FFH - A Shadow Introduction

[darrelljs]

Okay, I apologize for the brief report especially after the great one MorganKnight put together. I started off by turning the governor off and microing the cities as I love to do. During the turnset I slipped in several Smokehouse and Granary builds to alleviate some unhealthiness, especially if we ever go back to Sacrifice the Weak. I probably should have built more units, but I had enough to finish off Dain. Between the few units I did build and the ones left over from killing the Amurites we probably have enough to take on the Clan of Embers. We have a few Conjurers now which should help .

I did not build any Planar Gates or Savants, so that should be something to consider. The health buildings might have been but the builder in me couldn't help it. Let's see, what else. Auric has enough on his hands. I've put a spy near where I think his force is likely to mass if we are the target, but I doubt he will go for us. He is stealing our Toads, which I noticed too late to grab :

Techwise, after Summoning I went Mathematics -> Engineering (due in about 10 turns). I would use the free Great Engineer to plunk Guild of Hammers and get free Forges everywhere. We had a lot of needs, but this seemed like the best path and there wasn't much discussion on tech path. Hope it wasn't noob smoke. Again, apologies for the short report but it was either this or another delay .

Darrell

P.S. I just realized Ritualists can spread Ashen Veil AND give the city a new Temple of the Veil. D'oh, I thought those guys queued up were for the war, sorry about that.

 

[Conroe]

Looks like I'm next so ... Got it!

I'll likely play it later tonight ... so please post any comments or suggestions.

 

[Ozbenno]

Mum and bub both doing well thanks.

Well Dain is gone, AC is up to 44, so all is looking good.

Engineering seems good, especially if the free GE is still on the table. Otherwise we should probably be teching towards Divine Essence and our hero, Abashi the Black Dragon. Ethereal Call will allow Eater of Dreams as well.

Roster:
Ozbenno -On Deck
uberfish
stuge
darrelljs - Just Played
Morganknight
Conroe - UP

 

[Morganknight]

It is possible that Auric is researching Engineering. He has Mathematics already...if we manage to steal it from him, that would be great. Another thought...we should think about upgrading our mana nodes. Tier 2 and 3 death summons, Spectres and Wraiths both get Death Affinity which means they get added STR for each Death Mana we possess.

We already have one. Here is a plan to get more.

1. Upgrade one of our Nodes to Shadow Mana. Besides getting Shadow spells, we can begin the Tower of Necromancy, which will give us an additional Death Mana and more Skeletons.

2. Research Soul Debt and build Mokka's Cauldron for an additional Death Mana.

3. Build more Death Nodes.

Off of the top of my head, the only other mana I can think of that we might want is Spirit. It is only a matter of time before the Four Horsemen and worse ride forth. Without the Courage spell, we will be almost powerless to fight their Fear ability...

 

[Ozbenno]

Courage would be quite handy actually (I've never played up to Four Horsemen in a game before soI usually use it to keep my werewolves from turning). There is an unclaimed mana source (just outside our cultural boundaries) shown in the pic in darrell's report.

 

[darrelljs]

There is another mana source in our lands, which I have an Adept heading towards. Uh, I forgot to cancel his auto move as well .

Darrell

 

[uberfish]

Congrats Ozbenno, and nice turns this round! Finally we are actually being evil and killing people.

I do think Auric is going to try and invade us though. (next game we need to up the difficulty too)

 

[Conroe]

We already have one. Here is a plan to get more.

1. Upgrade one of our Nodes to Shadow Mana. Besides getting Shadow spells, we can begin the Tower of Necromancy, which will give us an additional Death Mana and more Skeletons.

2. Research Soul Debt and build Mokka's Cauldron for an additional Death Mana.

3. Build more Death Nodes.

Not sure that I understand this ... but it might only be a question of terminology ...

When you say "upgrade" a node to shadow mana, I assume that you mean to send an Adept to a raw mana resource and have him build shadow mana. Correct? And the same with #3: "build more death nodes" would also mean building a death node on a raw mana resource. I realize it is probably a stupid question, but I wanted to make sure I was on the same page as everyone else.

Also, if we only have 1 mana source at the moment, should priority be given to the shadow or death mana?

 

[Ozbenno]

Also, if we only have 1 mana source at the moment, should priority be given to the shadow or death mana?

I would say the shadow mana, as it allows us Tower of Necromancy (which gives a free Death mana). If we have a second mana source, I'd say Spirit mana, and then Death mana.

 

[cabert]

lurker's comment: looking good .
Conquest is fun, but having hyborem vassalize to you seems pretty unlikely.

 

[Ozbenno]

I have had Hyborem vassalised in games before. If Capria decides to go after him (unlikely as she probably can't get OB with Auric) and it isn't going well for him he will try and vassalise himself to us.

 

[cabert]

I have had Hyborem vassalised in games before. If Capria decides to go after him (unlikely as she probably can't get OB with Auric) and it isn't going well for him he will try and vassalise himself to us.

I see you're not only the proud father of many kids, but also a very experienced FfH player .
My experience is somewhat different, since I already had to kill "my old self" in a conquest game I won with Hyborem . No way "my old country" wouldn't vassalize to anyone, since it was so big. I can see how different it can be playing the other way round.

 

[Ozbenno]

I see you're not only the proud father of many kids, but also a very experienced FfH player .

Definately the proud father but this SG has certainly proved I'm not that experienced a FfH player . There is such variety to this mod that, even though I have played and won many games, things have been discussed and done that I was unaware of.

This is actually the first time I've played an evil civ . I'm usually raising an army to raze the AV cities. I'm learning alot about the arcane part of the game.

It is strange that there are so few SGs for FfH (and that so few FfH players responded to the post advertising this in the FfH forum) as I think the variety of play suits itself beautifully to the SG format

 

[cabert]

I'm an experienced 0.23 FfH player (I've played all starting leaders there, +hyborem), but that's not up to date now. And I too am wondering why there aren't more FfH SGs.
At some point I was even wondering why people would play anything else . The only drawback to FfH is the same than for all other "total conversion" mods. The AIs just don't know they're playing a different game.

 

[darrelljs]

Another thought...we should think about upgrading our mana nodes. Tier 2 and 3 death summons, Spectres and Wraiths both get Death Affinity which means they get added STR for each Death Mana we possess.

I haven't been able to figure out the value of multiple mana nodes. From what I understand, if you have two, your spell casters start with level 1, if you have three, they start with level two. Is that accurate? I also noticed that certain units have "affinity" but could not figure out what that meant. Does it mean they get +(N-1) strength, where N is the number of mana nodes you control of that type?

Off of the top of my head, the only other mana I can think of that we might want is Spirit. It is only a matter of time before the Four Horsemen and worse ride forth. Without the Courage spell, we will be almost powerless to fight their Fear ability...

This threw me my first game as the Calabim, until I realized the Burning Blood ability seems to protect from Fear. I also noticed that most summoned units have no fear. If that is the case do we need Courage? If we are going to AC=100, we are going to have to deal with the Avatar of Wrath enraging a bunch of troops. Loyalty seems useful for that, so Law mana might be helpful. Or, we could just move all the units to one city and have them kill each other.

(next game we need to up the difficulty too)

Glad to hear someone else wants to go another round after this one .

Darrell

 

[Ozbenno]

Glad to hear someone else wants to go another round after this one .

Me too

I was actually thinking if the crew stays together, we should bump up to Immortal for the next game.

 

[uberfish]

I've never reached AC 100. Usually in 0.2x it was game over pretty quickly once I reached Strength of Will. Of course, if we find it too easy with Archmages it's easy enough to put some roleplaying restriction in place.

 

[rumbold]

Lurker:

I'd love to see more FfH SGs. Long-time absent from lurking or even playing Civ, but finding this has rekindled my interest and I've gotten my own Sheaim game going. Reading this thread has been a great way to learn some of the changes since I last played FfH. Having more SGs would be a great way to show the depth of the mod and provide a way of entry for those that haven't tried it out yet.

 

[reverend oats]

If there is another one, and someone on the team drops out, I'd love to join. I can handle immortal in SG format, if that matters.

 

[Conroe]

I left research on Engineering while we chased after the free Great Engineer. However, Auric did indeed beat us to it. Unfortunately, I could not figure out how to go about stealing the tech, as was suggested. There does not seem to be any Spy units in the game, and the espionage screen gives no hint. Nor does Auric seem interested in trading it with us. I decided to leave it for the next person ...

BTW Auric apparently used that GE to build City of a 1000 Slums. An interesting wonder that changes the city radius from 2 to 3.

I wasn't really sure what to research in place of Engineering. Our two suggestions were to research Soul Debt or to put us on the road to Divine Essense. With the lack of discussion, I'm not sure if one was better than the other. I opted for Smelting (on the DE path) to reveal any iron deposits. Our only one is sitting underneath one of Dain's former cities.

I had quite a few food problems in our capital. The fires raging all around the city are turning the flood plains into burning sands. We lost the +3 food bonus and it appears that burning sands cannot be farmed. The fires have also cut off most of our roads up north, as well. I've got quite a few Workers in the area trying to get things stabilized.

Auric put down a city north of our capital ...

In other news, Capria adopted OverCouncil. Not sure what that means, but it sounds important.

I thought I might take advantage of our Spiritual trait and quickly jump into Slavery for a few turns. I'd timed the troop builds such that we wouldn't be producing too many troops at the lower xp during the 5 turns we were in Slavery. The plan might've worked out a bit better if I'd realized that it was 10 turns between revolts in FFH. Next person will need to revolt back to Apprenticeship (or maybe Military State?).

I completed the shadow node and started the Tower of Necromancy in our capital (43 turns remaining). We also have another node just outside the borders of the city of Sierundirel. I've got the city building culture and the borders will pop in 8 turns. There are 2 Adepts on hand to hook up the node.

I trained MP's for our southern cities that did not have any. Otherwise, all new troops were sent up north, in preparation for a possible attack by Auric. We've got 2 stacks in the north near Auric's borders and another 2 stacks in the south near Jonas' borders. Jonas has "enough on his hands" at the moment.