Is FFH2 easier to win on Deity than vanilla BTS?

[Idleray]

Been playing quite a few deity games in FFH2, and I have to say the biggest reason why I can win them is because the AI can't make full use of the suite of spells in combat. In fact, it doesn't even come close to exploiting the potential of many of FFH2's unique mechanics.

In my opinion vanilla civ is much harder to beat on deity. I can rarely win civ4 games on deity but in FFH2, victory with Ljosalfar or Khazad is almost too easy.


Can anyone suggest a list of plausible handicaps to impose on oneself to make it as challenging as vanilla civ without taking too much of the fun out?

 

[Aline]

Do you use Tholals modmod?

 

[Idleray]

No, I'll go look that up. What is it?

 

[Aline]

Its a mod originaly created to make the Ai use ships, but it ended up in general bug fix/AI improvement mod.
It makes the AI a lot better with the FFH mechanics aswell as improving its over all performance.

Tholal, you are slowly creating a monster.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=357824

 

[Tielby]

Also, make sure you turn off the FfH2-specific victory conditions. The AI has absolutely no clue how to do Tower of Mastery, Altar of the Luonnotar, etc.

 

[Breunor]

I find FfH much easier to win on diety than BtS, which I can't win on diety at all. There is just much more going on in FfH whcih is harder for the AI to handle. I haven't tried all of the mods, but the greater complexity of FfH makes it more difficult to get AI programming to work well.

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Kiech]

FFH2 needs to be played on a Pangea map, unless you use Tholal's mod to get the most out of the AI. Although be warned, deity players who use it are retreating to chieftan!

 

[Horatius]

Definitely use Tholal's mod, since it's basically the same experience but with better AI.
It's still easier than BTS, though.
In BTS there is no overpowering magic, the AI will handle the kind of troops that it can build better and will also be better at achieving building victories, no doubt.
Also, you really only need to reach the middle of the tech tree in this game if you simply want to win, actually.

But this game, it's fun to role-play, to try different combos and things.

I always remember master of magic. It had such a lousy AI, but there were so many combos to try. It was great fun.

Still, although in general BTS is harder, the early game here is much more dangerous and I don't think that you can try fancy stuff like early worker steal on Ffh2 diety like you can, if you know what you're doing, on BTS.
30 warriors will come straight to you so fast, it's not even funny.

In the late game, armies can also get much much bigger than on BTS.
Saying that it's easier, it's not saying that it's not hard and it's impossible to win 100% of the time on diety. If you get rushed too early, or an AI like the Calabim gets too big too fast in the middle game while you are still developing, then what?

Don't play with more than the advised number of civilizations for a particular map size. Let each AI have enough land to get enough cities fast.

Try playing large temperate Pangea with only six or seven civilizations and only conquest victory enabled.
Play Cut Losers or High to Low on diety.
Self-impose goals.

If you still think that it's easy (what?), play all war and get your behind spanked - well, except with the Ilians: Priests of Winter are always broken in the early game.

 

[Idleray]

I'm currently playing a deity game by trying to summon the infernals with Lanun. I don't know if that's cheating but everything seems to be going according to plan so far.

I'd like to report a possible bug with this mod (or it could be a just a bug with FFH2 in general), When I played a winning game of Somnium with Faeryl Viconia just before the turn she was going to DOW me, the turn afterwards the game crashed. After saving the Somnium win, every time I ended the turn the game would crash.
So I went back and didn't play Somnium