Evil Civs' Susceptibility to Armageddon Counterintuitive?

[onedreamer]

in the early hell terrain, flood plains were converted to a terrain different from burning sands (can't remember the name now). All it take to rebalance the thing is reintroducing this terrain feature. For the rest, I really don't think hell terrain is a penalty. Also remember, that Evil civs have access to Sacrifice the Weak civic, which means you need only half food to grow cities....

 

[xalien]

Except for floodplains/oasis (the latter can be spring'ed btw) hell terain doesn't change the tile productivity, so I don't see what's the big problem. Demonic units get combat bonuses - only evil civs can get those.

The only civs that do get hit hard by hell terrain are elves sitting in ancient forests. But this can be prevented by a few adepts at your borders facing the source of the spread.

 

[Tarquelne]

Just to be clear on what I see a problem with Hell terrain only affecting neutral and evil civs (evil civs much soon than neutral), it forces the best playstyle to go against the flavor- Good civs should try to get the AC counter up to where it's affecting evil and neutral civs,

Well, the easy - and possibly sufficient - answer is "Dark fantasy."

"They want Hell? We'll shove it down their throats until they choke on it!"

Aside from that:
a)
I think one of the ideas behind hell terrain is that it forces civs to chose sides. If they aren't already Good they need to either switch to AV for access to "Sacrifice the Weak", or change to a Good religion for the immunity. That immunity, even though it can lead to a dubious playstyle, is used to force the choice.

b)
The A. counter can sometimes be hard to control... I think a lot depends on map/game settings. Or maybe playstyle. I've been using the double-counter option lately to try and get the count up - hasn't been working too well. A friend, OTOH, usually reaches high AC despite trying to stop it. So your experience with the practicality of Good civs "weaponizing" the AC may not be generally applicable. Either that or mine isn't - I really don't know.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

It's actually quite hard to up the AC counter very quickly because the events are meant to slow everyone's war machines down. The only reliable, but advanced, way of doing it is if you monopolize all the religions on your continent other than AV. Then watch the entirety of another continent become AV-only. Works best on huge maps.

Sacrifice the Weak is the one reason why evil civs are stronger than good ones. There's a good reason why AV is the last religion to be founded too - because it's the strongest. Trying to play with other religions is more difficult, because their strengths are more subtle. Contrary to popular belief, I feel that adopting AV and STW, and turning evil, is the easiest way for a newbie to FFH2.

 

[Pyr0mancer]

It's actually quite hard to up the AC counter very quickly because the events are meant to slow everyone's war machines down. The only reliable, but advanced, way of doing it is if you monopolize all the religions on your continent other than AV. Then watch the entirety of another continent become AV-only. Works best on huge maps.

Nope. Prophecy of Ragnarök works quite nicely for pushing the AC to exactly where you want it. I mean seriously, it's not hard to spam a few dozen scouts or warriors, for +1 to the AC pretty much every turn.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Sacrifice the Weak is the one reason why evil civs are stronger than good ones. There's a good reason why AV is the last religion to be founded too - because it's the strongest. Trying to play with other religions is more difficult, because their strengths are more subtle. Contrary to popular belief, I feel that adopting AV and STW, and turning evil, is the easiest way for a newbie to FFH2.

Sacrifice the Weak is still better without the AC or Hell Terrain though. Also, AV is not the last religion founded. Both the Empyrean and Esus are later. They are also stronger, if played right. (Since everyone knows that Chalid is now overpowered, and since they have 2 UUs that can stop armies in their tracks. Esus is quite good too, but there isn't that much of a reason to actually adopt it instead of benefiting from it as a second religion)



I still think that AV civs need a way to get peace treaties with the Barbarian State, so they would be encouraged to raise the AC and ally with the Horsemen, Avatar, etc., in conquering Erebus.

 

[Milosrdenstvi]

Nope. Prophecy of Ragnarök works quite nicely for pushing the AC to exactly where you want it. I mean seriously, it's not hard to spam a few dozen scouts or warriors, for +1 to the AC pretty much every turn.

True that. I had a successful game as Hannah/OO with Prophecy Mark city turning out a warrior per turn, using money to upgrade to Stygian Guard, until AC 100...goodbye, world.

 

[uberfish]

I always figured the horsemen and Avatar didn't care if you were evil or good, they simply want to kill mortals.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I always figured the horsemen and Avatar didn't care if you were evil or good, they simply want to kill mortals.

Yeah, but that doesn't mean that they wouldn't grant a temporary reprieve to those who have made a Pact with Agares. If they spend all their time killing their fellow mortals, then it would be more efficient to let them live longer than everyone else.

I never suggested that evil civs should be spared. Only AV civs who are aiding the demons, and they shouldn't be spared forever. My idea was that AV civs could cast a spell/build a ritual that grants them peace with the barbs, but makes them declare war on someone else. It would also make the barbs declare war on other civs who had gotten peace this way, which means AV civs would constantly be backstabbing each other and the barbs would not hold up their end of the bargain forever.

 

[Bad Player]

It is Sucellus, god of life, whom he hates. I don't think he has any strong opinion about Amathaon, god of creation/fertility.

Maybe there should be an event that Basium should try to destroy the tomb of Sucellus...