If you could change the tech-tree, what would you change?

[Grey Fox]

In the case of Assassins, with the combination with Siege warfare, they are the Brute strength. Just that they target the easiest kill.

The Siege reduce the city defense, then throw themselves against the city, knowing that max 20% of them will die, less if some are strong enough to win some battles, more if you are unlucky. The Assassins then start killing of the weak targets, and the weakened strong targets, till the enemy stack is dead.

You only need one or two strong units to defend the stack. And this strategy is of course best played with Khazad, who got the strongest Siege weaponry, and IMO the best assassins, who also got a bit collateral damage. Using runes, you can use 4 or 5 priests to repair the siege weaponry in one turn. Bambur can also help with this.

This strategy doesn't rely on any metals.

Another strategy is using Summoners or Mages, using either summons (with summoning trait) piled up 2 turns in advance so you have 3 times as many summons as summoners (conjurers, priests or summoners). Here the summons are both the sacrifical support troops, and the brute force. Even tho some brute force could help, like a hero. The mages would instead throw fireballs and meteors, preferably combined with contagion (which works well with the summons as well), which can bombard city defenses down to 0%, cause collateral damage, and eventually kill the defenders.

Contagion can be very important in these sieges as healing of the enemy stack need to be prevented to be able to gain momentum from previous turns of bombardment.

Both these strategies only need "brute" force units as defense, and then only a few. The mages can even use skeletons as units to finish of weakened enemies, since they are undead they won't be diseased either.

 

[Sureshot]

Rangers and Beastmasters are all purpose, they make great defense and act as support to the assassins.

The only heavy advantage of melee units is the city raiding, which is not needed when the recon units are being used only as support defense.

And its easier to get Assassins+Catapults+Rangers than it is to get Assassins+Catapults+Macemen.

 

[Maniac]

To me it sounds like siege+assassin would only work until the enemy has a support of their own (so only while it's A vs B). And the summoning trait is too specific to count as a general strategy for when you're stuck without metals.

Edit: Perhaps we should try playing some rock-paper-scissors forum game with FfH units. You can only use rangers and support units. I can use everything.

 

[Grey Fox]

Edit: Perhaps we should try playing some rock-paper-scissors forum game with FfH units. You can only use rangers and support units. I can use everything.

So you are saying that you would win if you have every tech and I have half the techs? Doh...

 

[Maniac]

We could each have the same number of research points to spend, the same number of hammers, but I have copper and iron, you don't (or the other way around), and then we design an army, and see who would win.

 

[thapagan]

Something along the lines of a "civic {city improving} line"
I have seen a well(plus health), a graveyard ( minus unhappieness), an observority(plus science) used in other mods and the may fit in , lets add Guilds to the guilds tech, if you have 2 (or more) of a resouce you can build a guild house that add a extra happy face, health, or coin to that resouce, and the ever popular add promotion buildings, Ranger guild, mountaneering school, Naval academy etc.

or maybe not

Hey what is this, "we long for the open country crap" I have spend Many turns buffing up this city instead of building troops and you are crying. Maybe a building for this cause of unhappieness

 

[Uberness]

Might be a good idea to have horseback riding require hunting or exploration, you can grab it as your second tech as kurio or hippus and any neighbors you might have are done for as 3-4 movement 4 strength aggressive units are swarming you at the production cost of just slightly over 2 warriors.

Slowing down a super strong rush that doesn't require resources is always a good idea.

 

[brainpan]

Siege+Assassins is an unstoppable strategy (barring exploitive magic use) used by Deity AI's eventually.

I've see Grey use it to demolish superior forces with superior numbers. Iron is a sad sad replacement for a Siege+Assassin force.

Image the dismay of my heavily mage and disciple-reliant force to see the arrival of Fox's said siege ass force. He's a wicked siege asser! Those reading this thread, consider yourself warned. Twice.

 

[brainpan]

To me it sounds like siege+assassin would only work until the enemy has a support of their own (so only while it's A vs B). And the summoning trait is too specific to count as a general strategy for when you're stuck without metals.

A suggestion: Join a game with Fox and me to see creative non-metal mayhem up close and personal. Let's just say that seeing is believing.

It is true the seige ass can be countered, but if you are blitzed with an all-out assault you don't always have time to adjust to unexpected challenges. I think this game has much more to do with tactics than assembling a supposed "unstoppable" force that will look the same in every instance.

 

[Frozen-Vomit]

Shame on you evil thredjackers


Seriously - I think the techtree can and should be improved by some off the suggestions made in the first posts.

 

[much2much]

Something or other

Blah blah. I own you with warriors.

 

[brainpan]

Hah! You're just jealous because I complimented someone besides you for once. Deal.

Back to the topic. I like the tech tree just as it is, for the most part. Someone once suggested that a tech to remove jungles should be easier to aquire. I tend to agree.

 

[Polycrates]

Back to the topic. I like the tech tree just as it is, for the most part. Someone once suggested that a tech to remove jungles should be easier to aquire. I tend to agree.

I personally quite like it being late - helps leave some land unclaimed for quite a while.
But the tree currently lets you get sanitation without bronze working - so you can potentially chop jungle before you can chop forests - which is a bit wierd

I would also suggest moving Religious Discipline back a tech or so, since it arrives very early on a tech that is already quite loaded with goodies (and one that can be easily lightbulbed too), and obsoletes the priest caps of temples etc very early

Other than that, it's all pretty good

 

[katika]

I personally quite like it being late - helps leave some land unclaimed for quite a while.
But the tree currently lets you get sanitation without bronze working - so you can potentially chop jungle before you can chop forests - which is a bit wierd

I would also suggest moving Religious Discipline back a tech or so, since it arrives very early on a tech that is already quite loaded with goodies (and one that can be easily lightbulbed too), and obsoletes the priest caps of temples etc very early

Other than that, it's all pretty good

In my experience, jungle has never stopped the AI from expanding further unless they have better land elsewhere. So it just stops me from expanding, which is not cool. But I like that it's difficult to get at, although now that we can burn down jungle and turn it into forests, I think it maybe should be easier to legitimately cut down jungle than to burn it into forests.

 

[Dark Russell]

I wouldn't mind seeing a few more Civ-specific techs.

 

[R0GERSHRUBBER]

Cartography is useless if everyone else has it and you're not going to build the Pact of the Nilhorn. Perhaps it could be a prereq or have some other incentive.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

I still think it should lead to Trade again...

 

[Gamestation]

Yeah I'd like cartography to actually lead to something more important later on so that I don't feel like I'm taking a useless one turn detour to research an entirely obsolete tech. To a milder degree I feel the same way about the Deception tech but that is much easier to avoid by ignoring Way of the Wicked (you are going to get exploration at some point just to build roads) and because it enables the Council of Esus.