Feel Like Helping Me Destroy the World?

[Emptiness]

There's still a fair bit of black around his territory, but if I had to quess I'd say he only has 2 or 3 cities. With an army your size you should be able to wipe him out, and should start right away. Ideally you want to keep all his cities, but Senethro is right that if you collape your economy then any advantage of free cities will be lost. Getting to Aristocracy should be your primary objective right now, because it will boost commerce and also greatly soften the maintenance cost of a distributed empire (which you are about to have). I would suggest that you take all his cities, but pillage improvements around them to boost your income to help get Code of Laws faster. You have enough workers to rebuild those improvement quickly. At the very least pillage any improvements that you will end up changing anyway.

Do your best to level up your Assassins as much as possible. Getting such powerful units this early is unbalancing, and you should exploit that as much as possible. I recommend you promote them along the Drill line, so that they will be able to get Blitz as soon as possible. That, combined with Mobility I & II when available, will make your Assassins into leveling machines.

 

[AsmodeusUltima]

Well I researched Code of Laws and switched to Aristocracy which helped immensely. I then finished Knowledge of the Ether and then Corruption of Spirit. Steinvik has become the AV holy city unfortunately. Still, what can you do?

In the meanwhile I have declared war on Decius and conquered both Nubia and Prespur with minimal losses. I also now have 15 slaves! From what I can tell he only has one more city, so I should be able to mop up very quickly, then maybe destroy some of these barb cities that have been sending troops to harass me. The economy is still not where I would like it to be, my science slider is only at 50%, but I have farms everywhere, marketplaces in all but my two newest cities, plantations on the cotton, incense, and reagents, wineries on the wine, mines on the gold... not sure what else to do to improve it other than research Currency.

Speaking of which, what should I research next? Currency for the economy? Necromancy to start start collecting that death mana? (And later a shadow mana so, along with the AV shrine, I can build the Tower of Necromancy?) Hunting for Ivory or Masonry for Marble? Warfare for Form of the Titan, Writing for Great Library, Sanitation for the farm boost? Oh, and I have no idea if anyone has snagged drama yet... So many choices!

One last thing, I think Arendel is getting ready to declare on Charadon, her mutual worst enemy, because she has the little fist symbol next to her entry...

 

[Senethro]

Sanitation. The farm boost is nice, but whats really causing your problems right now is the happy-cap. Build AV temples everywhere, consider switching to Civic: Religion for lots of extra happiness, and build Public Baths everywhere. Don't worry about the health penalty, your farms will cover that nicely. What you really want now is to double your population, if possible. Then Necromancy would be good so you can start capping off extra Death nodes so you can spam Adepts with free promotions. Priesthood for ritualists is usually good as your axemen replacement will start getting a little blunt by now. With any luck, some of your Adepts will be level 4 just as you complete Sorcery.

 

[UncleJJ]

I want to take a dissenting view . I think that the advice you were given has led you astray economically. Aristocracy was a poor choice as a solution to your economic problems. It is a quick fix but costly in the longer term. It forces you to build courthouses and seriously weakens production at the same time, thereby locking cities into a state of slowly building your way out of trouble. City States, some cottages and a few choice buildings could fix your economy which suffers from being spread out and supporting a large army.

Firstly, I think you built a large and expensive to maintain army and then tried to fix your economy. Obviously it is better to do that the other way round. Note a PZ costs 60 hammers and that is the same cost as an Elder Council and a Market. So unless you're under direct threat of invasion always build the economic buildings first and then the troops in any city. PZ are incredible defenders and about 2 of them can make any city safe for a few turns, if a large enemy stack does manage to kill them they take serious damage from the explosions and a warrior or two can hold them off until reinforcements arrive.

Unfortunately I can't open your savegames since I don't have the Wild Mana Mod. My plan would have used City States, Slavery and Agrarian. City States is so good at reducing costs that most cities don't benefit from a courthouse until they are a lot bigger - and can then build them quickly anyway. New cities could then work farms on grassland for growth and cottages on plains for commerce, if there were no better resources to work. Food from the farms would be used to build Elder Council and Market in each new city either by working hills or later on from Slavery. A grassland farm under Agrarian and with Sanitation gives 5 food which makes Slavery very strong for kickstarting small cities, with 2 whips of 2 pop. Spare food can then be used to run either merchants or sages to boost the economy once the happiness and health limits city growth.

 

[Doug Piranha]

If you've built the AV shrine, you're 3/4 of the way (only need a shadow node) to the Tower of Necromancy. It's really expensive, but it gives you +1 strength on pyre zombies, skeletons, spectres, and diseased corpses (if you ever build any). Also gives you death mana!

 

[Emptiness]

I would suggest teching: Drama> (

Sanitation>) Masonry> Writing> Necromancy> Priesthood

You don't really need Drama, but it is slightly cheaper than Sanitation and unless someone else has already researched it you can then get Sanitation for free. This denies the Great Bard to anyone else. (If someone else has already gotten the Bard then skip Drama and tech Sanitation directly, of course.)

Now that you have the AV holy city I would suggest you start setting it up as your research city. You'll want to build the Great Library and Catacomb Libralus there. Since you have access to Marble that will speed the GL's progress, which is worth a detour for Masonry.

Building Public Baths is a little risky before Blight hits. Ignoring can come back to haunt you later. You might want to send your army out to burn down cities to try to drive up the AC so that you can precipitate Blight. After that you can ignore fairly safely. Building the Prophecy of Ragnarok can help with driving up the AC too. Definitely make sure to spread AV to all your cities, and sign open borders with anyone who asks (so AV may spread to them too).

I think Aristocracy was the way to go with this starting area. You have way too many riverside grassland and flood plains tiles not to cash in on 2 each. City States can certainly bottom out maintenance costs, but it doesn't actually generate , and cottages take time to mature. You might be able to support more specialists with CS/Agrarianism, but you aren't Philosophical and you aren't running Arete or Pacifism, so you're not in a prime position to benefit from a specialist economy anyway.

Definitely build the Tower of Necromancy when you get a chance. It will be a significant boost.

 

[Senethro]

I want to take a dissenting view . I think that the advice you were given has led you astray economically. Aristocracy was a poor choice as a solution to your economic problems. It is a quick fix but costly in the longer term.

4X games are all about quick fixes. Reward now is better than reward later as it gets you ahead of the competition. But you'll have to explain why Aristocracy hurts in the long term.

It forces you to build courthouses and seriously weakens production at the same time, thereby locking cities into a state of slowly building your way out of trouble.

You'll have to explain this, how does it weaken production? As far as I can tell it give you huge quantities of food which can be exchanged for hammers at mines or lumbermills. So long as you have a high happy cap this is, which is why my advice centred around raising it.

City States, some cottages and a few choice buildings could fix your economy which suffers from being spread out and supporting a large army.

If you go back in time a little, you'll find threads where people argued this but tended to be proven wrong, not that they ever accepted it despite some very convincing demonstration games.

Firstly, I think you built a large and expensive to maintain army and then tried to fix your economy.

FFH is a war game. Its never wrong to have an army, because if your military is too big you can always find things to do with it, whereas if your military is too small then someone will find things to do with you.

Obviously it is better to do that the other way round. Note a PZ costs 60 hammers and that is the same cost as an Elder Council and a Market. So unless you're under direct threat of invasion always build the economic buildings first and then the troops in any city.

60 hammers for 2 commerce a turn? You do the maths. Early cities and Fin/Phi fast building only.

PZ are incredible defenders and about 2 of them can make any city safe for a few turns, if a large enemy stack does manage to kill them they take serious damage from the explosions and a warrior or two can hold them off until reinforcements arrive.

Unfortunately I can't open your savegames since I don't have the Wild Mana Mod. My plan would have used City States, Slavery and Agrarian. City States is so good at reducing costs that most cities don't benefit from a courthouse until they are a lot bigger - and can then build them quickly anyway. New cities could then work farms on grassland for growth and cottages on plains for commerce, if there were no better resources to work. Food from the farms would be used to build Elder Council and Market in each new city either by working hills or later on from Slavery. A grassland farm under Agrarian and with Sanitation gives 5 food which makes Slavery very strong for kickstarting small cities, with 2 whips of 2 pop. Spare food can then be used to run either merchants or sages to boost the economy once the happiness and health limits city growth.

Its turn 153. Theres not enough time left for more than 3ish cottages/existing city to grow before the game ends! They'd have to be worked RIGHT NOW by existing population or they're a waste.
As already stated, FFH is a war game so giving up a 2XP civic needs a very good reason. Slavery usually isn't it, although I like using it with Spiritual leaders. In vanilla civ4 you can whip 2 pop to build a Granary, whereas in FFH you have to whip 4 pop for a building half as good. Slavery is good for capturing slaves which are then temporary workers before being upgraded into the Overlords or Doviello melee line or hurried produciton/sold via Slave Trade.

 

[Emptiness]

I also now have 15 slaves!

Speaking of army support and research %, you should probably burn some of those completing buildings in your developing cities. That's a lot of support for sub-par workers, and in any event it's more than you need. I'd say no more than 10 workers-types total at this point.

 

[cabbagemeister]

It's an extremely minor tweak, but you should consider farming over some of your duplicate resources. Until you get Trade, you don't need two Cottons, and an aristograrian farmed Cotton is much stronger than a plantationed cotton. I can't tell if you have any other duplicated resources you could farm over for a commerce advantage. Maybe Wines?

 

[UncleJJ]

If you go back in time a little, you'll find threads where people argued this but tended to be proven wrong, not that they ever accepted it despite some very convincing demonstration games.

I have already searched through threads dealing with this subject and I can't say I am convinced by the case of Aristocracy being significantly better than the alternatives in many game situations, with the obvious exception of Financial leaders. It has advantages and disadvantages and will depend on the circumstances and the gameplan. I have played both with and without Aristocracy although only at a low level since I'm still familiarising myself to the mod. It is obvious to me that it can be good in some cities but often hurts the best development of other cities. Much depends on the map and how quickly you intend to attack the neighbours and whether you have to build a navy to take out another landmass.

If you have links to what you consider a convincing demonstration then I'll be grateful and we can discuss this further. At present I remain to be convinced.

FFH is a war game. Its never wrong to have an army, because if your military is too big you can always find things to do with it, whereas if your military is too small then someone will find things to do with you.

It is a strategy war game and it needs an economy to sustain a war. Wars should be won and then declared; by which I mean the economy has already placed us in a position to win with either superior technology or production.

My take on FfH2 is that you need a basic defensive force to beat off barbarians and an early war with the AI. But is is quite easy to take that too far and build too many troops before you need them, this is what AsmodeusUltima seems to have done here. He then struggled to develop an economy afterwards so he could support any new land he captured without crashing. In most games (where you don't warrior rush) I think you need to build a defensive force, then develop the basic economy (farms, mines, cottages and a few cities with limited infrastructure) and then build an offensive force. With a core economy already established you can afford to take over the captured cities and not fall too far behind in research.

60 hammers for 2 commerce a turn? You do the maths. Early cities and Fin/Phi fast building only.

I've done than maths many times. 60 hammers (or a 2 pop whip) gives 2 "commerce" every turn until the end of the game (could be another 200 or 300 turns) and that is a good return. There is a specialist slot as well that can convert food to "commerce" and give GPPs that perhaps contribute to a GP. It is certainly better to spend 60 hammers on an Elder Council than a PZ that wasn't needed. One contributes 2 commerce to the economy and the other costs 0.5 commerce to maintain.

Slavery usually isn't it, although I like using it with Spiritual leaders. In vanilla civ4 you can whip 2 pop to build a Granary, whereas in FFH you have to whip 4 pop for a building half as good. Slavery is good for capturing slaves which are then temporary workers before being upgraded into the Overlords or Doviello melee line or hurried produciton/sold via Slave Trade.

In Civ 4 the granary is just about the most overpowered building, effectively halving the food required for slavery and drafting for those who know how to use it. In FfH2 the granary and smokehouse are both required to save 40% of the food used in growing and together they cost 240 hammers instead of 60 hammers. But there is a lot more food in the early part of this game than BtS and that changes the food / hammer balance. In civ 4 a post Biology grassland farm gives 4 food (+2 food) and comes quite late on. In FfH2 the grassland farm gives 5 food (+3 food) with Agarian and Sanitation and comes quite early. Many FfH2 cities seem like a 5 seafood start in BtS. This huge amount of food is much more like using Sid Sushi and Kremlin whipping in BtS and it occurs early on unlike corporations. And that's before we consider Sacrifice of the Weak. Slavery is still alive and well in FfH2 especially when cities have grown into unhealth. Slavery just before Blight hits is the solution to 2 problems both lowering the effect and getting something useful in exchange.

 

[Emptiness]

My take on FfH2 is that you need a basic defensive force to beat off barbarians and an early war with the AI. But is is quite easy to take that too far and build too many troops before you need them, this is what AsmodeusUltima seems to have done here. He then struggled to develop an economy afterwards so he could support any new land he captured without crashing. In most games (where you don't warrior rush) I think you need to build a defensive force, then develop the basic economy (farms, mines, cottages and a few cities with limited infrastructure) and then build an offensive force. With a core economy already established you can afford to take over the captured cities and not fall too far behind in research.

This is all perfectly reasonable, and worth factoring into a player's gameplan.

In this game, however, we find ourselves with economic woes and it is too late to not build as many military units. AsmodeusUltima has done the best thing in this situation, namely he has used the military so that the cost of supporting it is not wasted and has begun to implement a plan to recover the economy. The only alternative that occurs to me would be to delete military units to reduce costs. This may be tempting, but is a catastrophic error. Hammers are too precious to flush away in this manner. Once the Calabim are defeated the army should probably shift aggression to barbarian cities in the area, so that it continues to gain experience. Razing cities and torching improvements should help to offset the support cost of the army. As cities grow the economy should expand into position to support the army.

Do you agree that this is the best course of action from our current position, or were you suggesting a different post-war strategy?

 

[AsmodeusUltima]

Very interesting discussion here. I will probably try the City States/Agrarian/Cottages strategy some time, but for this game I think I have pretty thoroughly made my bed with Aristocracy. Plus I look forward to Royal Guards and the Guardsman promotion to protect my all-important archmagi. I know they will usually be well behind the lines, but all it takes is a single assassin I did not notice slipping in to set me back many turns.

After hitting end turn only once I ran into something rather interesting. First I was contacted by the final civ of the game:



And he has a stronger military than I do!

Then I got this event AGAIN! (At least it wasn't yet more mushrooms...)



I was tempted to give my two existing assassins magic resistance, but I find that the AI seldom uses magic against me, so I opted for two more assassins instead.

On turn 207 I got another great event:

Nice! This assassin has Drill 4 as well...

Wiped out Decius with no problem, kept all three cities. Economy slowly recovering, aided by the loot from razing a barb city (with more to come!).

I quickly researched Drama, but no luck. I think Einion got to it first, the old fart. Next I went Masonry, Sanitation, traded Code of Laws and Bronze Working to Keelyn for Archery and Writing, Warfare, Necromancy, Priesthood. What next? Sorcery so I can build a metamagic node when I finish the CL and start spamming adepts? Military Strategy so that I can give that assassin Blitz when he gets his next level? Other?

I decided to do a quick wonderspam while I teched up and wiped out barb cities. I am 3 turns away from the Form of the Titan in Graelingvig, 11 from Catacomb Libralis in Steinvik (with the help of 20+ slaves), 12 for the Bone Palace in Grottiburg, and 19 for Aquae Sucellus in Tongurstad. Galveholm is now busy building ritualists so I can start spreading AV temples all around... Going to try to spread it to Keelyn and Charadon (who adopted RoK, the traitor!) as well. Have not started the Prophesy of Ragnarok yet because I do not know where I should put it! Highest production city maybe? Also Keelyn built the Lyre and Einion the Tablets of Bambur.

Oh, and I know you usually do not want to expand when the economy is down, but this spot looks like a place that might be able to pay its own maintenance:


What do you all think?

Oh, and Galveholm will be popping another Great Sage in 13 turns, going to use that to build the AV shrine. Should I try to get a Great Priest in another city to build the OO shrine as well? I do have a lot of desert I could spring, but it might be quicker to just research elementalism and sorcery, build a water node, give a few adepts spring, and then switch it to death instead...

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I usually go for Magic Resistance, not to defend against AI magic but so that my units can move through flames and won't be hurt by Blizzards if the Illians finish the Deepening.

 

[Demus]

first of all: i love how this map is looking atm. By taking out Decius you've got a large part of the pangea all for yourself to peacefully expand into (should you decide to). That city space would be the optimal space for 1 city, but by the looks of it, you should be able to get as many as 3 viable cities up around those floodplains (first using the right gold and copper, second using the left copper, incence and wheat, with a production+reagents city down south). I don't know how the maintenance will end up, but it shouldn't be more than the commerce gains from farming those FP's.

Normally playing the sheiam i would just beeline eaters of dreams at this point (or probably earlier actually), but if you can pop a great commander from mil. strategy, that assassin of yours will become a killer machine. Can you see if anyone has gotten the commander yet? (hover over the tech. if it says "free great commander", then it's still available. If it doesn't, then forego MS and go sorcery, spamming death mana nodes as you go.

 

[Senethro]

Thats a lot of land you have. How many easily accessible mana nodes does it have? How many mana nodes total would that give you?

The Death II spell summon has Death affinity, meaning it gains +1 Str for every death node. With Titan and Arcane trait your Adepts will very quickly get to Level 4. What I'm thinking is you may have as many as 5 potential sources of Death mana (including your palace) which would give you Str8 summons. Roll in the free combat I from Summoner, +30% from Empower promotions, +AC% from Sundered trait and you've got something closer to Str 12.

Does this appeal to you?

 

[Emptiness]

You've got 8 cities now, so build your Forbidden Palace. That will help with your economy. I'd suggest putting it in one of the cities you took from Decius, perhaps the most western of the cities farthest south. I wouldn't build new cities until you've completed it, since your economy is fragile at the moment. The Forbidden Palace will help buffer the impact of new cities.

It's definitely time to get mages going, and Death Nodes, and your Tower of Mastery. Leave one node empty, so that you can build a Metamagic Node on it when that's available, make one Shadow for the tower, and make the rest Death.

Four Assassins, one of them Aeron's Chosen. Just awesome. Research Horseback Riding and promote them all with Mobility I & II, so that they can speed along roads to meet any threat to any of your cities. Anything they can't kill gets a Pyre Zombie suicide, and suddenly they can kill it. Anyone attacking you will turn into an xp-fest for your killers. Definitely research Military Strategy, next if no one has gotten the Commander yet, so that you can give your Assassins Blitz as well. The only thing better than 4 Assassins is 4 Assassins who can each attack 4 times per turn.

With so much desert you'll want to hold off on summoning the Infernals at least until you've got someone who can cast Spring and Sanctify. Rather than researching the techs for those nodes and then juggling around node conversions to teach those spells to a caster, I'd suggest building your Planar Gates and then getting a Mobius Witch (or two) who have the right spheres. You can do that by initially deleting any Mobius Witch that doesn't have one of the spheres which you need. You'll end up with a Witch with both, or two Witches each with one, and then you can keep whatever additional Witches you consider satisfactory after that point. (If you get a Metamagic Witch then you won't need to reserve a node for Metamagic conversion, and can make another Death Node. A Witch with Nature would be nice as well, since that will eventually allow Poisoned Blade for your Assassins.)

 

[cabbagemeister]

Chiming in to agree with what others have said. There's too many floodplains there to plan for just one city in that area. I like the idea of 3 cities:

One 2E of the eastern Gold (gets Gold, Copper, 8 FP)
One 2W of the western gold (gets Gold, Incense, Wheat, 3FP, 1 plains hill, 1 grass hill)
One 1E of Reagents (gets Reagents, 6FP, 2 plains hills)

Remember that every FP is 5 food 3 commerce for you. These cities will grow like weeds and help your economy as they do so. I wouldn't even wait to fix your economy before settling them--if your first build is a Market, as it should be, they won't cause you to crash.

Edit: if you're set on settling only one city in that area, I would put it 1N of the eastern Gold. This city will get 6FP, and a plains hill rather than the 5FP and no plains hills that your spot has.

For research, there's no question you want Sorcery next. Spam adepts and convert every node you have to Death (maybe reserve one for Water if you settle that FP area very fast--converting those desert hills to plains hills is a good idea). Give the vast majority of your Adepts/Mages Death, Mobility, Spell Extension, and Combat promos (in that order). I predict you're going to like the Str 7, Mobility II, Combat I Spectres your mages will spit out.

Don't worry about metamagic until you have the techs to start thinking about the ToM. You can always conquer more mana nodes later in the game and convert one of them to Metamagic.

 

[Doug Piranha]

I think a lot of the arguments people are having are resolved by looking at what kind of victory you're trying to win. If, as you said in the OP, you're trying to get to AC 100, the game is going to go on quite a bit longer, and buildings and cottages start looking like a pretty good investment. You should definitely build a shadow node for the Tower of Necromancy (which will give +2 to your spectres as opposed to +1 for a death node). You'll probably also need life and water nodes if you want to clean up the hell terrain mess; alternatively, you can just go with Sacrifice the Weak and tough it out. I'd just build death nodes everywhere after the one shadow node.

You should build the Prophecy of Ragnarok in a city where you're going to build units that you're trying to protect (i.e. mages and priests); if a unit with the Prophecy Mark is killed, there's no net change to the AC. Otherwise, just settle and conquer lots of cities and spread AV to them.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

I am also playing a Sheaim game currently and having a great time of it. A few notes from my experience...

1.) Start chopping now: Unless you are a huge micromanager that wants to build a small army of adepts to keep hell terrain at bay I'd start chopping every forest you have right now. Once you summon Hyborem hell terrain will come at you quickly. Get ready for the unhealthiness and focus on farms, windmills (after machinery), and cottages on grasslands.

2.) Blight: Prepare for Blight now. Build any health improvements you can and adopt sacrifice the weak. Furthermore, have AV spread to every city. You'll take a hit, but with StW and AV you'll be able to manage it as you then start to run up the counter.

3.) Plan for the horsemen: Keep an eye on the counter and when you are nearing a horseman milestone, put some pyre zombies on your borders in case he spawns there. When they do spawn find out where and send Rosier and whatever else you can straight at him. In my current game I got each weapon of the horsemen and as a result I've got a Meshabber of Dis that is pushing 60 strength (with Combat V so +100%).

4.) Put your eggs in one basket near AC 90. Move all mortal units near the enemy near AC 90 and be ready to mass produce savants or other cheap units at AC 100. You'll still be able to defend with your pyre zombies, diseased corpses and other heroes, but expect every other unit will be useless.

Good luck in your game! I look forward to future updates.

 

[UncleJJ]

I don't see a need to immediately build a lot of Death mana. I think you should diversify in peace and then concentrate on Death mana when you are at war. You need mages to use Spectres and they will take a while to build up a decent force even though you're Arcane. The same applies with getting a good group of mobius witches, you need time to prune out the defective ones. In the meanwhile there are lots of useful magic that you could develop, a few adepts with utility spells like Inspiration, Haste, and Spring (especially for desert gold hills) will help develop the economy. With massed magic users and gated troops the limitation on winning this game will not be the number of troops but the strength of the economy to support them and it will be affected by the rising AC so you need to plan for that as well.

Once one mage has Dispell a stack of 4 adepts / witches can turn any node to any other in 1 turn as long as you have the technology researched, and I would research all the magical spheres. Also by shuffling the mana types around it would be possible to eventually build all the four towers of Necromancy, Elements and Alteration and Divination. There are good reasons to build all of them in a long game based on magic.

There are other benefits from a multiple mana approach. That stack of super-spectres (boosted by affinity from several death nodes) your mages and witches casts that lasts 2 turns can be buffed by some other spells. They are melee units and can take spells like Echanted Blade, Dance of Blades and Blur to further improve them. So a stack of high powered mages can be supported by several adepts and witches casting buffs. Also it is a lot easier to take on a tough enemy city or big SoD if they are softened by a couple of blasts of Maelstrom and a few fireballs.

So I would not concentrate on Death mana except when actually using Spectres in war. At other times I would develop other spells and build all the towers.