Ur_Vile_Wedge
Prince
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2008
- Messages
- 416
Hello everyone. I've been lurking the boards for a long time, finalyl got around to posting, largely because of FFH. I love love love love love this game, it is the epitome of all that is cool *glazes eyes*
Ok, now that I snapped out of my reviere, here are my 2 cents.
First off, FFH is (insert exclamatory expletive of your choice) brilliant. All the wildly different civs, all the neat spells, all the *choices* make it a very interesting, almost a roleplaying experience. However, while the Fall from Heaven aspect I cannot see getting better, I think, IMHO there are a few flaws in the game mechanics themselves, most notably the victory conditions.
I'm just going to list them out here, so it'll be easier to make my rambling commentary.
Elimination
Domination
Tower of Mastery
Religious domination
Altar of Luonnotar
Culture
Score.
And herein lies the problem. You eliminate or dominate by building a big army and wiping out your neighbors. You get score mostly by having the biggest empire around. You need 16 mana types to build the Tower of Mastery, and I find that to get that much, I need to either conquer half the world, or vassalize about 3-4 people and demand their palace mana. And then when I start the thing, everyone who can DoW's me, turning it into a huge fight. Getting 80% of your religion up on the influence chart seems to me to necessitate stamping out all competing religions, meaning, yes, you need to own most of the world. And score, well, when was the last time you saw the biggest empire in the world not leading in score?
So that leaves really one big victory condition of "Smite thine foes", with, once you have mastered the world, leaving it up to you to decide how you want to declare yourself the winner. Add to that that I have yet to figure out how a culture victory is even remotely possible. (The only strategy that I see, due to the lack of culture % boosts aside from the lyre, is to play the Kuriotites, {something I avoid in my demand of myself to play random to sample everything} get liberty relatively early, get a whole lot of happiness, farms, and spam out bards. And I still think that would be tricky. Which leaves only the Altar of Luonnotar available for someone who doesn't want to crush everyone.
Although crushing is fun.............
Which leads into my current game/question. I'm playing Bannor (What's her name, the Industrious/Spiritual leader), huge map, continents, Monarch. I've got this one in the bag. I own about a quarter of the world, and am still expanding steadily. Now, there are 14 (I think) players on a huge map, and I know there were seven on my starting continent. Myself, Clan of Embers (now destroyed), the Svartalfar (also destroyed. What do you expect from an evil civ on the bannor's borders?) the Kuriotites, the Hippus, and the Sheiam (who have avoided destruction by converting to my religion, becoming good in the process since I'm the Order, and accepting to be my vassal) so that's seven. When I discovered the other continent, I only saw the Malakim, the Doviello, and the Calabim. (And later The infernals, one of them signed the pact) Sosomething happened to the other four civs. Indeed, the Runes of Kilmorph holy city was in the hands of the barbarians when I cruised my caravel by. (now it's mine
) If someone is destroyed either before you make contact with them, or if it's done by the barbs and not a player, would you not get the little "boo hoo we're dead" message?
Also, I am currently in the process of beating up the Hippus and possibly forcing the Order down their throats. (meh, the war got interrupted because the blight struck, but I'll be back!!!) Now, two things about this war. One, the Hippus seemed to do a good job of at least playing to their civ's stereotype. lots of horses, cavalry all over the place, they even have war chariots. I would have expected them to viciously counterattack my invaders, given the road usage they get in their own territory, and the high withdrawal chance most of their units had, and that a lot of them are stronger on offense than defense, and that they don't get terrain defensive bonuses.
So I was a bit disappointed in the AI when they sat in their cities in groups of seven or eight, and let me overwhelm each one. Then, I had to take a break for some reason, turned my game off, and when I loaded my game, they were suddenly doing the "smart" strategy of hitting and running like proper horse raiders. By that point it was too late (if it weren't too late before the war started) but I was just wondering if the AI "refreshes" or something, when you load a game.
Final point in this long run-on post. I was hoping to squeeze techs out of the Hippus when I had to go to peace *shakes fist at stupid Infernals raising the AC just for the hell of it* , the little techs that I brushed aside, things like poisons and such. But all their techs are on this "can't trade" list on the diplo screen, and I wasn't even allowed to ask for them. Not even red outlined, there was just nothing on the diplo screen, as if they didn't have the tech. The one thing I could think of that would cause this is that they have the council of Esus, but I'm a bit unfamiliar with the game mechanics and I don't know if there are any undercouncil resolutions or whatever that could do that.
Am I at least warm on this one?
Ok, now that I snapped out of my reviere, here are my 2 cents.
First off, FFH is (insert exclamatory expletive of your choice) brilliant. All the wildly different civs, all the neat spells, all the *choices* make it a very interesting, almost a roleplaying experience. However, while the Fall from Heaven aspect I cannot see getting better, I think, IMHO there are a few flaws in the game mechanics themselves, most notably the victory conditions.
I'm just going to list them out here, so it'll be easier to make my rambling commentary.
Elimination
Domination
Tower of Mastery
Religious domination
Altar of Luonnotar
Culture
Score.
And herein lies the problem. You eliminate or dominate by building a big army and wiping out your neighbors. You get score mostly by having the biggest empire around. You need 16 mana types to build the Tower of Mastery, and I find that to get that much, I need to either conquer half the world, or vassalize about 3-4 people and demand their palace mana. And then when I start the thing, everyone who can DoW's me, turning it into a huge fight. Getting 80% of your religion up on the influence chart seems to me to necessitate stamping out all competing religions, meaning, yes, you need to own most of the world. And score, well, when was the last time you saw the biggest empire in the world not leading in score?
So that leaves really one big victory condition of "Smite thine foes", with, once you have mastered the world, leaving it up to you to decide how you want to declare yourself the winner. Add to that that I have yet to figure out how a culture victory is even remotely possible. (The only strategy that I see, due to the lack of culture % boosts aside from the lyre, is to play the Kuriotites, {something I avoid in my demand of myself to play random to sample everything} get liberty relatively early, get a whole lot of happiness, farms, and spam out bards. And I still think that would be tricky. Which leaves only the Altar of Luonnotar available for someone who doesn't want to crush everyone.
Although crushing is fun.............
Which leads into my current game/question. I'm playing Bannor (What's her name, the Industrious/Spiritual leader), huge map, continents, Monarch. I've got this one in the bag. I own about a quarter of the world, and am still expanding steadily. Now, there are 14 (I think) players on a huge map, and I know there were seven on my starting continent. Myself, Clan of Embers (now destroyed), the Svartalfar (also destroyed. What do you expect from an evil civ on the bannor's borders?) the Kuriotites, the Hippus, and the Sheiam (who have avoided destruction by converting to my religion, becoming good in the process since I'm the Order, and accepting to be my vassal) so that's seven. When I discovered the other continent, I only saw the Malakim, the Doviello, and the Calabim. (And later The infernals, one of them signed the pact) Sosomething happened to the other four civs. Indeed, the Runes of Kilmorph holy city was in the hands of the barbarians when I cruised my caravel by. (now it's mine
) If someone is destroyed either before you make contact with them, or if it's done by the barbs and not a player, would you not get the little "boo hoo we're dead" message?Also, I am currently in the process of beating up the Hippus and possibly forcing the Order down their throats. (meh, the war got interrupted because the blight struck, but I'll be back!!!) Now, two things about this war. One, the Hippus seemed to do a good job of at least playing to their civ's stereotype. lots of horses, cavalry all over the place, they even have war chariots. I would have expected them to viciously counterattack my invaders, given the road usage they get in their own territory, and the high withdrawal chance most of their units had, and that a lot of them are stronger on offense than defense, and that they don't get terrain defensive bonuses.
So I was a bit disappointed in the AI when they sat in their cities in groups of seven or eight, and let me overwhelm each one. Then, I had to take a break for some reason, turned my game off, and when I loaded my game, they were suddenly doing the "smart" strategy of hitting and running like proper horse raiders. By that point it was too late (if it weren't too late before the war started) but I was just wondering if the AI "refreshes" or something, when you load a game.
Final point in this long run-on post. I was hoping to squeeze techs out of the Hippus when I had to go to peace *shakes fist at stupid Infernals raising the AC just for the hell of it* , the little techs that I brushed aside, things like poisons and such. But all their techs are on this "can't trade" list on the diplo screen, and I wasn't even allowed to ask for them. Not even red outlined, there was just nothing on the diplo screen, as if they didn't have the tech. The one thing I could think of that would cause this is that they have the council of Esus, but I'm a bit unfamiliar with the game mechanics and I don't know if there are any undercouncil resolutions or whatever that could do that.
Am I at least warm on this one?
?
