Founding Fellowship of Leaves

[Sarisin]

Have you ever been the first to found Fellowship of Leaves when playing a civ other than the elves in a game where there is an AI elves civ?

I cannot remember doing so and I think it is very difficult.

For example, in my current game I am playing as Gyrrim Gyr (sorry for the misspells) and Thessa managed to found Fellowship of Leaves in the yr. 224 of a marathon game.

I was amazed to say the least as I started with Crafting and had luck in getting Mysticism from a goodie hut. Still after getting Mining it was 148 turns to Way of the Earthmother. Thessa had Fellowship of Leaves when I was just going for Mining.

It seems like an AI elves civ is hardwired to go for Fellowship of Leaves. Rather than any adjustments, the AI just goes for the techs necessary to get Leaves.

And, with founding it that soon, you really have to wonder if the AI didn't get a little help on the way with the techs it got from goodie huts.

This brings me back to my question about goodie huts.

When you are fortunate to get a tech (and they are really hard to get in the higher difficulties), what determines what you will get?

1. Are they based on what you are researching? I have seen this often.

2. Are they geared towards your particular civ? Hippus gets Horseback Riding, Elves get Hunting, etc. This is where I think the AI may be jerking us around a little, but hell I love conspiracy theories too.

3. Are they purely given randomly?

I not seen a goodie hut tech given without the prerequisite tech in-hand. For example, you cannot get Sailing unless you already have Fishing. True?

At any rate, my own strategy is to just forget about trying to found Leaves if there is an AI elf civ in the game. It would be interesting to see what would happen if you put 2 or more elf civs in a game.

 

[TheBoatman]

In all cases you have to have prerequistite tech, trade as well as goodie huts.

The AI civs are heading towards their roleplaying techs, because it is usually benefitial for them. But I suppose the goodie hut probability is equal for all techs.

The chances on getting certain religion depend heavily on difficulty level. The last level I usually get the religion I want is monarch. (~75percent probability)

 

[Kael]

The Ljosalfar do rush Way of the Forsts. They don't get any bonus a human player wouldnt have to help them but their starting tech is Exploration, which is along that path.

As far as I can tell goodie huts give out a random tech that you dont have but you have the requirements for (unless its marked not to be able to be given out by goodie huts). It isn't civ specific.

 

[eerr]

The Ljosalfar do rush Way of the Forsts. They don't get any bonus a human player wouldnt have to help them but their starting tech is Exploration, which is along that path.

As far as I can tell goodie huts give out a random tech that you dont have but you have the requirements for (unless its marked not to be able to be given out by goodie huts). It isn't civ specific.

certain techs seem more likely though, namely, techs on the FOL path for all civs

 

[Chandrasekhar]

It's good that the elves rush to the Fellowship. They have a very strong synergy with that religion. When I play multiplayer games as the elves, I do the same thing. Unless they're cheating (which I don't think they are), I don't see a problem.

 

[Sarisin]

It's good that the elves rush to the Fellowship. They have a very strong synergy with that religion. When I play multiplayer games as the elves, I do the same thing. Unless they're cheating (which I don't think they are), I don't see a problem.

Thanks for all the responses.

It just seems a bit unbelievable that anyone could found a religion in the yr. 224 of a marathon game without a bit of 'help.'

As I said, the Way of the Earthmother was 148 turns when I selected another tech (I think Hunting) after getting Mining. In just a few turns Thessa had Leaves.

 

[Rod]

That the elves converted to followers of the leaves in 224 is certainly believable.

On Marathon speed with difficulty Prince or Monarch on tiny/small world settings, raging barbs and no goody huts I am able to grab my first religion as early as in turn 150 till 200. Normally I also go for Fellowship of the leaves, just because I like the Ancient Forest and the Priest of Leaves (Sorcery+Divine is simply the killer .. maybe even overpowered)

But in my recent game I played Orcs and grabbed the Message of the Deep as early as 150 .. which was certainly fast

But it got even better as already in 243 I could condemn my labor force into Slavery (WITHOUT beelining it, because in 150 my priorities were at first on discovering the formerly ignored agriculture, mining, masonry etc.).

This is definitivly fast and difficult and I could only achieve it by setting afire the whole area up to 20 squares (on a SMALL world) around my homeland .. I suppose my Jonas is ruling the absolute Empire of Doom and Terror.

But exactly this is the trick. To outsmart the Elves or Dwarves or Dark Elves you have to focus on the individual strengthes of your people.
As Orc that means .. razing, razing, razing. What else you wanna do with these everhungry men that have no money ... But if you play another race things look different and so again you need to focus on their strengthes..

 

[Arpymaster]

I hate to pop a village and receive the tech I'm 90% researched. In the last games, I'm getting usually fishing (not very usufull in Highlands maps).

As the elves I can pop 2-3 techs in prince, 1 or 2 in monarch, because their scouts move much faster than other civs, so you pop many more villages.

 

[Qitai]

Elves start with 2 scout. So, they have added advantage for village popping. On top of that, they start with exploration which gives mobility. So, with just a little bit of luck, getting two 4-moves scout running around in early game is very possible for elves.

 

[Arpymaster]

I usually have my scouts with 4 movement points... you don't have to battle monsters if you run faster than them

 

[BCalchet]

The Ljosalfar do rush Way of the Forsts. They don't get any bonus a human player wouldnt have to help them but their starting tech is Exploration, which is along that path.

As far as I can tell goodie huts give out a random tech that you dont have but you have the requirements for (unless its marked not to be able to be given out by goodie huts). It isn't civ specific.

From my experience, the techs from huts are not completely random. Just now playing as the Sheaim, I popped three huts: Mysticism, Knowledge of the Ether, Necromancy - by turn 10... (What are the odds for that, I wonder?)

I've had similar experiences of advancing up a specific tech tree only a few times, and always with a civ that would normally follow that path - masonry -> construction with the luchuirp, for example.

 

[Arpymaster]

From my experience, the techs from huts are not completely random. Just now playing as the Sheaim, I popped three huts: Mysticism, Knowledge of the Ether, Necromancy - by turn 10... (What are the odds for that, I wonder?)

I've had similar experiences of advancing up a specific tech tree only a few times, and always with a civ that would normally follow that path - masonry -> construction with the luchuirp, for example.

Which level are you playing at?

Returning to the topic, if you want to found the religion of the Leaves take out the pestering elves from the starting civs...

 

[BCalchet]

That game was at Emperor, but I wouldn't think difficulty affects which techs are picked.

 

[Nefelia]

It just seems a bit unbelievable that anyone could found a religion in the yr. 224 of a marathon game without a bit of 'help.'

I just checked my latest game out of curiousity. On Emperor Difficulty, Huge Map (Earth18Civs), Epic Speed, I founded FoL on turn 186.

I might just start a marathon game to see how quickly I can make it to FoL.

By the way, what is your early game tech strategy?

 

[Arwon]

I've had the masonry/construction path up the tech tree with the Luchiurp before, and a similarly fortuitous advancement up the agriculture line with the Balseraphs (popped animal husbandry and festivals). Maybe second-tier techs are more likely outcomes for some reason.

 

[Sarisin]

I just checked my latest game out of curiousity. On Emperor Difficulty, Huge Map (Earth18Civs), Epic Speed, I founded FoL on turn 186.

I might just start a marathon game to see how quickly I can make it to FoL.

By the way, what is your early game tech strategy?

I look forward to hearing when you can get it in a marathon game.

I always play on a Huge map (usually Fantasy Realm), but with fewer civs than you. I am playing Emperor now. I let the computer randomly choose the other civs.

My strategy depends on the other civs in the game (that I know about). As I said, depending on the civ I was playing I would likely go for Leaves unless I knew a Elf civ was in the game.

Also, my early game strategy, especially techs, is dependant on if I am playing with raging barbs and which techs I have bet lucky enough to gain from goodie huts. For example, if I can get Fishing, Mysticism, I might go for OO religion. I used to just select the civs I could get the quickest, but now vary my strategy depending on how the game is going.

Let me know when you get Leaves in a Marathon game. Thanks

 

[Sarisin]

In my current game (Epic, Huge Fantasy Map, 10 civs, Monarch), the elves got FOL in yr. 128!

Three turns later Khazad founded ROK.

And, OO, was founded by someone about 10 turns later.

I was still researching Mysticism when FOL was founded and I managed to get a few techs from goodie huts.

I dunno, maybe Ways of the Forest should be a STARTING tech for the elves.

 

[onedreamer]

From my experience, the techs from huts are not completely random. Just now playing as the Sheaim, I popped three huts: Mysticism, Knowledge of the Ether, Necromancy - by turn 10... (What are the odds for that, I wonder?)

I've had similar experiences of advancing up a specific tech tree only a few times, and always with a civ that would normally follow that path - masonry -> construction with the luchuirp, for example.

I would generally disagree, but exactly with Sheaim I confirm your experience 100%. Everytime I play Sheaim I pop Mysticism and Knowledge of the Ether from goody huts. I've had Knowledge of the Ether at turn 32 with Sheaim. On top of that, it seems to be the same for the AI, because they almost always build Catacomb Libralus.
I've played once with Luchuirp and had the masonry > construction hut-rush too.

 

[DieselBiscuit]

There's nothing in the code, neither the C++ or the Python that implies anything else than that the selection of techs from huts are random, unless the getSorenRandNum(int, chr[])-method tweaks it (which is a bit unlikely). The selection process is as follows:

1. Computer iterates through the complete list of techs.
2. Each tech that is currently researchable (ie. you got the prequisites) and attainable from huts (a boolean in the TechInfos.xml) are given a random number ('score') in the range 1 to 10000.
3. The techID for the tech that's got the highest score so far is stored and its score is compared to that of the next possible tech you could get.
4. If the score of a tech exceeds the value of the currently stored tech, the score and the ID of this tech overwrites the stored score and techID.
5. You get the tech which ID is stored after the computer has iterated through the whole list.

The whole shebang is in the function recieveGoody in the CvPlayer.cpp file. To conclude: As far as I'm concerned it looks fairly random.

Footnote: This whole method can be overridden by its corresponding python-function, but in FFH that is not the case.

 

[Kael]

Good to know, thanks DB.