i hope they do fix it. i would have been good to be able to upgrade the level5 warriors to hippus horsemen. now it seems like they'll be too slow to keep up with the army.
FfHotM 2pre-game discussion with screenshot
- Thread starter Nikis-Knight
- Start date
i hope they do fix it. i would have been good to be able to upgrade the level5 warriors to hippus horsemen. now it seems like they'll be too slow to keep up with the army.
Nikis-Knight
Deity
you mean scouts. Warriors can only upgrade to archers and axemen.
Anyway, some general tips--
Rhoanna is financial, so go for education fairly quick.
You won't be able to please all the AI's, so pick one early and try to get one good dependable friend.
Trade is in the mounted line, so you have good reason to get there quickly and take advantage of it.
Build more workers. I used to have one or two for 3 or 4 cities. one per city is a must. You never want to work an unimproved tile, ideally.
If a war is going badly, pillage everything then sue for peace. You can try again in 10 turns, and your enemy won't have rebuilt as well as you, most likely.
Anyway, some general tips--
Rhoanna is financial, so go for education fairly quick.
You won't be able to please all the AI's, so pick one early and try to get one good dependable friend.
Trade is in the mounted line, so you have good reason to get there quickly and take advantage of it.
Build more workers. I used to have one or two for 3 or 4 cities. one per city is a must. You never want to work an unimproved tile, ideally.
If a war is going badly, pillage everything then sue for peace. You can try again in 10 turns, and your enemy won't have rebuilt as well as you, most likely.
Good tips Nikis.
Reading the forums help a lot, this is a supportive environment, and everyone is here to help. There are no mistakes, just learning opportunities, and some good reflections and discussions would hopefully give some insights how to play future games better.
good luck everyone!
Reading the forums help a lot, this is a supportive environment, and everyone is here to help. There are no mistakes, just learning opportunities, and some good reflections and discussions would hopefully give some insights how to play future games better.
good luck everyone!
Enthralled
Chieftain
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2007
- Messages
- 17
I am wondering what I am doing wrong every game that finds me stuck with one civic choice and behind in the empire city count. I just can’t seem to get a handle on the economy beyond 3-4 core cities.
My general rough early game actions:
1. found first city, build a warrior
2. Build a worker
3. Build a warrior
4. Build a settler
5. Found second city
6. Build warrior in both cities
7. build settler in city 1, build monument in city 2
8. found 3rd city, build worker in city 2
9. build military building in city 1, build warrior in city 2, build warrior in city 3
10. pump out military in city 1, build settler city 2, build monument in city 3
11. etc
My build order for my workers is to first improve and connect resources and then work on cottages. My cities are always limited in size by happiness and not food so I tend to find farms to be worthless (until mid-late game).
At this point on most games I find myself running at 50% science or lower, totally out teched by the AI, and with a rather weak military. I tend to be able to build 4-5 cities before the world fills up, but I always seem to be 2-3 cities behind the AI. I have no idea how their economy can support those extra cities however.
I find I always have to switch to city states and/or found a religion at this point in order to get my science rate back up. If I try to run an early war, even if I take over a city, I find that I have to raise it as I can not support adding it to my empire yet.
If I spend the time to get every single tech to use the various resources I always find myself behind my neighbors military. If I try to go for trading I tend to never have more than one person willing to trade with me, and they tend to only make a very limited number of trades.
Any suggestions for starting out in this game?
My general rough early game actions:
1. found first city, build a warrior
2. Build a worker
3. Build a warrior
4. Build a settler
5. Found second city
6. Build warrior in both cities
7. build settler in city 1, build monument in city 2
8. found 3rd city, build worker in city 2
9. build military building in city 1, build warrior in city 2, build warrior in city 3
10. pump out military in city 1, build settler city 2, build monument in city 3
11. etc
My build order for my workers is to first improve and connect resources and then work on cottages. My cities are always limited in size by happiness and not food so I tend to find farms to be worthless (until mid-late game).
At this point on most games I find myself running at 50% science or lower, totally out teched by the AI, and with a rather weak military. I tend to be able to build 4-5 cities before the world fills up, but I always seem to be 2-3 cities behind the AI. I have no idea how their economy can support those extra cities however.
I find I always have to switch to city states and/or found a religion at this point in order to get my science rate back up. If I try to run an early war, even if I take over a city, I find that I have to raise it as I can not support adding it to my empire yet.
If I spend the time to get every single tech to use the various resources I always find myself behind my neighbors military. If I try to go for trading I tend to never have more than one person willing to trade with me, and they tend to only make a very limited number of trades.
Any suggestions for starting out in this game?
You're starting too early. You need to make a worker when you're still at 2 pop like you need to have your teeth removed. Wait till four pop, you'll get there fairly fast using three food tiles. Myself, I started up near the top by the two sheep, a nice production center. I still waited till three pop to build a worker and till four to start my settler. You're just jumping the gun too early on expansion, I had all six warriors for two each in three cities before I built my first settler, the spots were still there and I had connecting roads and was ready to pop out the resource improvements right when I built them.
Expanding before you've gotten your capital up and running is what kills your science rate. As far as tech trading goes, focus in a specific field of research, say the cavalry line. Trade them with everyone that will, all at once. You can usually get most or all of what the ai have researched by trading a single high value tech to all of them on the same turn.
Expanding before you've gotten your capital up and running is what kills your science rate. As far as tech trading goes, focus in a specific field of research, say the cavalry line. Trade them with everyone that will, all at once. You can usually get most or all of what the ai have researched by trading a single high value tech to all of them on the same turn.
Enthralled,
psychoak was right when he said you're building a worker too early. After you've built your worker do you find they are often wandering around with not a great deal to do??? or maybe just roading the as far as the eye can see because you don't have the techs to do anything else?
If this is the case then the hammers you put towards building the worker were wasted because they could have been put towards something more useful, like a scout.
psychoak was right when he said you're building a worker too early. After you've built your worker do you find they are often wandering around with not a great deal to do??? or maybe just roading the as far as the eye can see because you don't have the techs to do anything else?
If this is the case then the hammers you put towards building the worker were wasted because they could have been put towards something more useful, like a scout.
I agree, it's good to let your city grow a bit before building workers.
One slightly more aggressive method, although it might take a bit of getting used to.
I normally don't build a worker, and sometimes don't even build a settler. As a worker cost 3 warriors, a settler costs over 6 warriors.
Starting a build queue with 3 warrior’s means you’ll have 3 warriors patrolling 3 Different AI boarders. You have them there long before the cities expand to the 3rd ring, so you’ll get some opportunities for a worker steal, leave your warrior just outside their territory just next to a resource tile in their second ring, when they go to work that tile you can declare and take their worker(note in the early stages they leave workers unguarded, later on you'll need 2 warriors as they sometimes escort the workers). There, you’ve just paid for your 3 warriors, and you get a worker about the same time you would if you built it. Meanwhile your city has been growing, so getting more productive. When guarding the boarders of 3 AI, you’ll often get the opportunity of snatching 2 workers, which is twice as effective then building them. On top of this the early loss of the AI worker really cripples the AI, making later warfare much easier. Don’t wory the AI never really retaliates in these early wars, the most they will do is send a warior or two, but in the time that you would have built your first warrior and settler you built 9 warriors, so retaliation is just an opportunity to feed more experience to your units. And remember, every unit they send out of their city is one less unit you’ll have to fight against the city culture.
Building 6 warriors is less work than building a settler, the AI normally only has 2 warriors, and if not creative then will have 40% culture in the capital and 0% culture in extra cities. In most of their cities they don’t have culture, so fighting 2 of their warriors with your warriors is about 50-50 chance (actually better after c1+shock from fighting barbs). So taking a city will be 50 hammers, taking their capital might take a bit more, but remember the cost of warriors is nothing compared to the cost of a settler. You can comfortable sacrifice 2-4 warriors to soften them, and then finish off with 2 promoted units. Hammer cost 50-100, and you’ve got their capital. Capitals also often have a lot of resources. More resources means more happiness everywhere.
All this time you can just be building more warriors to further the attack onto AI2 and AI3.
The advantage really comes after a few battles when you start getting more experienced units, then you’ll have something like C3 shock2 warriors before you know it, and they can take down any city without casualties.
This is getting off topic to early war mongering (I’ll write a spoiler to show you an example).
Anyway you should try a worker steal sometime, it gives a really powerful early boost. Just patrol the boarders of 2 or more AI as you might not always get an opportunity with one.
On the topic of later economic growth, cottages is a must, cover all the land with cottages.
going for education and writing early is good, giving you cottages, EC, libraries, and a great sage. if you're worried about happiness i guess you could use the sage for mathematics, gambling houses are very powerful, at 60% research, you have +4 happy faces, meaning all cities can be 4 larger, more production and science. although i often just get an academy, so research on better military tecs goes faster, then get the happiness from capturing enemy capitals with resources.
One slightly more aggressive method, although it might take a bit of getting used to.
I normally don't build a worker, and sometimes don't even build a settler. As a worker cost 3 warriors, a settler costs over 6 warriors.
Starting a build queue with 3 warrior’s means you’ll have 3 warriors patrolling 3 Different AI boarders. You have them there long before the cities expand to the 3rd ring, so you’ll get some opportunities for a worker steal, leave your warrior just outside their territory just next to a resource tile in their second ring, when they go to work that tile you can declare and take their worker(note in the early stages they leave workers unguarded, later on you'll need 2 warriors as they sometimes escort the workers). There, you’ve just paid for your 3 warriors, and you get a worker about the same time you would if you built it. Meanwhile your city has been growing, so getting more productive. When guarding the boarders of 3 AI, you’ll often get the opportunity of snatching 2 workers, which is twice as effective then building them. On top of this the early loss of the AI worker really cripples the AI, making later warfare much easier. Don’t wory the AI never really retaliates in these early wars, the most they will do is send a warior or two, but in the time that you would have built your first warrior and settler you built 9 warriors, so retaliation is just an opportunity to feed more experience to your units. And remember, every unit they send out of their city is one less unit you’ll have to fight against the city culture.
Building 6 warriors is less work than building a settler, the AI normally only has 2 warriors, and if not creative then will have 40% culture in the capital and 0% culture in extra cities. In most of their cities they don’t have culture, so fighting 2 of their warriors with your warriors is about 50-50 chance (actually better after c1+shock from fighting barbs). So taking a city will be 50 hammers, taking their capital might take a bit more, but remember the cost of warriors is nothing compared to the cost of a settler. You can comfortable sacrifice 2-4 warriors to soften them, and then finish off with 2 promoted units. Hammer cost 50-100, and you’ve got their capital. Capitals also often have a lot of resources. More resources means more happiness everywhere.
All this time you can just be building more warriors to further the attack onto AI2 and AI3.
The advantage really comes after a few battles when you start getting more experienced units, then you’ll have something like C3 shock2 warriors before you know it, and they can take down any city without casualties.
This is getting off topic to early war mongering (I’ll write a spoiler to show you an example).
Anyway you should try a worker steal sometime, it gives a really powerful early boost. Just patrol the boarders of 2 or more AI as you might not always get an opportunity with one.
On the topic of later economic growth, cottages is a must, cover all the land with cottages.
going for education and writing early is good, giving you cottages, EC, libraries, and a great sage. if you're worried about happiness i guess you could use the sage for mathematics, gambling houses are very powerful, at 60% research, you have +4 happy faces, meaning all cities can be 4 larger, more production and science. although i often just get an academy, so research on better military tecs goes faster, then get the happiness from capturing enemy capitals with resources.
and if you are the first one to trading i'll often hold on to trading, that allows you to be the broker, getting technology from one AI and trading it to another. you can easily backfill a lot of the early technologies you missed.
onedreamer
Dragon
Interesting game, I will participate. I think I will settle where the warrior stands and research agriculture. The only thing I don't like is Altar of the Luonnotar victory enabled. I will of course avoid to pursue this kind of victory.
onedreamer
Dragon
It depends a lot on your starting techs. In FFH2, compared to Civ4, there is a much longer way (in tech research) before you can improve a decent amount of terrain around the capital. In this case though, if you research agriculture you can farm the corn and the 2 flood plains (I won't settle on the flood plain). That way you can grow the capital fast and build a settler while you research mining to mine the hill and get some production for buildings.
Your settler has mobility, so it can move further if it wants.
One comment, If you’re going in that direction then Moving one more NW with the mobility settler will mean you still have the corn, but you’ll also pick up cows, fish, 2 plains, 3 fresh water grass, and only lose a floodplain, 3 grass(no water), 1 plains(no water). SE,E,E direction for floodplain, sheep and silk ins't bad either. I settled somewhere else, but will tell all in the first spoiler..
jan030
Chieftain
PFFFF, wont wait for a spoiler. But wont tell much either, well there isnt much to tell 
Founded 4 cities, just. captured one from a rival wich had war with another and was really far away, so i dared
Founded AV and let Hyborem in the world. Then war came from two sides and i didnt had enough men, so bey bey...
Have to try again. Did manage until 230 or something, thats something, not used to monarch. Like pangea better by the way.
Oh well i had some fun
Founded 4 cities, just. captured one from a rival wich had war with another and was really far away, so i dared
Founded AV and let Hyborem in the world. Then war came from two sides and i didnt had enough men, so bey bey...
Have to try again. Did manage until 230 or something, thats something, not used to monarch. Like pangea better by the way.
Oh well i had some fun
Broken Hawk
Emperor
I'm at turn 90 and have 3 cities at the northern end of the bay. I also have a stranglehold on last place as expected.
I've followed Nikis-Knight's advice and things seem to be going well. I'm almost done researching Trade and looking for friends.
Should I build Hippus Stables in all my cities? At lower levels of difficulty I've had the luxury of creating a city specializing in military production. At this point, I don't see that happening.
What about religion? I've always struggled with that concerning the Hippus. I'm thinking Runes in this game because Rohanna has the Financial trait and Kandros Fir is the most powerful civ and founded Runes. He surrounds me on three sides and I think it would be a good idea to try to get on his good side. Yes/No?
I've followed Nikis-Knight's advice and things seem to be going well. I'm almost done researching Trade and looking for friends.
Should I build Hippus Stables in all my cities? At lower levels of difficulty I've had the luxury of creating a city specializing in military production. At this point, I don't see that happening.
What about religion? I've always struggled with that concerning the Hippus. I'm thinking Runes in this game because Rohanna has the Financial trait and Kandros Fir is the most powerful civ and founded Runes. He surrounds me on three sides and I think it would be a good idea to try to get on his good side. Yes/No?
jan030
Chieftain
I'm at turn 90 and have 3 cities at the northern end of the bay. I also have a stranglehold on last place as expected.
I've followed Nikis-Knight's advice and things seem to be going well. I'm almost done researching Trade and looking for friends.
Should I build Hippus Stables in all my cities? At lower levels of difficulty I've had the luxury of creating a city specializing in military production. At this point, I don't see that happening.
What about religion? I've always struggled with that concerning the Hippus. I'm thinking Runes in this game because Rohanna has the Financial trait and Kandros Fir is the most powerful civ and founded Runes. He surrounds me on three sides and I think it would be a good idea to try to get on his good side. Yes/No?
SSSSSSSHHTTT Dont mention names!!!! No fun for others
Religion is something with hippus. You can be friends with a rival because of a religion, runes will fit with the financial trait, but I like the religion heroes. I just dont see the rune hero (a dwarf) on a horse
AV or Lords have horse riding heroes thats something. Perhaps I am looking to much into flavour,, but there you go. Besides a horseriding maniac like Rosier, its perfect for the Hippus
Nikis-Knight
Deity
Yes. In this game I'd say use religion for diplomacy, unless you have a favorite you want.
A stables in more than one city, yes, but don't forget an archery range or training yard in one, you'll probably need some defensive units to leave behind.
Something I didn't think to try, but since Rhoanna is expansive, you probably have more health than you need early on, so trade away health resources, even if it is your only one, for money, happiness, or just relationship.
Broken Hawk
Emperor
SSSSSSSHHTTT Dont mention names!!!! No fun for others
Oops. Sorry.
onedreamer
Dragon
I think I will loose much more if I settle where you say. Here's why I think so:
1- this is my own game strategy. I'm not much into the super-duper capital city and that's it. I prefer 3 avg-good city than one good and 2 crappy. If I settle on the warrior's tile, I can build a decent city on the forest left of the Tower, and one south with the other river. When I decide to settle any city (from the capital to all subsequent other) I first check where could be the next cities around it and if building where I am planning spoils too many other locations or if it's fine.
2- I won't just loose the floodplain, I will also loose settling on the river. That means less health and less happiness (river = brewery and there is already corn in sight). When I settle the capital, I want it to produce food fast, and Flood Plain is faster than fishes or cows because I only need agriculture (with the civic buff, btw) to farm it.
yes, trading away health resources is a good way to boost relations. and also giving away manna resources before you need them, you woun'd need your wind and nature manna till you build your first adept, in the mean time giving it away can REALLY boost some relations, and it doesn't even advantage the aI as they arn't using manna either at that early stage.
sometimes no religion is good if you want to delicatly sit on the fence and be cautious with everyone, so you can trade tec with everyone.
stables in many cities, archery range, training yard and forge in at least one. the best defence is a good offence, with high mobility horses patrolling your land you can normally pick off incoming units as they approach. the advantage of this is that they don't get a chance to pillage, while if you wait for them to walk to your cities with archers then they'll get a chance to pillage.
Good reasoning, nice to see you've thought things out.
Everyone has different preferences for how they chose to play the game, that's why it's so much fun to have so many different playing styles on the same map, and then we can see how the decisions affect the game. i look forward to reading how it panned out for you in the first spoiler.
Enthralled
Chieftain
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2007
- Messages
- 17
Thank you for all the advice psychoak, Vulcans, and clut.
I was too much of a wimp to try the super aggressive strategy but I did attempt to follow the advice of slowing down my expansion. The details will have to wait for the spoiler but in general I did much better than the typical case for me.
I am actually surprised at how far into things I am currently, whenever I try these GotM things I tend to lose in the mid game. Thanks to the advice here I actually lasted longer than expected so now I find myself trying to figure out a mid-end game strategy.
Looking forward to the spoilers to compare, until then I will just end by saying the high mobility horse units are so much fun to pillage with. I am almost always on the receiving end of being pillaged and it’s a blast to turn the tables or once.
I was too much of a wimp to try the super aggressive strategy but I did attempt to follow the advice of slowing down my expansion. The details will have to wait for the spoiler but in general I did much better than the typical case for me.
I am actually surprised at how far into things I am currently, whenever I try these GotM things I tend to lose in the mid game. Thanks to the advice here I actually lasted longer than expected so now I find myself trying to figure out a mid-end game strategy.
Looking forward to the spoilers to compare, until then I will just end by saying the high mobility horse units are so much fun to pillage with. I am almost always on the receiving end of being pillaged and it’s a blast to turn the tables or once.
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