Age of Ice - getting pounded

[MAvL]

Sorry for necro,

I'm surprised this tip hasn't popped up: the cost to upgrade a unit is (4 + difference) x . Compare to the base game, that is 20 plus 3 times the difference, in line with the cost of rushing in democraty, and detering you to upgrade anything but as an emergency, and I guess your (not so) hardened veteran.

The idea is obviously to incentivize you to keep units alive and level them up, but it actually alter the whole economy if you choose to take advantage of what is essentially a 1 to 1 net conversion. If I recap the conversion rates are as follows:

1. 1 raw -> 1 net without forge 1.25 net with one (net is to raw what is to )
   
2. ==: barring codex Eda and Espona's Heart, no multiplier on . is extra valuable on cities/city with Codex and Heart.
   
3. 1 net ->1 via mathematicscience or currency gold
4. 1->1 net via upgrading units
5. +0.5-> 2.5 with a mageocrat specialist (1.5 via merchant /wo mageocraty or anything to research)
   
6. + -> raw + 4 running a plain town
   
7. 1 pop -> 20/40/60 drafting warrior/horseman/mammoth rider.

In regular civ, 1 net =about 3 eventually but you do need the especially early on, and even wonder fail gold is 2.5 top, more usually between 1 and 2. That makes balancing mines, farms and cottage necessary, because if cottages are bad for REXing and warring, farms and mines alone are bad for teching. Also multipliers are rarer and costier than and ones.

In FFH AoI, the efficient <-> conversions can happen more or less at will, because you're never short of units you need to build and you can always choose between building a warrior and upgrade it (too much ) sometimes even in the same city, or build a well equipped soldier (too much ), or even just wealth or research if you don't have neither want production building in that town.

For evaluating a tile value, 1(raw)= 1.07 without forge, accounting for the 4 penality you'll be paying per unit, typically a cost 20 warrior/scout into a cost 80+ unit (make it 1.2 for mid tier cost 40 units). If you plan to build a forge in that city, the value is 1=1.25, assuming you build fully upgraded units in high production city and don't pay an extra 4.
Generally is king, just like in regular civ, despite no slavery and partly because is scarce.

The consequences are:

1. Workshops are even more useless than in the base game, despite having their full stat without needing to commit to a civic. A cottage does not saccrifice the precious and will eventually produce more than a workshop produces .
   
2. A windmill is better than a mine! typically by a margin of 1.36. It takes both forge and =0 (no magocraty or tech tree completed) for mine to beat windmill by a tiny 0.14.
3. Cottage is king. Value wise, they generally beat food + specialist and food + working a food deficient tile, exception being flatplain town. So while plain farms and grassland windmill are worth building (making the tile food neutral), plain hills are generally not worth working. In particular, double flat plain village is almost better than plain hill mine (even cottages are already almost as good) and flat plain towns beats plain farm + plain windmill if you were wondering how to improve the cities in the souther part of your empire (but not by much so if you haven't grown the town, milling is totally fine).
   
4. Draft is worthless. It can be useful in a pinch, but it never produces value. Even with smokehouse + granary, the -> conversion rates is unimpressive for horseman, typically worse than the -> rates through specialists, and mammoth riders is a 4 pop draft, the conversion rate might be barely worth it, but in this food poor world, it's gonna take forever to regrow 4 pop, and you'll lose out on the work of these citizens while doing so.
5. Don't build military building in every cities. Don't build every military building in every cities is a no brainer, that you are even told in game. But it's actually fine, good even, to not build any military building at all in a low production (presumably cottage heavy) town. Once it runs out of things to build (granary, smokehouse, market, elder council, obelisk at most) just build warriors, scouts or wealth.

 

[Tobiyogi]

Someone who has beaten the scenario on a very high level? I wanted to try that on Immortal once again after my Emperor win some time ago.
What are your suggestions for hero order? In my previous attempts, I was never very creative, always started with the Hunter Caerbulin (for exploring), then chose Epona who usually helped me out throughout most of the game and when she eventually died it was too late to still benefit from the Sword fighter (what's his name?).

 

[MAvL]

Someone who has beaten the scenario on a very high level?

Not really, the highest I've beaten it is Prince, without using the above mentioned trick, so I might retry on higher difficulty to put my theory to practice.


As for heroes, obviously Epona is the best one, useful both in war time (Fireball) and in peace time (Heart), and mostly not replaceable with regular units. The question is whether and when to use the other ones.

I think going all in Epona like you did is a valid strategy and it does involve using Caerbulin first, at least to open the Chancel of Whatever, and get the Wisdom Thingy tech of Ether.

I'd say Belenus the swordman is mostly useful if you plan to do a warrior rush (I don't know how good warrior rush is, I deemed it as bad in my last run, but that's because I did not run Belenus). He is redundant with army in general and his collateral damages are redundant with archer barrage in particular (edit: he does not have collateral damages as a swordman, so meh), and since archers are probably the first military unit you should research any way, that does not leave you with much time to use it. He also is mostly useful taking cities, so anytime your not on the move, he is worst than the two other heroes. He still is great as long as there is an ennemy city standing, but I would consider getting rid of him once the Doviello are beaten and you got more than -8 archers on the field, and I would very strongly consider disbanding him once Terris is taken. The good thing about him is that it's the easiest hero to usefully suidcide.

Caerbulin the hunter is really useful to explore. He is redundant with hunter. Turn 1 hunter can be somewhat powerful, but the main point of hunters is exploring chancel and capturing animals. To capture animals, you gotta wait animal husbandry anyway, and chancel can be explored with scout or even later on with hunter if it's not critical to get it ASAP. Now turn 1 hunter and 50% withdrawal chances gives you a big leg up in the XP race. The hard thing about Caerbulin is getting rid of him in a meaningful way. If you want to put all your money on Epona, it makes sense to rush the chancel with Caerbulin first; however, were you to lose Epona, Belenus would be useless by then whereas Caerbulin would still be very useful (and very sticky), so keeping Caerbulin as a back up also makes sense.

By the way, how did you lose Epona?

 

[Tobiyogi]

Looks like I can beat it also on Immortal. It's turn 210 and I am almost through the tech tree, ahead in score and have conquered the Doviello. They are my allies now with their remaining 1 or 2 ice cities i begin to build cats and mammouths for my final attack - also still have to get the second part of the sword
I must admit that I had a bit combat luck in the beginning, especially when I took workers with Woody II and was counter-attacked. Worker steal is so important here because the cities have a hard time growing anyway. Also Mr. Doviello alias Shaka (Agg/Exp) likes to build a lot of them. But Guerilla II archers do a better job at this.
Strategy was more defensive this time: 4 core cities inside the mountain ridgeline, my first offensive settlement was next to the horses.
I was surprised about very tame stacks from the winter god, technically advanced though, but quite low in numbers. I had the feeling that stacks on EMP used to be bigger.

Spoiler screenies from t 210 :

Heros: How can you lose Epona? When you are too cocky! I attacked at 97% odds and was heavily wounded and counter-attacked by 2 wolf riders. Death! (last game)
I still don't have a need for Bellenus, don't think that warrior rush is a good idea. You could take that barb city, but you spend a lot of worker turns to connect it, you need a border pop for the gold, you are very vulnerable there etc... I play it like i use to play BtS, economy first. So I went worker first and mining. Growing to size 4 at 2 warriors and then immediatly my first settler. Pottery very early just like last time. Cottages must grow!
Ah yes, heros: So Caerbulin first, but he cannot do much when the huts are discovered, well, he can defend a bit on the forested hill. I think I sacrificed him eventually to get finally Epona. Btw, i never use her for Science, she is a weapon that i love to use in offense all the time. She is easily at Woody II or III (plus "march") and then she takes workers like a Pro also destroys roads, camps, or simply fire-shoots long-distance workers. She should be at the frontline, she can always do damage. She is like the Lady in chess, moving in any direction and threatening so many tiles at once with her fireball.
Only now, after the capitatulation of Doviello, i could think for the first time about sending her back to the capitol.

The nice thing about this scenario is that you can finish your movement and still throw the fire ball or do "barrage". Epona can also bombard city defenses. Softening the defenders in the city does not really work, I suppose they get only stronger by this. So, without a single catapult, I took the whole Doviello empire. Fireball bombard, Longbow barrage and then attack with Horsemen. I started on the siege workshop after my conquest in only one city, because it's 250 hammers. This scenario teaches even more how to specialize cities. I have 2 cities with archery range, 3 cities with stables, 1 city with siege while melee units have not been used at all.

Longbows are without doubt the best unit in the mid-game and it's worth sacrificing other techs in order to get them as first.

 

[MAvL]

I tried Belenus warrior rush in Immortal just for the heck of it, and it turned out surprisingly well.

I got peace with the Doviello without building a single military building by turn 80. That meant between the first and second Mulcarn attack. If I knew what I were doing, I think I could have managed it before even the first attack. I lost a lot of time dancing around his capitol but in hindight, I don't think trying to take it with nothing more than Belenus and warriors is reasonable. I went Deluoc, Lunis, dance around urslo then Teraholm. In hindsight, I should have gone Teraholm before Lunis (no culture defense) and don't bother about Urslo except maybe with few troops to keep him busy, pillage and worker steal.

So that's the main downside of this rush : the Doviello will most likely keep their capitol, whose culture takes the best tiles of the city you just took. So I just gave him his cities back - after using his hunter lodge to upgrade my first children of Kylorin. I probably should have hold on Lunis and developp it's culture to spread irrigation idk.

It still is kind of a gamble since you need to take 80% odds fights with belenus against city javelineer. That may sound high but if he ever dies, the 7+ warriors you built are useless: Belenus is your only unit capable of taking out javelineers. The warriors are here mostly to wipe out the tons of scout Charadons loves to guarrison, and can take on warriors after some leveling, other than that they mostly protect and heal Belenus.

I got very lucky with my first children, with mark of the rabbit and mark of the raven, the ultimate Hunter combo, and while floating wasn't of much use during the war (Doviello has not enough units to be lured, and if he had, it would be worse), but skeleton is ludicrously strong that early (one non promotable 4 strength unit per turn essentially).

The last downside I can think of is that a short war leave much less opportunity to steal workers. I only have 3 workers T80, which I guess is bad given all the unimproved tiles I work, but my cities won't grow fast so I think it's ok.

Spoiler Screen from T82 :

On the upside, the situation is very peaceful from then on, with Doviellos as tech partners and meat shields. I even gave them unexperienced warriors to lower my expenses. I immediately disbanded Belenus (big mistake, I could have given him to Doviello) and hired Epona, I already have a super hunter on the way. And since I was at peace then, I have not much other use for her than the Hearth. I kept the nearby frostling nest west to level her and she also helped the Doviello repelling a massive frost giants attack (4 at once I think). As you can see, I did not go all in warrior smorc, I did open with a single worker, build only about ten warriors and took time to settle 2 cities afterward, and aimed at the Codex.

Also, I can postpone Bowyers until after all the eco tech (currency engineering medicine).

In my Prince run I seldom built any cottages, like I usually do in BTS (I'm a REXer who'd much rather whip courthouses and switch to espionnage economy than admit cottages are useful), so Bowyers was way out of reach, even with Codex, but archers were enough to take out the Doviello. Crossbow is my goto unit mid game because it comes with engineering.

I also got super lucky and tamed Fiacra at turn 100 or so. At combat 2, he 90% the giants on open terrain.

Currently I am turn 148, in 4 turns I'll have medicine, the last eco tech. I'll expand north more than usual since I don't have Doviello's land, but it should be a walk in the park, I'm top score and Charadon is above Mulcarn!

Spoiler Screen from T148 :

Still on 3 workers, not applying my own advice, with farms that should since long have been cottage

 

[Tobiyogi]

I realized only quite late that slavery is not available. Is my mod wrong? The slavery civic didn't change anything at least. Only chopping. The gameplay is quite different, also the Great Persons don't play a huge role. When you run specialists, no points are accumulated. I have not run a single scientist, because i don't think that Elder Council is a good building. There are no good buildings except the market, imo. And of course the necessary military build-up. It is a bit unbalanced after all, some civics coming at the totally wrong time - like free military units at the end of the game when you are rich etc... But still very very good, only a little bit out of proportion compared to normal BtS.

 

[Tobiyogi]

Can you whip here? I cannot.
And nice, I also popped gems in the capitol
Well, it can work to rush this way but like you said, it is a strategy based on 80% fights which i don't like at all. I commit to myself not to reload after bad fights so in that case, the hero would be lost if he gets unlucky (only reloading is allowed to replay other strategic options).
Can you trade for the ivory? I think it's only one resource, so you won't have mamouts won't you? In general, i am not a fan of early rushes, because the BtS games on higher levels have taught me that it 's better to let your opponent develop the land and take it later from him. So cottages are mandatory for me because i usually get conquest gold only late. Anyway, nice to see that several options are possible!
In my current game, i still got Bellenus. For some unknown reason, Epona was suddenly replaced by him. I did not fight with her at that time. Maybe she had grown too old And i tamed a spider, but didn't want to keep her

 

[Tobiyogi]

To be honest, it's not a bad strategy (if the odds were a bit better). Because Settlers are so incredibly expensive. So going full military and taking cities - why not? I wonder what would be a good strategy on deity. Maybe starting with Epona straight away and make her a "killer machine"... ?

Edit: Forgot that she needs KotE to become 5 strength. So it's also a bit luck-dependent if the scout stays alive on the way to the shrine.

 

[MAvL]

I cannot whip. I misorthographied wipe (warriors are mostly here to wipe ennemy scouts) and was talking about my playstyle in regular BTS (whip courthouses).

Now even in regular BTS, it is often not that great to whip excessively in cities that reach size 8 with good tiles to work. In FFH AoI, given how powerfull welth is and given how scarce food is, I think I wouldn't whip much if at all even if I were given the option.


I did reload once because a combat 2 warriors died defending Belenus against Lugh. I expected Belenus to defend (I was not too commited on the warrior rush then and would have been happy with a hero trade) and I did not expected Lugh to be able to retreat. I only took 80% fights I was confident I could finish even if I were to lose them. So typically the city has to have 1 javelineer top and no warrior, or only one or two unupgraded ones. And I have to have a bit more warrior than they have scout. That's why the Capitol was out of question, despite having a single javelineer with something like a 76% odd fight. That way, losing Belenus to the bar city is no big deal since you're not commited to rushing yet, and losing to the second doviello city is ok since you no longer need him. That still leaves a 20% or so chance to screw up if he dies on the first Doviello city.

"because the BtS games on higher levels have taught me that it 's better to let your opponent develop the land and take it later from him". I definitely agree. Here I'll never be as big as I could have been by waiting archers/longbow/crossbows to capture cities and hold onto the Doviello's capitol. Now in this scenario, it is not that bad since making peace is almost as good as capitulating him, since he's on your side at the end of it (the differences are really bothering though, culture pressure, and won't be easy when trading, and you can't attack him to take/raze the cities he settle where he shouldn't).

"Can you trade for the ivory?"
You can capture mammoth and create new resource with them. I already got one on my northern city. Other animals can creat city buildings with various benefits. Spider for silk (and one gold), wolf/bear for happiness (and scoutXP + defense/culture). Only the 2 panthers Fiacra and the Stag don't have building asociated to capturing them.

 

[MAvL]

To be honest, it's not a bad strategy (if the odds were a bit better). Because Settlers are so incredibly expensive. So going full military and taking cities - why not? I wonder what would be a good strategy on deity. Maybe starting with Epona straight away and make her a "killer machine"... ?

Edit: Forgot that she needs KotE to become 5 strength. So it's also a bit luck-dependent if the scout stays alive on the way to the shrine.

Yeah, if I had to pick a "best" rush approach on deity, I'd much rather archer rush with Epona than warrior rush with Belenus. Fire ball is more consistent than 80% odd fights, but more importantly, you're giving them time to settle one or two more cities (maybe even the horse one), and you're giving yourself chances to be able to take the capitol (you should take and keep/raze Teraholm as well because of culture pressure, even if it's kind of a garbage city). Also it gives them time to road toward Illian, which can be good or bad, but once you're clearly superior, it's mostly good.

By the way, I don't remember what happens when you refuse the peace offer. Do you stay at war forever or are you given an other peace opportunity each time you take another city?

Scouts are cheap, with 2 of them, KotE should not be a worry. You can even use Caerbulin to secure this quest and disband him afterward, not many things can threaten a hunter on a forest or a hill early on.

 

[Tobiyogi]

This scenario can go in such unexpected directions. I started on deity and chose Bellenus this time, my idea was to get him some nice exp through the frostling huts. When he was at CR 1 + shock i could take out the barb city. I was wondering if i should keep it but in the same turn, i popped a Golden Age by event, 20 turns because i started on epic speed. Wow! This is almost cheating. Having 2 cities early on, switchting the first civic for free, building some warriors with extra hammers. Clearly this is not deity anymore
So you never know, any approach can work. Not sure if i will play this on. It seems a bit too lucky and i prefer to have a challenge.

I don't know how the peace treaties work. In my previous games, i have always capitulated the Doviello (rather late). I didn't know that a regular peace treaty is also possible.

 

[MAvL]

wow! I did not even know it was possible to have a golden age. Yeah your start definitely feels OP. I'm not sure about giving shock that early to Belenus. If you want to attack cities with javelineers later, it's kind of a wasted promotion, though I guess it defends against Lugh.

 

[Tobiyogi]

I really wonder if the barb city is worth to be taken early, in that case, Belenus would do a very good job. It can fogbust at least, you can spam some cheap warriors here and we are ORG, so not a huge drain on the economy. In a regular Deity attempt, I would probably take the city with Belenus and then fight with him against all the units that come towards us (mostly melee and reckon units) that's why "shock". If he dies, so well, then it is time for Epona. In the meantime, scouts should have discovered the KotE. Will try that out during the week-end. Either way, Belenus is not needed towards the end of the game, because you simply have enough possibilites to take cities down, even with Longbows. But I think, we should take it, yes, at least for the conquest gold that helps keeping the research high (otoh, i believe that fog busting doesn't follow the same rules here.... when i place a hunter on a hill somewhere in the tundra, endless frostling units pass him though ....)

Also, I wonder if a city on the NW forested hill is really worth it, you can also defend on the hill. In my last game, it served me as a archer-spamming place, when you work only the silver mine, it can pump out archers every 5-6 turns. But - instead of building the very expensive settler, you could also train archers from your capitol instead

Would be nice if there was a "Anti-barb" and "Blitz" promo, in that case, Belenus could take out so many frostlings and farm endless exp points. Not sure if he should automatically get CR promotions, he can also keep the northern map clean with Guerilla/Woody III or steal workers from the Doviello. In your last game, you probably didn't realize how huge the barb spawning is on IMM because the Doviello became your allies very soon. In my 2 short deity games, one scout each had been knocked out by Wolf riders at turn 7 or 8
The settings speak about “No barbarians“

 

[MAvL]

Yeah, I agree with your opening strategy.

"I wonder if a city on the NW forested hill is really worth it"
I usually don't build it, most the time it will only have ressourceless plain tiles to work. I guess if you go super defensive and don't expand for long it might be worth having an extra city, but yeah in general I doubt it is worth a settler.

"In your last game, you probably didn't realize how huge the barb spawning is on IMM"
Yeah it's true the Doviello are really proactive with barbarians.

"otoh, i believe that fog busting doesn't follow the same rules here"
I believe animal spawn more or less like in regular BTS (but throughout the whole game). There is even a tip that says ennemy can't spawn where you see (not sure about the range 2 fogbusting that also happens in regular BTS).

Frostling den do spawn units even if you see them though. And there's also a barb city far up Norths which sends frostling and wolf raiders (I was lucky capturing it super early with two scouts and a raider including my second mark of the raven child, coming from the jungle).

For the most part, I tend to think we should avoid fogbusting on this map. In high level regular BTS civ, you fogbust mostly to secure city spots and not having to escort your settlers with warriors against archers. Then also a bit to reduce the number of axemen and whatnot you have to fend off. In FFH AoI, for the most part, there are no city spots to secure, and the only thing a bunch of level 1 or 2 warriors can't defend against are frost giant, but then a defensive level 3-4 archer on a hill city does the job and aren't hard to get by (besides, you can't fogbust frostgiant).
So the foggy areas are actually a source of valuable XP and animal. Scouts don't survive long in the wild, but hunters, if you're conservative with them, have a high chance of making it to level 2 or 3 where they get really sticky (I usually go for combat 3 to get subdue and resist cold, I value the ability to regen health anywhere over guerilla forestier or mobility).

"one scout each had been knocked out by Wolf riders at turn 7 or 8"
Now this is a whole level above what I'm used to see. If this happens consistently, that definitely changes my opinion on fogbusting and barbs in generals. Still, we'd also have to take the numbers into account, a single wolf rider doesn't pose a threat to a single hunter (assuming he walks on hill/forest). And Wolf rider is about the biggest threat you 'll encounter in the open, beside Fiacra (which I don't think takes time to heal and probably does not require more than 2 hunters) and maybe the occasional roaming Mulcarn Axeman (who most of the time is 3.8/5 due to blizzard). Frostling archers are about the most annoying thing that can attack a city, depending on how early they arrive, they may or may not mean trouble.
edit: from the civilopedia I see ogre exists but I've never seen them. are there things that spawn naturally or, only stuff the northern barb city eventually build long after you got an answer to it?

On that note I remember someone writing earlier in this thread about razing the barb city because it was hard to defend and I forgot to react to that. While the city itself is on flat land, you just have to occupy the forest North (between the two mountains) and the hill East to defend it very efficiently against barbs

 

[Tobiyogi]

"On that note I remember someone writing earlier in this thread about razing the barb city because it was hard to defend and I forgot to react to that."

It was probably me. in my attempt months ago, i did not dare to keep the Barb city, but i have learned more about Civ 4 since then. The barb city has definitely more potential than the city on the NW entrance and it doesn't cost a settler. I probably started building a worker here, but you just have to pump out warriors (+ chop an obelisk in between) and go steal your workers.

Of course, wolf riders are the worst that can happen here, but on IMM, they came in groups of 2 in the mid-game (so in Deity it's probably three of them and some single riders right from the start
I suppose that on deity, more or less every bad guy will be in the game from the beginning, so we will also encounter Ogres and Frost giants much earlier.

Yes, the barbs spend exp points and are most of the time not dangerous, but they can be really annoying, when you cannot move on your own roads because 4 frostlings occupy every tile. And i would rather give exp to a couple of special units then to my archer defenders who win their fights even with less exp.

That's why i thought about sending Belenus into the tundra (besides fog busting) and make him a super fighter who can take out Dovellian Axes even on hills. I think your city-attacking strategy is probably not possible on deity. If it's like in BtS, then deity AI has more archers + 1 extra settler. So they can shift all those Javelineers between their cities while Belenus is recovering from the last fight.

I think my next game will also mean to learn more about possible promos. Never used "cold resist" for example and never subdued animals. What do they do for you? Can you build a totem for more happiness in a city? Also i am not sure if medic II exists? Medic III obviously not because we don't get GG here.

 

[Tobiyogi]

The civilopedia tells that Combat III leads to Blitz and i tried that but the promo isn't available. Anyway, i do like that Belenus guy much more now
Taking the barb city with Combat III at 97% odds. Combat IV = +80% on base strength + 10% healing.

Spoiler Deity, T33 :

 

[Tobiyogi]

Wow, it's turn 43 and I have Belenus at already 24 exp points and Combat V. The enemy stacks can't help themselves but to take shelter in a forest or hill next to Deluoc. Which is unfortunate of course but this guy can wipe them out anywhere. I am safe here, but still need to close my entrances with 2 or 3 warriors.

Spoiler :

 

[Tobiyogi]

how much i like to play around with all those promos. it's turn 64 and i have Belenus at Combat V and Woody II. Now he can go grab workers

Spoiler :

 

[Tobiyogi]

Lost Belenus at T98 while proactively defending Deluoc. He fell for a good cause
It's interesting how the former Barb-town attracts all the attention. I didn't take a single fight on that famous "entrance hill" yet.
Also did i try to build up one scout to Combat III and eventually "cold resist" but he was knocked out by Fiacra, very unlucky.
Economy is fine, Belenus could help to defend the worker who built the gold mine.

Spoiler time for Epona, Deity, T98 :

 

[Tobiyogi]

Now we're talking. Fiacra attacked two times succesfully, but the third time, my subdue hunter was there, right place, right time. So I have tamed fiacra and will find out if she can take enemy cities. Not especially a case of luck, because i saw that she is around and i sent my hunter in that direction. She had 48% odds.
From the list of buildings, i have seen that spiders, wolves and bears can put down happiness buildings, so basically all animals from the map.

Spoiler Fiacra :