Feedback wanted: The "screw tech & buildings" strat

[Worm4life]

So me and a friend have been tooling around with a strategy revolving around completely ditching research at a certain point. We've only played around 50 games and would be interested in hearing feedback from more experienced players.


With the tech tree, it seems like the farther you go, the less you get for more beakers. This made us start to question whether or not it was worth it to tech past a certain point instead of just pumping out gold.

The techs that seem to give you the most bang for your buck:

Mysticism (early god king and religion)
Calendar (for plantations and agrarianism)
Sanitation (farm bonus, baths, aqueduct)
Bronze/Iron working (axemen, champions, metal bonuses)
Ether/Sorcery (for adepts and mages)


It seemed like the point to stop researching was around iron working and sorcery. Military units beyond champions seemed like more trouble than they were worth (especially the 4 unit limit ones).

(re: magic- Archmages never seemed worth it at all since most mana types have the most useful spells at level 1 and 2: air, fire, enchantment, shadow. The level 3s that are powerful are also insanely situational.)

Once you hit that point, go to 100% wealth, start raking in your 1000+ gold/turn, and just spam what you need. A champion spam seems to always beat the guy who kept researching so he could get a couple knights or whatever. Going for a tower victory? Outright buy the tower of mastery for 23k gold.

Of course there are always some exceptions. Some races may need certain techs, and going for an altar/tower victory requires some advanced ones, but for the most part we're starting to conclude that champion gold spam wins the day over nerdy researchers.

 

[Aline]

Hmm what diffeculty are you playing on, are you playing against the AI or another human?
I guess your point is valid for some civs, especaly Clan, Doviello and Bannor, and i guess most others can steamroll very well.
I disagree about the Archmages, if used correctly they are insanely powerfull, and if you would set up a battle of 50 Champs and 4 well promoted Archmages versus 100 Champs and a handfull of adepts i would place my money on the smal stack, stuff like wither, fireelementals or valor can be insanely powerfull, especaly when dealing with larger stacks.
Also some religious and national heros might require some middle/late game techs, and they too can become strong enogh to take on an army on their own.
Anyways, when you are talking about using tier 3 untis, i wouldent acctualy concider that an erly, rushy, thing, what you are basicly doing is, getting what you need to councer the world and then get the money to support your army, and a huge stack of camps + some support is a valid option to win the game, however at the same time teching is one aswell, if you whant to go for some high end techs, dont just get those techs but get them before anyone else has something to counter what you get there.
About the victory buildings, i think of rushing them with gold as a semi cheat, its at least pretty lame.
In the end it bogs down to what you whant to do in your game, i often find it more amusing to just eat everything with a dragon or something than just throwing stuff at them.

 

[Worm4life]

Hmm what diffeculty are you playing on, are you playing against the AI or another human?

AI, Prince. Friend plays a level higher.

I disagree about the Archmages, if used correctly they are insanely powerfull, and if you would set up a battle of 50 Champs and 4 well promoted Archmages versus 100 Champs and a handfull of adepts i would place my money on the smal stack, stuff like wither, fireelementals or valor can be insanely powerfull, especaly when dealing with larger stacks.

I think mages are worth it. 50 champs and 4 archmages versus 100 champs and adepts/mages, and that's assuming the researcher has reached archmages before the gold pumper floods him with units.

Wither and valor are nice, but I'd take a simple first level rust spell over that. I don't find the gap between archmages and mages (with fireball/lightning/rust/enchanted blade/shadowalk) to be worth the additional cost of research. And if you lose those archmages it's going to be a heck of a long time getting more while adepts and mages can be replaced immediately.

Also some religious and national heros might require some middle/late game techs, and they too can become strong enogh to take on an army on their own.

There are some exceptions. Since Chalid is pretty much an automatic win button, researching up to religious law is worth it if you can build him first.

Anyways, when you are talking about using tier 3 untis, i wouldent acctualy concider that an erly, rushy, thing, what you are basicly doing is, getting what you need to councer the world and then get the money to support your army, and a huge stack of camps + some support is a valid option to win the game, however at the same time teching is one aswell, if you whant to go for some high end techs, dont just get those techs but get them before anyone else has something to counter what you get there.

It's not so much an early rush as it is a mid game push. Early on you're teching just like everyone else because iron, sanitation, cottages, and level 1&2 spells are too good to pass up. Gold pumping a champ/mage/catapult army at that point seems to have a huge advantage over a guy who's spending over 10,000 beakers researching a tech that lets him get 4 units that are 50-100% stronger than a champion. By the time the late game comes around, the additional cities you've conquered will have paid out more than the guy who spent another 5,000 beakers to have his windmills give an additional hammer and commerce.

 

[Aline]

Well yea, midgame usualy decides the game unless doviello/orcs are around, if you feel boored i would recomend using Tholas more naval AI mod and playing on a continents/archipelago map, it will make you whant to get man o´ wars.

 

[Emptiness]

I was sure there was another thread discussing this idea, and I was going to refer you there - but I see that you're the one who started the other thread. I'm not sure if you lost track of it, or if there was some other reason for starting a new one. Anyway, if someone does care to refer to that thread it can be found here: Tech freeze strategy?

 

[Worm4life]

Picked the game up again after a long time and wanted to see if anyone tried out this strategy. Most forums frown on thread necromancy sooooooo..........

I've managed to jump a difficulty level ever since I adopted this strategy and have been beating Prince to the point where I think I'm going to bump it up some more.


I think everyone's urge to tech to the very end is a holdover from Civ4 where techs and military kept getting exponentially better till the end. This isn't really the case with FFH2.


A little variation on the champion spam: if you don't have any iron, then I think the blasting powder units become worth it.

 

[Andvare]

Problem is that the AI is so stupid that the game is effectively over in the midgame.

 

[Emptiness]

For me, the main reason to fully explore the tech tree is that I like to play around with all the toys. Actual warfare can get tedious for me, so I generally try to put it off and build up as much of an advantage as possible so that my victory is swift. If I enjoyed victory by attrition then I would probably just tech to The Guild of the Nine, switch to 100% , and drown the world in mercs every game.

 

[Breunor]

I don't agree with the premise here. I think the late game abilities are quite strong, especially some of the rituals. I rank The Nexus as the second best wonder (to the Guild of Hammers) and it can be a game changer. Blood of the Phoenix can be overwhelming if you are in a late game struggle. I'm blanking ont the name right now, but the ritual allowing you to recast your world spell can also be a powerhouse.

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[CyberForte]

Indeed, Blood of the Pheonix, especially combined with an elite cadre of highly promoted end game units (as long as they're promoted with First Strikes) will nearly always defeat a horde of weaker units. A single marksman standing on a hill with blitz will defensive strike you to hell unless you're using shadowwalk, and even with that, if it's been upgraded from the assassin with Aeron's Chosen, the only real chance to take it down is with a single strong unit.

And Birthright Regained is indeed quite powerful. No matter how many champions you spam, it can't do anything about say, a second application of Sanctuary, and your ability to spam gets killed if you get hit with a second Statis. Or, Amurites can disable your buffing mages completely and wipe your stack of its buffs with a second Arcane Lacuna, just to name a few.

That said, I've never seen the AI use such strategies as I suggest that well, so your idea would probably work pretty well against them. Personally, I would find a game like that entirely uninteresting, which is the drawback in my opinion. I play FfH instead if base Civ because I want cool stuff, and doing that is pretty much skipping out on all the most fun toys.
-CF

 

[scutarii]

Ironically - "mercenary wars" suit very well to khazad but - there is no need - for hammer producing civilization axemen are "cheap" and it is also cheaper to upgrade from axemen to champions instead of hiring mercs.

 

[UncleJJ]

Of course there are always some exceptions. Some races may need certain techs, and going for an altar/tower victory requires some advanced ones, but for the most part we're starting to conclude that champion gold spam wins the day over nerdy researchers.

You are basically correct that it is possible to win quickly by concentrating on some early military technology and ceasing further research. But I don't see anything special about the combination of champions and mages as the notional cut off point. There are many combinations of troops that can do this, some a lot easier to research than what you propose.

It seems to me that you could attack a lot earlier with bronze weapons and catapults if the opportunity arises. Bronze warriors are the most cost effective troops in the early game beating axes and other tier 2 troops. So basically spam warriors and then upgrade any well promoted warriors to axes. If catapults are too slow and you want to use mobility promotions or haste to speed up the attack in enemy culture then ritualists are the ideal way to weaken the enemy stacks to 60% strength. They are easier to research than mages and don't have to wait for 10 exp points.

So if I was doing what you propose I would use something like warriors and catapults initially and then research AV and Priesthood, and with horses Trade (chariots). Trade is a very good tech for this approach because it gives another trade route per city and allows technology trading. That includes extorting techs from cease fires So declare war, capture a few cities and make peace for a load of techs. Rinse and repeat for another neighbour.

From the economic point of view I would continue researching at least until Currency and Mathematics were available. If the gold slider is at 100% then gambling house make sense in big cities.

 

[BvBPL]

With the tech tree, it seems like the farther you go, the less you get for more beakers.

Yes, but…

If you don’t tech you don’t get to play around with the higher tech toys. For whatever that is worth.

This strategy works fine if you are on par or ahead when you get tier three units, but if you are behind a bit then getting the higher tech cost national units can make a huge difference. The national units cost about twice a tier three unit and have a base power about twice that of a tier three, but are functionally much stronger. This allows a civ that is behind to catch up through savvy use of these units.

In addition, it is worth noting that you’d need an advanced civic to gold rush production. So you’d have your gold, you just wouldn’t be able to do much with it. Of course, it isn’t that hard to get such a tech, warfare allows for military state which would be an excellent civic for the strategy you’re describing.

 

[Horatius]

Is the late game stuff useful and fun? Absolutely.
Does the game forces you to use it? Not necessarily.

It depends on the map, the difficulty level, your victory goal.

On Prince, I would not go further than horse archers if I just wanted to win a domination victory.