How do you play FfH2?

[Llewen]

I'm sure something like this has been posted before, but I didn't see anything on the first page, so here goes. How do you play FfH2? What options do you use? Do you play single player or multiplayer, and if multiplayer, do you play with friends on a lan, or on the net, or do you play with random pubs?

I'll share how I've been playing FfH2, I'm thinking maybe this isn't very common. I play a huge map and roll a random number from 1 to 34 and take that leader. Then I add all the rest of the leaders to the game as a.i. I then choose random sea level and climate, raging barbarians, barbarians start with cities, extra animals, city flipping from culture and after conquest, end of the ice age, last days, and no city razing. I think the rest of the options are default (although I'm probably forgetting something). I play on monarch level.

In a way it's a bit like taking an advanced start because it is pretty easy to take a number of cities fairly quickly, but having all the leaders in the game is just a ton of fun. It think it makes diplomacy much more important. And of course it means you get hit with the effects of an awful lot of world spells - oh how I hate raging seas...

 

[DarkxL0rd]

with a computer.

 

[HadesScorn]

Obsessively.

Currently working around 18 hours a day as a Squad Tactical Officer at Fort Knox. I get back around 8 pm and eat a late supper, put in a lip of dip [no tobacco around ROTC cadets for the usual Army Hard reasons] and spend the next two hours playing FfH or reading the forums. Then I crash for four hours and wake up for PT.

Needless to say, I know I should use those two hours to sleep. But dammit, I need for the Infernals to push the AC to 100 without winning the game first so I can knock out as many trophies as possible.

 

[WarKirby]

The style I play is loosely described as "techzilla"

Essentially, I play very defensively at the start, concentrating on economy, and only building as many troops as needed for basic defense. Mostly, I stay isolated and build up quietly until the late game, where I then go and conquer the world with a horde of knights/archmages/druids/etc.

 

[Neomega]

Tectonics, wet, large or standard (i played one huge), with 1 or 2 more Ai's than recommended for map size. End of winter, raging barbs and barb cities, blessing of Amaethon, living world, no tech brokering, no vassals.

First thing I always do is go into world builder and look at the shape of the map. It it looks ugly or uninteresting, I regenerate a map. This is the most lengthy process. Many times I put my capital in terrible terrain, just because I like the location. (perhaps a mountain pass, or tip of a large harbor or lake).

Then I play. No restarts, unless I forget to do something that I meant to, even then, it's iffy if I will restart.

I quit for may reasons, sometimes even if I have invested 10 hours:
1. beat to Esus
2. something just goes wrong, a unit I was grooming to be hero gets killed or something like that.
3. I quit one game, because I reloaded out of anger, and then felt I cheated

right now I am saving acceptable maps, so one day I can just load one up at random and play it, know its a map I want to beat, but have no clue what map, since many times my games only last 2 hours or less before I am wiped out.

My strategy is always based on my surroundings and enemies now. I play a very reactionary game.



Always Sidar... always. And my favorite part is building "black" armies... armies of HN units.

 

[FireBlaze]

I usually pick random map settings, random civilization, and just play it out depending on the civilization choice.

 

[Llewen]

Then I play. No restarts, unless I forget to do something that I meant to, even then, it's iffy if I will restart.

3. I quit one game, because I reloaded out of anger, and then felt I cheated

That's too funny, someone I can relate to. I don't like reloading. I will reload when I'm learning the game and I do something stupid based in ignorance, but for the most part I try to never reload. There's another old game I play, Panzer General II. If I ever do reload that one, it won't be long before I've restarted the game because I'll feel as though I've cheated and ruined the fun.

I usually pick random map settings, random civilization, and just play it out depending on the civilization choice.

I love playing random civilizations. You tend to learn something interesting every time. Like this time I played Alexis and learnt how amazing vampirism is. I generally take the path of good, so I was the first to discover order, and turned Alexis into a lawful good vampire. Then I proceeded to turn Valin Phanuel into a vampire and had him feed on my people. What a delicious case of cognitive dissonance.

But my favourite part was later on. My strategy is generally to try and capture Acheron the dragon. Well I was lucky enough to have him spawn right next to me. I captured him, and turned him into a vampire. Let me tell you, a level 20+ dragon is something to behold. Valin Phanuel is devastating when you get him up to that level, but he is nothing compared to Acheron the red dragon.

I hadn't played the game since Acheron was given 3 movement. He was nasty before when you had to give him mobility to allow him to move, but that 3 movement now greatly increases his overall usefulness.

 

[Randolph]

This is a great topic to come up every now and again, I've gotten some great tips to keep things fresh and personalized in previous threads.

1. Map Scripts: I'm a big fan of the "full of resources" script. It allows for a huge number of options, but the most important to me are:

a. 60% (this is the minimum) water (usually fractal): Unless I'm playing the Lanun I greatly prefer a map with a lot of land. The AI is better on single contents, and is much more likely to conquer and become more powerful keeping the game competative in the later stages. Boats are still very useful, there's just not the tedium of transporting large numbers of troops by boat.
Low water fractal gives makes for much more interesting maps then any of the standard single continent maps such as panagea, highlands, etc

b. Fewer forests: With the changes to forest and jungle cutting (both earlier in the tech tree) this isn't nearly as important, but it still seems to help balance starts considerably.

c. More food resources: more food resources means more "good" city spots which considerably evens out starting spots (and gets the game rolling for all players more quickly).

2. Players: because I play with a large amount of land area for the map size I like to considerably up the number of players 10-13 players on standard, 15-18 on large.

3. Settings:
a. Aggressive AI: I consider this a must, it essentially makes the AI better without skewing effect of higher difficulties. I find it absolutely essential for AI civs to conquer other AI civs if the later game is going to be reasonably challenging compared to the early game.

b. Raging Barbarians: I've gone back and forth on this one more, it can definitely sometimes ruin a game with massive barb warrior spam, so I only use it if I'm also using familar map settings (like the ones above) that I know it works well on. Basically if there are going to be large tracks of wilderness into the mid-game then raging barbs will ruin the game with massive stacks of barbs cutting through the AI, making more wilderness, until you win a conquest victory by default. But with the right settings it can make for a good challenge balancing between expansion and defense.

c. No tech brokering: with the high concentration of AIs in my games tech whoring is way to effective with this setting on. Rushing trade is still a very effective strategy even with the setting on.

Now for something completely different:
A great game variety I picked up on this forum is to play with: Advanced start + Barbarian world + no settlers

Without "no settlers" on I find any map with large tracks of wilderness to end up just being peaceful expansion ad nausium, where the early game might be fun will all that exploration, the mid game is boring (because land is not a scarce resource), and the late game is anti-climatic because either you or an AI is already completely dominate. With the above settings you have have great exploration and resources competition. You might have to play around with the settings a bit before you get it just right (AS points, map, #of AI, etc), it's been I little while since I played one of these games, but it can be a lot of fun.

I look forward to hearing other ppls suggestions!

[edit] One more idea: if your looking for a particular dynamic (such as good vs. evil), and don't want to risk playing half the game just to have that polarity not materialize, I've found it effective to make a two civilization team for your opposition. For example if you want to play the Bannor in a holy crusade against evil, and don't want to end up with your primary rivals as the Malkim and Lurchip, make a "team" (on "custom game" you can assign teams to players) of the two Sheaim leaders, and an unholy juggernaut is sure to develop!

 

[Izmir Stinger]

I have the most fun with these settings:

Flavor Mod 2, Better Economic AI, Erebus Continents Map script with medium cohesion and all other settings default, Giant map size, 6good/7nuetral/6evil civs (randomly picked, except my own), custom leaderheadsinfo that encourages more appropriate religious behavior and conflict, classical era advanced start, No Tech Brokering, No world Spells (AI is so dumb about using them on advanced starts it makes my teeth itch), All Unique Features, Living World, Blessings of Amanthun, Wildlands, End Days (unless I am playing the Sheaim, makes it too easy), Normal Speed, and either flexible difficulty starting at Emperor or increasing difficulty starting at Noble or Prince. Plan to try High to Low with this set up eventually, once I've tried more civs.

 

[Tholal]

Perfect World 2 is my new favorite map script. I play at small or standard size because the maps it makes are very large.

My preferred settings are as follows: Advanced Start; Barbarian World; No Tech Brokering; Wildlands; Living World; All Unique Features. Sometimes Raging Barbarians if I'm feeling lucky. If I'm playing FF or FF+, then I'll also use the Flavor Start option.

I've been using the AI improvement mod lately, so I bumped the AI down to Prince, though I may try Monarch level for my next game.

I choose a random civ if I don't have something specific I want to try, but my last 3 games have been as Doviello, Sheaim and the Illians.

 

[JonathanStrange]

The technical details: I prefer Deity level, pangaea maps, raging barbarians.

The civilization details: I prefer Neutral civs, esp. the Ljosalfar, followed by Good civs.

Personal details: no reloads on battles, no WB goodies.

I usually wear my Desert Elf gear of brown khakis, light blue polo shirt, sunglasses, and Evian water.

I keep my bow and mithril-tipped arrows nearby, should the game go against me.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Single player
Only Conquest Victory allowed

Advances Start
Double Barbarians
Double Bonuses
Double Events
All Unique Features
Permanent Alliances
No tech Brokering
Flexible Difficulty (starting at Noble, usually spending much of the early game at warlord and all the end at diety)
require Complete kills
AI ignores level prereqs

Those are all set to default. I also made No Inflation and Always Open Boarders visible and sometimes use them, but not that often.


generally Standard Size maps, Hemispheres with 3+ continents of varied types, plenty of islands. (unless I'm just testing a recent change, in which case I use duel)
Normally normal speed, but recently I've been using quick more as I don't really have time to play.

I mostly play the civs I've been modding most recently.

I never reload when something I don't like happens, but use worldbuider fairly often. Generally this is when someone beats me to a wonder by 1 turn, and I plan just to give me that but end up getting several free great people and maybe an early archmage as well.

 

[far_wanderer]

There are several types of game I play.
1 - One City Challenge on 2 -3 difficulty levels higher than normal, with a world-buildered city location. Usually a Small or Standard map.
2 - Same as #1, but I mod the wonders that require more than one of a building so they only require one, and play without the One City Challenge button actually checked. Then I work towards either forming a Permanent Alliance with an AI or summoning the Mercurians, and achieve my victory through them. (Unchecking OCC means I can found the city necessary for the Mercurian Gate and capture cities to give to my ally.)
3 - My 'normal' games. Tiny (sometimes Small) map, one extra civ, occasionally advanced start. Random about half of the time to get familiar with a civ I might not otherwise play, but a lot of the time I'll have a strategy I want to try out.

Regardless, I have Living World, Blessing of Amathon, and Permanent Alliances on, and Cultural victory off (as a builder, I grew tired of having games arbitrarily end before I was done with what I wanted to do). I also tend to grow bored with a game if I get more than five cities or more than about 10 star units, because there gets to be too much stuff going on and I quit feeling attached to my people.
I enjoy playing civ so much that I don't like winning, because it means the game is over. So I typically avoid very difficult or very easy games and strategies.

 

[Doug Piranha]

I like to play the Tectonics script, 30% water, small or tiny world size because my machine is wimpy (but with 2n+1 the standard number of players because of the extra land). Standard options: aggressive AI, no tech trading, no vassals (the latter two because they seem to be horribly exploitable).

 

[cyther]

I wouldn't play without Double events or All unique features. Erebus continent makes an amazing map but it takes a while to create it. I say it's worth the wait.

I really like using require Complete Kills but it makes debugging games very hard and may cause a few other problems.

I always use more civs than the map size I'm using because I don't like expansion and sometimes the Hinterlands option from Rise of Darkness if I want a challenge.

 

[Antheanian]

Usually, I play with these settings:
- Erebus, large map
- One or two additionnal AI
- All unique features
- Blessing of Amatheon
- Permanent alliances
- Culture flip after conquest

I keep all victory conditions enabled, and don't select any civ or leader. I wait to see what I get and play with it. After 100 turns or so, I select a victory condition depending of the start, the neighbors, etc. Usually, I get bored before achieving the victory... Reload on occasion, depending of my mood that day. Never used the world builder though.

 

[Randolph]

I'd like to hear more about why people have chosen the map scripts that they have, and what map scripts they have tried and have decided they don't like and why.

It's been awhile, but my recollection is that the "Erebus" map script is the one where there are different areas (with specific terrain types like forest, desert, hills, etc) separated by mountain ranges that often completely cut off areas except for water access. To me this feels an awful lot like playing on an islands map.
For people who like this map scrip, do you feel the AI is able to effectively handle the area separations? Do AI's conquer other AIs? Are you assaulted with significant AI forces?

I only have an even vaguer memory of the perfect world script, but my recollection is that it blankets almost everything with forests. Is that correct? If so do you find it problematic? And regardless, what do you feel that PW offerers that the standard mapscripts do not?

All unique features must be a new option since the last time I was playing FFH regularly, I think I'm going to start using that as I like the unique features.

[edit] I'm surprised that Doug Piranha and I are the only ones who have listed Aggressive AI as a regular option, I've found it to be essential to a dynamic game. OTOH it's been a long time since I played without it checked, so I'm not completely sure how much difference it makes. I find it a much more satisfying way of increasing difficulty then then cranking the difficulty level into the "weird zone" (IMO immortal+) were AI bonuses alter the nature of the game to the point where you feel like you're up against a technical challenge rather than similarly situated "opponents."

 

[Tholal]

I only have an even vaguer memory of the perfect world script, but my recollection is that it blankets almost everything with forests. Is that correct? If so do you find it problematic? And regardless, what do you feel that PW offerers that the standard mapscripts do not?

Just to clarify, I've actually been using the Perfect World 2 mapscript. And I've never seen a forest-covered world. Perhaps that was an old issue that has since been fixed.

I like it because it creates interesting terrain combinations that often create or require strategic thought about how the terrain will play out both in wartime and in city building. The author put a lot of work into modeling plate tectonics and weather patterns, and it shows. You can often identify (or imagine it anyway) places where the plates slammed together and created a mountain range, or where weather patterns were blocked, creating arid, rain-starved lands.

It has a lot more mountains than the standard worlds, but doesn't feel as contrived as Erebus does. Terrain features tend to come in swaths, so you'll have mountain ranges with hills, large deserts, clumps of resources, etc. You'll also end up with guardable passes through the mountains, rivers that flow down from the mountains or meander across open plains and windswept, tundra 'highlands' that represent areas of extreme elevation.

Here are a couple of specific examples of interesting results.

1) In my latest game, the largest continent in the world has a narrow isthmus in the southwest part, leading to a block of land that probably would have been an island if the plates had settled a little differently. But, it just so happens that this isthmus is blocked by a row of mountains, in effect, creating an island-like setting, even though the land is actually connected.

2) In this same world lies a massive inland sea on the northern part of the continent. Probably about as big as two Mediterranean Seas stuck together. A good half dozen civilizations have borders on this sea, and epic wars could be fought without ever leaving its waters, but if you wanted to sail to other lands, the only water-based way out is a one-tile wide passage to the far north.

3) A desert ~15 tiles wide and 10 tiles tall, bordered by rough mountains to the north, and steaming jungle to the south. A single river snakes its way from the middle of the desert south to the jungles, providing a small area amongst the wasteland to establish a thriving city.

I suggest you give it a try, though you should know that a Standard sized world is pretty sizable by itself.

All unique features must be a new option since the last time I was playing FFH regularly, I think I'm going to start using that as I like the unique features.

I particularly like this option with Barbarian World. Oftentimes it will result in barbarian towns next to the Unique Features.

I'm surprised that Doug Piranha and I are the only ones who have listed Aggressive AI as a regular option

Ah yes, I forgot to mention that. I also play with the Aggressive AI option turned on.

 

[Tholal]

Aggressive AI... I find it a much more satisfying way of increasing difficulty then then cranking the difficulty level into the "weird zone" (IMO immortal+) were AI bonuses alter the nature of the game to the point where you feel like you're up against a technical challenge rather than similarly situated "opponents."

If you haven't already done so, I also recommend installing this AI Mod. He hasn't yet updated it to the 3.19 version, so you'll have to play with a slightly older FfH, but it makes a huge difference in regards to AI ability, especially in the early game, and helps them to give them a better grasp of some of the FfH features (such as Pirate Coves and terraforming) via magic. I too hate how the higher difficulty levels in Civ simply allow the AI to cheat more.

 

[Neomega]

I play smartworld now. I just discovered it, and it allows massive customization. I like tectonics or smart world because I like large mountain ranges. I would use Erebus also, except their mountain ranges are very unnatural looking.

I tried perfect world, but it does not give interesting enough coastlines... it is awfully mundane, I like lots of juts, bays, etc.... what smartworld calls "fragmentation".

Regarding aggressive AI, I like to play a game where the AI's have some personality besides attack. I play the game for the full experience, which is why I am not always looking for the meta-awesome- combo.