FfH-03: FfH2 Latest Release Teaser

From the pedia: Calabim, the Order of Blood.

"The Ice Age almost spelt the end of the Vampires. When the vast sheets spread over the once-fertile land, their main source of food, humanity, started to become scarce and ever more concentrated in small tribes. Fearing a fate worse than death, the shadowy almost-death of a vampire deprived of fresh nourishment for centuries, most vampires tried to cling to the ever-shrinking communities of survivors. A lone vampire trapped in a small group of people quickly switches from hunter to prey. One by one, the vampires were dispatched to the afterlife.
"Of those few vampires who escaped the hunters, most took to a feral existence, living off whatever inferior blood they could scavenge in the wild, preying off the occasional human unfortunate enough to be caught alone. But some wise few realised that the only path to survival lay in making the natural transition from parasite to master.
"Lead by the siblings Alexis and Flauros, a small group of surviving vampires adopted a rag-tag tribe of humans. Using their powers as immortals, unaffected by cold, or exhaustion, gifted with incredible vision and speed, they made sure the tribe had plenty of food. And all they asked in return was an endless, expendable resource: A few drops of blood. But a vampire’s powers are not restricted to supernatural senses and strength – their great power is in the mind.
"Slowly but surely, using their natural powers of guile and persuastion, and dangling the Dark Gift as bait to lure the best and strongest humans into helping them, the vampires wormed their way to the top of their little society. Few wished to oppose them, and risk losing their valuable hunting skills. Those who did, had accidents, or simply disappeared.
"When the humans finally realised what was happening, it was too late. They were trapped in a hellish situation, little more than cattle for a growing class of parasitic nobility, and they had been trapped there of their own free will.
"Now, Flauros and Alexis are the Grand Prince and Princess of a depraved and hopeless society of blood pets and slaves, controlled by the Grand Broods, the vampire families that rule each city as their own personal estate farms, living in decadent luxury, and sating their lust for blood at will. The Calabim are the apex of vampire evolution, an abomination that is the natural enemy of all holy nations."

We are Alexis, Philosophical and Aggressive with UUs of Bloodpets and Moroi.



This SG is a preview to the FfH beta release.
The Options set are:
Mod: Fall from Heaven 110g
Difficulty: Monarch
Map: Panagea
Sealevel: Low
Size: Small
Gamespeed: Quick
Enemies: 5

It is played by Members of the FfH Design Team.
Participating are: Chalid, Corlindale, Loki, woodelf, ????

Here is our starting location:



I moved us south a hair to be closer to cows and away from floodplains so we can build Training Yards and Breeding Pits and not become too unhealthy.

Actual game in next post.

The Time of the Order of Calabim, part I:

Squinting in the morning sun I led my band of pets forth to a fertile land where we could found a land to call "home". In time my pets and I will conquer all of those around us, but for now we need some solitude so we can grow numerous and strong. I directed us to an area rich in animal life and silk, far from prying eyes. Here we founded Presper in year one of the Rebirth:



I immediately set our sages onto the path of Mysticism and began training more Bloodpets for the defense of my Order. My scout and other Bloodpet were sent into the wild to survey our surroundings and see what dangers lurked nearby.

Almost too soon we came in contact with the Doviello and their charasmatic leader Mahala. Although we share some of the same ideals I will not trust him too much.



When Presper finished another Bloodpet I ordered the construction of a Training Yard so that my pets would start their lives stronger and more prepared for battle. And battle was always present as my scouts and Bloodpets found wild animals everywhere, normally guarding valuable resources that we will require to expand.



My sages reported completion of learning about Mysticism so I directed them towards Philosophy. When presper completed the Training Yard I decided we should begin a settler to expand our territory to accomodate our growing population. How the people love me!

We came across a distrubing race of Elves, the Ljosalfar ruled by Arendel Phaedra. I feel that we have nothing in common with these goody, goody types so as of this day forward my plans are to exterminate them.



Another race was shortly discovered called the Illians ruled by Auric Ulvin. He is another who shares some of my views and that in itself makes him untrustworthy!



I fear my time is drawing to end to rule so I look for my successor. In his/her hands I leave a prospering land and many difficult choices. I hope they are up to guiding my people...

Strategy here as well:

1 - Switch to Writing, use Philosophy for KotE?
2 - ?????

1 - Switch to Writing, use Philosophy for KotE?

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It's a bit of a gamble, but it will take us ahead, so I think I'll make the attempt.

Corlindale said:

It's a bit of a gamble, but it will take us ahead, so I think I'll make the attempt.

Click to expand...

A HUGE gamble, but we need to find some nodes with KotE and plan our cities before we get squeezed. This is a higher diff than I'm used to so the number of cities penalty is severe, hence the need for better planning than I normally do.

The next few years of the Calabim empire was very eventful, both in good and bad ways.

My reign started out well, as we received a messenger from our scouts to the north, telling us that they had been taught the secrets of Warfare by the people of a small settlement.

Prespur completed its settler, and I sent it south to found the city of Nubia:


Alas, I should soon come to regret that decision.

But things seemed to bode well for us back then. We discovered the secrets of writing, and and shortly afterwards the lore of Philosophy. This newfound lore led our sages on to yet another discovery:



I then directed our research efforts towards Animal Husbandry, as I feel there must be ways to further exploit the delicious meat of the cows on the fields south of Prespur.

I regret to say that barbarian activity in our land has become quite rampant in the last period. A pack of goblins threatened the city of Nubia, but thankfully we had a scout nearby which managed to reach the city in the nick of time, and defeat the goblins as they attempted to march across the river:



Their victory was short-lived, however. A pack of orcish spearmen appeared out of nowhere a few years later, and they proved too strong for even our experienced scouts. Nubia has been captured by barbarians!



But there is still hope! One of our bloodpets was wandering in the southeast, where he has stumbled upon a source of mana! He has also fought countless beasts and barbarians, and I count him amongst our most experienced warriors. He has even trained especially for attacking cities, thanks to the secrets we learned of Warfare earlier. As I end my reign, he is right outside the city of Nubia, ready to liberate it from the savage barbarians.

Meanwhile, Prespur has been threatened by barbarian activity. Countless orcish warriors keep coming out of the woodlands, but our bloodpets keep them at bay so far. I doubt we can afford to send workers out if we do not manage to secure the borders in the near future:



Apart from an Open Border agreement with the Illians, we have had no contact with other civilizations.

Raging Barbs might be a bit much. We'll be kicking out BPs for a while.

Sounds like you held the Order together quite well Corlindale. How much until we can get a Religion? I assume that's the plan eventually after getting KotE.

I think we might want to wait a bit. Getting KoE the cheap way means that the amount of turns required for Corruption of Spirit seems positively overwhelming, I think it was above 40(and that on quick gamespeed ) Perhaps we could think about building the Great Library to help us along. We might try for it now, but I think it might handicap us a bit to miss out on the many cheaper techs while researching. Though once we get CoS, we'll get Vampires, and that will surely allow us to destroy the barbarians, as well as anyone else we might come across.

I would say our next goal technologywise should be either Bronzeworking or Archery as we urgently need some more powerfull troops. And of course we will want 3 Bloodpets in all our cities for defence.

I feel this will become a very eventfull game

I vote Archery, only because if we go Bronze Working and have no bronze we're fairly screwed.

Archery is good. Then we can give them city garrison promotions.

Corlindale said:

Archery is good. Then we can give them city garrison promotions.

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With Alexis being Aggressive we get Combat1 so the Training Yard will give everyone more xp from the start as well. We might survive if we get Archery!

We could also go for Cartography, and build Pact of the Nilhorn. Might take a while, though.

The barbarian Hordes Attacked without mercy but we were able to take back what was once ours. Our mighty bloodpets support by an powerfull Adept that had learned the spheres of Enchantment and Chaos lead the Attack.

In the meantime Prespur the Attack on Prespur was Pressed on without mercy. And soon the reason became obvious. The Orcish hordes had built an settlement not far to the east. We detached a small force of the adept, or experienced Warriors and an newly acquired recruit to claim those lands for ourselve. Carefulle they marched to the town but as they reached its borders they all got white. The three mighty Orthuss brothers held the city and they stormed out to destroy our detachment. (Ok we have trouble and an bug here.)



After this defeat we did not really know what to do and so we carfully gatehred our forces. A small band of settlers will soon be ready to found a new city, maybe on a lush hull some miles to the northeast. But they will have to wait until at least two more Bloodpets will accompany them.



Nubia is under big distress as they can not yet reach any terrain that allows them to feed their forges and so they build an obelisk to convert the barbarian lands around it. Now at least we will soon be able to build an archery range.

As you can see i marked some possible city spots. The 3 Orthuss aer really a pain. we can only hope they stay there rand continue protecting their city.
I would propose we go for the weel next and head then for bronzeworking. And we need some more cities (with each at last 2 BP) to turn back the fog.
To bad that i lost our cool adept and the killer BP to the orthus

Oh dear Lord! If the Orthus come our way we'll be restarting for sure after getting squashed.

Lurker's Comment: 3 Orthus'es? Eeek.

Not good, not good at all.

I'm basically defending against wave after wave of orcs and goblins right now. Write-up coming shortly.

Chronicles of Calabim, part IV

Troubled times, very troubled times. I inherit a Kingdom besieged by Orc Spearmen and Goblin Hordes. To make matters worse Orthus, the Barbarian King is nearby with 2 identical brothers.



Our sages ignore the cries of battle and finish researching Archery. Hopefully now we can defend with something other than Bloodpets. I direct them to attempt to research the mysterious Wheel I have heard rumors about. Sickness and disease run rampant in our 2 cities so I am forced to switch our civic choice to Agriculture. While doing that I change our Education goals to Apprenticeship in the hope to learn quicker and gain our new troops more knowledge upon completion of their training.

Near Nubia our Bloodpets begin to slowly turn the tide of battle and I allow them to take the battle to the enemy instead of waiting inside the city.



Good news in Prespur as our Settler is complete. Sadly although we know where we'd like to put him, we need to wait for Bloodpets so he can be escorted safely. News comes from an envoy of the Luchuirp, ruled by Garrim Gyr. If we weren't being overrun by barbarians we might consider a war with the Dwarves, but not yet...



Our new Bloodpets created in Prespur start very powerful indeed. They are already very strong and can easily defend against spearmen and goblins. Finally some good news. Once a 4th is created in Prespur I send 2 along with our settler to the Northwest. Prespur begins training an Adept.

News from abroad that a strange religion called the Runes or some such nonsense is founded. Some dwarven hogwash if you ask me. Our sages learn the secrets of the Wheel and begin on Mining.

Our settler and it's 2 escorts arrive safely (after defeating a spearmen and a bear) and settle the city of Acaia. An archery range is immediately begun.



Our long range spotters announce disturbing news....one of the Barbarian Kings is on the move. I fear for our safety and call one of the Bloodpets from Nubia to the captial.



Mining is completed while we watch with held breath as Orthus skirts our lands. Several virgins are sacrificed in hopes to appease whatever Gods he follows. Our sages begin Bronze Working after hearing stories about a strange metal that can be used in weapons.

The Adept is finally trained in Prespur and he is taught Death Magic and Enchantments. His summoned skeletons immediately begin harrassing the goblins and orcs. Orthus passes by Prespur and heads toward Acaia!



My heart is failing after these long and stressful years. My time is nearly up. I broker an Open Border agreement with Sheelba after she offers, but I fear that is the last accomplishment I will make. Orthus passed Acaia on some mission that I am unaware of, thankfully. The virgins must have been of some use.

I leave my successor in a bit of a bind, but our sages tell me Bronze Working is close and the Archery Range is nearly complete in Prespur. Hopefully the Obelisk in Nubia is finished soon as that city hasn't grown since it's inception.

I have no idea what to research after Bronze Working. There are several barb cities around us. If we could get any of those we'd be golden. Orthus continues to plague us even though I got lucky!