FreeTacos
Chieftain
(I split my novella into 3 posts, intro, current game, then most of the questions)
(edited to add save file)
I found FfH2 a week ago or so, and I have to say this mod seriously kicks so much ass you need to use a dump truck to move it all! I have been playing Civ4BTS and Civ4Col, I was digging around the forums and found the mod section and FfH2 the top download so I decided to try it, downloaded the PDF, started reading, and the hook was set, no way this fish was getting loose! Most of my info has come from JonathanStrange's top 10 tip thread.
I started with Hannah the Irin/Lanun a few starts after I played through the New Player Intro, using the tips on this thread, I got up to 5-6 cities with pirate outposts and no land improvements had fun teching (tried both RoK and OO). I still wasn't too sure about where to go/what to do, so I didn't play the games very far.
I did a little reading and decided to try the elves.
I moved on to Arendel Phaedra and the Ljosalfar. I did a few practice starts, the starting economy is like is like trying to light wet paper on fire with matches! I tried teching farms, cotteges, archery, and then FoL but lost it about halfway through the research. I decided to go farms, cottages then FoL in the next games.
Game 1:
I had room for 2 cities in the starting nook, and three dead end canyons with room for 1,2,and3 cities. I built 3 cities in those areas, 2 to capture mana, and 1 for iron. I captured the Fire unique feature a little later, so I had 2 air, 2 fire, 2 nature, and 1 life resources.
I took out the nearest neighbor for the fire shrine, and took all his cities to block Jonas' expansion, then turned my attention to the dragon.
I spent a bit of time knocking him down with maelstrom, fireballs and suicide troops trying to get a chance at him with combat3/subdue hunter. But it was just self-defeating, the more I tried, the more exp he had. After a few rounds of this, I decided to move on.
Next time I will bring a ranger instead of a hunter, more fireballs, and something anti-fear. I learned a bit about Mages, having maelstrom/fireball but no enchanting/haste/stoneskin developed. I <3 combat5 priests and tigers.
Game 2:
My second game I popped hunting and archery from huts, talk about luck(also got calender)! I killed 7 civs with Gilden and 2 warriors, found Briget just south of the coastal city I took from the poor Elohim, I needed a place to make galleys though , Clan of Embers was across the sea and expanding, having killed 1 civ and the Bannor having managed to kill themselves
I gained mutate from a tomb, Canibalize, Blitz, Stoneskin on Gilden WTF! Unfortunatly I figured out later the Stoneskin was 1 use. He was at 226 exp with c5, d4, Hstr2, shock2, Orthus' Axe. A short time later he gained no fear/fear mask and a great commander. After the mutate I started using the warriors to explore stuff, paraniod.
I exp'd 4 priests up to combat 5 while blooming ex-jungle so I built/upgraded to 5 caravels and assembled my strike force, Gilden, Bridget, 5 priests, 2 hunters, 6 swords. With the axe and great commander, Bridget zoomed up to 122 exp fast while waiting for the boats to build.
I had 4 adepts high enough, eventually, to turn into mages with maelstrom, but I didnt develop anything after the initial invasion, If I had the game would have gone a bit faster. I didn't gain any new mana this time, just FoL shrine nature mana. I didn't expand at all past the first 5 cities, I had 2 settlers, but the south was complete jungle, and with the war going well, I didn't think I needed to spam workers/priests to develop them.
I did lose one city to barbs, but took it back a bit later. The barbs were crazy about it so I took it back, then station some archer/sword/sword groups along the path and soaked up the exp for a while... the bastard barbs killed my giant spider. I did get my dancing bear home though.
By this time Jonas Endain had some monster stacks of axes in the cities I could see. I decided to start with some hit and run coastal razes. When I saw he wasn't moving troops to reinforce I headed inland. It slowed a bit when he started building some archers, but for some reason he built many more shaman instead, maybe 1-2 archers per city.
I got Blight from the AC and a short while later the first horseman, Brigit got a nice Crown of Command from him, but by the time she did I was just looking for the last city, the ex-capital that Jonas had taken. Erebus map can get pretty convoluted!
I tried to get the AC to 50, even completing Purge the Infidels and founding/spreading Ashen Veil, but with the last 2 cities razed I only got it to 49. Of the original force I lost 3 swords on low odds fights, and 1 priest at 90% odds. I picked up few converts and spammed tigers. Love those tigers! The last few cities took a lot of turns to chew through the stacks, I was wading in blood. Would have gone a bit faster if I had brought the maelstrom mages over and developed fire sources for fireball. Oh well.
Later thought: Bah I just learned that I could have been casting sanctify on the city ruins to reduce the AC
(edited to add save file)
I found FfH2 a week ago or so, and I have to say this mod seriously kicks so much ass you need to use a dump truck to move it all! I have been playing Civ4BTS and Civ4Col, I was digging around the forums and found the mod section and FfH2 the top download so I decided to try it, downloaded the PDF, started reading, and the hook was set, no way this fish was getting loose! Most of my info has come from JonathanStrange's top 10 tip thread.
I started with Hannah the Irin/Lanun a few starts after I played through the New Player Intro, using the tips on this thread, I got up to 5-6 cities with pirate outposts and no land improvements had fun teching (tried both RoK and OO). I still wasn't too sure about where to go/what to do, so I didn't play the games very far.
I did a little reading and decided to try the elves.
I moved on to Arendel Phaedra and the Ljosalfar. I did a few practice starts, the starting economy is like is like trying to light wet paper on fire with matches! I tried teching farms, cotteges, archery, and then FoL but lost it about halfway through the research. I decided to go farms, cottages then FoL in the next games.
Game 1:
I had room for 2 cities in the starting nook, and three dead end canyons with room for 1,2,and3 cities. I built 3 cities in those areas, 2 to capture mana, and 1 for iron. I captured the Fire unique feature a little later, so I had 2 air, 2 fire, 2 nature, and 1 life resources.
I took out the nearest neighbor for the fire shrine, and took all his cities to block Jonas' expansion, then turned my attention to the dragon.
I spent a bit of time knocking him down with maelstrom, fireballs and suicide troops trying to get a chance at him with combat3/subdue hunter. But it was just self-defeating, the more I tried, the more exp he had. After a few rounds of this, I decided to move on.
Next time I will bring a ranger instead of a hunter, more fireballs, and something anti-fear. I learned a bit about Mages, having maelstrom/fireball but no enchanting/haste/stoneskin developed. I <3 combat5 priests and tigers.
Game 2:
My second game I popped hunting and archery from huts, talk about luck(also got calender)! I killed 7 civs with Gilden and 2 warriors, found Briget just south of the coastal city I took from the poor Elohim, I needed a place to make galleys though , Clan of Embers was across the sea and expanding, having killed 1 civ and the Bannor having managed to kill themselves
I gained mutate from a tomb, Canibalize, Blitz, Stoneskin on Gilden WTF! Unfortunatly I figured out later the Stoneskin was 1 use. He was at 226 exp with c5, d4, Hstr2, shock2, Orthus' Axe. A short time later he gained no fear/fear mask and a great commander. After the mutate I started using the warriors to explore stuff, paraniod.
I exp'd 4 priests up to combat 5 while blooming ex-jungle so I built/upgraded to 5 caravels and assembled my strike force, Gilden, Bridget, 5 priests, 2 hunters, 6 swords. With the axe and great commander, Bridget zoomed up to 122 exp fast while waiting for the boats to build.
I had 4 adepts high enough, eventually, to turn into mages with maelstrom, but I didnt develop anything after the initial invasion, If I had the game would have gone a bit faster. I didn't gain any new mana this time, just FoL shrine nature mana. I didn't expand at all past the first 5 cities, I had 2 settlers, but the south was complete jungle, and with the war going well, I didn't think I needed to spam workers/priests to develop them.
I did lose one city to barbs, but took it back a bit later. The barbs were crazy about it so I took it back, then station some archer/sword/sword groups along the path and soaked up the exp for a while... the bastard barbs killed my giant spider. I did get my dancing bear home though.
By this time Jonas Endain had some monster stacks of axes in the cities I could see. I decided to start with some hit and run coastal razes. When I saw he wasn't moving troops to reinforce I headed inland. It slowed a bit when he started building some archers, but for some reason he built many more shaman instead, maybe 1-2 archers per city.
I got Blight from the AC and a short while later the first horseman, Brigit got a nice Crown of Command from him, but by the time she did I was just looking for the last city, the ex-capital that Jonas had taken. Erebus map can get pretty convoluted!
I tried to get the AC to 50, even completing Purge the Infidels and founding/spreading Ashen Veil, but with the last 2 cities razed I only got it to 49. Of the original force I lost 3 swords on low odds fights, and 1 priest at 90% odds. I picked up few converts and spammed tigers. Love those tigers! The last few cities took a lot of turns to chew through the stacks, I was wading in blood. Would have gone a bit faster if I had brought the maelstrom mages over and developed fire sources for fireball. Oh well.
Later thought: Bah I just learned that I could have been casting sanctify on the city ruins to reduce the AC