How good is Aristocracy really?

Well ... I don't PLAY any of the other speeds, but I know with certainty that without Godking/nationalism you simply don't produce enough warriors for early expansion.

(at least on quick speed)

Once you have enough farms, (and your workers are safe from lizard doom) then you can switch to aristocracy
 
Quick speed wouldn't change anything relative to other game speeds. The same build order should come out with very nearly the same results. Given that it can take 35 turns to research Mysticism (normal speed) if you don't have a commerce resource I don't see how it comes early enough to do anything for your production anyway. You could get Mining and gain access to Wine/Gold/Copper instead.
 
If you have enough wines nearby, its definitely better to get crafting first (if you can fight off the barbarians) ... however its better not to get mining unless you KNOW you have at least one mining resources within your capital's BFC.

Otherwise its better to get mysticism first.


In quick speed, if you are having troubles with barbarians ... then you can get Mysticism before your worker even has a chance to build his first improvement.
 
Thats a lie. You always build a worker as your first production and Agriculture as first research so hes got something to do.

Agri --> Calendar --> Education --> CoL --> Bronze Working.

No need for Mysticism. Just wasted beakers.
 
xD .... you need to play more raging barbarian games on quick speed.

Being constantly attacked by 3 lizards per turn ... SURE I can build farms xD

(only in some instances does this situation apply ... but its deadly epic)


but yea, if for some reason you have no need for extra Warrior fodder, and your workers are still safe, you are exactly right.

This Calender first -> Aristocracy Strat is a very common one (favored among the forums) and the only thing that comes close is the Multiplayer Godking-> Writing strat on quickspeeds.

Why? well, play a few quick games b4 u bash it ;)
 
I would, generally, agree that ariso + agro is a good choice for normal civs, but in FFH, the question of what is normal is quite interesting.

Concerning the thread, I would wish to write on the defence of god king. Please note that I often play more animals and/or raging barbs.
Mysticism by itself is no dead end tech. I would argue that both Elfs and Dwarfs really want to get RoK or GoN founded. You may also well have an expansion limited by production, where god king would help. There are a number of uses for God King as an expansion booster, and in my opinion any race for which mysticism is a justifieable sidetrack, in addition to those that should go mysticism, should consider simultaneously switching to god king when they make the early switch to agrarian.
To an extent, god king can be used to faciliate more expansion, and if its research choice is synergistic with what you research plan early on is, it is still an improvement on the default choice.
Of course, once you got those settlers out, you immidiatly switch away from GK, but there may well be a time window when god king is worth it.
 
If there was an early Civic that gave +1 commerce on all cottage-type improvements, I think it would compete well with Aristocracy.

For instance:

City State Democracy (low upkeep)
+1 commerce on cottages
+10% science
-50% distance maintenance

unlocked with either Cartography or Writing. Could replace 'city states'


I also think that the -40% distance maintenance in Aristocracy should be replaced by -25% number of cities maintenance.


An interesting test switch would be to make Agrarianism +1 health, +20% food* ... but that would completely disrupt the current status quo.

*I did some tests, and currently Agrarianism seems to increase food productivity by a range of at least 25% to 28%

the 2 land cities I tested had increases of 27, 28 and 28%, while the coastal city had an increase of 25%.

That being said, my tests were done under Sanitation Aristograrianism. I suppose I'd have to do some tests in pure agrarianism to have complete data.
 
did some more tests.

In total (including the coastal city working one fish)

Benefits to food under Aristograrian

+28, +27, +29, +28, +25, +24

Benefits to food under Agrarianism and a different Govt Civic

+22, +20, +22, +20

Therefore my Conclusion is that a primary strength of aristocracy is that Agrarianism is STRONGER (relatively) under Aristocracy.

IF Agrarianism was moved to be % rather than +Int, I think it would be more balanced.

Therefore I propose Agrarianism to be somewhere between +20% and +28%. Personally I am more favored towards +25%, as to make it not too weak, yet not too strong either. Yes, I know that we will now be getting plains hammers back, but I am fine with that.

So Agrarianism
+1 health all cities
+25% food all cities

I also don't think there will be an issue of making the elves too strong, because there is still Guardian of Nature civic for it to compete with.

Generally this will make agrarianism slightly weaker and slightly stronger in the majority of cases ... although a major distinction here is that it will finally make Agrarianism WEAKER when combined with Aristocracy, rather than stronger. In this way, Agrarianism can help mitigate the penalty of Aristocracy without making it SUPER synergistic.
 
Its definitely not dead. :P

(and I meant mods silly, not the official release)

----------

but yes, if you mean that the mod has 'officially' been finished, then yes.
 
Still, for those that still play FFH2, I'd like to know how they feel about it.
 
Agrarianism is clearly OP. I think Wildmana balanced it just fine, +20% food instead of the crazy farm boost.

is Eitb development still alive btw? I'd love a v10 based on Tholal's upcoming release, but I'm not going to play it if it's based on an obsolete version... last I've read about they wanted to update to pre-BUG inclusion only, meh.
 
eh ... RB are kind of dicks about BUG stuff. So I don't know.

But yea, its still under development.
 
They think it gives too much information to the player. Call it 'cheating' ... lol

But, that's just for ranked games. Bug mods et al are allowed in PBEMs, for example, if all agree to use the mod.
 
Does it give any information that a dedicated player with pencil and paper couldn't learn themselves?
 
A great part of the info that Bug gives to player is not so useful, you can play at the same lvl if you don't use it, the only issue that I have whit Bug is that it changes some icons to there default; some champions, hunters... icons will appear as default and ruins the aspect of the game, as for aristo vs godking is a matter of situation and game settings (on lower speed you can warrior rush somebody much better whit godking)but I see no reason why a financial leader may not go for aristoagrarianism as fast as he can
 
Yea, basically it just makes the info much more readily available. Its just a time commitment thing I think. For some reason there are those at RB that feels like it "plays the game for you/ does the micro for you" sort of thing.

As for me, I think it'd be great for people playing simul turn games (especially one with a turn timer, although it'd be rude to keep others waiting 15 min on just one turn imho, even without a timer)
 
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