Difficult dilemma

[Kilrathi]

Last night, the Calabim marched across the Sidar continent, taking city after city and only being stopped when a message flashed up "Shadowfire has won a domination victory." Together with their sidekick Basium, the vampires held some 80% of the world's population (aided, admittedly, by a somewhat gratuitous casting of River of Blood the turn before!) and 51.16% of the world's land.

It had been a fun game, though I have to say that a properly set-up Calabim civilization following the Order is pretty darn tough to stop. A vampiric Valin Phanuel, the "Moroi with a Big Axe" (now a vampire lord who had killed Orthus while a mere Moroi) and a host of well-fed vampires managed to give me both a big tech and military edge. Fun, but I think it's time to try for more of a challenge and to bump up my skill level.

The dilemma...? .34 comes out on the 10th. It's only the 1st. I tend to play FFH while traveling or when I have some downtime but a single game usually spans a couple weeks or so... so I doubt I could get a game of .33g finished before the new version comes out. What's a CivFan to do? Maybe I'll... gasp... play a game of vanilla BtS to tide me over? Please, bring on .34, soon!

 

[Jules.lt]

I had the same dilemma. I solved it by finally trying out Age of Ice, which won't get an update anytime soon

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

you should definitely start a game that will last until the end of "patch week"

 

[Kilrathi]

I'm kicking around that idea, though my next thought was to try Sheaim or someone else with the goal of founding AV and taking over the Infernals, which I've never tried before -- but then I saw the thread about the problems with flames lagging things out on laptops and I'm not sure my poor laptop can handle it. Maybe it's time to try the Lanun for awhile and see how far I can get in a week or so...

I did start up a BtS vanilla game, which was interesting but, wow, it takes a bit of re-thinking the approach after playing FfH primarily for the past many games.

 

[Annex]

Yeah I almost had the same problem. Fortunately I have a FF game already about halfway done, so that should tide me over until .34.

 

[Zechnophobe]

Play Tasunke.

 

[Fafnir13]

I'd avoid vanilla. I've tried that once since I started playing FFH2. Couldn't stand the constant tech grinding in an attempt to get the next, slightly better unit before the other guys did, only to have the war once again stagnate as they got up to that level. It was annoying. I much prefer having more tricks to pull out.

 

[Kilrathi]

Funny, that's exactly what I ran into when I tried the vanilla game. I was Rome and decided to beeline for Praetorians and try to take advantage of my special unit, since I was on a fairly small island with just two other civs.

But by the time I'd gotten a few terrain-improving civs and enough Praetorians to be (I think) somewhat fearsome, I found that Hammurabi (who I was thinking about leeting live since he'd picked up my religion) had fortified bowmen and the Celts (my target) had Gaelic warriors behind their city walls (who had a strange ability to attack my Praetorians, who were sitting on hills, and still win despite having 6 str to my 8). There went the unique unit advantage...

I do like vanilla and I'll play it sometime with the new patch to see how it goes but, at the very least, I think I've found that I like civs with later UUs, since I'm more of a builder to start and don't go on the offensive as early as a replacement swordsman would merit. But that's getting off-topic...

The real point is a big thanks to whoever mentioned Age of Ice. Gotta admit, I'm not doing as well at it as I think I should be (still hemmed into my corner and haven't gotten even the crossguard) but it should be a nice week-filler 'til .34!

-Kilrathi

 

[orangelex44]

I'd avoid vanilla. I've tried that once since I started playing FFH2. Couldn't stand the constant tech grinding in an attempt to get the next, slightly better unit before the other guys did, only to have the war once again stagnate as they got up to that level. It was annoying. I much prefer having more tricks to pull out.

That's why those vanilla guys come in here and complain about how everything's overpowered. It's such a drastic change, from wars of attrition to wars of movement. You have to give kudos to the good balancing job, though - I've had games where I lost two or three cities to the AI, then finally get Archmages/Arquebuses/Centaur Lancers/Vampires/etc., and can fight to reconquer my lands and go even further. It's so much more fun, to think in terms of "can I destroy that person?" instead of "can I get that one city?".