Game Journal, Monarch, New to FfH

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:

OK, I played to turn 68. My capital is at population 4, I have 3 warriors and a settler at home and one warrior exploring. I built the early science building and got the event to choose a bonus to add to it. I chose +2 gold so I can build a cash reserve for events without dropping my science slider. I actually get 3 gold/turn thanks to the Capital bonus.

I've explored all but the northern tip of what appears to be a large isolated start. I have one warrior up there to verify. I think I'm going to settle to the west for now; if I'm alone on my landmass, I can avoid sealing off my territory - the whole damn island is mine unless I'm really slow!

I'm always divided in settlement strategy between trying to work every good tile and sacrificing a handful of tiles to give each city its own BFC. Thoughts?


My starting area fully mapped:




The northern area that could potentially lead to more land and a rival on my continent, to be verified in a few turns if my wounded explorer hobbles his way to completing the mission, although I think he's about to get eaten by another friggin polar bear:



Edit - a survey of the world on tech came out, I was on the bottom, I think it was sometime in the 40s... No shocker there, Monarch penalty means I won't be able to take the tech lead until I develop a solid economy. Also, I got a Savant from the Skeleton camp by my city and toyed with the idea of adopting Ashen Veil for the early religion despite being the exact opposite of my game plan and my race's flavor, but a polar bear solved the conundrum for me -_-

- please include resource bubbles (crtl-r)
- please post the save along with screenshots

With this start you should have researched at least Agriculture, and probably Calendar, before Mysticism, and started improving tiles. That would have helped you grow faster, support a Scientist after you built the Elder Council, and with Calendar, get more commerce. Research those and Exploration next, before Code of Laws. Then Education for Apprenticeship and maybe cottages, then Crafting -> Mining so that you can improve forest tiles (and build mines, and see if there's Copper around). Then you can consider other techs.

While settling coastal is good for the trade route bonuses later, settling on the river probably would have been better for the the commerce from river tiles and resources and most of all possibility of the Brewhouse national wonder, for the commerce bonuses with grain resources. Even if you want to run a lot of specialists, it is good to try to have at least one commerce city, with the Brewhouse (assuming you can find and get grain resources).

You should try playing some MP games that would help you get better.

Okay, got a little carried away and played to turn 189... Kinda forgot about taking screenshots during play but I grabbed a couple at the end. I've also attached my current save.

I've got 4 settlements now, 3 of which are big enough to have happiness problems. I founded Order as the second religion after Fellowship of Leaves, and it's spread to all my cities. I'm building the first Order hero in my capital now. I've got 3 coastal cities and one up along the rivers. I got the brewing company in my first expansion to the west, but no wheat to be seen. I got improvement techs before Order and am well on my way to working my tiles effectively, although the hordes of skellies and goblins from raging barbs cost me a couple warriors and one worker. After I get my hero out, I'm gonna use him to clear the continent of spawn sites while I get a few more workers and warriors out to secure and develop my lands. I'm working on a few more expansions. Once I've got barb spawns down under control, I can use my hero to defend frontiers and expand quicker. Getting to Hunters for faster units to guard my Settlers might not be a bad idea.

My other priority is getting a couple ships out to sea to meet some other civs and trade tech. I think if I manage the midgame expansion phase well and fill my continent in a reasonable time frame, and meet some neighbours to keep on top of the tech curve, I am in a solid position to win this one. My starting position really is excellent. Then again, I haven't met the neighbours yet...

Oh, by the way, the Sheiam died a while ago. Significantly less risk of the world going boom this game, yay!

edit - the screenshot of my land with resources shown didn't take, apparently. There's a fish and a crab in range of my eastern city, reagents up north and the cotton tiles I'm working plantations on.

I like your city placement.

You need workers, a lot more workers though.

OK, I played to 290.... This game may be going *too* well for my purposes, heh.

I sent Valin north to clear monster camps when he built. He got the teleport result to another continent and so far has captured 3 barbarian cities, one of which is a decent size. I've met several rivals and currently sit at the top of the score board for known empires. Better yet, my economy still hasn't come close to fully taking off (still got happiness problems all over the place and tons of undeveloped land). I'll probably have to stick with City States until I can build my other palaces and whatnot to keep maintenance under control.

It looks like I have basically another start region to myself in the barb conquered lands, plus a MASSIVE region that appears to be controlled by barbs to the north. My only rival by land is a pathetic Illian city - stupid AI built their capital with no food in the BFC, so they have one city at size 2 that I know of and it doesn't appear they have any more. They haven't broken 300 score yet.

I've traded my way into a great position tech-wise. I had to give the Lanun a free tech to warm them up, but then I made a 4-for-4 tech trade that put them in contention for second and me in first.

My plans in order:
1. Build an army in my barb-captured cities.
2. Take the Illian capital and put it to better use.
3. Take my army north and conquer a ton of barb cities, filling in the empty space with Settlers, to claim that massive area as quickly as possible before AIs bring armies and settlers in boats.
4. Do whatever I want with my insurmountable lead.

I've got a bunch of screenshots for everyone, plus an updated save file. I'll post them in a bit.

Ooooh, if you take the Illian capital, you could do the coveted "Elohim Ascension," where you build Auric and freeze the world in the name of righteousness and peace.

Blegh forgot to post this stuff... I'll just attach the save, gonna play the next set of rounds tomorrow.

Looking forward to more analyis. Liked your start.

Having your hero teleport to another continent would not have been so convenient if you had any rivals on your starting land mass. Thats why I always bring some 'redshirts' to clear the lairs, just like good ol' Captain Kirk. Move Hero+cannonfodder onto lair. Next turn, cannonfodder explores lair. Chances are A) he stirs up trouble and hero cleans up the mess, B) He gets possesed by demons and hero cleans up the mess C) he teleports somewhere and a polar bear cleans up the mess or D) He finds something cool and the hero survives the trip home with the new toy.

I hope this game isn't dead... I've updated my FFH version since I started it, not sure if any of the recent updates break savegames. I'll test it out when I get the chance; I'd love to continue playing this one. If not, I'll start a new game. I've played a bit more and have a better idea how to start in FFH so I think I'll do better anyway, although it's hard to match the luck of a new continent full mostly of barbarians that early via teleporter and a large, empty starting continent!