? The only way I can currently figure it out is to lower the Armageddon counter so the flames will die down

Chingis said:

Also, are there any units that can cross through burning sands tiles? Some evil civ (Can't remember the name) showed up and built 2 cities in the middle of a bunch of burning sands. Is there any way to cross it? The only way I can currently figure it out is to lower the Armageddon counter so the flames will die down

Click to expand...

Having any amount of fire-resistance will let you cross the burning sands. Otherwise, you can use the spring spell to extinguish the fire for a turn, or the sanctify spell to the terrain back to regular desert.

A Moon said:

Having any amount of fire-resistance will let you cross the burning sands. Otherwise, you can use the spring spell to extinguish the fire for a turn, or the sanctify spell to the terrain back to regular desert.

Click to expand...

Slight problem. Dwarves are not wizards, apparently

Spring and Sanctify are both Adept level spells. Even the Khazad can train Adepts.

Chingis said:

However, apparently the Inquisition spell can only be used in your OWN cities, which it never said so anywhere.

Click to expand...

You can Inquisition other player's cities as long as you both are following the same religion.

The AC having a few means of reducing it, is intentional. This is the theme of the game: Erebus is a dangerous place at the very start of the game, and as each turn passes, the world becomes even more broken and chaotic, literally the "going to hell" expression. It also does serve an important game mechanic, in keeping the game more interesting (and challenging), as you progress longer into the game. Without it, continue playing would be boring, as you'd be dominating the world, with nothing to do in the game. It allows for you to enjoy the late game technologies, spells, units, strategies, tactics, and etc, as you try to just survive against the rising AC's challenges. This is a loose paraphrasing of a post by Kael somewhere, talking about this very design decision of having so few means of stopping the AC from rising.

--------------

The only way to keep it from rising, is being (or through) the Elohim civilization, as they have a means (a ritual, I think?) of reducing the AC unlimitedly (...I think).

This is why the Elohim is a very good civilization for new players, along with being a mostly normal (Civ4/BTS) civilization, compared to the more exotic civilizations like the Khazad (vault mechanics feature unique to FFH2, not in Civ4/BTS), Kuriotates (limited quantity but super/3rd ring cities + settlement "cities" limited just for resources), Illians (tundra terraforming and etc features), any of the magic focused civs, and etc exotic civs.

-------------

This is very very very old, but I think it still gives a good synapsis of the civs, FFH2 features, and etc for new players:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=308987

.

Chingis said:

So my current strategy was to take over as many cities with the Ashen Veil as I can, Get rid of the Ashen Veil, give it back to heal the tense political relations, and move on. This is the best way?

Click to expand...

This is not a very good strategy because building a disciple unit to reintroduce the religion is extremely cheap. A better strategy, since you obviously have military superiority, it so use the diplomacy screen to threaten them to change their state religion. There are some problems with this strategy as well, though. Usually the civ will change back to AV 10 turns later, and there are two possible reasons for that. Some civs, primarily the Sheaim, are heavily weighted to adopt AV, so no matter what you do, they will always tend to go back to that. With most other civs, if you want your enemy to stay out of AV, you have to aggressively spread an alternative religion in their cities. That's especially useful if it happens to be YOUR state religion, not only because you could get a religious victory, but also because, as Tholal said, you CAN use Inquisition in their cities that way.

But as everybody else has noted, it is intended to be an uphill battle. Personally, I love it, and often encourage the AC to get to or near 100 before I make a concerted effort to bring it back down. I just love the novel mechanics and the challenge.

Chingis said:

This is the best way?

Click to expand...

No. The best way is to kneel before Hyborem and turn to evil rituals of Ashen Veil (free cookies are included )


You could also spam Order religion. IIRC, Order and AV mutualy exclude each other. But what for? AV gives so pretty bonuses, so its easier to fall from Heaven right into the Sweetest Hell)))

true :
if you spread Order to Them.... it should auto-remove AV.. without even a need for Inquisition

Ummm, no. You can have Order and AV in the same city, and in fact, it causes occasional riots to break out because of it.