Controlling hell terrain spread

[xalien]

Picked this up in another thread and i've got some questions about it:

Tiles are updated each turn to turn to their hell counterparts and back based on the tile's plot counter. A value below 10 is normal terrain and resources, above 10 is the hell counterpart. A tile's plot counter goes up by 1 each turn it is adjacent to a tile with a counter of 10 or more and the AC and alignment restrictions are met.

Hell terrain "arrives with Hyborem" because Infernal territory is always set to have plot counters of 100. (Hell can also start when an Entropy Node flair turns its tile's plot counter to 100.)

1. How does sanctify work in this case, does it reduce the plot counter back to 0 or by a smaller fixed amount? Does it work if the plot counter is less than 10, i.e it haven't turned into a hell terrain yet?

2. Being adjacent to a hell terrain tile and node flare events aside, what are other ways for a tile to get it's AC counter up? In one of the older games I've noticed hell terrain appearing in Dovielo lands while no one ever turned to AV before - no Hyborem entering the world.

3. I assume I can't cure a whole world with an army of adepts if it spreds through the oceans as well.

Generally, my biggest question is when playing evil elves how to keep it away from my forests. Do I need adepts covering my entire border casting sanctify every 10 or so turns? That's an awful lot of micromanagement if you don't share your borders with a good civ.

 

[Fafnir13]

Not sure one the others, but yes, an army of adepts. Ideally, you'd be the nation that brings Hyborem into the world and quickly wipe him out. Early containment is your best bet.
Hmmm...never tried this before, but you could probably use adepts casting sanctify in boats to try to rid the world of the hell terrain under the waves. You'd have to be pretty systematic about it though, and you'd have no way of ever being sure. Be nice if hell terrain would have a graphic for water tiles.

 

[xalien]

Santifying oceans ... as I only play on huge maps the magnitude of such operation is ming boggling .

 

[Immaculate]

Picked this up in another thread and i've got some questions about it:



1. How does sanctify work in this case, does it reduce the plot counter back to 0 or by a smaller fixed amount? Does it work if the plot counter is less than 10, i.e it haven't turned into a hell terrain yet?

2. Being adjacent to a hell terrain tile and node flare events aside, what are other ways for a tile to get it's AC counter up? In one of the older games I've noticed hell terrain appearing in Dovielo lands while no one ever turned to AV before - no Hyborem entering the world.

3. I assume I can't cure a whole world with an army of adepts if it spreds through the oceans as well.

Generally, my biggest question is when playing evil elves how to keep it away from my forests. Do I need adepts covering my entire border casting sanctify every 10 or so turns? That's an awful lot of micromanagement if you don't share your borders with a good civ.

4. Is the count modified by game speed?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

1. Sanctify reduces the plot counter of adjacent tiles to 0. It will work adjacent to a tile with any plot counter greater than 0.


2. Only thing I can think of is that they had the Entropy Flare event. Unless you mean a really old game. ONe of the Horsemen spread hell terrain before the move to BtS.

3. Sure you can, if you can manage to place an adept in every 3rd tile in the world, including on ships in the ocean, and cast sanctify with them all at the same time. Hmm..then again, it might not be possible, as they would probably not be able to enter impassible Peaks. Oh well, even without that it is pretty unfeasible.


Yeah, maybe. There is no reason to stop at your border though. You can sanctify in rival territory with open borders (Elohim Devouts don't even need open borders), and so stop it from getting to your territory. If you catch the spread early enough, you might be able to just surround Infernal territory with life 1 adepts so hell can;t spread beyond infernal lands. (I guess you would have to worry about entroy nodes too though...)




4. I don;t think that game speed modifies anything dealing with plot counters or the AC.

 

[xalien]

So if it takes 10 turns for the tile to get back to it's hell status I can cast it only every 9 turns. One thing though - in my current game I apparently had it approached my territory through the ocean. I got a couple of hell terrain tiles before I could react, but aside from that some forests from adjacent tiles have disappeared even though the land was still clean. Can forests only grow on 0 AC tiles?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Forests/New Forests/Jungles should have no problems when the plot counter (which is seperate from and onlt loosely related to the AC) is below the threshold for becoming hell (10)

Are you sure something else didn't remove them? Or that those tiles didn't briefly become hell before you sanctified them?

 

[Pyr0mancer]

Wonder (Chaos III) has one effect that sets a 3x3 square around the caster to 100 plot counter. It wreaked havoc on my captured Ljosalfar territory before I noticed it was spreading from its all-ocean origination point, had to spend the entire rest of the game sanctifying every 3-4 turns with around two dozen adepts to keep it safely offshore.

 

[smjjames]

Hell terrain appears in the ocean? That's new to me as I haven't seen the ocean tiles change.

Unless it's a new thing and I haven't seen it yet.

 

[Kael]

Hell terrain appears in the ocean? That's new to me as I haven't seen the ocean tiles change.

Unless it's a new thing and I haven't seen it yet.

Hell terrain travels through all plots, but not all plots change graphics. So yes, oceans can carry hell terrain, but it will be invisible to players.

 

[xalien]

Are you sure something else didn't remove them? Or that those tiles didn't briefly become hell before you sanctified them?

Just happened again. I forgot to move an adept and one water tile didn't get sanctified for a few turns. One of the 4 land tiles adjacent to it had an ancient forest and that's the one that became empty - even though it itself was being sanctified every turn. The other 3 still have normal/new forests and some of them weren't sanctified. So I guess that ancient forest has zero tolerance for AC.

 

[Aroldo]

I find it a little sad there´s no "macro" way of dealing with hell terrain, something expensive in terms of in-game resources but not - at least no SO - of time spent micro-managing adepts.

 

[Pyr0mancer]

I find it a little sad there´s no "macro" way of dealing with hell terrain, something expensive in terms of in-game resources but not - at least no SO - of time spent micro-managing adepts.

Actually, there's a very very simple way to eliminate the problem: convert to the Order

 

[Kael]

I find it a little sad there´s no "macro" way of dealing with hell terrain, something expensive in terms of in-game resources but not - at least no SO - of time spent micro-managing adepts.

There are 2 methods:

1. Armageddon counter: effecting the counter modifies the hell terrain spread.

2. Alignment: Your alignment effects the spread, especially being good which will keep it from ever spreading into your lands.

 

[Verily]

Actually, there's a very very simple way to eliminate the problem: convert to the Order

Particularly essential for Thessa or Amelanchier in the late game. Just pop a Golden Age, convert to the Order, then switch back to FoL before the GA ends. (I suppose you don't need to switch back as long as you have Ancient Forests everywhere you want them.)

 

[xalien]

Unfortunately that's not an option for me as I'm playing with the modmod that forbids adopting religions that would change the alignment. Playing Svartalfar and trying to see the Avatar of Wrath in action makes it a real test for patience.

 

[Darksaber1]

Hmm, I used to love how the Alter of the Luonnotar (Consacrated, I think) use to prevent hell in your lands. That way, I could be netraul, and have no hell. But still forest firests, if any forest bordered Flaming Sands.

 

[MalkutX]

Hell terrain travels through all plots, but not all plots change graphics. So yes, oceans can carry hell terrain, but it will be invisible to players.

It's a shame the graphics don't change. It would be awesome if the seas turned to blood.

 

[smjjames]

Yea, I just didn't realize that.

As far as the ocean graphics not changing, I'm sure they have dozens of reasons why it would be hard to do. One way to think of it is that you just can't see how it's happening in the depths.

Although, maybe the ocean resources should change when they become affected by hell terrain? It would be more thematic than anything though.

 

[Darksaber1]

Oh, ya, why did the Alter of the Luonnator loose it's ability to protect you from hell? (It did, right?)
Edit: I mean it did loose the protection, right? Or am I just not noticing it still has it?