The process of "Unlearning"

[Bleys]

I hope this makes sense, because I am kind of struggling a bit.

I am a competent Civ IV:BTS player, but when a friend (not from these boards) told me about this MOD, I was hooked pretty quickly.

But now, I seem to be having trouble getting those "regular Civ IV" thoughts out of my head. Does that make sense? Can someone offer some tips on the main things about this MOD that you need to "unlearn"?

 

[Darksaber1]

Pick a starting civ like the Grigori (without two many special mechanices), and just play a game or two. You should find that you get used to the Mod pretty easaly.
(Sorry for not beging more useful, I started playing last fall, and I barely remember the re-learning process.)

 

[cyther]

The first thing that I had to learn was that playing each civ is like a different game in itself. In civ4 and BtS essentually one strategy would work for most civs but Ffh was created to be more in depth and playable for much longer than vanilla civ. The learnig curve is very high so I hope that these tips will help.

-Start off with a simple civ on a low difficulty like the Bannor
-Focus more on Experienced units not new/more advanced units
-Promotions count way more in Ffh
-Don't ignore magic or divine, they can be a great help and the AI doesn't really understand them

Hope that this helps.

 

[Demus]

it takes some time to get used to the "new/different" early game in FFH, which can determine the rest of your game. Focus on eighter education or mystisicm early on (i prefer education) to get some additional science coming in. Start with a straightforward civ, like the grigori or the bannor, and try to read up a bit before starting a new civ (yes, every single one has different strategies).

Basically, in FFH you need to specialize. Don't aim on being good at everything, pick one route (preferably the one your current civ is best at), and aim on getting the optimum units in that tech line.

About unlearning: Basically look at what cyther said. the metal line isn't everything. While in BTS, your best bet units usually were axemen - swordsmen - macemen (atleast for the core of your army during the relevant period), in FFH you can perfectly build entire armies out of horsemen, recon units (hunters, upgrading to eighter rangers or assassins) or mages. All promotion values in FFH have been doubled, causing experience to weight heavily on a unit's value.

To summarize: forget BTS. The basics are similar, but the way the goals achieved are very different. Start low, and work your way up once you learn the new mechanics. Plan your civ. When starting out, expecially after having played a few games, you should have some idea where you're going with the game, what units you're going to aim for, what religion you're thinking of adopting (major change here: every religion has different effects), etc. Don't expect to learn everything over night, but in the long run you'll find the mod beats regular BTS easily

 

[civ_king]

If u play RPGs then it won't be that hard
if u like to kill with magic use Amurites
if u like to kill with stealth Svaltafar
if u prefer just beating the enemy up then use Bannor
thats as easy as i can make it for a beginner ( i got addicted on v 15c)

 

[TheGreatSteve]

The cardinal rule of Civ

"Land is power."

It's still true in FfH, but not nearly as much so, especially in the early game. Maintenance penalties can crush you quickly, and the focus on fewer, stronger units makes it easier for a smaller empire to fight a bigger.



Another thing to change-each Civ will have it's own strategies and gameplans. In regular Civ, everyone's going to end up with macemen, rifles, infantry, etc. In FfH, you might not even get Bronze Working until halfway through the game. The game rewards beelines better than regular Civ. Depending on your civ, you may leave entire sections of the tree unresearched for the whole game.

 

[InternalShadow]

Slaving is not a instant win button.

 

[loffenx]

What Steve brings up is one of the biggest differences, in my experience. If you also take into the account the Armageddon Counter, which rises with razed cities and can bring all sorts of penalties (for most civs anyway), it all makes domination and building large empires much more difficult. In thoose games where i don't get wiped out in the early stages i usually balloon and loose control.

 

[Chrispy]

I hope this makes sense, because I am kind of struggling a bit.

I am a competent Civ IV:BTS player, but when a friend (not from these boards) told me about this MOD, I was hooked pretty quickly.

But now, I seem to be having trouble getting those "regular Civ IV" thoughts out of my head. Does that make sense? Can someone offer some tips on the main things about this MOD that you need to "unlearn"?

Yes, it took a while to get Civ concepts out of my head when I started (pre-BTS). It also takes some thought to get FFH concepts out of my head when I play BTS. My biggest one is playing BTS and thinking those Calendar resources or wine will come online quickly.

 

[Bleys]

My biggest one is playing BTS and thinking those Calendar resources or wine will come online quickly.

I struggle with this one, I look at those Calendar resource sites and automatically think "later". Does earlier Calendar make the tech to clear Jungle more important, so you can access those resources?

Slaving is not a instant win button.

I think this is my biggest hangup. Slavery and forest chopping just dont play as big a role in this version. I am used to micromanaging such tools to get the most bang for the hammers, but those tools are very low-impact here, not "level changing" (mastering whipping and chopping is worth a full skill level in regular BTS, IMHO).

Thanks for the tips so far, there is definitely a big curve here, both learning and unlearning.

 

[Demus]

I struggle with this one, I look at those Calendar resource sites and automatically think "later". Does earlier Calendar make the tech to clear Jungle more important, so you can access those resources?

Sanitation is pretty far off, even though it's a very strong economical tech (added food from farms, clearing jungles, aquaducts and public baths). But far from all calender resources are in jungles. Silk is in forests for example (great if you're playing one of the elven civs), and incense and reagents can usually be worked the moment you research calender.

 

[Chrispy]

As Demus points out, many Calendar resources are readily available without Sanitation. Plus, the civs that start with Fire mana or by the Pyre of the Seraphic can use Blaze to get rid of those jungles earlier.

 

[TheGreatSteve]

Deserts are far better (well, less worse) than in regular Civ, while jungles are worse.

Siege is incredibly unimportant in comparison to regular Civ. You can use fireballs to bombard defenses down, and various spells to damage the enemy stacks.

Not really something to unlearn, since they have no Civ analogue, but heroes are great, far better than they may look on paper. Gilden Silveric (elven hero) may look like a str 6 that doesn't arrive much before people have str 5 swordsmen, but the hero promotion means that soon enough he'll be something like str 20 to their 5. (Heroic Strength 2, Combat 5, Shock)

And on the subject of promotions, "fewer, stronger units" means Blitz, March, and Mobility are better than in regular Civ. Thankfully, they're easier to get as well. And the Medic 2 of priests actually heals more than the Medic of disciples, it's not just a bigger area. Took me 4 months to notice that

 

[kenneth]

I'm also a regular civ4 ladder player. Can understand how you feel.

Start by playing military-oriented civs like Bannor. Early game offensive strategy tends to revolve around spamming swordsman/warrior (with bronze researched) as mages take time to become powerful

Download the incredibly useful ffh2 manual from the forum to get an idea of what are the specialities of each civilization.

The main difference between regular and ffh2 is each civilization is much more different compared to regular bts because

1. Different Civilization have diff world spells

2. A lot of national (civ-specific) units and heroes

3. Introduction of MAGIC

The magic sysmtem is ffh is probably the hardest part to learn. There are like 10+ magic spheres, meaning over 30 spells. A huge portion of my time was spent reading through the spells in the civpedia and figuring out what each does. Each civ starts with different types of mana, which in turns determines what sort of magic you will get and how you should play your civ. Example, a civ with trait summoner (summons last 3 turns instead of 1 ) should get spheres with summons, like death magic (only sphere with summons at all three level).

Generally spells can be split into 3 types. Summons, Support (boost ur own units) and terraforming.
Archmages are ridiculously useful in ffh2 and will often be game breakers, because all level 3 spells are extremely powerful or useful.

4. Religion

Some civics have special religions for them, eg elves should always go for Fellowship of leaves. Dwarves go for runes of kilimorph. Religions also come with their special religious unit like priests and heroes. Always choose a religion that synergize well with your civ strengths. Eg of a bad choice would be fellowship of the leaves and sheaim.

5. Armageddon counter

The higher it goes, the more powerful the barbarians will be. Certain civs benefit directly from high AC like Sheaim. In general, evil civs with ashen veil tend to be least affected by high AC. Eg, If blight hits at AC 40, a elven civ running FOL will see easily see his city size reduced from 30 to 10+, any evil civ running Sacrifice the weak (ashen veil religion) can easily maintain his city size around 20 even with blight.
Of course, at 70 AC, you can build one of most powerful hero (from ashen veil) in the game.

you can join ffh2_mp on hamachi if you are interested in playing multiplayer games.
Good luck and have fun.