The immortal playnow challenge

You know the rules.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=275212

I'm still experimenting with varios civs but I assure you a Svalt entry eventually.

FFH 032a

Played with Grigori, it's still not finished, perhaps i'll post that later.

Got 6 adventurers, 4 are adepts without any promotions but tons of xp, 2 aren't upgraded. The dragon is still alive. I think it's worth to capture him instead of slaying If you want you can continue...

While it is off topic, I've been meaning to ask... what's a Svalt, anyway?

I can't think of any logical way of shortening Svartalfar to that.

Hehe, but you are cheating cause you are a swede and inheritable know exactly what svart means . I presume svalt is some kind of shortening of first [Sva] from svart and then Al from alfar, and then the ending of svar[t] on that. Or maybe it's just a mistake.

Anyways, for any interested that didnt know. Svart means black. Alfar means elves.

BCalchet said:

While it is off topic, I've been meaning to ask... what's a Svalt, anyway?

I can't think of any logical way of shortening Svartalfar to that.

Click to expand...

Thanks. I have a way of misspelling or conjugating things over and over, and rarely does someone stop me. It's because I always called them Drow and I've still not cognisized (sp?) svart (black) alfar (elf). Perhaps now I've got it.

I like to think of these buffoonish mistakes as a sort of subconcious rhetoric

I'm not sure if my Svart strat (well, now, that doesn't work... does it?) will be Chalid or Arch supported, each path is so much fun.

I'll eventually have time to play on weekend. I'm eager to try Decius, either with Malakim or Calabim, not decided yet. Hopefully I'll post the result then.

I was all inspired to play Hippus again after Sureshot's last entry, I have never really played them until then and never played Great Plains, nor "Play Now".

I found the game play to be very different in 0.32 compared to 0.31, more difficult. Technology was the hardest to keep pace with my rivals, not to mention the worker advantage the AI has at the start.

Here is my entry;
AD-0070 First Blood - War on The Clan
AD-0097 Second Blood - War on Balspheres
AD-0118 Third Blood - War on Kuraites
AD-0135 Forth Blood - War on Caliban
AD-0145 Fifth Blood (Final) - War on Malikin
End Game - AD-0153

No reloads.
I made an error in judgment and asked for Construction from Malikin whilst preparing to go to war with him as I wanted bridge building, not realising that this would cause a 10 turn peace. I should have won about 5-6 turns earlier.

Ooops, put them in the wrong thread since my Game was 0.32. Sorry on that. (your right with that the 2 Versions are quite different. Just rememerbered the thread-name wrongly.)

Here the saves for my Sidar domination game (the challenge trial that i actually finished and did no reloads) described in the Ecofarm-Challenge 031. thread.

Oh and the game is 0.32.a. (B/C/D break this save game. So take note. ) Next one will probably be on d.

Did one with the new Kuriotates. They still seem to be a very weak civ, but anything is playable against the AI. ~210 Turns, final score was 160k.

Here another Game as the Sidar. This time on deity. (Version 0.32.d)
The rest is again play now, creation and standart speed. No reloads just 3 or 4 session continuals.


Won a cultural victory on Turn 361 (which whould be about Turn 180-190 on Quick i guess) for 37xxx Points (seems awfully low for a deity game. But i didn't expand that vigorously since i tried to round up cultural from ~turn 250 so this might be from my small country and folks.). The last save is just the turn before the 3rd city attained legendary culture. (the first one is Initial of course)
i guess this particular game whould have went in my favor rather independently of the map type due to the way it went.
The whole thing played out utterly different this time with much more focus on diplomacy and trade (first game for me where it runs in such an extremely friendly way at least on monarch and up. Which is really long ago. No opposition and internal rivalries from about turn 150 till the end. And no pestering for this and that all few turns.).
(had luck falamar was around to accept the Entropy Mana from the Stigmata might have been a bit different otherwise but still quite clearly as one big block...)

In the end Friendly with all factions (and most of my higher tier Techs stem from trade, save Warhorses and Commune with Nature which i researched first and didn't trade) exept for Cassiel which is pleased (everyone but Cassiel is in the overcouncil and Cassiel is Arendels Vasal. Poor Grigori have been extremely backwards most of the game. See that is what you get if you are the only one nobody wants to play with.
And one serious example why Grigori / other agnostics should really get access to Honor and Deception back) . Baerie Brawl even gave "a little something for me" (rage! ) without me even asking (or needing for that matter. but i didn't "say no" to my buddy for sure). Quite weird peacemonger game. (world/scenery spanning defensive pact in place as well (Decius / Runes, Sidar which was me with many Religions and Esus in the End, Ljosalfar under Arendel / Fol, Lanun under Falamar / Runes, Luchirp / Mercurians Bearie Brawl/Basium both Empyrean and long time brothers in Faith and sadly excluded: Cassiel). I guess invading that part of the world whould have been a major headace for any force of evil. Only Varn Gosam was missing, otherwise the good-doers connection of Lugus whould have been complete . Hyborem and his Summoner whould have been so dead... )

But one thing seems utterly obvious from that game is that the AI is completely unable to pursue any kind of victory otherwise 3 or 4 of them might have won around Turn 300 for sure (any one of Cultural, ToM or Altar. Even if the last one might have been close due to missing omiscience for some even at the end of the game. Any other victory was completely out of question for anyone.).
Using spells (save druids. Which the AI uses quite well) seems also not one if its strengths. Archeron is still around next to cassiel. (For readers who don't know why this is odd: Grigori Palace gives Spirit Mana. Next to me Archeron whould have died around Turn 100 at the latest...)

And Falamar is a real tech and trade junkie for sure. He raced the tree so amazingly fast it was mad and with a relatively small nation as well which made him rather backwards pointwise later in the game. (made some dire and really dumb mistakes on my part due to lack of attention (those i whould have surely reloaded in a regular game since they were painstakingly obvious. But i went on without here since it was just a delay and not a real game-stopper.) in the game though and quite closely got beat to some important wonders (Form of the Titan, the Greath Library and the Theatre of Dreams . Which all 3 whould have helped massively in terms of ending the game remarkably faster.). Otherwise the game may have ended with cultural victory already about 50-70 Turns earlier. But no one stood even a faint chance on that in reagards to Falamar who founded all Religions save Fol (Arendel) and OO + Veil devil: me) and built most wonders anyways.)

Oh and one last note to poor bored Basium+Mercurians:
No Demons or Undead for him and his angels to smash the whole game. Better go elewhere next time...

All in all much more fun and interesting than the domination game and i guess also played a bit better despite the mistakes.


@ Ecofarm: Off to play Marnoks Modmod "Explorable Lairs" now. Much more interesting. Even if your challenge was fun while it lasted and i now belive i can play completely without or at least without frequent reloading which is a good thing (more fun and less time-consuming as well. ). Still hate Battles with Odds below 95...

Perhaps you should try that Modmod a few times as well. AI might suck but a bunch of tier 4 baddies in the early turns ~100 (along with an army of Tier 2 and Skelletons) surely does not... Maybe thats even an adequate challenge for your Empyrean-Svartalfar.

Perhaps even interesting for a bit of fun in Multiplayer on occasion. Even though not exactely balanced (in Players vs. AI it might still work out even if the AI most assuredly will go down quite fast for most part).

And you will learn to like archers there i assure you... Also unlike the regular mod very much suited to the advanced starts you rather like. (at least gives some remote chance of survival to the AI . And you for that matter. )

I'm noticing a Crap ton of Great Bards in your cities. With the entire world at peace, did you get all of those from arcane units?

Wait.. what the heck.. How did you kill 91 'ravenous werewolves' during that game? It looks like you built Duin at some point (Though I guess you waned him or lost him, since he's dead at the end here).

74 Bears is rather impressive too. I'm guessing you set up a little farm, and attacked them with cheapo scouts until you got 'lucky'? (Can't figure out why you've got so many scouts in your empire).

Well it was a little game of mug the werewolf and later after some dumb handling of them a little game of mug the bear. (and i got unlucky on Bear-Mutations as well) The best way to get shades. En masse. And the main reason why for sidar Slower = better and game speed doesn't proportionally scale to the number of shades. Since Scouts are built one a turn down to epic if set up right.

Just build Duin and have fun. For a start. (losing the "74 Werevolves" and Duin was the most serious mistake i did and mentioned and losing the "73" bears nearly as dumb (please don't call the animal rights-activists for torturing animals after ive told you how.). One by accident one by a 96% battle. Never do a battle with Duin below 99% best >99,9% only )

Here is the buildup for a Sidar Cultural Victory (roughly, but Sidar play a very simmilar way in early buildup no matter what you play.).


1st Go Education for Cottages. (also needed for Warfare)
2nd Beline Military Strategy first and in force (for Bronze, Axemen, Form of Titan! (missed that one to falamar in that game quite closely. ), Greath Commander--->Command Post!.)
3rd Go KoE (Enchanted Blade that may kick barbs ass. And enchanted warriors still earn lots of XP. If you can build Catacomb. Liberal Upgrading of Mages Helps. Loads.).
If no copper is near may go KoE from mining. If Barbs are really serious. Try to get 3-5 Shades from barbs / early warriors. Settle as Engineers and / or Sages. If that is done the hardest part of the game is over since you will tech and build really good for that time in the game. Fresh Axes / Warriors with bronze + enchanted blades handle barbs just fine. Chose the Battlefield so Odds are in your favor and promote late to get alot of xp. Do battles with fresh troops at not-so well odds allright. 17+ EP only if you are sure to win. That will be shades for sure then.

Go Drama afterwards and build Theatre of Dreams (unless difficulty is lower and you have time. I missed them in that game quite clearly. Both of them. ).

After that (in order of choice / game situation whatever. Priority is not anymore that important as long as you get there in Time):
Get OO and Mind Stapling (Asylums for Lunatics. Reason later as seen in "mug the werwolf"). If you are the only one to have OO this has time until late.

If you can afford go to Poisions and Tracking. Build Rathus, take his blade, shade him and build the Shrine of the Champion in the city with the command post.
Found Anerons Bounty and spread liberally.
Then go Feral Bond and build duin (very important. If you get him you virtually have wrapped up the game. A warning though. Never get him near an oposing satyr. Did this mistake in my immortal challenge.)

Go Trade and Honor (needn't get honor first but early sure helps.). Be founding member of the overcouncil and go head for at least one season. Adopt Liberty, Trade routes and if you like public healers the rest is up to you. Afterwards it doesnt matter. Delaying the ban on death by staying head might help later but is minor.
Build the Heroic Epic in the city with the command post.
Adopting Empyrean sure helps for a time (can change any time later if you like). (Rathas are ecellent in chosing the Battlefield and Sidar Rathas / Ratha-War-Chariots kick ass later on. Homeland helps with high withdrawl for more safe Shades. Don't forget to build a Ludrius (Empyrean Priests Tier 2) or the other and Spread Temples with each religion you have or adopt to you 3 "legendary hopefuls". Also spare 2 or 3 of those for later).
Go Divination.
Go Religious Law. (For Chalid + Theocrathy. Law 2 First. If you want to change Religion later feel free to shade him. "Just" loses his power and Pillar of fire. Can still cast freely. )
Beeline Stirups and use Tower of Divination for Warhorses (unless on lower difficulties you can afford to tech Warhorses allright in which case you spare the Tower for Pass through the Ether / nexus). Build Ride of the nine Kings in City with Shrine of Champion + Command Post. Afterwards build Hippodrome there.

All of those 3 blocks are interchangable to your preference and the flow of the game.

All the while Shading some Units to Engineers / Merchants and Sages as you see fit. Getting the Library sure helps and makes Sages the more interesting choice.

Adopt Aprenticeship, Theocracy and Conquest.

If you accomplish all that then you can produce the following Units out of the box:

Mounted in Capital / Shrine at 22 XP (4 away from Shade which is 1 Combat with Valor.), Recon at 10 (12 with a command post from a possible further commander 14 if you get Nox-Nocturnis at the same place)
8 everything Everywhere / 10 in cities with command posts + others from buildings like Lunaators Altar.

Now time to play mug the Wherewolf.
Thats the way it goes: Build tons of Scouts with the odd Ranger / Ghost in between.
Promote the Scouts to Combat 1, Subdue Animal Combat 2.
Kill Barbs with Duin until you get a ravenous.
Get the Ravenous near a city you like (preferebly some Druids / Chalid / High-Priests or at least priests nearby for medical assistance if needed.).
Cast Valor on the Scouts, Cast Courage on the Scouts (if you have by odd luck Body. Cast Regeneration on the Scouts, Bless the scouts might Save Combat 2)

Then promote the Ranger / Gost.

Next give the enraged wherewolf the boot. He won't like that and: turn on you.

Time to call the ranger / ghost-task force and kick his butt.

Result Ravenous Werewolf gets subdued. And harmed badly (to power 1,3).

Guess what: Give him the boot. He won't like that and turn on you.

What to do now? Call the Scouts (odds on Normal terrain 99,5% with subdue and Combat 2 enough to be sure.)
Time for a game of: Mug the Werewolf.
(Scouts move 2 so disband RW move in move back)
Rinse repeat. 4 Turns later behold your Army of shades. Build Scouts, rinse repeat. (Scouts get 4 XP per combat with Valor from that so 4 battles will be enough at 10+XP. You can send in your Ghost / Ranger from time to time as well but he will take longer to win.)

Should you loose your werewolf (because of stupid grouping with a nonsubdual-unit or forgetting to promote your odd Scout subdue) or want to train more shades at different places few and far between: Send the Baron or the Wolves fitter than one of your Scouts hunting to get more than one Ravenous. And play multiple Games of mug the Werewolf. Wherever and whenever you like.

Should the odd Ravenous Werewolf win: He then turns blooded loses Enraged and can be caught to fight and catch more Ravenous ones. So that a dead Baron doesn't mean the end to it.


In absence of Wherewolves take Chaos Mana and catch + mutate some Animals until they go enraged or by miles better yet crazed (one crazed animal is worth an empire of shades. Treasure them and declare nationality as soon as you can. Oh and mug them naturally. But don't! tell Greenpeace as they might not approve. Bears, Elephants and Spiders yield really nice XP that way. Elephants are a bit more dangerous but scouts are built fast so for a crazed one thats fine if he wins the odd time or the other. At least then its not all that one sided.)


If you are making some serious mistakes like me and waste them all take option B:


Always build mounted units for 18 (is Minimum for Level 5)/20/ 22 XP and send them on the Barb hunt (With Valor added). In absence of Barbs build Lunatics, When they turn Enraged give them the boot and mug them. Shade the mounted.


Then send those Shades to do what you like. In that case: Making Art. (Pictures of how to mug a werewolf perhaps. )




For real added hiliriousness:
1. add the soul Forge
2. build a Scout promote him with Subdue Animal and upgrade to Mounted.
3. Afterwards promote him to blitz (Some Way off. Level 8 or Level 7 + Shrine of Champion required which is doable with some Barb-Hunting. Best is Mutation with Combat 1 + Canibalize in which case only Level 6 + Shrine is needed. ),
4. build an "arena" of terrain and units to contain the werewolf around the city with said forge and
5. do some serious werwolf buttkicking (with Engineering on Roads around the city each movement-point 3 equals Werewolf-Buttkicks / Werewolf-Souls. Also works without mounted but equals less moves later on and a less interesting unit when trained to 300+XP.).
That way you get a) a very highly promoted Unit (valor or Greath Commander required) easiely good enough for freeing Brigit or to rival Vampires. b) some serious Production and c) many shades from the "bystanders" who should be scouts with subdue and enter the fray when the mounted unit/s (yes that works with as many subdueing blitzing mounted units as you like...) is finished. Thats more fun with non-cultural since by the time you pull that one off cultural will allready be done.
Oh and the Blitz-Part can be axed if you owe the axe of Orthus. That works for up to 2 Mounted Units a turn then.

But the Axe is extremely valuable even for the basic game of Mug the Werewolf since you can take your Hunters / Ghosts to chase the Werewolf as well and Turn into shades rather fast.


But thats a little minigame anyways and not needed (and the soul-catching sounds like an exploit. Doub't that the poor fella has that many lives / souls to spare). Is handy though if you really like Wonders fast or the Rites of Oghma. (Way to expensive. But enough Werwolf-Souls will build it for you. Hands down.)


But in all honesty: Mounted 22 xp + Barbs + Lunatics was enough for Turn 361. And Baerie + Basium didn't get to enter my borders until around Turn 320 when i converted Council and build some Shadows to mug their troops trespassing my lands and get some Shades in the proces.


If you don't go cultural victory: go undercouncil. Adopt Slave trade. Build Asylums everywhere. And whenever you feel like it buy a slave, upgrade him to Lunatic and give him the boot (on upgrade they always start enraged. So no waiting here ). Afterwards mug him.


Gold intensive at first but after 10 or 20 Turns the Shades turned greath Merchants will make more than up for that one.
Much more reliable and in line with balance. Even though Enrage is indeed working as designed (just a negative feature turned net positive...) i doubt that the Soul-Forge thing is intended... That just feels so wrong. And perhaps should be fixed to exclude animals

Oh and if you get some Elephants: Upgrade them to War Elepants (as early as you can) get them mobility 2 from Barbs, then cast into the mist and send them to a neighbor in a caravel (relations to the naighbor dont matter. HN can move everywhere as can Caravels.) then go for some Gold-Minig and wreck his Economy with impunity. 3 of those can trash a big empire to a grinding halt and net you a fortune in the proces.. (easily enough to buy some Slaves + Upgrade to Lunatics + boot and mug them.)



Oh and thats not the worst. Balspheraph can do that game with loki from the beginning. Mutate some Animals and use those enraged / crazed ones to train your Recon. Level 10 + Units in Ancient Age rocks. Also should you get a War-Elephant with cannibalize or even the odd blitz your nearest Neighbor is toast then. Tried this once on quick once and my War Elephant ran out of Promotions around Turn 140 after finishing one civ and seriously mugging another. .


Also albeit less reliably you can do mug-the Lunatic / Enraged guy with a Command 3/4 Priest. Still holds for some nice rounds. Especially nice with an OO or Empyrean Priest turned Druid while running Order. Works with Animals as well. But Lunatics yield better XP.

Ah, I see your werewolf business is one of the exploits that people did via gifting animals, except with 'crazed' units. Works with lunatics to a lesser degree I guess.

Very outside the box way to build XP though, I gotta admit. Still rubs me the wrong way though hehe.

The way the gift exploit worked :
1. Build an adept
2. go to an ally.
3. Gift him the adept / other Unit that starts with a free promotion
4. Have him move the Adept back to your territory
5. He gifts it back to you.
6. rinse, repeat.

Result: As many Promotions as you like on the adepts for you and / or your ally.

(never used it, you seem to confuse that with other things that one was not with animals but with units who get free Promotions to start with, also only worked in multiplayer (which i haven't done so far. So i couldn't anyways) but some issues to be seen in Single-Player as well like gifting unlimited permanent Summons to a Vasall / Friend to fight proxy-wars and the like. Which i tried once each to see if they work and then let be because i knew that this could hardly be WaD. It was allready reported by then so a report was moot.)


So: Hardly. Since there is a stark difference between gifting (which is not intended to even exist. As seen in the changelog) without any limit and disbanding enraged units which is limited and costly as well as ment to be a disadvantage of enraged.. Which is exactely working as designed.
First breaks unit-limits / tech limits and distinction between civs (which are clear guidlines by design) and gives unlimited free Promotions on adepts without any prerequirements save KotE or risk involved.
(But gifting might even get a rework in some way and be reimplemented. So maybe its just that way of gifting which was not intended.)

For the second one you got a clear invenstment in terms of resources + limits and quite some time to set up (and also some chance involved in fighting + setting up. Even 90%+ Battles can go wrong after all. Then you lose Enraged and have to wait for a crazed one to go enraged again. Baron also doesn't always give a ravenous after each fight.).

Thats why gifting was clearly broken but buttkicking Enraged Units is clearly not (and i Mutated 12 or so bears + some other animals to get one with enraged in that game, so its very much dependant on Luck. And by no means reliable / very well possible to get none, if you are at all lucky enough to subdue some wild animals.
Unlike bying / building Lunatics which is more costly for being very much reliable.).
Also save Rangers / Druids / Beastmaters Units don't start with subdue Animal from the get-go. And Command 3 / 4 is also not that easy to come by.

The only exeption is the Bals which can do it from the Start (with loki). But it fits their flavor very well to play games with their units / animals. And to send an really badass mutated elephant on rampage on occasion + opportunity.


Read Kaels comments on game-design / what is creative use of Features and what is bug / broken before calling exploit at every synergy you spot which is even remotely powerful (a word overused by balancing-fanatics in these subforums and clearly harmful to any discussion about the games features (and those are the sure killer to any fun game if heeded to much. Their place is in e-sports or competative multiplayer. Thats what FFH 2 is not ment to be in a big way.
If thats so important to you modmod it. Kael made that easy for just the reason that everyone can get the FFH he likes.). Good that the team isn't all that rabid about that.
You are not in a position to be Judge on that. Sorry.
If you have a case to make: Go to the corrosponding thread / or the team. For my part I think they have more important things at their hands right now though. Like fixing the AI and comparably really important things.)
Exploit by definition is using something the team doesn't like to have in their game. Full stop.
Everything else is working as designed.



The Soul-Forge thing you might! call an exploit (since it also makes few sense that one creature has got more than one Soul. But there is more than one way to fix that (killing any unit in range forever whould be one. And make sense.)).
And even that could! be intended or at least acceptable if you take into account, that the soul-forge is a very late-game wonder. If not very flavorful, given. If you want to know for sure: Ask the team.)
And i didn't use that one in the above deity game. Is way to late for a cultural Victory with the Sidar anyways.


Most of the real Shades in above game are from Mounted units Starting at 20XP on building + fighting Lunatics and Barbs (which is the most reliable method of all to get shades. A shade every 1-2 turns is not that bad...). Since i did some dire mistakes on my enraged animals. As mentioned (around 10 or so Scouts really got shaded in that game)

And that the whole thing is or at least was intended / is visible in the existence of Chaos Marauders (which really should return since Mutation fits OO far better than tsunami and Divine casters much more than arcane. Also only one Level 2 Summon is to few. And Bals Start with Chaos + have a leader with summoner.) and Burning Blood. Which did just that. (that was much easier to accomplish / reliable btw.) And much cheaper / with fewer limits. (Only that the replacement which is mutation is far heftier than chaos marauders in what must be one of the most powerful unit buff spells available.)


Just that the Sidar get by way most of it since they shade at Level 6 and have a really hefty synergy here. Everyone else "just" gets experienced Units out of that.
But you can win the game with them as well for sure.
Oh and Axemen + Wariors win a game much faster and more decisively by rushing (And Sidar start with Enchantment. Adding another bang to their bronze-axemen.). If anything Warriors + Axemen and other early units are clearly overpowered. As is rushing. And its very boring.

When Animals run out i also Mutated my other units and used the mutated enraged / crazed Scouts as XP-fodder as well. Thats why i mass produced them later (hence the many scouts which really were that many.). Some XP gained from infighting is better than none after all.




On synergy between Scouts and Sidar (The Reason why are that many scouts in above Game):
If Scouts win combats they really get tons of XP. Enough to promote and win other battles, which in Turn yield tons of XP again. So a fresh one needs 3-4 Battles against normal fresh units (read: Tier 1 unharmed) to go shade. Especially if you already have some sources of Free XP for them.
As do adepts. But Scouts build way faster and with Druids fight just as well thanks to poisoned Blades. So thats your best way save Ride or the Nine Kings + other free sources of XP.
If you damage the Barbs / Oponents with spells or other ways (Maelstor, Fireball, Tsunami, Crown of Brilliance, Pillar of Fire, Cats, Cavalry with high withdrawl which is easy to get for Sidar) they can even take down some tougher Oponents which will yield even more XP.

independently of the above Game of "mug the Werewolf".

So if you play Sidar, always have a bunch of scouts or Warriors / Adepts at hand. What is cheap expendable fodder today might be a valuable Shade tomorrow. (Just treasure the ones with 17+ XP since they will get shades eventually if you take care of them and dont risk them in Battles with odds below 95%.)


The trick with playing Sidar is not to build high-level Units and shade them after many battles but to build lots of cheap units (read: whatever can be built in one Turn in given City like War Chariots or at least horse Archers in the City with the Epic + Ride Or Scouts in your border-Cities.) and fight with them. If you lose them: Its just a scout / equals 1 Turn of Production. If you win they turn Shades.
Roughly same production needed for 3 Scouts as for 1 Hunter. If one of those scouts gets to be a shade you have a better deal from that than building a hunter. (since you need fewer fights with Scouts to reach 26 XP than with hunters.)
The shades turned greath merchants + Bazar of Mammon + Shrine? Will make more than up for that expenses / Upkeep.
If they go down fighting: Bad for them, next one is ready.
(That just works if early game is over and you got a handful of shades from early battles though.)

You can also Shade some terraform-druids. They can still terraform and later on still settle.

The higher Tier-Units are for Fighting and Keeping. Scouts / Warriors / Axemen and Adepts are for Shading (and settling. Using 2-3 Shade Casters as additional National Casters or to keep religious heroes is fun as well.). And if you really aim for Free XP from Buildings + Civics Scouts start at 10 XP with Civics + Form of Titan + Anerons Bounty (and those are not that hard to get most of the time if you really aim for them). So they are ready for an ~66% odds battle against warriors / Strength 3 (or 7x% if specialized against the unit in question with promotions like Shock or Formation.). Modified by Terrain + even a bit better in your territory thanks to homeland.

Also sometimes they retreat (no matter where they are) if losing thanks to homeland (that way you get to keep roughly 10% of all your otherwise lost units). Yielding them 1 XP in the process. And leaving the attacked unit wounded / easy prey for the Level 5 Units which are close to shading.

Add Mutate / Poisoned Blade / Bless / Shield of Faith / Valor / Courage / Regeneration or any combination thereof to the Mix and you got a very good and cheap source of Shades for your Empire. Enchanted Blade for Melee naturally (bonze warriors with enchanted blades also get nice XP and fight at way better odds. Which makes them better wannabe-shades for the early game.). With no tears for those that get lost in the process.

Kuriotates, Fellowship, Altar.
t243 quick immortal standard pangaea

I have a lot of trouble with this civ because it seems to be a magnet for AI rushes and dogpiles for some reason, and it's surprisingly difficult to find 3 spots worthy of building 3-radius cities on in the early game. In this game I managed to take 3 spots on the same long river with minimal overlap which helped.

I usually set the adaptive trait to financial since I'm a research addict and stay there all game unless I am forced into conquest mode in which case I'll use raider/aggressive/arcane, in this game I just stuck with financial.

I was originally going to go cultural but ended up at war for most of the game. Valledia attacked me early with the infamous warrior/scout rush and I didn't have any bronze. I had to blow my worldspell for the +30% cultural defence before my 3rd city was up in order to survive. I was able to take a couple of outlying cities with Hunters and force peace but the Amurites kept restarting the war. Then Jonas backstabbed me with CR axes and wolf riders but I was barely able to survive with hunters/centaurs.

I did found FoL and spread it to my other neighbours. Once I managed to stave off the Clan backstab I put together a few centaurs stack and rushed past the front line to capture the poorly defended Amurite capital, which finally convinced Valledia to abandon the war effort against me. I then teched up to get Kithra/Baron/Yvain/beastmasters and brought Sabathiel into the fight against the clan, allowing me to go on the offensive and raze two cities including the AV holy city and force Jonas to make peace. In the meantime Hyborem had been summoned, declared war on me and razed my fur camp settlement so I built some paladins to banish him again.

Somewhere at this point I decided to just build the altar since it would be faster than culture seeing as I had most of the tech anyway. By acquiring all the other religious techs for their disciples I was able to put up 5 temples in my size 44 Vitalized floodplains capital and run 9 priests with national epic, getting my prophets very fast. An extra prophet provided a golden age and an engineer helped build the altar.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=6889311#post6889311

Uses .32 d. Not Immortal, but Emperor with No Ai Building requirements, since it seems the harder of the two (Than Play Now Immortal).

Blackmantle said:

The way the gift exploit worked :
1. Build an adept
2. go to an ally.
3. Gift him the adept / other Unit that starts with a free promotion
4. Have him move the Adept back to your territory
5. He gifts it back to you.
6. rinse, repeat.

Click to expand...

There was also:

1) Capture Bear with Hunter.
2) Gift Bear to Charadon
3) Repeat. (You can attack it because it has hidden nationality)

Note this works in Single Player.

Considering this was part of the reason gifting was removed, as it was an exploit, I'd say your mugging is pretty similar. Seriously though, I'm not making a qualitative comment on you or whatever, I"m just saying this is far outside the realm of what is an expected part of game play.

Yea, but that whould be still be with much less requirement (Crazed and enraged is not gained at will and lost fastly if something goes wrong. Unlike Hidden Nationality, which stays even if the Bear / other animal will win.).
Even though what you described seems to be working if i think about it (sorry for me not thinking that far and not hearing of that particular exploit. Since i don't usually used gifting in any serious way since it always seemed broken when i became aware of the possibility. Which was not so long ago for me. The team reasoned that there was more than the adept thing even if i thought it was the major one.).



And i whould disagree from my perspective on the last point in saying that what was really not expected as part of the game is to disband enraged / crazed / burning-blooded Units so they don't turn on you.
That was what was the real exploit that needed fixing and has been fixed.
Fighting a unit thus turned barbarian is so obvious that it for sure is part of that design deliberately or at least in an accepted frame (and chaos Marauders spell was designed to be just that. An uncontrollable menace potentially dangerous to yourselves. As was burning Blood. A huge buff with a big drawback in potentially losing the unit to the barbs.).

Taking it a bit further by subduing the unit back might be a small stretch and seem! simmilar but is still utterly different flavorwise than gifting (if you disband a really angry unit its only natural that it will look for trouble on its own.
And mugging him / her / it is not really likely to make the mugged one less angry. So i could imagine why this works from an in-game-logic. Even if not very nice (and surely not to be supported or acceptable in any real context i could think of for that matter. ). As opposed to gifting a bear / other Unit to someone and forgetting the bears identity only a blink later. ).
Even if the technical side seems simmilar, which i agree with. (The Soul-Forge thing seems as a bit to far for me as well though. At least flavorwise it makes not really much sense.)


Otherwise you could stretch that using barbs as sourches of xp and setting up Barb-Traps seems wrong since they are thought to be a danger not an asset because its technically not so much different than putting a lot of units in certain places in World-Builder.
Or using terraforming (including Pirate-Coves) on large Scale beeing an exploit since it distorts the balance of starting Terrain. (Which is said here in the forums far to often for my tastes. That for sure is part of FFH2s core design. Full Stop.)

That is what kael roughly described as the difference between bad game design (putting in unbalanced features which are only possible to balance by opting them out or cheating) and creative use of features given to the players to play with (which the whole mod is designed around in large parts) in some other thread.

In light of the history of patches and fixes i whould gess gifting was the first. Disbanding Enraged Units to fight them is second. If Kael disagrees we will see the change.

Personally instead of the "disband a unit with chance to go Barbarian, get a Barbarian" to have a "You cannot disband Units with a chance to go Barbarian"

I am quite certain that fighting a unit that you disbanded and FORCED to become barbarian is not intended, but accepted. However, CAPTURING that unit, and then doing the same thing again... that is NOT intended, and I doubt it would be accepted if it was brought up as a balance issue with a desire that it be removed.

Well if you think its a real issue and Kael dosn't see it here just feel free to post it there.
I disagree but as always its Kael + Teams Game and im not in a position to decide on that.
.
Flavorwise it seems allright at least which lays any problems (since it could indeed be accepted or even be a designed to give such results if used creatively given that pretext. As do many other things / features which might not be obvios on first evaluation. The Game is rather full of that.) with it more into the field of balance (if any, and if those are serious enough to even fix. Which is not done that often, even for borderline very powerful options.).


Now that you say it though a small chance for the unit to go in peace (like 5% or so. Which whould still be quite more frequent then it sounds) whould sound reasonable flavorwise and at least don't turn that into a safe bet. That might be the best fix if one is needed at all. (since playing around with core functions like Disband might prove a bit difficult i assume.)
Playing around with the chance to capture on subdue has other bad implications.