Getting in the game, Lanun

[Fleme]

NOTE! This game is abandoned and the actual game starts at post 5

So, from words to action I decided to actually do a game here in which I'll post my thoughts, musings and hope for some constructive feedback. I really don't know all the bells and whistles of this mod nor do I have the knowledge of what's optimal and what's not.

I have started a game with Hannah the Irin of Lanun on a Large Erebus map with the standard number of enemies, which is 8 or 9, and played my game up to turn 100 as I didn't think there was anything worth much interest in the initial build. I might be wrong here so feel free to correct me if I did something suboptimal at the start.

Difficulty is Immortal, speed is Epic. I've checked "Living World" for extra events as I enjoy them.

Without further ado, here's my start:



Settling next to that fort was a no-no for me so I gave some thought to the possible options. City could've gone 1N, 1NW or 1NW1W and I opted for the latest so I could get three coves. I've found that Lanun (flavor) starts are often green and overall pretty sweet, such as this one here.

My capital build order for the first 100 turns was warrior,warrior, warrior,warrior,wb,wb,wb,warrior,wb,warrior,settler.

Initial research path went Fishing, which I followed with Sailing as I intend to get the GLH. Might not be essential as a second tech but that's what I did. I followed this with crafting, mining and am planning on exploration afterwards. How's that?

Every hut I got had gold. The terrain around is all green and there are some towers which I find really nifty for barb-busting.



At turn 93 there was a report of Acheron making a lair somewhere. It's not near so that won't get in my way.

More green, some event:



And here's the overview of my immediate land. I have a settler ready in a few turns and there are a couple of possible options to settle.



Spot near the pearls would net 1 happy, I can fit 2 coves there. Near the crab I can also fit 2 coves and it's overall a really good location as far as production goes I think. The spot near silk is screaming commerce and the regular civer in me is telling me to go there. The other spots are too far to be considered right now, right?

My start seems isolated but there's atleast some land to the north so I can hopefully get some traderoutes going.

Where should I go from here? Basic infra, which way? Religion? Any and all tips are more than welcome!

 

[UncleJJ]

Nice starting position. Lanun are one of my favourites, but I'm far from expert. They play very differently from other civs in FfH2. Obviously the thing to do is to aim for coastal spam and try to maximise the number of pirate ports you can run. The best civic combination for the crucial middle game I've found for them is City States (to cut maintenance), Caste System (gold rush buy, +2 +1 per specialist) and Conquest (+2 exp and turns excess food to hammers). That combination allows you to turn your major assets of plentiful food and commerce into hammers. I find the rush buying of buildings more useful for the Lanun than other civs and upgrading of warriors to higher tier troops is an effective way to build an army fast. Unlike BtS, upgrading only costs 2 gold per hammer and the Lanun can afford that by lowering the slider.

As to religions, it is hard to beat OO for the Lanun. The waterwalking and cultists are powerful, and with a few frigates to ferry them around quicker, give you total naval dominance and coastal dominance. The Stygian Guards top quality units make up for the relatively weak champions (Boarding party) Lanun get. I like to make sure my Stygians get the mobility promotion first (which is why Conquest is useful) as they can't be hasted. Another advantage of being demons is they laugh at Pyre Zombies (at least in small numbers).

But of course you're not limited to using 1 religion and I often switch (usually during a golden age) and spread another 2 religions and have 3 types of priests in my main army. With the Lanun I would switch back to OO for the Stygians. Some religions will let you switch to either evil or good which you might want to do depending on neighbours and overall gameplan.

Concerning your dotmap: You might be able to squeeze 3 coastal cities along that northern part of your land instead of the two you have marked. If you move the city near the pearls one tile west, and the other city one tile east you could fit another city in between them on the river. You won't increase the number pirate ports doing that but you will be able to work all the land tiles and more coastal tiles instead of having a lot of them unused due to happiness and health and some being outside the BFC of the 2 city solution. With mid game trade routes and coastal tiles for a financial leader any coastal city can become profitable. Don't forget the Lanun special ability of +1 on all sea tiles will make those cities very food rich once you have built a lighthouse (rush buy this when you can).

Good luck, looks like an interesting game.

 

[DaveGold]

The difficulty for the Lanun isn't food or commerce, it's production. With this start you had the option of researching fishing, mysticism and mining, switching to God King, and then researching for RoK. This gives you a religion and an option for Arete mining later. Sailing is quite expensive in technology and the lighthouse is quite expensive in production.

Unfortunately, if you've started on a basic Erebus map and are alone on an island you're half way to winning already. The AI opponents won't find a way to effectively attack your island and with a thriving Lanun empire you can eventually sort them out. "Erebus continents" gives a Pangea style map with FFH theme and much more competition. It's worth downloading that map.

 

[Fleme]

Where might I get that? I've kind of noticed that the AI is terrible on water when it comes to this mod and might start over if you're saying it's as good as won.

Edit: Nevermind, I found it. Will take a look around and possibly restart the game. Or I could just check for isolation in the worldbuilder unless you're feeling up to it?

Edit2: Started anew on Erebus continents after going through a few maps in the generator to see how they look. I'll play 100 turns and report back.

 

[Fleme]

So, with the old game abandoned due to the regular Erebus script being what it is and the AI apparently being really bad on water.

New game is loaded with the same settings, with the exception of map script. The mapscript used for this is ErebusContinents, as per DaveGolds suggestion.

I played 100 turns.

This start had a lot of similarity to the previous game, with a good capital spot that also had a better spot in range. I moved up this narrow peninsula to gain a 3-cove capital:



I'm kinda drooling over Heron Throne already. I'm not going to take any objections to that!

The land is wicked sweet, save for the fact that it's covered in jungle. With a long regular civ history a lot of jungle gives me the creeps but as it turns out, it's not such a huge deal in FFH2 given that you have the resources to have it cleared. And to gain access to all those sweet resources, I'll make those resources happen.



As of turn 100, my settler has reached the spot on the Isthmus. It looks like it's easily defensible but I honestly don't like having Decius as a neighbor. I'm sure there are other more manageable people behind him, but he's right there in my face so I have to seal off my pirate paradise.



It's good to see how a different tech path actually made my game faster by several turns when counting the arrival of the first settler. Here I have it in place already whilst in the last save I was still 7 turns from completing it. That's 10 turns saved atleast.

My tech path this time around went Fishing->Ancient Chants->Mysticism->God King switch->Crafting and am now working on Mining.

Build order was roughly the same, I always aim to fogbust when that's possible. There's land to the north that's accessible via a cultural bridge. I'm hoping there's a decent sized island for settling so I can get some intercontinental trade routes going.

What about tech? Thanks about the previous pointers... I'm a bit torn on the religion part. I mean, I'm pretty solid when it comes to naval warfare already and kinda feel that going the OO route would be overdoing it. On top of that, I like the monetary benefits that RoK has while I might not necessarily need them. The thing I do lack in my slice of land is mana save for the Tomb of Sucellus and I can't decide on what religion would be best and how should I approach this situation other than building up an economy and teching.

The thing about my teching though, is that after a while I find myself looking at some 15 odd techs to research and have no idea of what's best and where should I head to

 

[DaveGold]

RoK will give you the same benefits as before - Bambur, access to iron with the mines, extra production from Arete, extra revenue. OO will give you Severous, a lot of culture and city size, massively more culture than RoK. Culture could be very useful in pushing back Decius peacefully.

After you get mining you'll be able to see whether you have bronze to work with. If you don't have bronze you may need archers or horsemen in the medium term, or iron from the RoK mines long term. That would be my next decision, even if I don't actually research the techs for a while. Once you've got that planned you can decide whether to push for a religion or not first. Bronze working will be needed fairly soon just to clear the jungle.

I suspect that Decius will accept any religion and the fact that's he's Calabim will make little difference. If you both turn RoK you'll both be neutral which is beneficial. If you both turn OO you'll be neutral and he'll be evil, which offers a mixed bag of advantages/disadvantages. On a high game level you might find opponents developing the early religions before you anyway.

 

[UncleJJ]

RoK is ok for Lanun early on until you get the Mines of Gal-Dur, but after that I would switch to OO. Bambur is not a good hero, he's useful early on for the enchant but doesn't match a late game Hemmah from OO (with Arcane Lore) and so I either would not build him or if I did build him I would still switch away from RoK and lose him part way through the game. That depends on how useful the enchant is to my early troops.

But the main reason I would go with OO is for the Stygian Guards, they are much better than the Boarding party and cheaper to build. Stygians can start out as warriors and then be upgraded for 195 gold or for less if you upgrade via the drown, but that introduces vulnerabilty to fire. With Lanun finances that is a great way to turn out a powerful army.

Also note Hannah has the Raider trait and that means demons with mobilty can still move 4 tiles along enemy roads (or 6 with Engineering) That's hard to deal with.

 

[Fleme]

So, I went with the advice of getting RoK. I kind of had a problem with myself and this since if there's one thing I've learned in regular civ as far as diplomacy goes is that you do not found a religion but rather adopt the one most suitable for your needs.

Well, this isn't regular civ as I'm learning.

Some 9 turns into this segment I had an event with the options of doing nothing, paying 50 and getting a free GE or paying 75 for a cart of supplies. Not a hard call when you come to think of it - I chose the GE and settled him in Innsmouth.

Soon, Orthus spawned and it was only like 10 tiles away. However, he chose to go for Decius and was soon slain:



The AI is dumb in not ever really going for that Axe other than by mistake. Well, I'll just bide my time and wait for open borders so I can go snatch it.

Acheron:



Far away, non issue.

And I actually made it to RoK first. I honestly wasn't counting on it but then again I must've lost track of my progression given how high the commerce really is. Fortunately, the holy city chosen was the one facing Decius' capital so I won't have much trouble there anywhere. As soon as the religion spread to my capital I built a temple and started prophet farming.

Heron Throne in Innsmouth:



Got to love those pirate harbors being superior to any other tile in game.

Open borders, aka "YOINK!"



He also adepted RoK so I'm feeling a lot safer diplomatically now. Does he declare at pleased though?

Muris clan dumps poo:



My first "real" military unit explores ruins and gets mutated in one of the best ways. He got Heroic Strength and Heavy (+30% str, +1 terrain movement cost). Also carrying the Axe so he's doing ok as far as cleaning up the countryside goes.

Pirate sells me a map:



I take it and naturally the chest is on the other side of the map. It does get me contact with Keelyn though. Meh, could've gone without the Balseraphs.

Prophet realizes. RoK shrine generates gold so I'm thinking a math detour is in order for the Bazaar.



Bambur is in. He boards the trireme along with the Soldier of K. to explore up north.



Land, Ho! Keelyn casts revelry.



T200, Lanunia proper:



Cash cow:



And finally my sweet, sweet capital:



Some concluding thoughts:

One of the dungeons had a Savant in them. I can now found AV if I so choose. I'm thinking not since that won't do me any good and just enable that religion to spread to others. The island up north seems good for settling. Looks a lot like tundra but as long as it has coast it's good for Lanun. I'm going to go there.

 

[Jarrema]

As a Lanun you have very good teching potential. I would use it to found a few religions (OO, RoK, then CoE, maybe others). Then, after generating a few great prophets, you will get additional mana sources (in this example, IIRC, it would be Earth, Water, Shadow and maybe something else), and of course other benefits of having religion's temples.
EDIT: I believe that benefit of having AV holy city is strongly outweighting any disadvantages of it spreading to other players. Especially if you do not have a lot of mana sources. Entropy mana is one of my favourite. Of coure, it would cost you yet another great prophet

 

[Fleme]

I've played some into the next segment as I can't seem to keep myself off the game. Anyhow, I've explored the northern landmass and it's huge. It extends all the way to the other end of the known world and I've reached the Luchuirp, the Malakim and the Doviello sailing along the coast. The continent itself is rich with various resources and seems to have a lot of barbarians to train on. Bambur and the Soldier are already clearing parts and I've found Letum Frigus, Pyre of the Seraphic and the pool of whatchamacallit that produces various monsters and eventually something sweet.

Anyhow, as far as religion goes that's a big questionmark right now. The RoK shrine brings home the gravy and a good portion of the world actually follow the religion too. I do realize that the RoK units/heroes aren't as sweet as say, OO, but I'm honestly not in a phase of the game where I'd start mass producing units anyways as I have just found a massive continent that's pretty much free for me to grab. I found a Order missionary too and will found the religion in Kingsport (RoK holy city) to double shrine but I'm still hesitant on founding AV for the negative AC impact and I don't much care for entropy mana with all it's diplomatic demerits and now considering I have access to free Ice for a tier 3 spell.

Talking about magic, I've neglected the branch totally. I've focused on the economic techs as my position is really solid as far as trading goes. Regular Lighthouses, Great Lighthouse, Foreign Trade, Sea Havens, Taverns, you name it, I'll build it and the commerce just flows in.

This raises a question: Am I forced to wage war? I methodically avoid wars in regular civ until I'm well and ready for them and they happen in my terms and since I've played the diplo in this one so well (I have four of my closest AI's at friendly) I feel like I have immunity and freedom to tech as far as I want.

I've been toying with the idea of building the Bone Palace for a golden age, dipping into OO, researching Mind Stapling (should be 1-2 turns of research), building the Tower of Complacency and then switching back to RoK since I've estabilished it so well. I don't much care for Bambur though but then again what other options are there? I kind of prefer the neutral stance as most of the world is now neutral and if I opt for Order I'm good? AV is out of the question really and that leaves CoE which is also easily accessible should I hope to reach it.

Shrining won't be much of a problem as I plan to spread most of the religions available to my capital which has a monstrous food surplus and I plan to enhance it further with the National Epic so there should be little problem in generating necessary great people.

Long rant but the game seems to complicate itself as it progresses while I seem to still cling to the basic builder instinct and keep it simple.

 

[Emptiness]

Mind Stapling won't be 1 or 2 turns of research at 125 per turn.

If several civs are already following RoK you should consider the possibility of pursuing a Religious victory before you start founding other religions and building other holy cities. Take a look at the Religion Advisor (<F7>), and see how RoK compares to other religions that have been founded. You need 80% of the world's population following RoK to win. (Cities with multiple religions present divide credit for their population evenly among those religions.) Unless RoK is behind another religion it might be worth building Thanes and manually spreading RoK in an effort to win sooner rather than later. Even if you can't win it this way, you will still benefit from a very large income boost, so the effort won't be wasted.

 

[Zechnophobe]

So, let me give you a little help here. It is hard for me to exactly know the timing for where you 'ought' to be since I don't play on Epic, but I think you are perhaps expanding a little too slowly.

You should be looking at roughly: Warrior-Warrior-Warrior-boat-boat-boat-warrior-settler-boat-boat

Or, if you are on a larger landmass, get at least one more scout.

Send scouts down the coasts. You don't really care much about the inside of the map, and you want to know if there are any pearls nearby. A second city with pearls will be an easy luxury, plus a couple extra gold, and keep you from needing workers and worker-tech for longer.

Tech wise, fishing is obviously first. Where you go from there is God king, which you did. Mining, however, isn't necessarily next. I often get Sailing at this point for a lighthouse in the capital, since this will give you ridiculous amount of food to build settlers with. Heron/King/Lighthouse gives 3 food 1.5 production per ocean square towards a settler (4.5 total), roughly the same as a hills/forest. Oh, and it also gets 2 or 3 commerce.

The religion you want is Fellowship of the leaves. What? Yes, FoL. For now at least.

Hunters get you on track with a decent unit to fight barbarians. But fellowship + guardian of nature will grant you a lot of health and a LOT of happiness. Add in ancient forests and lighthouses, and you will get huge cities very quickly this way.

While cities grow, tech to Empyrean to found it hopefully, and then to religious law. On way to Religious law, build an army (or hire one via currency and Guild of the Nine). Switch to Empryean, conquer world with Chalid + Army. Game.

What you don't do much of: Building works and improving non-ocean tiles. Most inland tiles aren't even that valuable. Yes, get mining at some point to raise production, but you will get production mainly from just being large and working a lot of low production tiles. You don't have to 'waste' time on a lot of the early game worker techs like animal husbandry or calendar. (Calendar gives 1 or 2 happiness... guardian of nature gives 8 or more maybe!).

This lets you focus production on either military or cheapo buildings like Elder councils, and eventually markets.

 

[DaveGold]

I had a quick look at the save and you took a big gamble putting Dunwich in that position. The city is really poor until the jungle is removed and you normally can't afford to have a poor second city. It would take an age to even build a monument but I'm guessing you got the cultural expansion from founding the religion there instead. Dunwich is also a long way away from the capital which can mount up costs under God King, not only that but you could have accidents walking your workers there past the lizardmen, even if you escort them. Well done for getting away with it, presumably because the capital is so strong. Don't try the same trick playing the Doviello .

 

[Zechnophobe]

Good point, also, you should have built a workboat immediately after the settler for dunwick, and had that cove ready as soon as the city was founded. Like you said, best tiles in the game, but they take a while to mature. More food, more production, more commerce to help pay for the city.

 

[franconbean]

So, I went with the advice of getting RoK. I kind of had a problem with myself and this since if there's one thing I've learned in regular civ as far as diplomacy goes is that you do not found a religion but rather adopt the one most suitable for your needs.

Not quite so in FFH i would think. I use religion rushes as a strategy against the AI all the time. Not only because there are powerful civics that require a certain religion (Arete, for example, requires RoK), but Religion wonders seem more powerful, offering twice the great person growth of those in vanilla(+2 as opposed to +1, and not just for prophets either), they also provide mana, which is enormously helpful (particularly for the Amurites, but also helpful to the lanun, who don't get good defensive spell mana from their palace).
If by "adopt the one most suitable to your needs" you mean that you want to chose one that does not cause negative relationship modifiers with other Civs, the Council of Esus religion doesn't behave in this way, and it will appear to other players as though you do not have a state religion. The nox noctis wonder that requires the holy city also makes all the units in your territory invisible (untill they cast "reveal").
Also, There are some random events that can trigger a golden age or give you free great people if you have a certain state religion, which is why its beneficial in my opinion to get them early.
PS. The RoK wonder gives you access to Earth mana, which is VERY good for defending cities. And its the most overpowered religion for growth.
Also, appologies if any of what i typed has already been said :3
edit: Also, the reason that the AI is unlikely to get a religion before you if you work it it is because The Religion founding techs don't lead to anything other than possibly a tech that is exclusive to factions with the state religion.
Another thing, Davegold, there is no such thing as a weak Lanun city if its on a coast

 

[Fleme]

I better get back in this game. I did play it to T300~ already and things are looking up.

I kind of got sidetracked since I found Fall Further in the middle of things and obviously had to play a few games of that. Attention deficit for the lose.

Anyhow, I'll try and post a round later tonight. Thanks for all the good advice - although I have to mention that I'm somewhat stubborn in taking advice but I'm trying

 

[Fleme]

I kind of put this game in my desk drawer as I pursued other things. I discovered Fall Further and truth be told, liked it more and played it ever since.

But, I'm not one to shy away from commitments I've made even if they're only to myself so I'll resume this here and now.

As provided by my sneak peek I proceeded to do just as I planned. A fortuitious Golden Age kicked the segment in high gear...



I go trade heavy to backfill:



which is soon followed by:



Zing! Sleeping Dragon will be here all night, folks!

In the north, I'm proceeding on cleaning up the continent with my seasoned Soldier of K. Here you see him cleaning up Bradeline's Well...



...eventually resulting in:



Well, meh.

Here you see Lanun proper at t301. The plan for Tower of Complacency is actualizing thanks to a golden age fueled by a great person (or two, I don't recall). Should help the capital with it's monstrous growth speed:



I'm also planning on going back to RoK/Arete once the tower completes.

Other things to note: On turn 287 I founded Order in Kingsport. I found a missionary in one of the dungeons in the northern island. Will that bear any weight?

Anyhow, once again I find myself in a very traditional situation. I have a comfortable position in which I very much enjoy to stay. On top of that, I have a huge landmass all to myself if I so choose and I could pretty much pick any victory type I want. However, I'm inclined to ask: Which one? This you should read: Which victory would be the fastest here?

 

[DaveGold]

Settling the large northern island is all very good but doesn't win you the game. It will take too long to develop. Claim the best bits and neutralize the rest.

If you're not prepared by now for a cultural victory it will probably just take too long.
If you're not prepared by now for an altar victory it will take too long and be chancy.
You don't have enough mana nodes to really go for a tower of mastery victory.

To get the other victories you need to crack some heads. You can either plough through the small ROK neighbours and steadily conquer eastwards or try to bind them up as ROK allies and take out Keelyn. The latter is much more ambitious but can probably give a faster victory, maybe a religious victory. Your opponents may start some action themselves soon, and should probably have been at each others throats already to be honest. Feudalism will speed up your empire growth with vassal states, which seem perfect for this map.

With order you have another option. If you build the Mercurian gate and go on a crusade eastwards you can get your good units reborn as angels when they die. The RoK units from your enemies can also become angels. Unfortunately Basium doesn't use his forces under patch n and the best reason to build the gate in your game is to deny it to other nations.

I'm not sure why you've changed to OO to build the tower of complacency, perhaps it is living up to its name. Getting the RoK mines or the religious heroes will be more important to winning the game. Make sure you have come cultists before you change your religion away from OO again.

 

[Emptiness]

Which victory would be the fastest here?

Build 4-8 Cultists.
Research Feudalism if you have not already done so.
Declare war on a neighbor.
March along the coast, using the Cultists to devastate the garrisons defending coastal cities for easy conquests.
Continue until your foe is willing to capitulate, then gift back to them the cities you've taken (or not, if you don't mind managing them).
Advance to the next civ, and repeat until you have won a Conquest victory. (The Balseraphs may not have enough coastal cities to force a capitulation without fighting inland, so save them for last.)