Civilization Synergy -- Daladinn help!

[daladinn]

ok, lets try this for starters...

step 1 - forget everything about the big fat cross. its evil and a temptation. DONT persue it. build your cities to take advantage of the 8 surrounding tiles and build your cities close together. your prolly wondering why i say this ....
1- how much higher then 9 or 10 is your happy and health cap? doing this you dont need to build farms often and you can have more cottages and such.
2- this keeps down your distance penalties (which honestly are minimal anyway.having high maintenence in a city is almost a myth)
3- there are a few key buildings that are cheap and available in every city (market, sages , temple)
4- each city is capable of trade routes (trade routes are free gold)

step 2 - understand the myths that you learned a LONG time ago .... cottages do NOT make gold. they make trade. you can adjust your sliders to turn trade into gold or research. why is this important? because it helps to know that sometimes you can get more research at 90% then you can at 100%. research is measured in beakers , gold in coins , trade is just confusing at times.
---- mouse over the numbers in the city tab and look how the bonuses are calculated. this is where you find out that the 50% gold bonus to godking is almost never doing you a bit of good.

step 3 - understand your point score... soo much of your point score is tied into landmass that you have inside cultural borders. if you keep your culture low it greatly throws of your score. if your not going for a cultural vic and dont need a culture push then skip it entirely.

step 4 - FFH is a game about the religions. its all about who is going to control this dirtball we call erebus. if you want a religion , race for it. the advantages of the holy city are ENORMOUS. (i have had the AV holy city producing over 700 beakers a turn at one time).

step 5- understand production limits and roll over. some of the races excell at being able to make units every turn. there are times that building a warrior a turn is greater then taking 4 turns on an axemen.

step 6- when to stop? did you know you can stop all your research and pump it into money and crush your enemies in a dozen turns? the guild of the nine allows for some startling economic abilities.

basically this mod is soo bloody complicated its great.

ohh if your haivng a hard time with economies DONT play the clan of embers. even i sometimes cause them to crash and burn in a fatal collapse

gl and have fun....

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Daladinn: I your guides on the wiki when it was still there are great. However, now that I am perfectly capable of beating immortal and deity, and I did so using other approaches, I have a few questions about your synergy theories:

1 - Why won't you pursue the fat cross? Good tiles and resources are often widely spread out, most of the tiles you will end up working on are the ones outside the initial 8. Besides, an obliesk is simple enough to build isn't it? You want quality cities, you spread them out and grab the prime sites first.

2 - Under city-states, your distance penalty is small. Number of cities penalty, however, doesn't go away much. A better rule of thumb is build a city if it nets a purpose, such as acquiring a new health/happy resource to add value to all your existing cities.

3 - Cheap buildings going into every city? A few, perhaps, but in the initial stages you'd always want the hammers spend on another worker, another settler (so damned expensive compared to regular civ) or another unit against barbarians, animals or enemies. Warriors have a much longer lifespan.

4 - Yes, each city is capable of trade routes, but if you build lots of cities just to take advantage of those, the small cities will end up with cheap domestic trade routes, which might not even pay off for number of cities maintenance. Large, coastal cities are the ones with trade route madness, and you can't have many of those.

5 - weaker units cost much less hammers, true, but that's good if you're scrambling for a defense or taking out nearby troubles like barbarian cities or Orthus. On the offense, if you're early, you still need quality units, because of unit upkeep in enemy borders and because an axeman is SOO much better than 3 warriors in attacking an enemy capital with 60% cultural defense on a hill, with fortify bonuses.

I think religions are powerful in this game too, but only certain religions for certain civs. For other civs, it doesn't really matter. Especially for neutral civs, I don't really bother with religion at all. It's surprising how many open borders (and hence juicy trade routes) you can get by being neutral and not adopting a religion. Remember that the scholarship civic requires no state religion too. Diplomacy is important.

 

[daladinn]

sylvan,

i agree with a lot of what you just said. but a lot of the differences in these views will come from simple how the cards are dealt at the beginning. what your starting location is as what the surrounding area looks like.

i am trying to point people into directions of play that might be outside their normal box so that they can try a new style and see how it plays. each and every civ and leader combo in FFH uses completely different strats. to take the strat from bannor and apply it to elves would not work at all.

most of what i am saying is probably not a standard tactic for many. in this way i am hoping to expand their game.

in the end how you play is largely a style you develop to cope with changing scenarios. the only thing we can point out is synergies

 

[Calbrenar]

sylvan,

i agree with a lot of what you just said. but a lot of the differences in these views will come from simple how the cards are dealt at the beginning. what your starting location is as what the surrounding area looks like.

i am trying to point people into directions of play that might be outside their normal box so that they can try a new style and see how it plays. each and every civ and leader combo in FFH uses completely different strats. to take the strat from bannor and apply it to elves would not work at all.

most of what i am saying is probably not a standard tactic for many. in this way i am hoping to expand their game.

in the end how you play is largely a style you develop to cope with changing scenarios. the only thing we can point out is synergies

I typically am in a rut of having 3-5 cities tops That are usually superbly strong in research and gold production. I defend as little as possible until I get the later game units then crush people. I am reasonably certain that this is a horrible idea and wont' work with anyone (except maybe kuriotates) at the higher difficulties. I can't say that I've ever tried Aristocracy. I almost always keep God King for the production. The only time I ever really founded more then those 5 was with Svaltafar since with FoL i could expand forever with no costs. I played horrible with Archos since they don't have any of the technology buildings I'm used to having (libraries parlayed into great library etc) Like Daladinn said I'm used to Sheim with AV holy city and tons of research and using my tech lead to win. Probably the main reason I still play on noble.

I also have no clue when to "lightbulb" a tech which I've seen mentioned 3 or 4 times vs adding it to a city. TBH I typically just end up with like 8-15 Great Sages. Either I add them all to 1 city or i'll use some as academies if other cities are producing a decent amount o fbeakers (80ish+) I would love to get some non civ specific information along these lines as I would really like to push up to the higher difficulties. I make a big deal between my friend and I that I always try different civs and strats (he only plays amurites i've done sheim, calabim, grigori, lanun, few others) But I almost always play them nearly identically as far as farms early on -> all cottages -> reasearch asap.

 

[daladinn]

cal,

as an experiment play around with the clan for a bit. a very good strat is to rush for construction to get the barrows (you get 2 troops when you build 1 , this applies to workers and settlers also). plus they start out at peace with the barbs. animals will still kill anything outside your borders though so watch that.

play around a a bit with the clan and you will quickly see where some strats totally crumble.

also another thing i have noted about the way you play .... you wait too long to go aggressive. feel free to attack a little bit sooner with harassment style attacks to feel out your enemy.

 

[meril]

I typically am in a rut of having 3-5 cities tops That are usually superbly strong in research and gold production. I defend as little as possible until I get the later game units then crush people. I am reasonably certain that this is a horrible idea and wont' work with anyone (except maybe kuriotates) at the higher difficulties.

This is the way I (and probably a lot of people) started to play Civ, and the reason it doesn't usually work on higher levels in vanilla/BTS is that the AI gets better production bonuses and the deficit snowballs if you delay your expansion, so even if you can hold a tech lead your 10 tanks will get rolled by 100 cavalry. FFH is comparatively easier since high-level casters and heroes are so disproportionately powerful that you can actually beat the AI when outnumbered 1 to 10. But it's still a great help to have a solid grasp of the vanilla game's concepts before looking at what changes in the mod.

 

[medusa001]

ok, lets try this for starters...
...
4- each city is capable of trade routes (trade routes are free gold)
...

This can be VERY powerful if you have the techs and civics that boost trade. However as word of caution, when I used this strategy (along with close proximity of cities, etc.) I was producing a significant amount of cash... then war was declared on me by two of my "trading partners". After that I was losing money hand over fist.

 

[Calbrenar]

cal,

as an experiment play around with the clan for a bit. a very good strat is to rush for construction to get the barrows (you get 2 troops when you build 1 , this applies to workers and settlers also). plus they start out at peace with the barbs. animals will still kill anything outside your borders though so watch that.

play around a a bit with the clan and you will quickly see where some strats totally crumble.

also another thing i have noted about the way you play .... you wait too long to go aggressive. feel free to attack a little bit sooner with harassment style attacks to feel out your enemy.

Turn 58 -- Emperor -- Jondas Endain -- Clan of Embers.

14 beakers a turn. Started out with Crafting due to wine nearby. Then got masonry. 85 beakers into construction and I already can build barrows (from masonry) Not sure if this was changed in Fall Further (only other mod i'm running other then ffh K)

Switching to agri-> calendar since a silk in my city as well as corn.

the only way out for me is north but there's room for cities to the south (just mountained in) Cardith is 12 squares to my North, Cassiel is about another 12 north of him.

Nobody else yet.

I grew my city to size 5 before building a worker. Then built a second while building winery. I think the second worker was a mistake since there's nothing for them to do. 17 turns till Agriculture. Can choose between Warrens in 42 turns and settler in 31. I decided to go warrens since as soon as city hits size 6 i will switch for max shields to rush it then get 2 settlers.

I'm sure I already made a bunch of mistakes lol


The known world from what I've scouted
http://www.pridestorm.com/cal/ss/civ/knownworld.jpg

A close up of the area right around me.
http://www.pridestorm.com/cal/ss/civ/myareacloser.jpg

 

[Calbrenar]

Ok Turn 101.
16 Beakers a turn
11 Turns to Exploration
Cardith 162 / Cassiel 162 / Me 93
RoK and FoL Have both been founded (neither by anyone I know).
Orthus has spawned on the east side of the moutain ranges near me and is dead so someone is obviously to my south beyond the mountains.

Acheron spawned in a huge jungle area ne of me over the mountains.

I have covered every open square of land with farms. After burrows was done I made a settler. Just popped two. Decided to try doing things differently then i normally would and instead of getting calendar in order to exploit the silk i went for mining instead.

http://www.pridestorm.com/cal/ss/civ/updatedarea.jpg

I'm considering putting one city sw of the copper (bearing in mind your 8 squares around the city advice) and also so that I can rush warriors up there and immediately have them be strength 4 and rush out into cardith. Should i keep raze Naggar? Where should I settle the second city. Should I build another settler for 2 more or start conquest?

Going to wait for a bit till I get some advice heh

 

[Demus]

Your last upload isn't working (forgot the /civ).
picture.
I haven't got the high-level experience of some of the other players around here, but i'll try anyway:
1 SW of the copper sounds pretty viable, expecially if it's the only copper in the area. Your 2nd settler i would settle south, near the 2 wines (should grow pretty fast, and carry it's own weight without the long distance to cover. Personally, i'd settle 1S of the western wine, with another possibility for a city using the pig. You haven't got AH(animal husbandry) yet, so you can't work those piggies!). I don't know how much defence cardith has, but your hero unit should be just around the corner, make use of it! A well promoted hero can make short work of a town defended by even 20+ warriors (combat 5, shock 2 etc.). Any way, a push towards BW (bronze working) sounds pretty obvious at this point, but i could't tell if you should go education first (to get your tech speed going) or 2nd (with BW first to start conquering). Ask one of the real pros about that one

 

[Calbrenar]

Oops I didn't evne look to see where I got Randine (I think that's his name) from. I completely forgot about him. The only reason I even know his name at all is from an excellent AAR lol. He's the one who can take over barb cities right? So if I let acheron's spread out I can take some of the cities over there (but obviously not acherons city since he's > randine?)

 

[Demus]

besides the taking over of cities, he's also a str. 5 (i think) melee unit, with the hero promotion (+1 exp / turn), who can use metals (i think)). Not sure about the specs, since i don't play the clan often, but any hero can take out a civ earlygame after spending 50 turns in the game (ask anyone about gilden ). As long as the cultural defences aren't to high, rantine should be able to conquer those kurio's in no time.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Correct. Well, you could cheat to make Rantine strong enough to take over Acheron's city, but there are plenty of more useful ways to cheat.

 

[Verdian]

Thank you for the tips. I started a game as the Lanun and have been building coastal cities. The trade income really is adding up; I have 80% research and no markets, and I am still pulling in 6 gold profit. Really, what I need to do is keep trying different things with different civs. I have a tendency to do the same basic thing every time (shoot straight for godking, writing, philosophy, religion).

you wait too long to go aggressive. feel free to attack a little bit sooner with harassment style attacks to feel out your enemy.

That is another problem I have. I usually have one warrior per city early game, because of course I'd rather have a pagan temple than a defender.

 

[Demus]

why a pagan temple? you need 1 or 2 early game to get some prophets running (if you're going that direction), past then they don't become important untill after philosophy, which is over 100 turns further down the road (in my games anyway, since i tech the remaining worker techs first). 1 defender per city is quite little anyway, an invading skeleton/lizardman can still get a lucky hit in and take that city out.

 

[it-ogo]

Most hints mentioned in the first post are very basic and completely necessary to understand the gameplay essence of each civ for the newbie. Before converting to BTS the game-starting popup window showed such hints for your civ. It was extremely helpful for me when I started with FFH as I did not need to go deep into pedia or wiki or anything else to get the essence.

After converting to BTS those popups had not been transferred and I found that the number of "stupid" questions from newbies in forums immediately increased greatly.

I think FFH needs those popups.

 

[Verdian]

why a pagan temple?

I was just picking a random early building. While pagan temple is usually low on my priority list early game, I do frequently get buildings over units. Especially in the late stages of early game, when I get the religion I wanted and go back to get the other early techs (festivals, fishing, ect). I need to start paying attention to the individual needs of my cities, and not treating each one the same.

 

[daladinn]

calb,

your honestly doing fairly well. i normally play on quick so i cant tell you much about how long things take to build. looking at your map though , exploration seems like its not needed yet (rivers act like roads for resources). typically once i get access to warrrens i go for education next (your going to NEED city states). then get bronze working and then warfare.

your at that point now where the clan gains the option to crash and burn. I was kinda hoping you would dive into it and get first hand knowledge of how fast it can really happen.

but , anywho , get those warrens built expand and start the war machine. its possible to make 2 warriors a turn on many city setups and thats hard to stand up to.

 

[Calbrenar]

Oh i'm well aware of how fast an eco can crash. In my sheim game i had 75 pit beasts. I only survived cuz Falamar's huge cities gave so much gold lol.

I probably wont' get a chance to continue this for a while going to be out of town till the weekend after this one. Be able to get on forums but no gaming ;/ HOpefully I can play some before I leave this afternoon but depends on how fast this work stuff gets done

 

[Calbrenar]

Well played ab it more. Barbarians took over Cardith's sw city. I founded my 2 rapidly had to stop building warriors cuz my econ was crushing. I'm going to need to research exploration because without it I can't get the bronze working and no +1 to all my units which I would imagine is bad. Plus I'm a big believer in Caesar's style of warfare where rapid troop movement is a must. Need to be able to get Braduk's soldiers rapidly up to the front lines. Cardith popped Nilhorn and his giants are ruining my by the bronze working. Have to decide whether to chop rush Rantine or get some more warriors. His giants aren't taking any damage when attacking cuz they get promoted i guess. I managed to kill one but second looks like it'll clear city. On the bright side i don't think he can actually capture it.

Anyway prolly be weekend after next before I can continue but i'll be checking boards