How do you stop someone from winning an Altar victory?

[Shadowlord]

Cassiel just finished the exalted altar, so he's only one step away from winning now.

I would go to war with him, but (a) he's more powerful than me, and (b) I can't find the altars.

I tried looking in the wonders screen, but it doesn't list any altars anywhere.

(I wanted to disable the altar victory, but apparently you don't get that choice unless you do a custom game)

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Well, if he's more militarily powerful than you and he's got 6 (!) great prophets, I think he might be in doublewin territory. Start over? Either that or go for the hail Mary pass with 0:12 left on the clock when you're down by 5 points... in other words, declare war regardless of relative strength.

 

[Bringa]

How do you stop someone from winning an Altar victory?

You disable it in the start game window because the altar is hopelessly overpowered and compared to the other victory conditions way too easy to achieve. We're always playing without it.

 

[loki1232]

It's true that the altar is an easy victory condition. Ironically it is the first victory condition we've added which the ai can win at easily. But we are going to be balancing it (we have a thread in the private forum titled "Balancing the Altar of the Luonnotar"), don't worry.

 

[Red Boxer]

I think something might be wrong with my game because the Final Altar costs something like 12000 hammers...

 

[Shadowlord]

I did indeed decide to go to war to stop him, and so far, the results are:
1. I have captured and held three of his cities.
2. Arendel Phaedra, Basium, and Morgoth have also declared war on me (Arendel summoned Basium a long time ago). Morgoth's troops haven't actually shown up yet, but Arendel and Basium are attacking me from Rhoanna's territory (she's not at war with me, as she remembers that I kicked her ass after she declared war on me a century or two ago).
3. I killed Basium with Sphener (and lots of Confessors casting Ring of Flames). Something seems wrong about this picture, but since Basium saw no problem declaring war on me, it's on his own head...

I had taken four cities, but Arendel managed to capture one of them (It was directly on the border with Rhoanna's territory, with some of Rhoanna's people sitting with the enemy armies, so I couldn't ring-of-flames or contagion them).

As a side note, my state religion has been Order since long before this war began. Most of the folks who declared war on me (and a couple who haven't) hate me because I use death and entropy magic. They don't seem to mind being burned to death with fire, however.

My closest allies are Falamar (Cautious), and Capria (Friendly), who aren't really anywhere near being allies. On the plus side, us three are the highest in score.

Of the 9 civs (other than me) in the game, 7 are furious with me, but only 4 of those are at war with me.

P.S. Is Basium going to respawn and come back?

 

[zyrev]

Hey there

well you could sort of have sent out spies through cassiel cities and find the exact location of where the altars were built, usually it is at their capital, but you never know, BTW, you can also sabotage their construction of the altar tho...

 

[Bad Player]

How???????

 

[Arwon]

I'm presently in a game as Malakim where Valledia is on a far away island, quite strong and having founded both Leaves and OO, thus keeping me and 5 other civs as Runes civs plus Auric (I have the holy city). The Luchiurp founded the Order but no-one has converted except Morgoth did briefly, thus turning him good. It's been a very peaceful, builder-oriented game... Auric is the only evil civ so there's no Hyborem and all my neighbours are Runes. I've even still got the Luchiurp as friendly to me, despite having declared war to snatch some mithril from them.

Valledia on her far-away island has just finished the Divine stage of the altar and I have no navy, let alone the ability to project sufficient force to attack her island. So I have been forced into war against my neighbours (luckily they're all friendly or pleased with me so I can just take one of them on at a time) and I am basically racing for a domination victory (Maelstrom/Crush plus mage fireballs, thankfully, can destroy their stacks of tier 3 units and severely weaken the tier 4 ones) before she finishes the last 2 altar stages. It's the most exciting late-game I've had with FFH so far!

 

[Halancar]

Personally, I would like to know how you build the altar in the first place, I can't seem to find the info anywhere...

 

[BeefontheBone]

Great Prophets. The last bit has to be built normally (and is probably a ritual so you can't rush it). I think you have to be good, too (maybe neutral).

 

[BCalchet]

Great Prophets. The last bit has to be built normally (and is probably a ritual so you can't rush it). I think you have to be good, too (maybe neutral).

It's NOT a ritual, meaning you can rush it - I just did that in a game, while playing as a neutral civ, so those are fine as well.

 

[BeefontheBone]

It probably should be a ritual, then, otherwise massed soldiers of kilmorph/an engineer or two can accelerate it a heck of a lot. Then again, the celestial compass would spped it up. Shrug.

 

[Shadowlord]

Here's an update on what's happened since I last reported on the situation:

Cassiel has lost all but one city, which is in the middle of a bunch of other enemies, to the west. I took a total of 8 cities from him (and retook the one which I temporarily lost).

The continent I'm fighting on is a long one, and I started in the far east of it. I now control everything east of some natural barriers, except for territory held by Capria (who is my friend).

Morgoth, who is on an adjacent continent to my east, agreed to a peace treaty a while ago - the only combat on that front consisted of him sinking some fishing boats and me lobbing fireballs at his closest city from across the water.

The natural choke point to the west consists of a lake (at the north part of the continent), a bunch of impassable mountains (south of the lake), and then a small two-tile-tall hilly passage with a city belonging to Rhoanna (until I captured it).

Conveniently, Rhoanna and Os-Gabella both declared war on me, so I have begun rolling into Rhoanna's territory.

Unfortunately, Arendel Phaedra also just completed the exhalted version of the altar. Her territory is on the westmost part of this continent.

Rhoanna had the most powerful army in the world prior to her declaring war on me, but I destroyed fully half of her entire army in the last two years, leaving no significant obstacles to my conquering the continent (except for lack of strong soldiers to guard the cities I take).

My army has 7 confessors who cast ring of flames, which is enough to completely destroy anyone near the army, and Sphener (level 11) rips to shreds any horsemen who dare to attack the army.

But here's what I expect to happen:
1. I will likely conquer the entire continent, destroying all five civs there who were foolish enough to declare war on me. (Capria remains because she hasn't backstabbed me)
2. Falamar or Perpentach, who are on the other side of the world, will build the Altars, so I will lose anyways. I have virtually no navy, and certainly no capability to cross oceans.

 

[khanjackal]

Well, the Altar is a GREAT idea, it really is. I don't want to get rid of it, but here are some ideas.

What good is an Altar without doing something with it? Perhaps after building it, you must perform a Ritual to gain victory? The Lunanatoar Sacraments.

This victory type is one I'd like to see tied into the "hero" system when that takes effect. The one with quests, items, and treasures.

Some other ideas... when anyone builds an Altar, the PREVIOUS altar becomes buildable. A type of altar for the other types of great people. Great Scientists building the Societas Eruditorum. Great Merchants upgrading the Bazaar of Mammon, or whatever.

I love the victory type, and it's not unbalanced, it just frustrates players when we see the AI winning the game as easily as we can.

Maybe a spell or something that you can cast in your capitol, creating a weak gate, to allow teleporting ONLY outside the city that builds the next to last altar? You'd have to declare war, then send your unts in unprotected to try and sack the city.

Maybe you can build up to 4 or 5 or so, so you don't send in the units by themselves (easy pickings).

Just some ideas.

 

[Halancar]

I don't know if it is the introduction of the altar or something else, but in my recent game I kept getting spammed with GP birth in AI lands. Apparently the AI all race for GP now, at about the same speed : some turns I got 4 or 5 reports at once.

We really need to make sure that the altar doesn't turn into a loss condition, of the type "conquer the world before turn XXX, or whichever AI survives will win".

 

[Sureshot]

perhaps after the second last one or the third last one is built, then all evil civs form an alliance and declare on the building civ

 

[Quetz]

Well, the Altar is a GREAT idea, it really is. I don't want to get rid of it, but here are some ideas.

What good is an Altar without doing something with it? Perhaps after building it, you must perform a Ritual to gain victory? The Lunanatoar Sacraments.

I like that idea a lot

 

[zyrev]

I think that after the 3rd or 4th altar is built, immediatedly an army of demons, angels, undead, animals, pirates, teletubbies, will attack the civ. that built it wahahaha