Best way to learn to play

[Daeger]

So I got turned on to Fall from Heaven by the Penny Arcade post, truth be told I've never been much of a Civilization 4 fanatic, but FfH2 appeals to me far more than the default game, and I've been sticking with it for much longer.

The big obstacle I've been facing, however, has probably been trying to learn how to play Fall Further when I never really learned to play the default Civilization 4 game. Oh sure, I've got the basic concepts down, but I just know there are things I'm overlooking. I've been mostly playing the Lanun but I have no idea how this whole trade route thing works, and I've not had the patience to mess with specialists. Furthermore I have trouble setting up remote cities and I have a feeling I'm missing something important in jump-starting a new city.

I've been playing almost exclusively on Quick (which I feel is an ironic term) because I find the normal speed stretches out the game far longer than I care for.

Is there a better way to learn how to play than cross-referencing between the 3 manuals?

 

[WarKirby]

Hi there. Starting FF without even learning base civ, is very brave of you, and it is extremely complex.

Trade routes first of all.
Although they're somewhat internally complicated, they're quite simple to the end user.
Opening borders with your neighbors allows trade.
Trade routes are automatically arranged where appropriate, so you don't have to worry about doing anything. Just build things that increase trade income, or add trade routes. the routes themselves are entirely automated, so just enjoy the profit.

Setting up remote cities, in general, isn't a great idea. Cities get higher maintenance costs, as they're farther from your capital. So ideally, your first few cities should be situated relatively close to the capital.

When the time comes to expand farther away, it's a good idea to research code of Laws. That allows courthouses, which lower the maintenance costs in a city, and are good for building in remote places. Also, researching Festivals early on is a critical thing, and you should get a market in every city.

Jump starting new cities isn't particularly possible, unless you're running civics which allow production hurrying, and you have a lot of gold to spare. There are a few things you can do to help a city get off the ground, though.

1. Escort the settler. Send as many units with it as you can spare, to guard the new city. At least 1. Two is recommended. 3 or 4 is preferable.
2. Send workers. Build more workers than your capital needs, and send the spares out to the new city, building a road as they go. Then have them improve the area around the new city.

With workers, you should firstly get some food. If there's a food resource, like Wheat, get a farm on that. Otherwise put a farm next to a river. After one food source is confirmed, get some production. Ideally, a mine on a hill. Failing that, lumbermills in forests can do the job, but they take a long time to build, and are best done with a team of several workers, not one alone.

 

[zup]

Start a game. Try to figure out how the game works. Play for as long as you can manage. Lose and try to figure out why to avoid it in the future. Repeat.

The good thing about games is that you can apply trial and error without lasting consequences (the high score can be reset).

 

[Daeger]

Opening borders with your neighbors allows trade.

Now I feel stupid for rejecting all those open border trades. Are there any other non-obvious things I should know about?

 

[zup]

If you do not open your borders, you can block AI expansion. The AI also thinks it is doing you a favor and kills off your hidden nationality units so you might want to keep the AI away from your lands to protect your precious units.

 

[Iceciro]

OB is good to lock off land from AIs you don't like, but at some point you'll need trade routes pretty desperately. I generally prefer to form OB treaties with the civs that AREN'T next to me, because the closer to me civs are probabaly going to end up in a war with me anyways, no reason to foster good relations with cannon fodder

Specialists are actually pretty darn useful for the Lanun because if you're playing them right, you'll end up with a lot of coastal cities that produce a whole lot of food and commerce but not many hammers, and engineer specialists can help with that, especially if you can snag the Guild of Hammers world wonder.

Get a religon. The specific religion differs on what you want to do, but you can use religions and disciples as replacements for a need to get that monument up before anything else in new expansion cities.

As the Lanun, abuse your Pirate UU. It's like a privateer but stronger, it has Hidden Nationality, and it gets a whopping 15 gold whenever it kills any enemy unit, from Work Boat to barbarian griffins (always funny to plunder money off those) to anything else. You can actually base a massive economy off blockades and plunder. Feels very pirate-y.

 

[Breez]

I never open my boarders until culture has all filled in. Otherwise they will run a settler thru and set up a city in the most inconvenient places against me.