A few very, very basic questions from a complete beginner

kleen

Chieftain
Joined
Aug 31, 2009
Messages
17
So far I've tried about four games, all of them very short (Orthus only showed up in one of them, so the rest are shorter). Right now I'm feeling very confused and very intrigued, but at least I can now formulate a few questions to ask.

1. In normal BtS games, I usually build a worker and some scouts first. Here, I've noticed that researching takes much longer (even researching worker techs) and that barbarians are far more aggressive (and strong!), so a worker no longer seems like an intuitive early unit to build. What are the units that I should build first and what would a reasonable build order be?

2. What would be good civs to try that are not too magic-intensive or otherwise unsuitable for beginners? I'd be happy for about four or five suggestions for my first games.

3. In standard BtS, I usually start by researching pretty much all the worker techs. Is this the way to go here, or should I beeline to archery? What would be a reasonable research order? As I understand, I have to choose a few specific tech paths in FfH2, but which techs are the ones that everyone is going to need sooner or later?

4. Are there any dungeon-type structures that tend to yield better results than others, or are there any that are particularly dangerous?

5. Researching religions looks like it would take an incredibly long time, but I do so like a religion of my own, how do I go about this (eventually, if not in my first games)?

6. Other civs seem to start much closer to me that in BtS. In one of my games, three civs started a few tiles from me! What can I do about this, if anything?


And a few questions that are a bit more specific.

A. I accidentally released some mystforms from a dungeon, and they almost took my second city. I didn't even know they were approaching or how many there were. Is there a way to see invisible units?

B. A red dragon settled in a barbarian city near to me. Is this dangerous, and how would I go about destroying it? I thought 12 swordsmen would do the trick. I'd rather not remember that particular expedition. :rolleyes:

C. I've read that you can capture animals in this mod. How is this done and what are they used for?


I have the manual and I've had a look at the forums, but I can't seem to find much information about basic strategy for beginners. I'll take any advice at all!
 
Spoiler :
So far I've tried about four games, all of them very short (Orthus only showed up in one of them, so the rest are shorter). Right now I'm feeling very confused and very intrigued, but at least I can now formulate a few questions to ask.

1. In normal BtS games, I usually build a worker and some scouts first. Here, I've noticed that researching takes much longer (even researching worker techs) and that barbarians are far more aggressive (and strong!), so a worker no longer seems like an intuitive early unit to build. What are the units that I should build first and what would a reasonable build order be?

2. What would be good civs to try that are not too magic-intensive or otherwise unsuitable for beginners? I'd be happy for about four or five suggestions for my first games.

3. In standard BtS, I usually start by researching pretty much all the worker techs. Is this the way to go here, or should I beeline to archery? What would be a reasonable research order? As I understand, I have to choose a few specific tech paths in FfH2, but which techs are the ones that everyone is going to need sooner or later?

4. Are there any dungeon-type structures that tend to yield better results than others, or are there any that are particularly dangerous?

5. Researching religions looks like it would take an incredibly long time, but I do so like a religion of my own, how do I go about this (eventually, if not in my first games)?

6. Other civs seem to start much closer to me that in BtS. In one of my games, three civs started a few tiles from me! What can I do about this, if anything?


And a few questions that are a bit more specific.

A. I accidentally released some mystforms from a dungeon, and they almost took my second city. I didn't even know they were approaching or how many there were. Is there a way to see invisible units?

B. A red dragon settled in a barbarian city near to me. Is this dangerous, and how would I go about destroying it? I thought 12 swordsmen would do the trick. I'd rather not remember that particular expedition. :rolleyes:

C. I've read that you can capture animals in this mod. How is this done and what are they used for?


I have the manual and I've had a look at the forums, but I can't seem to find much information about basic strategy for beginners. I'll take any advice at all!

1. it depends on the civ you play (example elfes should build a worker first - the worker need more time for building improvments[+25% iirc])
After the worker build up to 4 Warriors for protection (With the Svartalfar i would go 2 warriors 1 scout for guarding, attack with the scout when they reach you city BFC)

2. i would say play a agnostic civ first i tend to suggest the Grigori, the adventurers are very good "heroes" wich give a good advantage in the early game.
Agnostic becouse you put aside the religion.

3. As you mentiont research take long in the beginning - so try to place your first city near a food resource and if possible 1 or 2 commerce resources (try to get them worked with the same tech gold/gems - cotton/silk and so on)
tech to those first it will speed up the research afterwards.
there are three (or five) possible techpaths meele - Recon - mountet ( religion - magery) with the grigori first "test"games i would say go the meele line.

4. Yes, there are epic lairs (the unique improvments like Bradelines Well, pyre of the seraphic, Aifons Isle) they can often explored 2 or more times, they yield better results, but they often release also mighty monsters, wich in the beginning can crush a civ in a breeze.
Lairs also give better results later in the game.
And explore them with recon units, they get better results.


5. as mentiont, ignore them with a agnostic civ, you can take it on later when you ar familar with the game.

6. try a different mapscript, i mostly use Erebus Continent map script.
also good is Mountain coast


A.try to avoid exploring lairs and dungeons near your own citys in the beginning.

B. Yes he is dangerous, but he will not move (he is inmobile) in a earlyer release his city got a huge Culture boom (didnt play vanilla FFH the last month, in Wildmana barb citys never gain culture)
12 swordmans? a little less *smile* attack with reconunits (c) they can later take the promotion subdue Animal (need Tech:Animal husbandry|Promotion: Combat I) and than subdue Beast (tech:Animal Mastery |Promotions:Subdue Animal - Combat III) only Recon units can take those Promotions
If you kill Archeron (the dragon) you get his horde, wich can be taken to every city and be dropped there, witch give:
Enchanted Blade promotion to units on the city Tile (+20% str)
1 Gold and 1 gem resource
+4 :gold:
+8 :culture:
+2 commander :gp:

Thats for the questions, but i cant give you much more tips, im not the best player, but you will get much more answers later when the Pros come here ;-)


greetings
 
Two pages that you might want to check out:
Jumping Into Erebus
Top 10 tips for your Favorite Civs

To answer your questions specifically:

1. This depends partially upon what civ you are using. To guarantee saftey however, I have generally found it best to get 3 warriors to start with, then either build a worker, or another 3 warriors/settler depending upon what tech path you take. From then on, I always try to defend my cities with a minimum of 3 units. Once you get a city blocked off from outside attack, you can reduce that, but I generally tend to keep it as it leaves me with a supply of units for rapid reinforcement of cities under attack.

2. Fun civs to try would be the Khazid (for little magic use), the Grigori (for little religious use), the Illians (again, for little religious use, but a few other peculiarities), the calibam (for general OPness), the Elves (Both Ljosfalter and Svartar), the Lanuan (to be a tech whore), and the Kuriotates (if you like small empires - remember, 3 cities, each can work 3 rings).

3. The first tech tech priorities would be nearby resources (mining for gold/gems/chop forests, calender for incense/silk/etc, you know the drill). If you don't have nearby commerce resources, then you have two options - beeline education to build cottages, or beeline mysticism for godking/elder councils. From there, decide whether you want to go for religion or military - if religion, decide which and go for it (generally here you only want to look at the earlier ones - Runes of Kilmorph, Fellowship of the Leaves, and Octopus Overlords), if military, figure out which branch you're going to focus on and beeline that. From then on, you should be in a good position to further explore.

4. There are 3 important types to remember. There is the tribal village (from civ 4) which you get from walking over it. There is the dungeon/lair/barrow, which you can pop, and which will then have good/bad results come from them. In general, you get better results when a hero or high XP unit is used. Then there is the legendary lair, which you can look up in the civilopedia under unique features. These will have great results, or very very bad ones. In general, you don't want to hit either of the second two without good defense in your cities, and you don't want to hit the legendary ones until you have at least teir 2 units.

5. To research a religion, research its pre-reqs (for Runes of Kilmorph, that would be mysticsm and mining), then research that religion. That would allow you to get that religion, and then further techs will unlock special aspects (for example, Arete will unlock bambur/mines of gal-dur/arete civic, while Fanatacism will unlock Paramanders), but these aren't needed to be able to have the religion, just to make maximum use out of it.

6. This is mostly a matter of map size that you use, and what map. For example, Great Plains is a map that starts 75% of the civs within just a few cities of each other on the eastern half, and then the rest spread out on the western half. Look around and see what some people's favorite maps are and why, and then try those maps.

A. Mistforms are from a bad lair - scouts/recon units will be able to see invisible animals, and Empyrian priests can dispell other forms of invisibility. The metamagic 1 spell and hawks can also see invisible units

B. The best thing to do with acheron is ignore him, but if you absolutely have to kill him, hit him with a large stack of hunters/rangers, and if you can bombard him with catapults first (don't use magic, he's immune)

C. Animals can be captured with any recon unit that takes subdue animal (requires recon and combat 1), and then attacks an animal.

-Colin
 
1. It depends. On lower difficulty levels, though, you can afford to produce a worker as your first unit. If you have plentiful food resources, it can be worth producing a warrior first in order to get up to population 2 and thus produce the worker faster. At higher difficulty levels, producing more workers becomes more important. It sounds like you are playing on high difficulty levels from the beginning. For your first few games I would suggest that you dial it down to Noble or below - that should let your starting warrior defend your city pretty effectively for a while, particularly if you give him a few friends in not too terribly long.

2. Almost anything except the Amurites can be played effectively as non-magic-intensive. I might suggest playing Lanun. You have to climb the religion tree to get good units with them, and you have to work out the details of cove placement, but they get a nice, solid tech engine, and the OO religious units are all fairly solid and all get water-walking, which synergizes well. If you can grab RoK before anyone else, you can also research Arete and get the Mines of Gol-Dur wonder, which means you get to pretty much ignore worrying about military resources.

Alternately, try playing one of the elves. pick a spot with a bunch of forests, grab education early on, and cottage everything. Beeline for FoL, and watch your forests turn ancient. Grab GoN and your economy pretty much takes care of itself. Charge up the appropriate combat tree (recon if svartelfar, archery if ljosfar) and conquer the world.

3. First, get the resource-gathering techs for your immediate location. (...the worker techs plus fishing, depending on what the good resources are near you.) Give particular focus to any commerce resources - tech push in the beginning game is critical. Ignore any worker techs that aren't going to give you access to nearby special resources at first. After that, it depends on your civ. Almost everyone except the agnostics will want to get ancient chants/mysticism and a religion of some sort. Pick a combat tree that suits you, and push that. (default trees are religion, recon, archery, magic, and metals. Magic is a tough one unless you know exactly what you're doing, and religion is a bit complicated since you can only build units that your faith/alignment qualify for. Different civs prefer different trees)

5. Researching religions does take a while, but all of the techs that get you there are useful.

C. Animal husbandry opens up a promotion for your recon troops, prereq combat 1, that converts all animals that you defeat in combat and gives you a bonus against them. If you want to learn about this in some detail, try playing the first scenario in the Balseraph line (the one just before the Momus.)


Basic suggestion, though, is to read the manual and play a fair bit, starting on lower difficulty levels. There's a lot to absorb here. I've been playing it for about a month now, and I've just about got a complete grasp on how religions and religious units work. I'm only starting to understand the arcane line.
 
1. Training warriors or workers as one's first units? In my experience, it depends mostly on the Difficulty Setting, Map, and Nearby Civs. I almost always train warriors first because I play on Pangaea maps at Immortal/Deity. In fact, I usually queue up 4 or 5 - and even then, I'm hardpressed. Enemy troops arrive too soon and in too great a number to be prevented from pillaging improvements. If you're playing at the lower levels and on certain maps, you can be a lot more flexible though in terms of build order.

(BTW, earlier it was posted that Elves should always build a worker first - I'd say that is a mistake most times except at the easiest settings. One can "get away" with delaying warriors or defense in BTS quite often, but in FFH2, the players generally need a little more protection in the clinches.)

3. In my experience, it's not optimal to play the FFH2 civs with a standard one-size-fits-all approach to research: each civ has enough distinctiveness that one would do well to pay attention to. The Ljosalfars, for example, have Civilizational traits (Dexterous +1 Archer attack) and leaders (Amelanchier) that make going for early archers a very reasonable goal. Adding in the "natural" Ljosalfar beeline for Fellowship of the Leaves religion makes certain units, techs and civics relatively good choices.

However, other civilizations would do much better to pursue alternative early techs and religions - and skip or delay Archery altogether! There are several different threads on strategies - like the Top Ten Favorite Tips.
 
I have a few more extremely basic questions (I hope you don't mind me asking in your thread, kleen!) about getting started in FFH.

A lot of people seem to say that it's best to specialize each of your cities, and have them focused on commerce/production/creating Great People, and so on. My question is, what's the best way to go about that? Do you go in and assign each individual citizen to specific plots to control what resources your city is bringing in? Do you tell the computer to auto-manage it using the basic or specialized priorities? And, how do you know what area to focus on for any given city?

Sorry for all the run-on questions; I appreciate your help!

Also, does anyone know if someone has made some form of tutorial/beginner videos for getting started with FFH? I think that'd be a great thing for someone in the community to do, both for advertising purposes and helping others get a grasp of the game.
 
There haven't been any videos made, as to keep it from being too boring it would essentially become a series of screenshots (do you really want to watch me click enter 90% of the time the first 100 turns?) However, the first thread that I linked in my post "Jumping into Erebus" was my attempt at creating a beginners guide. The top 10 tips for your favorite civs will tell you more about specific civs however.

As for specializing cities, its actually fairly easy to do once you get used to it. In general, there are 3 kinds of cities - Food cities, Commerce Cities, and Production cities. Of course, unless you're playing a fallow leader (Hyborem in FFH, a few others in the modmods), every city is going to have to have all 3 to some extent. To make them, you need to look at the area around you and decide what the best use of a particular city spot is. For example, if you see a city spot with a lake nearby, and a bunch of hills, that screams production city (flat land for food to feed the mines on the hills). If you see a spot of mostly flat land, with little around it, that tends to make a great commerce city (build city, build enough food to feed it, then build cottages). And if you see a spot with lots of high food tiles, go for a GP city. Once you have built your cities, then it becomes more a matter of building the right improvements around it, and for the most part, the automated city manager will do everything for you. The only exception to this is the Great Person city, which you might have to go into to assign which great person you want to work on (do you want scientists? or do you want merchants? or perhaps priests?). As for improvements, generally you want mines/farms around a production city, farms (just enough) and cottages around commerce cities, and farms around Great People cities.

Hope this helps.

-Colin
 
Spoiler :
So far I've tried about four games, all of them very short (Orthus only showed up in one of them, so the rest are shorter). Right now I'm feeling very confused and very intrigued, but at least I can now formulate a few questions to ask.

1. In normal BtS games, I usually build a worker and some scouts first. Here, I've noticed that researching takes much longer (even researching worker techs) and that barbarians are far more aggressive (and strong!), so a worker no longer seems like an intuitive early unit to build. What are the units that I should build first and what would a reasonable build order be?

2. What would be good civs to try that are not too magic-intensive or otherwise unsuitable for beginners? I'd be happy for about four or five suggestions for my first games.

3. In standard BtS, I usually start by researching pretty much all the worker techs. Is this the way to go here, or should I beeline to archery? What would be a reasonable research order? As I understand, I have to choose a few specific tech paths in FfH2, but which techs are the ones that everyone is going to need sooner or later?

4. Are there any dungeon-type structures that tend to yield better results than others, or are there any that are particularly dangerous?

5. Researching religions looks like it would take an incredibly long time, but I do so like a religion of my own, how do I go about this (eventually, if not in my first games)?

6. Other civs seem to start much closer to me that in BtS. In one of my games, three civs started a few tiles from me! What can I do about this, if anything?


And a few questions that are a bit more specific.

A. I accidentally released some mystforms from a dungeon, and they almost took my second city. I didn't even know they were approaching or how many there were. Is there a way to see invisible units?

B. A red dragon settled in a barbarian city near to me. Is this dangerous, and how would I go about destroying it? I thought 12 swordsmen would do the trick. I'd rather not remember that particular expedition. :rolleyes:

C. I've read that you can capture animals in this mod. How is this done and what are they used for?


I have the manual and I've had a look at the forums, but I can't seem to find much information about basic strategy for beginners. I'll take any advice at all!

I'm by no means a "pro" and am relatively new to the BTS version of FFH2. But, I'll try to answer as best as I can, one relative noob to another. :)

1) Barbarians are deadly. Chances are, if you start off building a worker, he's going to be dead pretty quick. I build warriors until I have four but, if I need another scout besides the one I start with, I'll build one. Scouts are excellent units in the first turns for the goody-huts. So, if you're in a wide open area with plenty of room to explore that's keeping your other scout busy, get at least one other warrior in your city and only then consider building a scout. Typically, my build order is four warriors (maybe a scout in there somewhere if needed) then a settler. My goal is to get at least three cities built as fast as possible. The first city typically builds at least two rounds of warriors/settlers before switching to anything major. If I can do the same with every city I can build, I'll do it. (You just have to get a feel on how fast you can expand with the civics you have. I've bankrupted myself into oblivion trying to expand too fast..) I will build workers when I can crank them out quickly or there is a resource nearby I want to lockdown. But, that's "situational" so, you have to use your judgement. The key thing to remember is that two warriors are not enough to defend your city against barbarians. If you're expecting them early, you need three in there, just in case or some extras that can get there quickly. Four is better if they could double up on you. Every settler has to have at least two warriors accompanying him, maybe even one of the scouts. Animals are dangerous.. big spiders.. rampaging elephants, nasty bears... extremely amorous gorillililalilas... :) Lions and tigers and bears, indeed...

2) I can't answer that one. Some say the Grigori, some say the Hippus. Magic is very powerful in this game so civs that don't focus on it have some unique mechanics in their own right. That's the biggest thing about FFH2 - Every civ plays differently. It's one of the things that makes it so enjoyable.

3) That depends on what your win strategy is, what's near you and what you need in the next dozen turns. Personally, I shoot for whatever low techs I need immediately and then go for a religion as soon as I can. If you're the founder, you get the ability to build the religions main temple, you just have to wait around for a Great Person to pop that can build it. Those have excellent benefits, just like in Vanilla Civ and all provide you with one extra mana. That's an excellent way to get a mana you need. For instance, even if I'm playing the Bannor (good civ) I'll rush to Octopus Overlords if I know I won't be able to work a water mana in anywhere or even the Ashen Veil if I absolutely have to have more Death Mana later in the game. Typically, I'll try to hit Runes of Kilmorph or Fellowship of Leaves first (they're cheaper). The normal temples in the cities also give outstanding bonuses. Some double up on culture, some supply money and culture or even research bonuses.

Education is important as well as Engineering/Mech? (whichever one gets you windmills) Tailor your tech strategy along the lines of your expected victory conditions and your resources. If you're not near a body of water, there's no immediate need for Fishing unless you're going for Octopus Overlords. But, always throw a bone or two to the Military, Science and Production lines no matter what you're doing. I haven't been able to get a flawless victory, rushing through the exact techs necessary to win... Some civ always ends up pounding on me..

4) All the "named" dungeons are Elite. That means they pop either very nasty things or very good things. Medium nastiness are the goblin forts, "dungeons and ruins. Lowest of all are the barrows and graveyards. In order to get the best chance for a "good" outcome from a low level dungeon, you need a level 73+ unit, according to something I read on the forum...That's for optimal chances for the best "good" effect it can produce. For elite, named dungeons, that goes down to a level 34, IIRC, to get the best optimal chance for a "GOOD GOOD!" effect. That's just statistically speaking, of course. You can explore with much lower level units. But, you need to be careful. One wrong dungeon pop can destroy your whole civilization. Take a stack with you to explore..

5) Get stabilized with the bare necessities that you need "right now." Typically, I wait until I can at least discover the religion itself, not necessarily the techs leading to it, within 20 or so turns from the time I start researching it. Sometimes, I go quicker. (I'll start much sooner if other civs seem likely to eat them up.) Go for the lest costly religions first, if they're not already discovered by someone else. (Or, go for them if you need their benefits.) So, RoK, FoL, OO would be your first choices there. Then, next up would be The Order or Ashen Veil, depending upon your civ. Followers of those don't get along with each other so, if you have both in your Civ, be careful. Lastly, comes Council of Esus and Empyean which are in different sections of the Tech tree than the other, base, religions. Don't forget them!

As far as the Founding Temples go, when you can build one, you'll get the following extra mana from their specific temple Wonder:

RoK - Earth
FoL - Nature
OO- Water
AV - Entropy
TO - Law
CoE - Shadow
Emp - Sun

Sometimes, that's important. You can easily stack manas using Wonders, Death especially. That's very useful if you're hemmed in and can't get any more mana nodes. If you're going to be relying on magic using units, you had best take a look at all the Wonders to see which ones come with a bonus mana that you can use. Build those. :)

6) Choose to reload the map or, if too late, either deal with it or restart. Look at it this way, if they're really close to you then you don't have far to walk to kick their butt. :) Anyone that starts close to me that poses any sort of threat is always my first target as quickly as I can do it without stressing my economy/research.

A) Don't do that again. :) Yes, there are units like Shadows (waaaaay down the tech tree) that can see invisible "player/humanoid" units. Earlier in the game, Hawks, and higher level recon units can see invisible animals and some late-game National units can see invisible "everythings."

B) Archeron is nasty. But, he is "Held." He will not leave that city under any condition except by forced eviction. However, that city will continue to spawn barbarians as long as it is around. If you can't take him out yet, a good idea is to surround his city with your culture, soak up the free exp from the barbs and keep other civs from going after him by closing your borders if necessary. His treasure is.. very nice. You want that very much.. He used to be capturable with "Subdue Animal" promotion in vanilla FFH2 but, I tried that a couple of patches ago and it didn't work. So, I don't know if you can do that to him in BTS FFH2. I'm not sure if he gets a "saving through" against that. :)

Note: I once had a game that had a small subcontinent in it that I wasn't aware of until very late. It had 5 barb cities on it, crawling with nasties and Archeron sitting in the middle of them. He had sat there the whole game and the barbs ruled that continent. I didn't have the units to go after him until very, very late in the game.

C) Animals are captured by recon units with the "Subdue Animal" promotion. That is available only through promotions so, go get your Rangers some EXP quick after you discover it. When you defeat an animal unit, that unit belongs to you, will be at very low health and will start with the "Hidden Nationality" promotion. That means, it will not appear to be affiliated with your Civ and the AI will treat it just like it would treat any barbarian unit. But, be advised - That means Allies will attack those units as well, even if you're sitting on them, as long as you're in Open territory. However, you can choose to remove that promotion, flagging the unit as yours. I would suggest doing that as soon as you're out of barbarian lands unless you're planning on leveling that animal up. Otherwise, you could spent 20 turns marching a critter back to your lands only to have an ally see it and kill it..

You can use Animals to make Animal Cages like a Dancing Bear or even a Spider's (Nest?) in your city. The crowning achievement is the "Grand Managerie" wonder which you get when you build an assortment of these. However, it is very, very hard to do.

The Manual is invaluable. It's full of /win. Also, the online Civilopedia has a wealth of info as well. It's just not as detailed. But, for a quick glance at unit types/buildings/wonders/heroes/etc.. it's outstanding.
 
Thanks everyone, your advice has been VERY useful to me! By the way, I've come to understand that one biggest things that are unexpected to a newbie player is that FfH doesn't protect the player. At first I just explored all the lairs, because I had no idea you could release something really bad (in vanilla Civ4 you cannot, really); I thought of mistforms as bad luck+nonexistant skills, not bad planning. :)

I'm guessing I'll have to start dealing with magic and religions soon enough, at least to protect myself from opposing civs - are there any good introductions to those?
 
The economics of the game are very slow at the start and it's important that you get the right civics and techs early on. This is where beginners struggle a lot I expect. Experiment with the civics and see what difference they can make.

If you want to see some basic Civs with few peculiarities I'd try the Bannor or Elohim. They both have access to most buildings and units and can be played somewhat like a traditional Civ4 nation. You can choose a spiritual leader with either which would help you test out new civics more easily. The Elohim have numerous subtle advantages that you might not realise first play through. The Bannor have one big advantage, the crusade, which isn't very subtle.

Runes of Kilmorph is a fairly straightforward religion to play, as is the Order. Both sit well the Elohim and Bannor.
 
If you want to see some basic Civs with few peculiarities I'd try the Bannor or Elohim. They both have access to most buildings and units and can be played somewhat like a traditional Civ4 nation. You can choose a spiritual leader with either which would help you test out new civics more easily. The Elohim have numerous subtle advantages that you might not realise first play through.
Personally, I suggest that the Elohim should be the last civ that a new player attempts to learn. The reason for this is that, as the Elohim, a player may need to know the workings of any of the other civs in order to manage foreign cities that they have captured.
 
Personally, I suggest that the Elohim should be the last civ that a new player attempts to learn. The reason for this is that, as the Elohim, a player may need to know the workings of any of the other civs in order to manage foreign cities that they have captured.

Might be a good learning experience. My guess is that a new player will have a few sub-optimal cities first game :).
 
IMHO, the Clan of Embers is the easiest civilisation to play. You could completly overlook arcane magic, and focus on melee libne (and, to some extend, on religion - especially as a Jonas - and I would suggest going for RoK, which suits orcs well)
 
I've played some more, and now things make more sense. I wish somebody had told me mithril looked like silver! I had come to the conclusion nobody on the continent had it until I accidentally found "silver" in a mine and my units started getting promotions.

I have a few new questions, if anybody is still reading.

1. How does Hyborem come into existence? What triggers it?

2. What is a good strategy against sixty or so of those exploding units (pyre something) that Tebryn has?

3. When I was fighting Tebryn, he (at least I think it was him) sometimes used a spell (?) that said "You will see us in your dreams" (or something similar). What exactly is this?

4. I was fighting the Balseraphs to help Thessa, and I noticed some huge green leaves enveloping my units two times. I didn't notice any effect. What is this spell?

5. When I play as Cassiel, I get adventurers. How do others get their heroes? At first I thought the unique world units were heroes, but they don't upgrade in the same way.

6. I built several wonders although I have no idea what they did. Genesis and Ragnarok spring to mind. Tebryn liked me more for building Ragnarok, even though the stated wonder effects in the description said nothing about it doing anything evil. Does it?

7. If I'm Cassiel and get missionaries from lairs, should I spread the religion to my cities? Does this benefit me in any way?

8. Tebryn finished off the Luchuirp, and I got a message that basically asked why I had destroyed everything they had created. Apart from refusing to declare war, I had helped them in every other way. Why did I get the message?

9. There are many sounds, but as far as I can tell there is no way to find out what most of them mean. I get those that influence the AC, but what about others? For example, I got the sound that, in vanilla Civ4, denotes finding copper, horses or iron in one of your cities - for several turns in a row. I didn't notice anything resource-related changing. What does the sound mean?
 
1. Hyborem appears when anyone researches infernal pact (ashen veil second tech)

2. There are a few ways to do it. The best involve using fast moving units (horsmen, chariots, horse archers), and preferably sun 2 or ice 1 spells to immobilize them (sun 2 has a chance of making them blind, unable to move, and ice 1 reduces their movement by 1). The other way, if you can manage to get it early enough, is the life 2 spell, destroy undead, which is the only way to kill them without getting the explosion. The hardest option is to get a unit with magic resistance and fire resistance and take them on with that - because magic resistance requires combat 3, and fire resistance requires magic resistance however, this is generally the hardest thing to do.

3. "You will see us in your dreams" is summoning a specter, the teir 2 death summon. This unit has strength 3, 1 death mana affinity (for every death mana you have, he gains 1 strength), and causes fear. Don't be afraid of it unless its in the hands of a human player.

4. The huge green leaves were a priest of leaves summoning a tiger (priest of leaves only spell)

5. Adventurers are Cassiels hero's - he is the only civ that gets them, possibly making him very powerful as the grigori are the only civ able to get multiple hero's, as opposed to regular civ's 1 hero and 1-2 religious hero's. They have the advantage of being upgradable into any unit you build, making them possibly the most powerful hero's in the game, as you can tailor them specifically to fit your strategy.

6. Genesis is a project. It upgrades all of your terrain (it basically uses the Nature 3 spell on every plot in your terrain, and IIRC, also plants forests). Prophecy of Ragnarok givs the promotion "Prophecy Mark" to all units built in that city. This means that for every unit with that promotion, the armageddon counter goes up by 1. As the armageddon counter reaches certain points, bad things happen. At 25, hell terrain can spread through unclaimed land (IIRC), at 50, it can spread to evil land, and at 75, it can spread into neutral land. When it hits 30 for the first time, blight strikes, and everyone gets 1 unhealth for every citizen that they have (goes away, 1 health a turn). When it hits 40, 50, 60, and 70, one of the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse appears. When it hits 80 (IIRC), the avatar or wrath appears. At 90, hellfire appears, which randomly spawns units in the employ of the barbarians or Hyborem (if he's in the game). At 100, the world ends, and most living units die, and those that don't become enraged. It can make for a fun game.

7. You can spread the religion to your cities, but it won't really do anything for you unless you are the first person to get it, in which case you can get the holy city. Unless you also pop a great prophet however, or with some of the religions, certain other great people, you can't get the benefits of the holy city as you have no way outside of theocracy to get great prophets. So the choice is yours.

8. Everyone gets that message when a civ is destroyed. Don't take it personally :P

9. It could be your units upgrading their weapons (have bronze working and copper, and your units can get bronze weapons, giving them +1 strength). Whenever there is that sound however, there is usually something that appears in the pop-up bar at the top of the screen (or appears when you press control-tab).

-Colin
 
Very thorough answers, thanks!

You mentioned different spells, which reminds me: to try out magic, I trained about two or three adepts. All of them could get the same promotions (I assume these depend on mana) - to build walls, convert desert to plains, and give other units promotions such as flaming arrows, golden blade (?), or courage. So I just visited all my stacks giving them all the promotions I could and building walls in all of my cities. Is it really this straight-forward? Is there a reason not to give all of my units all the promotions available through adepts?

Another specific event came to my mind - the one about the harpy child with the beautiful voice. Interestingly enough, I've had that one twice now, but I had the girl, er, put down, because I had no idea how long the unhappiness would last. Does anyone know how long it lasts? Is the prize worth losing some population due to unhappiness?
 
9. There are many sounds, but as far as I can tell there is no way to find out what most of them mean. ... What does the sound mean?

readercolin's advice is spot on; save for his Theory on Sounds.

When the sounds and voices in my head get really annoying, I threaten to poke them with a Q-tip again. That shuts 'em up for awhile.

Happy gaming!
 
Very thorough answers, thanks!

Another specific event came to my mind - the one about the harpy child with the beautiful voice. Interestingly enough, I've had that one twice now, but I had the girl, er, put down, because I had no idea how long the unhappiness would last. Does anyone know how long it lasts? Is the prize worth losing some population due to unhappiness?

Probably not early, if you only have a couple cities. Later it depends. How important is the city? Perhaps you even have 5 smiles to spare. It could happen. :)
 
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