How to get the Leaves religion as fast as possible with the svarf...

[crazy_achmed]

Hi,
what do you think is the best way for the svarf... (these dark elves) to rush to the Followers of the Leaves religion?
Going straight to way of the forrests or, if wine or silk is near the capital, discover one of the technologies which let me gain extra money from these goods?
If i have both wine and silk, should i discover calandar and crafting both before going to way of the leaves?
The aim is to get the leaves religion as fast as possible

 

[DarkxL0rd]

you'll need to pick up mysticism on your way to leaves to get pagan temples to pop a great prophet to bulb the fellowship. However every once in a while it will want to bulb Runes of Kilmorph. I don't know why it does this sometimes. the big hurdle of course is hunting.

 

[mansamusa166]

In my experiences (standard or large size / immortal or deity level), if there is a AI-Ljo, she often founds FOL faster than me as Svar, and as DarkL0rd already said hunting is a big hurdle. If I have wine or calendar-resources, I go those techs first.

 

[DerWille]

you'll need to pick up mysticism on your way to leaves to get pagan temples to pop a great prophet to bulb the fellowship. However every once in a while it will want to bulb Runes of Kilmorph. I don't know why it does this sometimes. the big hurdle of course is hunting.

I can't say for sure, but I think it might have to do with bulbing priorities and current techs. I believe that if you have Mysticism, Hunting, and Mining and then use a great prophet for a bulb, it will prioritize Runes over Fellowship. The trick might be ignoring mining in the early game.

Can anyone who knows the bulb list can double check that?

 

[Emptiness]

Going straight to way of the forrests or, if wine or silk is near the capital, discover one of the technologies which let me gain extra money from these goods?

Going straight for Way of the Forests is almost always going to be slower than first getting useful economic techs. You should look at your surrounding area and get techs that will allow you to increase the commerce output of tiles you will be working. This will usually include Education, for cottages, although if you have a lot of bonus-commerce resource tiles you might be able to delay Education until after Way of the Forests.

[...] to pop a great prophet to bulb the fellowship. However every once in a while it will want to bulb Runes of Kilmorph. I don't know why it does this sometimes.

Way of the Earthmother is higher priority than Way of the Forests for bulbing with a Great Prophet. If you have not yet researched Mining then Way of the Earthmother will not be available, and so Way of the Forests can be bulbed (once you have Hunting and Mysticism, of course).

Can anyone who knows the bulb list can double check that?

The bulb list is in the FfH2 Manual.

 

[Senethro]

Way of the Forests is not important. Guardian of Nature from Hidden Paths is important.

And so:

Agriculture --> Calendar (if commerce calendar resource available) --> Ancient Chants --> Education --> Mysticism (build pagan temple) --> Exploration --> Hunting --> WotF --> lightbulb Hidden Paths with G. Prophet --> Cartography depending on maintenance costs.

And my suggestion from there is --> Archery --> Animal Husbandry --> HBR --> Stirrups because Nyxkin are a pretty cool unit and you're Raiders.

 

[crazy_achmed]

Way of the Forests is not important. Guardian of Nature from Hidden Paths is important.

And so:

Agriculture --> Calendar (if commerce calendar resource available) --> Ancient Chants --> Education --> Mysticism (build pagan temple) --> Exploration --> Hunting --> WotF --> lightbulb Hidden Paths with G. Prophet --> Cartography depending on maintenance costs.

And my suggestion from there is --> Archery --> Animal Husbandry --> HBR --> Stirrups because Nyxkin are a pretty cool unit and you're Raiders.

Thanks for this explicit hints, i will try this in our next mp game. In my case WoF is important because of i have a human rival who is even trying to be the first

Do you maybe have some additional tips for the building order? i mean the first things to build, which capital growth before the first worker and before the first settler, how many workers and so on?
Iam trying to get an optimal order for quite a few games now, but i think i could need some help.

 

[Senethro]

Worker first. Build Warriors until you have 4 per city. Build a Settler. Replace Warriors. Maintain number of Workers at 1.5/city. Only build buildings in your God-King capital. Once you're in Guardian of Nature don't build Markets or Elder Councils as its always better to increase your food income than have specialists. Build Libraries and military buildings, but little else besides temples.

At some point you'll need a city cracker. Choice of 2
1. Mages with Summon Spectre (Needs at least 3 Death manas so the Spectres are Str 6)
2. Switch to Empyrean religion as late as possible, build Chalid. Also note that now you can get Druids because your alignment will be neutral. If you upgrade to Druids from Empyrean Priests then they'll have an area effect damage spell, so 4 mini-Chalids.
(3: Axemen and Nyxkin lead by a fast Gibbon Goetia with Ice Mana - rarely available.)

 

[DaveGold]

Do you maybe have some additional tips for the building order? i mean the first things to build, which capital growth before the first worker and before the first settler, how many workers and so on?

It really depends upon your starting location. Building a worker initially with farming can get your city grown quickly. Calendar and agrarianism is a must for some areas and redundant in others. Fishing is generally weak but necessary with multiple fish resources. God King is usually strong but you could alternatively get extra city size though mining gold or crafting wineries. Remember that elven workers are feeble but you can simply build more of them and double them up.

You almost certainly want to get some economy going before researching hunting. If your economy is poor before you research then it's going to get perilously backward during the very long research period for that and your next tech.

It isn't a disaster if you have to follow another tech line and start another religion. You can swap to fellowship of leaves much later, build the priests, grow your forests, then jump back to another religion. You don't get the benefit of hidden paths but the ancient forests and priests don't go away. The military might of the other religions may be more benefit anyway.

 

[Moon Pine]

Why not + by capturing animals with Festival?

Though trees will really enhance the the productivity a lot, but I found the productivity is not a big deal for Startalfar as it`s better a small group of elite force than a massive for Startalfar. Maybe save the for fast Poison is more important.

 

[avalonnn]

If the Ljos are around, and they found the Leaves, would it not be in character to go at them to capture the holy city?

 

[nzk13]

I don't understand something. Forgive me, but the Ljos seem to be much better than the Svartalfar. Svart doesn't have THAT many synergies with Council of Esus, or as many synergies with Fellowship of Leaves as the Ljos. Svart has only one leader, Ljos has three very good ones, especially Thessa. Better unique units than Svart. The only disadvantage is that they don't synergize as well as the Svart with CoE. So why, for the love of (insert name of preferred deity here) would you ever play the Svart with an aim for FoL? If u play 'em, stick with CoE, but why go for FoL? as I said b4, the Ljos work much better with FoL, so why not pick them for it? I'm sorry, I only play on Emporer, but I still don't understand. Care to enlighten me?

 

[Emptiness]

Any civ that can build improvements in forests without removing them automatically synergizes with a religion that makes forests better without destroying improvements in them, and which unlocks a civic that gives extra health and allows forests around cities to each provide extra happiness (thus allowing cities to grow very large). Additionally, the FoL unique units (Fawn and Satyr) are both recon units, which benefit from the Svartalfar trait Sinister. (I sometimes build Fawns as the Svartalfar, but almost never as the Ljosalfar). Finally, the ability to control the spread of new forests is gained much sooner and much more easily through Priests of Leaves, which requires that the Svartalfar convert to FoL at some point, at least long enough to build one Priest. For Svartalfar that will follow CoE this pressure is even greater, as CoE has no Priests of its own.

Although I can imagine a game where the Svartlafar never adopt FoL, I certainly wouldn't want to play it. Naturally it is not necessary to found FoL in order to use it temporarily (such as when CoE will be used eventually), but founding it has other benefits (potential for an extra Nature mana, income from each city to which FoL has spread). Given the choice of earning from each Ljosalfar city, or of having the Ljosalfar earning from each of your cities, the clear preference for an opponent of the Ljosalfar is to deny them the bonus while claiming it yourself.

 

[xalien]

Svartalfar has excellent synergy for FoL, better than Ljos IMHO because both Hunting and WotF are recon techs giving you units with attack strength equivalent to copper axes. Svartalfar fawns inside forests are even better than copper axes in open because with only 1 promotion (woodsman 2) they gain 70% forest attack bonus effectively overcoming ancient forest defense by 20% - same as Combat promotion in open, and they are faster to boot.

They don't really have any synergies with CoE except maybe as a quick way to build assassins with mask ability if you ever bother to get bowyers tech.

 

[DaveGold]

Well I think they're one of the best nations for applying the Council of Esus strategy, i.e. undermining your enemies without actually declaring war. The only problem is persuading yourself that you're best leaving FoL to pursue it.

 

[Moon Pine]

Svartalfar`s power lays on its hero and its world spell - It can still hunt for experience in middle game (when there`s no barbarian) without triggering war by Hidden Nationality.
This brings lots of super units The hero assassin`s crazy - he`s powerful enough to take out units in city directly (9 Strength, pick the weakest unit when attack), it`s very easy for him to earn exp, as he can use Mirror to weaken the weakest unit even more (Once he can kill a unit with > 95% odd, you can consider Military Strategy and get Blitz promotion for him).
Its "+1 Strength to Recon" makes capturing animals extremely easy (Note, dancing bear requires no tech).
Also the Kidnap skill`s very useful mad: It shouldn`t be so risky - reduce relation after a faiure is enough, IMO).

Hidden Nationality War means:
No unhappiness for War
Can scout enemy very easy (with one not HN + Open Bolder)
Can use their road
No risk from being plagged or sieged
Can save unit by declaring nationality or running back then cancelling "Open Bolder"

For Ljos, the only good thing for me is "fast leaf -> Treant Spam -> Capture my neighbor". After that, there must be a long peaceful time as its hero`s weak in attack (6 Strength, no weapon upgrade) and there`s no catapult to soft the wall.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

In the unmodded game the Svartalfar are better with FoL than the Ljosalfar are.

I didn't like that the mechanics encourage them to follow a religion that they canonically are trying to exterminate, and so in my version I changed Bloom to be the Nature II spell instead of being FoL specific. (Treants start with Nature II though, and addition to creating new forests when they die they also upgrade new forests to forests and forests to ancient forests.) The Arcane trait makes Faertl better at getting mages and thus a better bloomer than Arendel or Amelanchiar, although not than Thessa.

Also, the pedia shows Thessa using Bloom as a child, and she is an arcane caster who, while nominally following the traditional Ljosalfar religion, is not very religious or knowledgeable about the faith.


Also, in my version I make Volanna and Rivanna playable (although I think I forgot to do that until right after releasing Magister Modmod). Volanna has Aggressive/Raiders(/Sinister) while Rivanna has Organized/Summoner(/Sinister). (Yes, illusions with added duration do make great defenders because of their complete healing.