FFHOTM 01 Reloaded: Saves available

[Tristam Izumi]

All I have to say is that you're a rat bastard! And I mean that in the best way possible...

 

[psychoak]

Altar victory condition blows. Oh well...

 

[giddion]

I started playing contender and thought I wouldn't get far, still alive now but am on the bottom of the point list.

I have killed the dragon, Orthus and Hyperim. I have some screen shots of parts, but will wait for the spoiler discussion to open up before saying anything further or posting pictures.
Currently year 305 and going but getting smashed by multiple enemies.

Looks like Alter victory may come to one of the other civs before I can get to them, considering I am on the back foot defending at the moment.

 

[Mahatmajon]

I played a bit, but this is a scenario IMO and not a GOTM. This isn't like any other FFH game I've ever played because this would never happen in a 'normal' FFH game that I play. Anyway, I made it to turn 59 before restarting the first time. The second time I played a 100 turns or so, but wasn't really interested. Random maps and the normal game are more fun and I doubted that you'd get a ton of players and long write ups.

Spoiler :

Starting plan: Capital with Cows & Gold
Research Priorities: Crafting/Mining (for gold), Ancient Chants/Mysticism (for God King), Agriculture/Animal Husbandry (for cows/horses)

Turn 0
Move settler N toward planned gold/cows location. Well, there's Acheron. Also 2 burrows and 2 ruins. That's rather disappointing…I'd rather have him spawn randomly than to have him overlapping what looked to be a possible starting city spot. Not having played with Acheron next to a capital I tried to see if I could win a culture war with the dragon...I lost:
1 Crafting. Lots of AI nearby but I don't see any reason not to get the gold ASAP. Build is warrior to size 3, then worker
4 Hut for 67 gold
8 Hut for 51 gold
10 Hut for 102 gold
15 Charadon adopts God King. That's not good
18 Cows lost to Archeron. Yeah
19 Crafting-Mining (23). Will work the gold while building a worker to get Mining down
21 First lizardman in BFC
34 All grassland forests burned down. This is pretty rediculous
39 Mining-Mysticism. Worker built same turn - off to build gold mine. I need Agriculture & Education soon to cottage now worthless grassland. Copper in BFC of planned city #2 but capital is currently worthless
45 Gold mine built - Myst drops from 15 to 9.
53 Mysticism-Agriculture. Revolt to God King. City is still worthless, build an elder council
59 Ljosiphar hunter walks past Acheron. He doesn't attack the AI? This is officially stupid with him there as a choke point. I'll restart and build the optimal capital and play without notes for a while but this is dumb.

I guess there's something to be said for 'make the best of what you've got' but knowing where the AI was, where copper was going to pop,

Spoiler :

& how far/how quickly Acheron was going to expand/burn things

I'm really not interested in restarting this. Thanks for trying to get this rolling. If there are more posters I might try again (without reading there turn reports) and I definately want to try something like this again, but clearly there has to be a better way to deal with random events.

 

[giddion]

Mahatmajon I think your comments are a little harsh.
I agree it is not like any other map played because of the starting placement of Acheron but I believe it does make you rethink how and what you'll do.

I know I have changed my strategy to cope with the trouble and now have a plan to move forward. I am in yr 315 using the contender save, my first game, no reloads or anything like that, which is proven by my loss of heroes along the way. I think I can survive and am almost at the stage to form a counter strike on Hippus and Charadon to expand my tiny empire.

As far as points go, all AI are at 2000-3000+ while I am just cracking 1000 now. It is a hard fight but I think a lot can be learned about strategy from this. It also makes you adapt due to the extremes of the situation. I am curious how others dealt with it.

I am sure I will loose to Var Gosm's Alter but we'll see how far I can push this train...

 

[Chambers]

I pretty much agree with Mahatmajon, this is not a GOTM and i would have liked to have stepped into a game where i actually stood a chance as opposed to being on the back foot the entire game and under CONSTANT war threats (not the way i ever play).

My first game was retired when the 3 citys i had each had around 8 doviello units sitting outside of my walls with my 3 defenders in. Second game ended when i decided to beef up on defense early on and i had 2 citys with around 7 warriors in each, then a insanley overpowered orthus showed up with 5 str, 3 heroic, 2 city attack promotions and more. he wiped the floor with 1st my captial city without even loosing hardly a point of str.

**some geographical spoilers below**

Its just not fun to play a game where you start off with a decent screen and then thenorthn part is completley destroyed by the dragon, the western part is quickley taken over by the convienently places doviello who feel no wrath from the dragon what so ever and who are free to atack your citys, but if you try to attack theres you get bombed by the dragons fireballs. to the east is a desert with no river and on the northern and southern borders of this desert is two capitals citys specifically designed to have there own culture borders block all realistic expansion out of your inital starting area, while at the same time guranteeing an extremely healthy supply of land they deem favorable.

After checking on the world builder i did conclude that the game was a wash when there was no copper mithril or iron in my territory yet the doviello had all three and the lands the elves would eventually own were almos 100% forrested all ready.

I was looking forward to a real game not a lopsided fight for survival scenario. Maybe next time eh?

 

[evlutte]

I moved my settler totally away to the north east, the area with the floodplains and hills, that's working fine for me.

 

[Pelaka]

Removed my spoiler discussion here... moved it to the proper thread.

Pel

 

[psychoak]

I didn't have much trouble my first time through.

Spoiler :

Loaded up the challenger save, thought it was diety ai too, planned for diety. I could see the barbarian border from the starting position and decided to cut them off from that section of land, although in retrospect that was a mistake due to charadon being on the other side of it regardless of the lack of a diety start. I crossed the river and settled the corner forest tile with a plan to rush OO, mysticism, exploration, fishing. I ended up getting farming and exploration from huts, the rest were coin. I went straight to 4 pop, built a worker, then a fishing boat having completed the research, and settled two more cities. The first was between the rice and hill tile, the second in the cross to get both clam resources. I was planning a fourth when I started, but charadon settled on the other side of the channel and I have an unreasonable aversion to cramming cities despite the lack of health and happiness from the difficulty level to ever use all the tiles anyway. I founded OO quite a while after leaves had been founded by the elves, but they had only spread to me. I turned the hippus into lifelong allies with the free unit from the tech pop, one problem solved. After getting the basic techs out of the way, I hit bronze working to take advantage of the copper mine and researched slavery, even got saverus before the hippus did. Charadon wasn't very busy, declared war on me once and sent some bronze weapon warriors at me, but the idiot declared war on the dragon shortly after and killed his line of attack. The elves and hippus were also sending units towards it, but to little effect, no large scale attacks. A lucky hit from one of them dropped it to 11 strength with only three promotions and I dropped it with the first enraged lunatic, 50ish xp. The rest of the defenders were easy work and I picked the city up and made peace with charadon, who was by that time free xp for saverus and had lost quite a bit of real estate to the hippus.

Went for bowyers at this point, ended up with my first firebow just in time for tasunke to declare war on the elves. At the request, I joined him to cement the relationship. Ended up back at war with charadon, but he never actually sent anything at me. I went through the magic techs, conjurors first to complement my firebows, sieged the elves for tasunke but he never made any progress aside from keeping them busy enough to never attack me. When I obtained govannon and hema the fight was over. I dropped the elf capital and got peace for the archmage tech. I ended up at war with falamar and varn a little earlier, but they never got very far, raiding fishing boats was the extent of the damage.

I then turned back to charadon, who had again declared war on me, I think at the request of the elves. Thanks to some arcane tech trades I ended up with iron and the tier 2 religious units. I conquered him in short order with hema and govannon supporting my first summoner as the work horse for my early units. Between saverous, two lucky lunatics with 100ish experience and a canibal stygian guard I had my offense and defense fairly well covered. Built a few druids off more tech trades, used treants to defend my new conquests while new units were routed and cleaned him up as fast as I could move. I let the hippus take out the tundra settlements and stuck to the fertile southern ones with the exception of the one by acheron.

Charadon had a sole surviving settlement below the elves, I didn't get to barbeque him yet. Those rat bastards started early and retook their capital as I was moving my army back to resume it myself. I'd built a few priests earlier and obtained high priests from charadon in the peace deal. I had no ocean control at all, I was using firebows and stygian guards to keep my clam resources in use. With my new found sea monsters I wiped out the elven armada and claimed the ocean as my own personal play space. I then bombarded the bastard and killed the place off again, but it was a stalled advance. Ended up losing it two more times while trading it back and forth with fire elementals before they ran out of national unit cavalry to retake it with. I fortified the position with a few more firebows and resumed my advance.

At which point the game ended. I really do hate the altar win condition. Varn and falamar were allies the entire game, with both of them on fair terms with the elves. I never had a prayer in the tech race, and I couldn't do a naval assault on them for spit till I had kraken to pave the way. I think it's possible to win the scenario, the start is by no means doom and gloom. With such a setting for the "good" guy though, it will be hard not to have it end by way of an altar victory for varn. You really need close quarters combat to avoid an altar win. If I'd known it was emperor I would have build differently and gotten another settlement out of the starting terrain, but I'd never be able to take on varn and falamar both from across the pond, not when the hippus and doviello are on the same continent with me. Without the hippus I might could have avoided a local war and done it, but they pretty much demand that you either kill them quickly or play conquerer with them till the end. Four move commando cavalry are not reasonable things to stop unless you keep them from building roads through that desert barrier.

I played through a second time and went for the ashen veil just for kicks, destroy the world kinda thing. I got bored before I finished but it was working rather well aside from charadon keeping me too busy to kill the hippus fast. I converted him, but the idiot still declared war on me. Aside from a lack of competition on the other continent, the scenario could really have used some more happiness bonuses. You had to conquer a lot of ground to get very far and the base values for emperor are pretty rough.

I also got curious and found out the pattern to maximize tech pops from huts. By settling in the southwest corner of the area instead of the southeast, the elves look in the other direction first. You can get that nearest hut and then hit every one north of it as well. I ended up getting 7 goody huts and managed to go all the way through kote with four tech pops. I recommend that new seed on reload be used in the future. It's rather tempting to pull something like that, and in the case of this map you could get one badass head start on things with the right moves.

 

[evlutte]

wow, sounds like you got pretty lucky (and skilled). It really does seem a bit unwinable under current conditions. Has the author won it? I'd really rather see a random map game for GOTM. Keep Valledia though

 

[psychoak]

I'd go with luck more than skill, but I lost regardless so it doesn't matter.

 

[Angel-Julia]

moved to spoilers thread