Hell Terrain

[DrPepper836]

What exactly is the bad thing about hell terrain? I looked at it in game and in the pedia, and it looks exactly the same as the normal terrain that it replaces. The only exception being burning sands, which most units can not move through. Does hell terrain disable you from building improvements on it or something?

 

[rusty217]

Well it gives demons a small bonus, so depending on who you are playing that could be good or bad...

It also changes the resources to hell resources.

 

[onedreamer]

the only bad thing about it is that it turns flood plains into deserts.

 

[MiKa523]

..and that sometimes these pillar improvement thingies appear...right one ressources occasionally :/

If you fight hell terrain with Life I try to keep the nightmare ressource, since it helps your mounted units.

 

[abculatter2]

..and that sometimes these pillar improvement thingies appear...right one ressources occasionally :/

If you fight hell terrain with Life I try to keep the nightmare ressource, since it helps your mounted units.

The snake pillar is what food resources (rice, wheat, corn) turn into on hell terrain.

 

[MiKa523]

Ah, thanks for the clarification
Haven't noticed yet.

 

[Ajidica]

It also replaces all animal health resources with toads. Since with animal helath, the bonus doesnt stack, you end up with less overall health. Not really a problem for demons or those running sacrifice the weak.

 

[Pyr0mancer]

It does, however, give an advantage in turning Horses and Cattle into Nightmares, and Marble into Sheut Stone. Having Nightmares boosts your mounted units' strength by 1, and Sheut Stone grants +1 death combat to certain unit classes (I forget which, includes Disciples and Adepts though for sure). Only Pigs and Sheep turn into Toads.

My personal preference for Hell terrain is to control the spread with Sanctify so I can have both sets of resources. The only problem is that it's a lot of micromanagement.

Oh and finally, Hell terrain erases forests. Elves get screwed hard by it.

 

[smusebaer]

It would be good, if a Adapt with sanctify could be stationed somewhere to keep the Hellterrain off, without Mikromanagement.

 

[Nor'easter]

Also, you can't spread irrigation on hell terrain, and you can't use the Vitalize spell or the Genesis ritual to upgrade hell terrain. To upgrade hell terrain, you first need to cast Sanctify, then Vitalize.

 

[Fafnir13]

Also, certain hell terrain is just the right color to make it really, really hard to see if you've built roads on it unless you zoom in pretty close. It's a major pain.

 

[rusty217]

Also, certain hell terrain is just the right color to make it really, really hard to see if you've built roads on it unless you zoom in pretty close. It's a major pain.

If we're commenting on the looks of it aswell then I'd like to add it looks brilliant for battles between the Order and the Veil's units...

 

[Ajidica]

I forgot hell terrain destroys forests. I finaly have a way to destroy my friend who always plays with the elves and their obscene defensive bonuses.

 

[Pyr0mancer]

Heh, the problem there is that Hell terrain never spreads into Good civilizations' territory. Faeryl Viconia (Svartalfar, Evil) is fairly vulnerable to Hell terrain spread (AC 50, or 25 if she's AV), while Arendel Phaedra (Ljosalfar, Good) is immune unless she switched religions to become Neutral or Evil. Thessa and Amelanchier are both Neutral, so the AC needs to be 75 before it spreads into their lands, once again unless they've had an alignment switch via religion.

You could also use Blaze and burn their pretty little forests to the ground

 

[abculatter2]

Heh, the problem there is that Hell terrain never spreads into Good civilizations' territory. Faeryl Viconia (Svartalfar, Evil) is fairly vulnerable to Hell terrain spread (AC 50, or 25 if she's AV), while Arendel Phaedra (Ljosalfar, Good) is immune unless she switched religions to become Neutral or Evil. Thessa and Amelanchier are both Neutral, so the AC needs to be 75 before it spreads into their lands, once again unless they've had an alignment switch via religion.

You could also use Blaze and burn their pretty little forests to the ground

actually, it always spreads to AV land and at 25 it spreads to unowned land, at 50 it spreads to evil lands, at 75 it spreads to neutral.

 

[DrPepper836]

I see, thanks. So basically , the effects are:

• Different Resources
• No spread of irrigation, meaning less farms
• Destroys forests

All in all, not as bad as it could be, I think.

 

[Pyr0mancer]

Ah, thanks for the correction. I don't think Hyborem has ever showed up in my games before AC 25 though, so I've never seen it not spread to unowned land.

You left out 'turns flood plains (3/0/1) into burning sands (0/0/0)'. That's a pretty major change, since it takes any improvements with it. Also, the loss of forests as mentioned is a massive loss to the Elves. To everyone else, meh, but having your 30+ population elven super-cities suddenly lose 20 or so food, production, and possibly health and happiness as well (Guardian of Nature) is a huge hit.

Don't forget that Burning Sands also block off movement to non-fire-resistant units. I've actually had a game where I Scorched a complete band around my empire just to create a huge flaming wall. The AI has no idea how to Sanctify/Spring, so...

 

[rusty217]

You left out 'turns flood plains (3/0/1) into burning sands (0/0/0)'. That's a pretty major change, since it takes any improvements with it. Also, the loss of forests as mentioned is a massive loss to the Elves. To everyone else, meh, but having your 30+ population elven super-cities suddenly lose 20 or so food, production, and possibly health and happiness as well (Guardian of Nature) is a huge hit.

That's actually a bug though, it should change to obsidian plains which is (3/0/1) like flood plains but looks like a hell version, but the flames from burning sands always destroys them...

Don't forget that Burning Sands also block off movement to non-fire-resistant units. I've actually had a game where I Scorched a complete band around my empire just to create a huge flaming wall. The AI has no idea how to Sanctify/Spring, so...

So true... Fire walls are nigh impenetrable to the ai, makes desert cities turn out quite good for the Infernals...

 

[xalien]

You could also use Blaze and burn their pretty little forests to the ground

Ancient forests are immune to fire. But they're very vulnerable to hell terrain - while normal forests disappear only when the tile actually turns into hell terrain, ancient forests vanish as soon as the tile AC is above 0.

 

[Verily]

I forgot hell terrain destroys forests. I finaly have a way to destroy my friend who always plays with the elves and their obscene defensive bonuses.

Until he learns to use the power of Arendel Phaedra (or uses a GA to convert to The Order and then back to FoL).