Hidden Nationality

[Lord Parkin]

Can someone please explain what "Hidden Nationality" does? Do units appear as barbarians to other civs or something? How does that help you then, if the enemy will still attack your units? (I guess you can enter their borders and cause trouble without declaring war...)

Also, I think I worked out by trial and error that hidden nationality units can't take cities. I presume this has been a feature for a while, but nothing is mentioned about it in the manual or in the civilopedia.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

yep, HN units can't capture cities. they appear as barbarians to other players. you can use them to pillage their territory and kill their units without having to declare war. in my opinion they are best when you have a nice stack of them, otherwise they get outnumbered and killed kinda easy. of course, it's a pain to have to select them individually, but fear not for xienwolf has solved the issue and soon that pain will be gone

 

[Lord Parkin]

Okay. I hope this will be put into the manual and the civilopedia soon, because it perplexed me for quite a while, and probably will confuse other newbies in future.

By the way, on a slightly related topic - is there an easy way to see what the promotions/effects/etc of enemy units do? The problem is that the icons are too small to make out properly, and I can't mouse over them when they're not on my own units. I'm used to the look of the regular BTS promotions, so I can check up on those easily enough in the civilopedia. But there are so many new promotions/effects/etc in FfH, with so many different icons that I have no idea where on earth to start.

Example: I'll see a unit with a pirate flag promotion, and spend about 10 minutes before I find the darned matching icon in the civilopedia to find out that it actually means Hidden Nationality. That one I know now, but there's a whole heap of really obscure icons coming up on the more advanced units that look almost identical (because they're so small), and I'm having real trouble figuring out what they are.

How am I supposed to counter a promotion/effect/etc when I can't easily figure out what the said promotion/effect/etc actually is?

 

[Karnja]

good point you have lord parkin. i was annoyed by that as i started to play as well. but after some time you get to know which icon means what (i know i know, that is not really a help)

 

[WarKirby]

I agre with the promotion problem too.

It's made even worse in FFH, by the fact that promotions are divided among "Promotionss", "Effects" and "Races", giving you several places in the civilopedia to search for that picture.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

yep, it's kinda annoying. not easily solved though, I guess. :\

 

[Lord Parkin]

Maybe if you could somehow be able to right-click on a unit and click "get detailed info" or something...

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

that's a very nice idea if it can be pulled off

 

[Fafnir13]

of course, it's a pain to have to select them individually, but fear not for xienwolf has solved the issue and soon that pain will be gone

He did? Oh jubilations the Svartalfar world spell will finally be manageable!
Can't wait to see this implemented.

 

[JFSebastian]

By the way, on a slightly related topic - is there an easy way to see what the promotions/effects/etc of enemy units do? The problem is that the icons are too small to make out properly, and I can't mouse over them when they're not on my own units. I'm used to the look of the regular BTS promotions, so I can check up on those easily enough in the civilopedia. But there are so many new promotions/effects/etc in FfH, with so many different icons that I have no idea where on earth to start.

I too found this extremely annoying and agree completely. Once you've played a while its not a problem, but for those just starting it creates an unnecessary and frustrating learning experience.

With the number of promotions in standard civ4 its not that big of a deal to find them in the civilopedia, but with the vast number introduced in FFH2 there really needs to be a way to see an enemy promotion description directly in the game.

Another issue that I think needs addressing is the icon design. While many of the promotion icons are pretty when seen in detail, they often don't work very well for associating an icon with an ability. Its difficult to remember what that little green or red splotch of an icon does when seeing it at a smaller scale in game.

I think a combination of enforcing a more consistent color coding scheme for types of upgrades, spells, races, etc. along with adopting more descriptive symbolism similar to the standard civ4 iconography would be the way to go.