Fellowship of Leaves for non-elves

[A Moon]

Is it ever worth sticking with leaves versus the other religions?

From what I can tell:

Benefits of keeping FoL as your state religion:

• It's an early game religion
• Two heroes; Kithra is fast, and Yvain has affinity
• Tiger spam, although once you've build your priests you can keep them and switch to a different religion.
• Satyrs have 9 attacking strength, which is quite high at their time of the game, and they make collecting animals very easy.
• Lots of health for your cities
• Treants spawning against attackers.
• The woodsman II promotion (again, doesn't require you to stay FoL)
• The Guardian of Nature civic (Less useful than it is for the elves though, as you can't just put ancient forests in every square in your empire (or maybe you can. Would this ever be economically viable?))

Ancient Forests are basically improvements that give 1 1 and 1 . If you build a lumbermill on a forest before it changes, or cut down the ancient forest, bloom it, then build a lumbermill on the new forest, it's 2 and 1 by rivers. How does that contend with other improvements? Less than a sanitation farm, less than an aristo farm, much less than a cottage, equal to a mine, one less than a blasting powder mine. I think it's better than a basic windmill, but not as good as a fully-teched windmill (I don't remember the exact windmill stats.)

Drawbacks:

• The fire I spell can turn an ancient forest into a burnt forest, and the water I spell only works on actual flames, not smoke. (Not sure if even Tholal's ai is smart enough to take advantage of this though.)
• Summon treant doesn't seem particularly impressive compared to the other high priest spells.
• Not a whole lot for the late-game.
• No particularly impressive units (and how many level 4 fawns do you usually get?)

What have I missed? And are there any particularly good FoL strategies?

 

[akatosh]

IMO Guardian of Nature is the only reason to stay in Leaves for an extended period of time. The downside for non-elves is that you will be commerce-starved, even with riverside lumbermills.

I think FoL can actually work for Lanun. If you assume that their coastal cities have half water and half land, then you could have 8-10 ancient forest lumbermills per city for +10 happiness and +10 health, that produce 3 2 or 2 3 each. That's not too shabby, especially as Lanun typically hit their happiness caps easily.

I would not use FoL for any other civ other than Spiritual civs who hop into it to build some priests and then switch out.

 

[Kiech]

After sanitation, I switch to aristocracy/guardian of nature.

 

[BvBPL]

FoL can be pretty powerful for non-elves. I’m playing the Lizardmen in Orbis and they benefit a great deal from FoL, but they are much like the elves in that regard.

For other civs, I have found that FoL can be huge for satyrs. Those recon units are remarkably powerful; I think before you have mithril they are more powerful, in terms of raw strength, than any other unlimited unit, and with poisoned blades they tie mithril champions. Plus, they don’t have the city attack penalty of rangers and the like. The difficulty, as others have pointed out, is getting fawns to level four. It isn’t particularly hard to do this in many mod-mods, but in base FFH2 it can be a little tricky.

Sabathiel of Bannor actually has a pretty good claim to being the best civ to try this strategy. With charismatic, Sabathiel only needs to gain eight XP and with organized, his command posts give two XP to start. That leaves six XP to make up, which is pretty easy with civics: apprenticeship and theocracy or conquest.

Anyone else can pretty easily do the same w/ a willingness to take conquest and theocracy or getting the Form of the Titan.

More fun w/ FoL: Not so much a power strategy, but FoL lead to some pretty darn awesome flesh golems. Take some priests of leaves, have them summon tigers, cast mutation on the tigers, and you’ll have a wealth of options you can join to your flesh golems.


Of course, GoN can be very helpful for any civ that needs some extra happiness.

 

[doktarr]

I think FoL can actually work for Lanun. If you assume that their coastal cities have half water and half land, then you could have 8-10 ancient forest lumbermills per city for +10 happiness and +10 health, that produce 3 2 or 2 3 each. That's not too shabby, especially as Lanun typically hit their happiness caps easily.

Interesting strategy there; I might have to give that one a try.

I would not use FoL for any other civ other than Spiritual civs who hop into it to build some priests and then switch out.

You can also just use golden ages for religion-hopping with other civs.

After sanitation, I switch to aristocracy/guardian of nature.

The issue here, of course, is that the two civics are competing for the same tiles. Unless you're playing the elves you can't have both a farm and a forest. It seems like this would only make sense if you are really starved for happiness resources and you don't have Gambling Houses in yet (or are running research).

For other civs, I have found that FoL can be huge for satyrs. Those recon units are remarkably powerful; I think before you have mithril they are more powerful, in terms of raw strength, than any other unlimited unit, and with poisoned blades they tie mithril champions. Plus, they don’t have the city attack penalty of rangers and the like.

9/4 with 2 move is very, very nice. However, As we are exploring in another thread here, I think the prize for midgame unlimited unit goes to Lunatics, who are 9/6 with Iron Weapons. Of course, they have their own drawbacks.

Quick comparison:

Satyr (9/4, 2 base move) 90 + 125 (63 with ingenuity)

• Need to be running FoL
• Need to have the proper civic setup to get 10 XP (or 8 for charismatic) on new units (Form of the Titan + Command Post + Theocracy + Conquest + Apprenticeship?)

Lunatic (7/4 + Metal, 1 base move) slave + 65 (33 with ingenuity)

• Need to have an Asylum, which means you had to run OO long enough to research Mind Stapling and build one
• Need slaves - either get slave trade in the undercouncil or the slavery civic.
• Don't get any starting XP (no mobility 1 until you kill something) and you have to deal with crazed lunatics running off

Lunatics can be annoying to manage, but they're cheap, and that's a lot of civics to get pushed into for instant Satyrs if you're not playing Sidar.

You could look at Stygian Guards as a third option, too. 5 + 2 Unholy + Metal for 120 (or equivalent in upgrades from zealots, drowns, or warrior->drowns). That also gets you to 9 strength with iron weapons, and requires no civics (just OO as your religion). March and water walking are both really nice, too.

I think those are the only mid-game non-naval units available to all civs that can get a base strength of 9 without Mithril. The Clan has Ogres, too. Late-game you have Mithril, Arquebuses (and Dwarven Cannons), and the Beast of Agares.

 

[BvBPL]

Yeah. A satyr-centric strategy is a lot easier in many mod-mods w/ more options for XP gain.

 

[akatosh]

Interesting idea on FoL Sidar and Satyrs. I guess the question here is, how good are Satyrs for Sidar compared to other waning options (horse archers, confessors) and how good is FoL for them as a base religion? Sidar might be able to use some combination of sanitation non-aristocracy farms and FoL AF lumbermills to run large specialist cities. All of the +XP civics could still be used as well.

I am not sure that Satyrs are better than the low-micro flanking 85% HAs.

 

[plasmacannon]

Another comparable unit.

Paramanders are a 7 base strength, +2 for Iron = 9 for a cost of 120 .
Both Khazad leaders are Neutral for the Runes of Kilmorph religion.
Both leaders have the Ingenuity Trait for half cost upgrades if upgrading from a Thane of Kilmorph unit built for 60 .
Arturus is Organized for Command Posts and their +2 xp.
Kandros is Agg for an extra Combat1.

 

[akatosh]

I believe paramanders and crusaders can't use metal weapons in base FFH2.

 

[plasmacannon]

I believe paramanders and crusaders can't use metal weapons in base FFH2.

I stand corrected.
Paramanders require Copper, but don't get the benefit of metal.
Still, with the right promotions, they could be a cheaper alternative (half the cost).
Paladins are limited to 4 per empire.
So, one should have other units earning xp that can be upgraded to Paladins if one is lost.

 

[Qgqqqqq]

Aren't paramanders 6/8? Or is that EitB?

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

Eitb only

 

[Thrar]

I had a very interesting game with FoL Malakim recently. Two things I noticed:
- Malakim desert cities can become very strong with FoL and Water I for Spring. Cottaging floodplains already gives great commerce cities, and thanks to Spring and blooming forests, the non-riverside desert squares are pretty useful too once they get a lumbermill and grow to ancient forests. Suddenly those cities are both strong in commerce and have a decent amount of production.
- The Malakim world spell is awesome with FoL. By the time I triggered it I had 9 cities, giving me 9 priests with 9 XP each. Thanks to the tigers, at the time that's almost an army by itself, without any investment required other than spreading FoL to your cities. In fact, I would say only Esus and possibly the Veil get similar mileage out of the Malakim worldspell - there's just no point in having large amounts of any other priests.

I haven't actually built any of the heroes yet, they just weren't on my tech path. With Yvain, ultimately it would even be possible to vitalize the floodplains for even stronger food/hammer income, and no need to go any further down the magic path than Elementalism. The tech investment for Yvain is rather high though.

 

[scutarii]

FoL+ lanun combo is even better - as long as lanun has some coastal cities. commerce from water tiles production and trade and health+happiness from lumbermills and GoN civic. My research skyrocketed and enjoyed building and production boom. Usually fully forested ( except for resources of course) inland cities - new cities needed more buildings and growth and my research/commerce was top noch from coastal cities anyway. Military strategy? whatever you want...

In short : as long as you have alternative means for commerce, FoL suits for the rest of aspects for non-elves...

 

[nealhunt]

I found that Kuriotates with ancient forest tiles is a good combo. With the health and happiness benefits they can quickly grow city size. Extra food from the ancient forests means you run a specialist economy, assisted by reduced city maintenance. You could get to roughly the same food from Enclaves, but having only a few cities to build with, the forest production is very useful.

The first time I won a culture victory in FFH, it was Kuriotates, FoL, and lots of artists.

 

[akatosh]

In Magister Modmod, Kurios can bloom new forests onto developed tiles (but they can't build in existing forests). Although Bloom is moved to Nature II instead of a FoL-only spell, they can still make excellent use of Guardian of nature. Also, ancient forest enclaves are just sick.

 

[Bad Player]

At one stage FFH2 allowed captured elven workers to build cottages on ancient forests if you ran FoL. it made for more strategy trying to capture an elven worker.