Don't Really Understand the Armageddon Counter

[iamdanthemansta]

I understand how it works and what effects it has I just don't really understand why any civilization wants it. From a purely strategy point of view I don't see even why the Sheaim would want it. My Sheaim civ was wiped out by the horseman in about 15 turns with a 85 counter. Also on an unrelated note are there other units that can be permanently summoned besides skeletons?

 

[WarKirby]

For the most part, the armageddon counter is bad, for everyone. The sheiam are all about ending the world, so they don't mind that.

Sheiam planar gates spawn more creatures, faster, as the AC rises. So raising it will give you an army of demons to play with. The damage done by their worldspell is also based on the AC. In general though, I agree that it's not enough.
Over in Fall Further, we've made some significant tweaks to the AC. Most notable is that the demons are a seperate barbarian civ, and the Sheiam and Infernals gain peace with them upon adopting Ashen Veil. As the AC rises, demons in FF will spawn randomly in any hell terrain, and they get very powerful quickly, so when you're sheiam, it basically means that the gates of hell are opening, and demons -which ignore you, and kill your enemies- are spawning everywhere. That includes the horsemen.

Aside from that, Rising AC can bring some benefits in general. other notable things are extra resources. Toads and Gulagarms bring health and happiness. Sheut stone makes all new units stronger, and Nightmares do the same for your mounted units (I think they stack, too). Which means the Hippus, amongst others, can benefit from hell spreading.

The Luchirp have an army of non-living golems at their command. And while the AC is bad for them too, it's less bad than for everyone else as armageddon only kills living units, so if you time your attacks right, like when the blight or apocalypse hits, you can use your unharmed golems to crush enemies in their moments of weakness.

Interestingly, it seems that good civs overall benefit more than anyone else. Since hell terrain doesn't spread to their lands, if you raise the AC and remain good, it turns the rest of the world outside your borders into hell, and leaves you unharmed. FF remedies this somewhat with the aforementioned aggressive demons, who will gladly strike out from hell and into the territory of good civs.

 

[iamdanthemansta]

Thanks. I've played Civ and Civ IV specifically for a long time but never used this mod until recently it's really amazing.

 

[Fafnir13]

Over in Fall Further, we've made some significant tweaks to the AC. Most notable is that the demons are a seperate barbarian civ, and the Sheiam and Infernals gain peace with them upon adopting Ashen Veil. As the AC rises, demons in FF will spawn randomly in any hell terrain, and they get very powerful quickly, so when you're sheiam, it basically means that the gates of hell are opening, and demons -which ignore you, and kill your enemies- are spawning everywhere. That includes the horsemen.

Um...Kael? Could we adopt this in regular FFH2? Please?

To keep this relatively on topic, I'm fairly certain skellies are the only permanent summon available. There are a couple units that will stick around if they've killed a unit on their last turn. The...Einherjer...um...Law II summon is like that (iirc) as is the pit fiend (again, iirc).
If you really want to play with summons, try a leader with the summoner trait. All summoned units last an extra turn, effectively doubling the number of summoned units available given a turn of preparation. Especially nasty if you run heavy on the Death mana and summon specters. Little in the game can stand up to such an onslaught.

 

[Worm4life]

Ditto. I never saw the point to raising it either unless I was Infernals. Even as Sheiam I try not to raise it. Their planar gate units just didn't seem good enough to justify it.

And yeah ironically the few times I have tried to raise it I was a good civ and wanted to screw over evil/neutral rivals who didn't have Ashen Veil for sacrifice the weak.

What I never got is why the blight ONLY affects you; it completely passes over the AIs. In my opinion the blight needs to be totally reworked, or even removed. Knocking all your cities down to 1 population for ~20-30 turns makes for a very static and boring game where you're just hitting the end turn button a bunch of times waiting until you can do something again. Why doesn't it at least affect the AIs? Why am I crippled by AC blight when playing the Sheiam but everyone else is untouched and outproducing me? It makes no sense.

I also think the way it's raised could be fiddled with. Ironically, spreading Ashen Veil actually tends to put a cap on how high it can go. Razing a city can make the AC really shoot up depending on the size, but spreading Ashen Veil to a city only increases the count by 1 and after that the count cannot be raised by razing that city anymore.

The surest way to prevent armageddon from happening is to spread Ashen Veil to every city

 

[ArkhanTheBlack]

I agree, the armageddon counter has no relevance to me anymore. There's no gain for any civ and the flame effects are exagerated and hurt in the eyes. It sounded good on paper but when I tried it as Sheaim and really forced the armageddon counter to increase the blite effect killed my cities and all the greater demons attacked me instead of the opponents. That was the point when I said "Never again!!!".
Summoning the infernals and the mercurians with the possibility to switch civs however is great fun. I really love that feature in FFH2.

 

[icarussc]

Druids can summon permanent Treants (at least in Orbis; I think this is from base FfH2, though).

 

[Darksaber1]

What I never got is why the blight ONLY affects you; it completely passes over the AIs. In my opinion the blight needs to be totally reworked, or even removed. Knocking all your cities down to 1 population for ~20-30 turns makes for a very static and boring game where you're just hitting the end turn button a bunch of times waiting until you can do something again. Why doesn't it at least affect the AIs? Why am I crippled by AC blight when playing the Sheiam but everyone else is untouched and outproducing me? It makes no sense.

Blight does affect the AI. Are you sure it wasn't the Pestance event that can happed ov 30 or 40 AC? To cheak, blight also innflicts Death damage on Units. (and happens once per game)

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Druids can summon permanent Treants (at least in Orbis; I think this is from base FfH2, though).

Summon Treant is a Fol High Priest spell. Druids upgraded from Priests however can cast high priest spells, as they get the divine promotion and religion from the priest and have channeling 3 promotion innately.

 

[Worm4life]

Blight does affect the AI. Are you sure it wasn't the Pestance event that can happed ov 30 or 40 AC? To cheak, blight also innflicts Death damage on Units. (and happens once per game)

I have never noticed the AIs score decrease by a single point during the AC 30 blight, while mine goes down 40-50% from all the population loss.

 

[Valerarren]

There are various other summons that don't expire also.

Flesh Golems (Body III), Tigers (Priest of Leaves), Krakens (High Priests of OO). Treants were already mentioned. There are probably others as well that I can't think of.

 

[Emptiness]

The AI can lose population from Blight unhealthiness penalties. Players who run their cities without spare and skip + buildings are going to suffer much more damage from Blight than the AI does.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

For the millionth time, Blight is supposed to affect everyone equally and usually does, but there's a bug that's recently resurfaced which sometimes makes it focus on the human.

 

[Worm4life]

I have yet to play any game where I see AI population drop off from it, whereas every single time I get reduced to 1 population no matter how many health buildings and resources I have.

 

[Emptiness]

I'm sorry I got involved in the derailment of this thread. Another round of anecdote wars won't prove whether Blight is bugged. Some people have examined the Blight code, and it doesn't appear to be bugged. The best way to prove that Blight is bugged is to find the bug in the code itself, which hasn't happened yet. Repeating a million times that there is a bug, without actually finding it, won't change anything.

At this point my goal is to provide players with constructive information that can help them deal with Blight, not to fight with those people who are convinced that Blight is bugged. However, the most effective way to ensure that people looking for ways to cope with Blight will get that information is to post it wherever other people are posting their "Blight is bugged and nothing can be done about it" opinions. If anyone finds my advice unhelpful then they can ignore it.

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Edit:

13. Blight's effect from population is halved (so instead of +1 unhealth per pop its +1 unhealth per 2 pop).

I stand corrected. It appears that the current severity of Blight is unintended.

 

[Aeon221]

Yeah, I'm always kind of annoyed as the Sheaim that there's basically nothing I can do outside of a direct invasion to srsly eff over the good guys. I also hate that the Horsemen inevitably spawn right next door to me and proceed to get their burninate on all OVER the place.

While that can be rather annoying, I do so enjoy having all the Horseman gear on the Meshabber. Watching his big burning butt rip the Elohim to shreds makes the whole thing worthwhile.

 

[Neomega]

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Edit:I stand corrected. It appears that the current severity of Blight is unintended.

I doubt it. More than likely he decided it was hurting the fun factor.
However, now the big city builder civs like kuriotates a ljosalfar will have less to fear from blight, which sucks, because they deserve a pounding for all the cheap city growth they get.

 

[WarKirby]

Um...Kael? Could we adopt this in regular FFH2? Please?

Have a look over the previous FFH patch logs. Kael doesn't add new features, period. FFH is in feature lock. The only thing that gets added is new art, generally. Otherwise patches are just bugfixes.


If you want more features, look to modmods, like FF or orbis, which are generally open to adding new stuff

 

[Tasunke]

priest of leaves tigers are also permanent summons. I think the High Priest of Leaves summon permanent Treants as well.

 

[Elyssaen]

I understand how it works and what effects it has I just don't really understand why any civilization wants it. From a purely strategy point of view I don't see even why the Sheaim would want it. My Sheaim civ was wiped out by the horseman in about 15 turns with a 85 counter. Also on an unrelated note are there other units that can be permanently summoned besides skeletons?

I've just managed an Armageddon victory (a Conquest victory where the Horsemen do most of the work) with the Sheaim, but I think I was very lucky.

It's essential that the Horsemen appear nowhere near your cities. They can actually be survived, although they might destroy half your empire in the process. The real problem is that you want them to destroy the rest of the civilisations before they get to you.

Playing the Sheaim I spammed Elegy of the Sheaim and did everything I could do to increase the AC. I switched off research once I had what I needed – which is high AC, Ashen Veil founded, Corruption of the Spirit (for Rosier the Fallen) and Infernal Pact. With research off I was able to buy Meshabber of Dis in one turn once the AC hit 70.

Four Elegies timed in four cities brought the AC to 93 (+3 from Meshabber's creation), causing Wrath.

The Horsemen didn't appear near to me, and with Wrath on and Worldbreak cast soon after, the Horsemen destroyed everyone in the world except for me (the Sheaim), the Infernals and two civilisations lucky enough to get their own island each off the main continent.

Ars Moriendi was the first to come my way, and I don't know how bad it could have been – his early death was a fluke. Buboes arrived next and destroyed two cities before I threw every unit I had in a city's Planar Gate at it and it fell. Stephanos and Yersinia fell to Rosiel and Meshabber respectively.

After that, the key advantage of the AC was that it no longer mattered what happened to my cities, or even how many I had left. Meshabber of Dis destroyed Hyborem, Varn Gosam and Dain alone.


…in short, get the Meshabber of Dis ASAP – his only requirement is AC, not technology (not beyond Ashen Veil). Horsemen + Wrath + Worldbreak + Meshabber is the end of the world.

Oh, and you need Tar Demons. Planar Gates will produce them in large numbers once you have a Temple of the Veil. You don't need any deviation from your technology route (just Corruption of the Spirit), they have 7 + 1 Unholy defence and are immune to Death, Poison and Unholy damage. That is, a Tar Demon fighting Ars is 13 vs. 7 instead of 29 vs. 6 (a Champion – that unit your enemies might not even have yet).

The Sheaim are brilliant at high AC, but only if you spam it early, found Ashen Veil and are actually willing to watch the world burn.