Hey,
I'm really not good at FFH yet. Prince difficulty is where I usually begin to struggle. Yesterday I played a game on that difficulty and decided to go for a religious victory. It was incredibly easy.
I played on a small SmartMap pangaea as Kuriotates. I secured myself three nice spots for the three city hubs, spammed cottages, and immediately went for Runes (hoping that the additional money would allow me to keep a high research rate--which it did). The three AIs I was playing with were Bannor, Amurites, and Doviello. The Bannor spawned right next to me and even though I placed my second city in such a way that it started taking away tiles from his territory right away, he stayed my bestest friend throughout the game. The Amurites immediately took off, receiving tons of great people early on. His score in the end was about 500 points over the next person (that being the Bannor). Finally, the Doviello didn't do so well and always stayed at the bottom of the leaderboard.
I founded Runes of Kilmorph in my third city and immediately spread it to my entire realm. I forced a great prophet in my capital as well, and from then on I did nothing else but produce Thanes in all three cities and send them to all the countries who had Open Border agreements with me. At first this was only the Bannor (who converted to Runes after I spread it in his first city--as I said, he liked me ;P), but soon enough the Amurites asked me for Open Borders! After I spread Runes in three or four of his cities, he converted too.
Which left only the Doviello. He was about 200 points below me, refusing to give me open borders in spite of all the presents I was giving him... and then suddenly he decided to declare war on me!
He was right next to my third city--the founding city of Runes which had the tablets of bambur already, too. Still I really don't understand how the AI decides who it can make war on. I mean, the power graph showed me all the way on the bottom and him soaring high over everyone else... and he came into my land with a bunch of beastmen and hunters! Okay, so he had really many beastmen, but I'd been pumping Axemen (1 per round from my three cities) for a few rounds by then. There were 6 axemen in my third city by the time he came with his puny army of 2 hunters and about 4 or 5 beastmen. What the hell was he thinking? Incurring no losses at all, I pushed him back easily to his lands, but still he was refusing to talk.
At this time I was at 73% Runes spread. I had also founded Leaves and Overlords just to make sure no one else would do so and maybe convert (I still don't entirely understand HOW the percentage works--if all the cities in the world have both runes and overlords, are the two religions at 100% each or at 50% each?) and spread them too much. The Doviello's cities had a mix of leaves and overlords, but his border cities were mostly runes due to trading with me. I could see his every move, which really made that war a joke. I crushed every army he sent and when he still refused to talk, I picked the least defended border city and conquered it. Of course I didn't raze it--I needed his goodwill. I conquered the city, held it for a few turns, et voila: he's talking again. I offered him the city back and 10 rounds of peace. When he said yes, I followed it up with a bunch of presents: free iron, free mana, and a tech or two. He went instantly from annoyed to pleased, and after about 10 rounds gave me open borders.
My thanes were already sitting in packs at his borders ;P
I spread Runes to his capital and the two cities around it, and boom: religious victory by 219.
Now there was no way I could have achieved any other kind of victory in this game. The Amurites could have crushed me with his pinky. Even the Bannor, whose expansion I stifled early on, was soaring way above me research-wise. As I said, I still suck at this game. But religious victory? The AI never knew what hit 'em. They didn't found any religions (granted, I raced to get all the early religions just to make sure), they happily converted to my religion and spread it nicely around their lands, and no one tried to stop me when I got close to 80%. I guess it'd be hard to make the AI aware of this type of victory?
Still, I'm not complaining. It was a hell of a fun game and crushing that Doviello felt GOOD (even though I needed him alive for a swift religious victory).
I'm really not good at FFH yet. Prince difficulty is where I usually begin to struggle. Yesterday I played a game on that difficulty and decided to go for a religious victory. It was incredibly easy.
I played on a small SmartMap pangaea as Kuriotates. I secured myself three nice spots for the three city hubs, spammed cottages, and immediately went for Runes (hoping that the additional money would allow me to keep a high research rate--which it did). The three AIs I was playing with were Bannor, Amurites, and Doviello. The Bannor spawned right next to me and even though I placed my second city in such a way that it started taking away tiles from his territory right away, he stayed my bestest friend throughout the game. The Amurites immediately took off, receiving tons of great people early on. His score in the end was about 500 points over the next person (that being the Bannor). Finally, the Doviello didn't do so well and always stayed at the bottom of the leaderboard.
I founded Runes of Kilmorph in my third city and immediately spread it to my entire realm. I forced a great prophet in my capital as well, and from then on I did nothing else but produce Thanes in all three cities and send them to all the countries who had Open Border agreements with me. At first this was only the Bannor (who converted to Runes after I spread it in his first city--as I said, he liked me ;P), but soon enough the Amurites asked me for Open Borders! After I spread Runes in three or four of his cities, he converted too.
Which left only the Doviello. He was about 200 points below me, refusing to give me open borders in spite of all the presents I was giving him... and then suddenly he decided to declare war on me!
He was right next to my third city--the founding city of Runes which had the tablets of bambur already, too. Still I really don't understand how the AI decides who it can make war on. I mean, the power graph showed me all the way on the bottom and him soaring high over everyone else... and he came into my land with a bunch of beastmen and hunters! Okay, so he had really many beastmen, but I'd been pumping Axemen (1 per round from my three cities) for a few rounds by then. There were 6 axemen in my third city by the time he came with his puny army of 2 hunters and about 4 or 5 beastmen. What the hell was he thinking? Incurring no losses at all, I pushed him back easily to his lands, but still he was refusing to talk.
At this time I was at 73% Runes spread. I had also founded Leaves and Overlords just to make sure no one else would do so and maybe convert (I still don't entirely understand HOW the percentage works--if all the cities in the world have both runes and overlords, are the two religions at 100% each or at 50% each?) and spread them too much. The Doviello's cities had a mix of leaves and overlords, but his border cities were mostly runes due to trading with me. I could see his every move, which really made that war a joke. I crushed every army he sent and when he still refused to talk, I picked the least defended border city and conquered it. Of course I didn't raze it--I needed his goodwill. I conquered the city, held it for a few turns, et voila: he's talking again. I offered him the city back and 10 rounds of peace. When he said yes, I followed it up with a bunch of presents: free iron, free mana, and a tech or two. He went instantly from annoyed to pleased, and after about 10 rounds gave me open borders.
My thanes were already sitting in packs at his borders ;P
I spread Runes to his capital and the two cities around it, and boom: religious victory by 219.
Now there was no way I could have achieved any other kind of victory in this game. The Amurites could have crushed me with his pinky. Even the Bannor, whose expansion I stifled early on, was soaring way above me research-wise. As I said, I still suck at this game. But religious victory? The AI never knew what hit 'em. They didn't found any religions (granted, I raced to get all the early religions just to make sure), they happily converted to my religion and spread it nicely around their lands, and no one tried to stop me when I got close to 80%. I guess it'd be hard to make the AI aware of this type of victory?
Still, I'm not complaining. It was a hell of a fun game and crushing that Doviello felt GOOD (even though I needed him alive for a swift religious victory).
You won because you out-teched and out-cultured your opponents. You dominated the tech race, if you were able to invent three religions. So this was not really a typical game.
