Epic hell spread

[Xuenay]

Playing on a Huge Donut map with desert in the center and all the civilizations initially in, I'd noticed Hyborem popping up, but hadn't given the issue much attention before. Wherever he was, he was far away from me and pretty weak in score. I was mostly caught up in my own wars, first fighting Perpentach, then the Illians, then the Khazad. I *had* noticed hell terrain slowly spreading towards my eastern cities, but so far it hadn't been able to cross my borders.

Then I researched Omniscience, and saw the whole map.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

See how it is spreading in all directions from the center, threatening to swallow every civilization as the AC climbs. Already it has buried several landmarks - the standing stones, the Mirror of Heaven. And here, where the border wars with the Balseraph have temporarily left vast swarths of land uninhabited and unprotected, the hell terrain has slunk its way in, towards once grassy and fertile lands:

Spoiler :

In my foolishness, caught up in my petty border wars, I have ignored the greater horror that threatens to doom us all.

Oh, what have I done?

 

[Demus]

sounds like a fun game, i'll be sure to try it out

i must say, donut + desert is the ideal mix for hyborem to spawn in. Hardly anyone will be able to maintain a serious expansion in the desert (besides the malakim maybe), leaving plenty of room for hyborem to appear, who doesn't care for the food yield

 

[MagisterCultuum]

He won't care about food yield, but Burning Sands aren't great for production or gold either. I tend to think that the Infernals should get extra yields from hell terrains, especially those that normally have no yields.

 

[zup]

It depends.

One time I started off as Hannah and went rather quick for infernal pact. Then switched my research when I was 1 turn away from it and researched a huge amount of tech. I also made sure to spread OO to all other civs who were likely to summon Hyborem. Once I felt I was ready, I went Hyborem and immediately used theocracy + scholarship + caste system. I was working that mithril mine but other than that it was just specialists.

I also made Lanun so strong that barbarians did not turn on me until I started eradicating the Lanun. By this time I had burned down the rest of the world. I ended up with 3 huge cities (16X,11X,7X) and won with culture. It was lots of fun and the only thing I cheated was move Ashen Veil holy city to Dis (for Meshabber). I also used low level units for only for defense. My attacking army consisted of Mardero, Meshabber, 4 death knights, 4 beasts of agares and 4 av priest => eidolons. I never lost anything.

It was very unfortunate that when I took the Lanun capital my game crashed, every time. Fortunately I was close to culture victory by then.

 

[pchem]

By this time I had burned down the rest of the world. I ended up with 3 huge cities (16X,11X,7X) and won with culture. It was lots of fun and the only thing I cheated was move Ashen Veil holy city to Dis (for Meshabber).

You think 16X is a huge city? pshaw. In the game I just played as Hyb, Dis was size 52. It could easily have been twice that! Rather overpowered, to be honest.

I figured that the point of Hyb's Whisper was so that you an get the Ashen Veil holy city (for Meshabber). But I took over the city by force anyway.

For civs defending against Hell Terrain: is there a preferred way to prevent its spread or undo its damage, other than being Good alignment?

 

[Tyrs]

I think by 16X he means the roman numeral. So, 160 pop. not 16

 

[Demus]

16x means 160-170 . I've gotten my AV capital up to over 300 population before, just settle all your manes there untill you can build everything important in 1 turn.

battling hell terrain: get a group of adepts with the sanctify spell (law 1 or life 1, not sure but i think life), and start pushing the hell terrain back.

 

[Xuenay]

16x means 160-170

160-169, to be precise.

 

[pchem]

haha. that makes more sense. I'm surprised a patch hasn't changed the way Hyb population is handled, to be honest. a 160 pop city is a tad excessive.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

IIRC life 1 is sanctify and law 1 is loyalty

 

[heisenberg]

it always amuses me at the graphical size of those infernal mega-cities. Had a couple of Dis's whose city graphic sprawled over to neighbouring tiles

 

[lordrune]

haha. that makes more sense. I'm surprised a patch hasn't changed the way Hyb population is handled, to be honest. a 160 pop city is a tad excessive.

Yeah, fallow civs definitely want a mechanic of some sort to prevent excessive overcrowding. Even a pop >30 is excessive for your standard non-sprawling city.

 

[Tyrs]

It isn't that overpowered. At best you can still only build one item per turn. It's fun, please don't kill it because it sounds scary.

 

[Zechnophobe]

Yeah, you *can* get huge cities. But only fairly late in the game, and it balances out the fact that your cities do not, in fact, grow normally.

 

[Thimblyjoe]

it's not so much an issue of balance, but of flavor. If we go with the civ definition of population, which I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) is 100000 per point. A city with 500 population would then be 50 million people. We're talking about packing the enitire population of California AND THEN SOME, into one city. Now I guess this would make sense if this were the city of a thousand slums, but in a normal city, it's likely that the entire city would be about as packed as washington D.C. is going to be on January 22nd. As in standing room only, people packed in shoulder to shoulder like sardines. Maybe if there were a pop. cap that you could expand on by building a unique building called bottomless pit or something.

 

[Demus]

well, since this is an infernal city, i wouldn't be that surprised to find that many people packed into one space, since basically, every "evil" person on erebus will wind up in the infernal empire. Obviously, that many people packed together won't be comfortable, but who cares? you're dead!

 

[FireBlaze]

it's not so much an issue of balance, but of flavor. If we go with the civ definition of population, which I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) is 100000 per point. A city with 500 population would then be 50 million people. We're talking about packing the enitire population of California AND THEN SOME, into one city. Now I guess this would make sense if this were the city of a thousand slums, but in a normal city, it's likely that the entire city would be about as packed as washington D.C. is going to be on January 22nd. As in standing room only, people packed in shoulder to shoulder like sardines. Maybe if there were a pop. cap that you could expand on by building a unique building called bottomless pit or something.

Your dealing with the Archangel of evil (In laymans terms), so "Humane" is on the bottom of his trait list

 

[KillerClowns]

...A city with 500 population would then be 50 million people. We're talking about packing the enitire population of California AND THEN SOME, into one city. Now I guess this would make sense if this were the city of a thousand slums, but in a normal city, it's likely that the entire city would be about as packed as washington D.C. is going to be on January 22nd. As in standing room only, people packed in shoulder to shoulder like sardines...

I dunno, that sounds like an apt description of Hell to me. Stuff 'em in like sardines. Houses? Sleeping pods, for the lucky ones. They already eat nothing. Entertainment? Well, this is Hell. Waste removal? I have no idea if that applies to demons, but I doubt Hyborem cares either way.
Then again, demons are also more malleable then humans; you might be able to store demons not in use in pure soul form, like data on a computer.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

I haven't played the Infernals yet, but, I think this civilization can only prosper if there are enough "evilwise" religions spread *and* there is some serious fighting going on the world, preferably evil vs evil, plus, there is no Mercurian Civ present already, especialy if there are "goodwise" religions present. So, if you spent the amount of time Zup spent, in order to prepare the world for the coming of hell, then, you should be able to have a powerful Infernal Civ. However, if you are powerful enough to do so, you could have won without them anyway...If someone really wants to play the Infernals to win a game not already won, then it is a tough call to get those manes needed to expand this empire. The Mercurians can, at least, grow normally and need angels to become more powerful than the other civs, the Infernals need manes if they are to grow, or else...

 

[Thimblyjoe]

I guess my point about the city being packed in is not that it's inhumane, but it's kind of counterproductive. It's kinda hard to forge a sword if you don't have the space to swing a hammer.