New to FfH, need some pointers! (mmm elves)

[FreeTacos]

(I split my novella into 3 posts, intro, current game, then most of the questions)
(edited to add save file)

I found FfH2 a week ago or so, and I have to say this mod seriously kicks so much ass you need to use a dump truck to move it all! I have been playing Civ4BTS and Civ4Col, I was digging around the forums and found the mod section and FfH2 the top download so I decided to try it, downloaded the PDF, started reading, and the hook was set, no way this fish was getting loose! Most of my info has come from JonathanStrange's top 10 tip thread.

I started with Hannah the Irin/Lanun a few starts after I played through the New Player Intro, using the tips on this thread, I got up to 5-6 cities with pirate outposts and no land improvements had fun teching (tried both RoK and OO). I still wasn't too sure about where to go/what to do, so I didn't play the games very far.

I did a little reading and decided to try the elves.

I moved on to Arendel Phaedra and the Ljosalfar. I did a few practice starts, the starting economy is like is like trying to light wet paper on fire with matches! I tried teching farms, cotteges, archery, and then FoL but lost it about halfway through the research. I decided to go farms, cottages then FoL in the next games.

Game 1:
I had room for 2 cities in the starting nook, and three dead end canyons with room for 1,2,and3 cities. I built 3 cities in those areas, 2 to capture mana, and 1 for iron. I captured the Fire unique feature a little later, so I had 2 air, 2 fire, 2 nature, and 1 life resources.
I took out the nearest neighbor for the fire shrine, and took all his cities to block Jonas' expansion, then turned my attention to the dragon.
I spent a bit of time knocking him down with maelstrom, fireballs and suicide troops trying to get a chance at him with combat3/subdue hunter. But it was just self-defeating, the more I tried, the more exp he had. After a few rounds of this, I decided to move on.
Next time I will bring a ranger instead of a hunter, more fireballs, and something anti-fear. I learned a bit about Mages, having maelstrom/fireball but no enchanting/haste/stoneskin developed. I <3 combat5 priests and tigers.

Game 2:
My second game I popped hunting and archery from huts, talk about luck(also got calender)! I killed 7 civs with Gilden and 2 warriors, found Briget just south of the coastal city I took from the poor Elohim, I needed a place to make galleys though , Clan of Embers was across the sea and expanding, having killed 1 civ and the Bannor having managed to kill themselves

I gained mutate from a tomb, Canibalize, Blitz, Stoneskin on Gilden WTF! Unfortunatly I figured out later the Stoneskin was 1 use. He was at 226 exp with c5, d4, Hstr2, shock2, Orthus' Axe. A short time later he gained no fear/fear mask and a great commander. After the mutate I started using the warriors to explore stuff, paraniod.

I exp'd 4 priests up to combat 5 while blooming ex-jungle so I built/upgraded to 5 caravels and assembled my strike force, Gilden, Bridget, 5 priests, 2 hunters, 6 swords. With the axe and great commander, Bridget zoomed up to 122 exp fast while waiting for the boats to build.

I had 4 adepts high enough, eventually, to turn into mages with maelstrom, but I didn’t develop anything after the initial invasion, If I had the game would have gone a bit faster. I didn't gain any new mana this time, just FoL shrine nature mana. I didn't expand at all past the first 5 cities, I had 2 settlers, but the south was complete jungle, and with the war going well, I didn't think I needed to spam workers/priests to develop them.

I did lose one city to barbs, but took it back a bit later. The barbs were crazy about it so I took it back, then station some archer/sword/sword groups along the path and soaked up the exp for a while... the bastard barbs killed my giant spider. I did get my dancing bear home though.

By this time Jonas Endain had some monster stacks of axes in the cities I could see. I decided to start with some hit and run coastal razes. When I saw he wasn't moving troops to reinforce I headed inland. It slowed a bit when he started building some archers, but for some reason he built many more shaman instead, maybe 1-2 archers per city.

I got Blight from the AC and a short while later the first horseman, Brigit got a nice Crown of Command from him, but by the time she did I was just looking for the last city, the ex-capital that Jonas had taken. Erebus map can get pretty convoluted!

I tried to get the AC to 50, even completing Purge the Infidels and founding/spreading Ashen Veil, but with the last 2 cities razed I only got it to 49. Of the original force I lost 3 swords on low odds fights, and 1 priest at 90% odds. I picked up few converts and spammed tigers. Love those tigers! The last few cities took a lot of turns to chew through the stacks, I was wading in blood. Would have gone a bit faster if I had brought the maelstrom mages over and developed fire sources for fireball. Oh well.

Later thought: Bah I just learned that I could have been casting sanctify on the city ruins to reduce the AC

 

[FreeTacos]

Game 3:
I started my third game this morning, it is a totally different map. Luck seems to be holding out, I chopped/mined 2 river grass hills, and popped gems in both of them while I was researching FoL !!!! I went agri/AH/FoL/Edu/Writing, getting crafting and mining from huts before FoL was done. 3 priests so far, Shrine, Hidden Path, 3rd saved for Priesthood. I recieved Engineer from an early event, I put him the capitol, and received an early golden age event as well. I am building libraries now for TGL in my capital.

I squeezed room for 5 cities on my wooded peninsula. My capitol, 2 GP farms (one with 2 fish and a pig, one with corn and 4 farms). The other 2 cities are just filler, one with fish and grasslandsand the other has a cow and mines. My 6th city was to get ivory, copper, and sheep in plains/desert hill area. City 7 will gain fish and a mana node. There is alot of mountains in the last 3 though.

Spoiler Starting Area :

I share an isolated area with Beeri Bawl, Capria is off to the left in an isolated area (sea connection)

Later thought: One thing I have noticed in these 2 games, if you fortify troops in 1 tile bottlenecks, barbarians seem to ignore anything inside the blocked area, is this normal? Or is it only a lower skill level perk.

The Plan
Goals: maelstrom,fireball,vitalize,enchantment mage.

After I get these cities developed, I plan to settle 5 mana nodes for firex2,airx1,(sun from shrine),enchantment2? or 1 enchant 1 nature. Tech for mages and Priests, and archers/melee support unit. HE in capitol, NE in 2fish/pig city,(afterthought I should kept the engineer and used to build TGL in NE city, or, settled there and built it) I am farming Prophets for the tower, but I am not really sure what path to take.

My first thoughts are to expand to fill my area completely, terraforming. Use Gilden to raze Luchuirp, or keep the capital, use the barbs in that area to level priests/mages/ an animal capturer, then backfill/expand overseas as finances permit.

As I was typing this out I had the thought: use the worldspell now, giving me 20-25 5-turn treants and using them to forest the local neighborhood can anyone tell me how long it takes for the new->forest->ancient cycle?

But, I am don't know what victory to head for, or where I should be aiming my research.

Settings: Noble/Marathon/Huge/Erebus/Temperate/Low

Time: bleh
Conquest: Could blow up the Luchuirp now, or vassal them later, then Vassalize everyone else. I have only met, Luchiurp, Bannor, and the Clan.
Domination: Take Bannor/Luchiurp areas, expand fully, Vassal as needed to win.
Cultural: Certainly possible, aim for Bannor/luchiurp capitols? No idea how to develop a cultural win yet.
Religious: Domination plan but max pop/spread FoL
Alter of the Luonnotar: I am gonna farm prophets, then engineers(need to figure out every way to get engineer specialists, I REALLY should have saved that engineer.
Tower of Mastery: In the lands revealed, I have 10 mana nodes, and Mirror of Heaven(Sun) (Bannor: spirit, law, earth) (Luchuirp:earth,ench,life) as vassals would give me all 14. Set my capital up for production(including early chop/bloom/lumbermills?)

Other than Cultural, It seems to me I should be able to target any of these but not knowing the other AI civs or their proclivities for victory plans and the Elves strengths out of the early game ... I need help! I have pursued all victory conditions in C4BTS(well cultural only twice) So I am fairly familiar with the mechanics there.

 

[FreeTacos]

On to the Questions! (I used the top 10 tips to organize them)

1. Follow Your Leaders.

Spiritual, Creative, temples, carnivals, not enough animals around for a Grand Menagerie, I could try to capture/found multiple religions so I can spam temples/carnival in 3 cultural cities, not sure they are needed in other cities with Guardian of Nature running. Is the Grand Menagerie all luck? Is there a good way to get the animals? My conquest game I got 3 animals from events, but I only managed to catch a bear and spider at the start.

Later thought: I could make 2 early Disciple of Leaves into Rangers after they get some exp, problem is still, where do I find the animals, is it all luck?

2. Know The Elven Forest Economy Needs Time.

I haven't found a lot of commerce/beaker/hammer multipliers yet, forge,some 25%commerce multiplier, and libraries. My plan is to hammerize the capital, food spam 2 early gpfarms and 1 later one, where i can get max# of farms(theocracy for priests?) and cottage everything else with mines as needed. Is it worth it to chop/bloom/lumbermill? Is there any way to get rid of hills? Other than courthouses and civics I may not want to use, what are good ways to support a wide flung empire. I could capture the 2 neighbors capitals and put winter/summer palaces in them, but then I would would lose potential mana sources. Do you get free access to their mana sources? or do you have to trade/demand them like normal resources.

3. Found Fellowship of Leaves Early.
Done! I build Pagan Temples/Temple of Leaves and run priests as soon as I could in the first 3 cities, sited the second two for best food in starting area to run more specialists. first Prophet came about 17 turns before the religion founded.
Should I be spamming Disciple of Leaves for auto-exp for priests/paladins/high priests (Is disciple->ranger worth it? I could make some for animal captures!)

4. Remember Your World Spell.
Should I use it now, to create 20+ forests in the near area? Philosophy is 24+turns to go, then I have a prophet to bulb most of Priesthood. Should I plant forests now and kill economy short term?

5. Research Archery Quickly.
Researched it immediately after FoL. I have great results with early hero!

6. Hire Gilden Silveric Yesterday.
Done! What other heroes can I get early with FoL? Am I restricted to Ljo+FoL heroes only? Or are there other ones I can get.

7. Provide Elf Mages 3 Important Spells: Maelstrom, Vitalize, Enchanted Blades/Flaming Arrows.
8. Help Your Mages Help You: Leverage The Elves Starting Mana

My experience so far is building air II and fire II mages, haven't developed any other mana resources/spells yet.

Siegecraft substitute: build an Air node and/or 2 Fire nodes I have noticed that maelstrom doesn’t reduce defenses, does that make fire a must as well as air? Can I use 1 fire, then promote mages to fire2 ?

Goal 2 Stronger troops: build one or two Enchantment nodes, what about earth stoneskin, and body for haste?

Goal 3 Better lands: build one Nature node to unlock the Level III Vitalize spell. Do I need to build a Water node for spring on deserts before Vitalize?

Can you only gain magic lines by possessing node(s) of that type? Do you have to have 3 nodes to get Vitalize? Or can you use 2 nodes and a promotion to get lvl 3 nature.

9. Choose Elven civics.
Early civics: God King, Apprenticeship, Agrarianism. Ultimate civic: Guardian of Nature.

I havent used Agrarianism, though I should look at it more. Since I don’t get the early river commerce, I like to keep the hammer.

I am looking at theocracy+pacifism for farming Priests, and, if I get that far, guilds+pacifism+republic for Engineers

10. Bloom Forests Methodically.
I need to look up the Genesis project and see what it does, just Vitalize every square in cultural boundaries?

 

[Demus]

haven't fully read up, but you shouldn't run god-king past early game (or at all) if you're planning on getting more than 3-4 cities. The maintenance just ramps up to fast. For the Ljos, i'd switch to city states: With the hammers on every square, i can't recommend aristograrian.

Stoneskin only works on the caster, so is fairly useless as a troop buff. Haste is nice, as are enchanted blades for melee, flaming arrows for ranged and poisoned blades for recon. The shadow spells work in reducing defences, as do rust (entropy), maelstrom and fireballs. Maelstrom doesn't reduce the % modifier, but with all defending troops at half strength, you should be able to take the city nonetheless.

You don't need spring in order to vitalize, but spring comes so much earlier that on a desert-heavy map it's useful to get it anyway. Also works to put out fires near your precious forests.
Genesis is like a single vitalize-cast on every square in your empire.

 

[FreeTacos]

haven't fully read up, but you shouldn't run god-king past early game (or at all) if you're planning on getting more than 3-4 cities. The maintenance just ramps up to fast. For the Ljos, i'd switch to city states: With the hammers on every square, i can't recommend aristograrian.

I haven't built enough cities to notice the increased maintenance, I plan on going this game though, so I will. How do you deal with the +25% war ?

Stoneskin only works on the caster, so is fairly useless as a troop buff. Haste is nice, as are enchanted blades for melee, flaming arrows for ranged and poisoned blades for recon. The shadow spells work in reducing defences, as do rust (entropy), maelstrom and fireballs. Maelstrom doesn't reduce the % modifier, but with all defending troops at half strength, you should be able to take the city nonetheless.

Having visions of high level high priests with stoneskin, must research! I have been using my priests as combat units.

You don't need spring in order to vitalize, but spring comes so much earlier that on a desert-heavy map it's useful to get it anyway. Also works to put out fires near your precious forests.
Genesis is like a single vitalize-cast on every square in your empire.

Good to know, I have had to do cut some fire breaks to keep the forest fire from spreading after that dragon gets built close. In this game there is a lot of plains close, but the desert is more distant, I will get to it eventually, lotta flood plains in a line with a mana node and Mirrior of Heaven.

Heroes: after reading the list in the pdf I downloaded I see there are Gilden, Kithra Kyriel and Baron Duin Halfmorn at Feral Bond, and Yvain at Commune with Nature.

Are there any others I am missing? (I did get an adventurer from a burrow once! and the hero promotion even once too)

 

[cabbagemeister]

A few answers:

On economy: It looks like you're trying to run a SE in your games. In general SE's are much less effective in FFH unless you're the Sidar and/or you get the Great Library and/or you run the late-game civic Scholarship. I don't know exactly why they're less effective (maybe because there are fewer early buildings that give Sage slots; maybe because the games are longer, so you can't get enough GPs in the endgame), but they're not. The two main economies worth running are the BTS-style cottage economy and the Aristograrian economy, which involves getting commerce from farms. Elves excel with the cottage economy because a grassland ancient forest cottage is like 3 1 6. Really, with FoL, there's no reason NOT to forest-cottage up every city, except for a few very hammer-heavy cities.

On expansion
There are four main mechanisms to deal with the costs of a large empire. In order of effectiveness, they are:
1) Markets. Available very early at Festivals, they give +2 -1. They do a great job paying for your maintenance.
2) Civics. City States reduces # of cities maintenance by 80%, I believe. Aristocracy reduces it by 40%.
3) Courthouses.
4) Temples of Kilmorph. Research RoK and spread it everywhere as a secondary religion. Then build the RoK temples. They give +2. Very effective, but of course more steps are required than the other options.

On victories
It sounds like you could roll to a conquest win, which is pretty common on Noble (definitely try Monarch your next time through). You might want to go for one of the end-game victories to explore the tech tree a bit more. I recommend the Tower of Mastery. It's important to note that you don't need 14 mana nodes for this victory--you only need 4 at max. Make one of the nodes a Metamagic node. The Metamagic II spell, Dispel Magic, allows you to revert set nodes back into raw nodes. Thus you can, for instance, build all the nodes needed for the Tower of Elements, build that tower, and then revert them all back into raw nodes and change them into types needed for another tower. Once you get all four towers, you don't need any mana to build the Tower of Mastery.

 

[cabbagemeister]

Having visions of high level high priests with stoneskin, must research! I have been using my priests as combat units.

But Priests cannot get the arcane promotions like Earth II (except for Amurite priests). So the only units that can cast stoneskin are mages--and you don't want mages doing your fighting. In effect, Stoneskin becomes a very good solution to protect mages against assassins, but it's not practical for conquest.

 

[FreeTacos]

On economy: It looks like you're trying to run a SE in your games.

I have only played about 6 starts with Ljo/Arendel, 3 I abandoned fast after learning a few things that didn’t work. 3 listed above.
Going for FoL early made me want to farm at least 3 priests, shrine, Hidden Path, and Priesthood as well as 5-6 for the Alter of Luonnotar. I am definitly considering building at least level 5 in my hammer capitol, level 6 is 12 exp is a good start on paladin/high priests, I need to research exp granting buildings/wonders/settled great people.

Plan is pure hammer capital, I know about lumbermills on normal forests, in the second game where I popped archery early, I had 18 lumbermills and 2 pigs in my capital (then I didn’t do anything with it after the initial strike force but a wonder or two and build research). I need to read on lumbermills/workshops and their booster techs/civics and if the effort of chop/grow/build/hope it doesn’t go ancient before the lumbermill is done method is worth it.

I wanted at least one city with food, to take over GP’s after the capital popped the first priest. I built a pagan altar as soon as it was available then temple of leaves and elder council + the Shrine. I can run 4 priests and 1sage (and 2 bards if I want to dirty the pool more, not sure what bards are good for yet). It has +12 food with pig and 2 fish, I can run 4 priests, 1 sage at 8 pop without agrarianism,

The second food city, +11 food, 2 priests and a sage, + points from the early golden age, might just cottage it after the first GP pops, it has only 7 land / 6 coast to use though.

Wasn’t good for much else, the 5 cities around me where to fill up space in starting area or grab resources, they are all gimped by ocean or mountains.

I have a site I want to use later as a dedicated GP farm with 17 irrigated farms + 1 chained farm + 2 hills, later at theocracy and guilds to run a couple great prophets and then engineers at guilds, for speeding alter #7 up if I go that route. I havent seen much of the map, 3 civ’s areas and some outside mountain walls with hawk vision.

Is there another tech besides sanitation that offers +food to farms? I can’t use anything but Guardian of Nature after my cities grow

On expansion There are four main mechanisms to deal with the costs of a large empire. In order of effectiveness, they are: Markets, City States, Courthouses.

I noticed the markets but I wasn’t sure how if +3 commerce –1 research was worth 180 hammers.
I see the money changer +25% commerce at currency, and bazaar of Mammon at Mathematics too. Thinking a nice 20 cottage city with some merchents added, though 21ish hammers a turn doesn’t build wonders fast.
City states I will definitly be watching my maintenance and using this game.
I see there is the Winter Palace at Code of Laws, as well as the no requirement Summer Palace(well #of cities 8 at huge) Summer palace is still listed in the PDF as Forbidden Palace.

On victories
It's important to note that you don't need 14 mana nodes for this victory--you only need 4 at max. Make one of the nodes a Metamagic node. The Metamagic II spell, Dispel Magic, allows you to revert set nodes back into raw nodes. Thus you can, for instance, build all the nodes needed for the Tower of Elements, build that tower, and then revert them all back into raw nodes and change them into types needed for another tower. Once you get all four towers, you don't need any mana to build the Tower of Mastery.

I have access to 6 mana nodes + Mirror of Heavan for Sun, without invading anyone, this is definitly possible. I’ll prolly expand a bit and go with Alter or Tower depending on how its going / the other civs I meet, there are 7 I wont meet til I get a boat at least.

 

[FreeTacos]

I have a prophet to bulb priesthood in about 28-30 turns should i build disciples while waiting? Do disciples/adepts priests/mages high priests/archmages gain exp at the same rate?

 

[FreeTacos]

After reading a bit, I see Lumbermills don't get any tech upgrades?

Workshops get +2 at guilds and +1 at smelting, but get -1 food, can you build them under forests?

 

[Emptiness]

[...] then turned my attention to the dragon.
I spent a bit of time knocking him down with maelstrom, fireballs and suicide troops trying to get a chance at him with combat3/subdue hunter. But it was just self-defeating, the more I tried, the more exp he had. After a few rounds of this, I decided to move on.
Next time I will bring a ranger instead of a hunter, more fireballs, and something anti-fear.

Acheron is immune to magic. Fireball is important, to reduce the defenses of his city, but you won't damage him with Fireballs or Maelstrom. Access to Spirit I so that you can protect your army from fear is a very good idea.

Later thought: One thing I have noticed in these 2 games, if you fortify troops in 1 tile bottlenecks, barbarians seem to ignore anything inside the blocked area, is this normal? Or is it only a lower skill level perk.

This is normal at all difficulty levels, and unfortunate. The barbarians apparently head for a city when they spawn. They select a city by whatever method they use (proximity, randomness, or whatever) from among those cities to which they can trace a clear path. They don't take into account the possibility of clearing a path through units, so you can plug a chokepoint with one unit and the barbarians will just head somewhere else. Even without a chokepoint, a city can also be protected in this way by surrounding it with units. Very cheesy, and hopefully one day the AI will be able to see through this deception.

As I was typing this out I had the thought: use the worldspell now, giving me 20-25 5-turn treants and using them to forest the local neighborhood can anyone tell me how long it takes for the new->forest->ancient cycle?

The time for a forest-type feature to develop to the next level is random, and there's no minimum or maximum time. So a New Forest could be an Ancient Forest in two turns, or the game might end without it ever becoming one. On Marathon, I'd expect a (rough) average of 50 turns for each step. Maybe someone familiar with the mod code will look up the exact chance and calculate a more accurate average for you.

Personally, I consider March of Trees most useful as a threat. Obviously the AI won't take your ability to summon an instant army into account, but if you save it you can cast it if you get into serious trouble. Casting it just to move around some trees seems weak, and denies you the ability to use it to save yourself. Still, it avoids the damage caused by losing all your Ancient Forests late in the game, and being able to move your Forests onto tiles you're working (long before access to Bloom) might be a substantial benefit. I guess my point is "don't waste it"; if you can get a big boost by using it early then okay, otherwise save it.

4. Remember Your World Spell.
Should I use it now, to create 20+ forests in the near area? Philosophy is 24+turns to go, then I have a prophet to bulb most of Priesthood. Should I plant forests now and kill economy short term?

24 turns is short term in a Marathon game. Using your worldspell at this point would be a waste. Just wait on Priests and then use them to Bloom where you want trees.

Is the Grand Menagerie all luck? Is there a good way to get the animals?[snip]
[...] problem is still, where do I find the animals, is it all luck?

Like many card games, there is skill involved but luck is a big factor. Experience will tell you where to expect different kinds of animals to be found; your map choice & settings will play a big role in how common various animals may be. Researching Animal Husbandry and getting Subdue Animal on a recon unit before the rarer animals are gone can be a challenge, and may require you to take an abnormal research path if you want to make the Menagerie a priority. As you know, you can sometimes get animals from an event, but you can't really rely on that. Lairs will also sometimes spawn animals (as the retinue of a named foe), but that's even less reliable. If you will be getting Priests of Leaves then you'll have unlimited Tigers, so make them low-priority for capture. The Doviello worldspell can supply you with Wolves, if you happen to be in a position to take advantage of them before they are all gone (and the Doviello are in the game at all). Mostly it all comes down to luck. Don't expect to build the Menagerie in every game.

Is it worth it to chop/bloom/lumbermill?

Never do this when playing the Elves. Use Workshops instead. An AF/Lumbermill gives (in addition to the terrain base) +1 / +1 , and +1 next to a river (but not diagonally). An AF/Workshop gives +1 / +1 (river or not), +1 more with Smelting, +2 more with Guilds. So unless you plan to win the game without ever researching Smelting or Guilds you should just use a Workshop. It might be worth starting with a Lumbermill on a river-adjacent tile, but not if you have to chop down an AF to do it. The randomness of the upgrade from New Forest, plus the slower Elven work rate, plus the need to upgrade to a Workshop later anyway makes the effort and extra management a waste.

After reading a bit, I see Lumbermills don't get any tech upgrades?

Workshops get +2 at guilds and +1 at smelting, but get -1 food, can you build them under forests?

No, Lumbermills never get any better. And yes, you can build Workshops on Forests without destroying the Forest (when playing an Elven civ, of course).

Is there any way to get rid of hills?

No. Nor should you want to get rid of them. If you don't want the extra from a Mine then build a Windmill, or even just Cottage the hill.

I could capture the 2 neighbors capitals and put winter/summer palaces in them, but then I would would lose potential mana sources. Do you get free access to their mana sources? or do you have to trade/demand them like normal resources.

You have to trade for or demand them. If you do demand them, you should expect that eventually they will cancel the deal, and go to war if you demand them again. Trading is the only way to be reasonably certain of keeping the mana indefinitely, but of course that will usually require you to give them mana in return - which may defeat the purpose. You can try those methods if you like, but I'd suggest that you be sure to take any actual nodes for yourself.

Siegecraft substitute: build an Air node and/or 2 Fire nodes I have noticed that maelstrom doesn’t reduce defenses, does that make fire a must as well as air? Can I use 1 fire, then promote mages to fire2 ?

See this thread: Fire mana required for elves?

9. Choose Elven civics.
Early civics: God King, Apprenticeship, Agrarianism. Ultimate civic: Guardian of Nature.

Agrarianism is definitely sub-par for the Elves. Early on it can be used to accelerate growth and expansion, though. Just avoid farming Plains or forested tiles so that you're not spending a to buy the food. Later in the game running GoN will preclude Agrarianism, and besides you'll want to Forest even your farm tiles. Thanks to the extra food from Ancient Forests, farms are usually reserved only for grain resource tiles - so you wouldn't be getting much extra food out of it anyway.

(It is possible to do an Elven Aristocracy, sans Agrarianism, with AF/Farms everywhere and excess food used to support specialists. It doesn't have the raw power of an Elven CE, and without any Philosophical Elven leaders there isn't a lot of incentive to use it. Combined with Scholarship and Caste System it can produce acceptable results, however.)

Is there another tech besides sanitation that offers +food to farms?

No.

[...] you shouldn't run god-king past early game (or at all) if you're planning on getting more than 3-4 cities. The maintenance just ramps up to fast.

City States reduces # of cities maintenance by 80%, I believe. Aristocracy reduces it by 40%.

God King increases distance maintenance by +10%, but does not increase number of cities maintenance. God King can be run successfully though the entire game, even with many more than 4 cities. However, if you do plan to do this then you need to keep your empire compact, and place your Summer and Winter Palaces very carefully. You should plan to build Courthouses as soon as possible, and stockpiling Law mana can also be helpful. The Basilica can further reduce maintenance, but this requires following Order, which means abandoning FoL, so you'll generally not be in a position to use them. You might want to avoid Taverns, since they increase maintenance by +10%.

City States reduces the number of cities maintenance by 25%, not 80%. The 80% reduction is for distance costs, which makes it ideal for a very large and dispersed empire. Aristocracy does not reduce number of cities maintenance, but does lower the distance costs by 40%, and so is also a better choice than God King for a dispersed empire. It requires a lot of farms to be beneficial, so when playing the Elves it is not a common choice.

Of course, be aware that Despotism has a +25% number of cities maintenance penalty, so adopting any other Government civic will ease the pressure of having a lot of cities.

For the Ljos, i'd switch to city states

I haven't built enough cities to notice the increased maintenance, I plan on going this game though, so I will. How do you deal with the +25% war ?

City States is a good choice, unless you know you plan on a Culture victory (and you probably won't be). As for the war weariness penalty, you'll probably never notice it, but if you do you can build Dungeons (or the Tower of Eyes wonder for free Dungeons in every city) to offset the penalty. You can also use Theatre + increased slider or Gambling House + increased slider to generate extra happiness until you crush the source of war weariness.

I have a prophet to bulb priesthood in about 28-30 turns should i build disciples while waiting? Do disciples/adepts priests/mages high priests/archmages gain exp at the same rate?

More advanced casters gain free xp at a faster rate. If you don't have anything else pressing to build, building disciples for now is fine, but be aware that unless you are playing Arendel Phaedra (and thus are Spiritual, and thus your disciples will have the Potency promotion, which will allow them to gain xp for free) your disciples won't gain free xp.

I noticed the markets but I wasn’t sure how if +3 commerce –1 research was worth 180 hammers.

It is. The Market is arguably the most important building in the game.

 

[FreeTacos]

Acheron is immune to magic. Fireball is important, to reduce the defenses of his city, but you won't damage him with Fireballs or Maelstrom. Access to Spirit I so that you can protect your army from fear is a very good idea.

Which units is spirit on? Arcane or Disciple?

They don't take into account the possibility of clearing a path through units, so you can plug a chokepoint with one unit and the barbarians will just head somewhere else. Even without a chokepoint, a city can also be protected in this way by surrounding it with units. Very cheesy, and hopefully one day the AI will be able to see through this deception.

My first thought would be to do a target search based on the terrain/feature layer, then test if units block the path, then make the units the target but I am not ready to rebuild/recode at this time. The computing overhead might be too high.

..snip.. forest stuff ..snip..

Growth good, chopping bad, lumbermills suck, use workshops, and, windmills, hadn't tried to build one in a forest yet! Good info.

Don't expect to build the Menagerie in every game.

I am a bit of a packrat in real life too

You have to trade for or demand them. If you do demand them, you should expect that eventually they will cancel the deal, and go to war if you demand them again. Trading is the only way to be reasonably certain of keeping the mana indefinitely, but of course that will usually require you to give them mana in return - which may defeat the purpose. You can try those methods if you like, but I'd suggest that you be sure to take any actual nodes for yourself.

I think this means WAR for the Bannor and the Luchiurp not sure why playing with a Good alignment has me feeling slightly guilty about drowning puppies, erm, destroying helpless AI on noble.

..snip.. Civic stuff:

Yeah City States looks like what I need, with some time in Theocracy if I decide to pursue the Altar of Luonnotar and need some more Great Prophets.

..snip.. war stuff:

/foreheadslap a week since I played an unmodded Civ4 game and I forgot how to use the culture slider

More advanced casters gain free xp at a faster rate. If you don't have anything else pressing to build, building disciples for now is fine, but be aware that unless you are playing Arendel Phaedra (and thus are Spiritual, and thus your disciples will have the Potency promotion, which will allow them to gain xp for free) your disciples won't gain free xp.

Indeed I am playing with Arendel, er as Arendel, er, whatever!

It is. The Market is arguably the most important building in the game.

Hrm simple math, 3 commerce per turn, 500 turns(middle of a marathon game), 1500 commerce vs 180 hammers. I think I need to calculate stuff before I post it.

My Initial post was so long I had to dump it into Word to organize it! I should have hit the math check, and analysis buttons after spell checking at least I learned how to use the Preview Post button lots!

 

[Emptiness]

Which units is spirit on? Arcane or Disciple?

Arcane.

Arcane magic is referenced by the Sphere (Spirit, Law, Metamagic, et c.) and level (I, II, or III - corresponding to Adept, Mage, and Archmage). So if someone mentions "Fire I" or "Mind II", they're talking about Arcane magic.

Divine magic is referenced by religion (FoL, RoK, and so on), and comes in Priest (level II) and High Priest (level III) versions. For example Summon Tiger is the FoL Priest spell, and Summon Balor can also be referred to as the AV High Priest spell. Actually, it isn't as simple as that, because the Priests and High Priests of different religions also have specific names, and those may be used instead. For example, the AV High Priest is the Profane, so you might also see someone mention "the Profane spell" - meaning Summon Balor.

(Druids are special, in that they can use some Arcane magic (Nature, or Earth for Dwarven Druids), have their own Druidic magic (Entangle, or Crush for Dwarven Druids), and (if upgraded from a Priest) can use the Priest and High Priest spells of their religion.)

The simplest thing is usually to just say the name of the spell itself, but sometimes it is more helpful to refer to the spell by the what is needed to get access to it. Or, like me, you may have just forgotten the name of Courage and not taken the time to look it up.

 

[UncleJJ]

A few answers:

On economy: It looks like you're trying to run a SE in your games. In general SE's are much less effective in FFH unless you're the Sidar and/or you get the Great Library and/or you run the late-game civic Scholarship. I don't know exactly why they're less effective (maybe because there are fewer early buildings that give Sage slots; maybe because the games are longer, so you can't get enough GPs in the endgame), but they're not.

This comment interested me so I thought about it a little. You're right that the higher cost of early buildings does mean that a SE is harder to get going in FfH2, the library in BtS costs 90 hammers (normal speed) and gives 2 sage slots, while in FfH2 you need the Elder Council and Library to get the same slots and that costs 180 hammers. Wonders are also much more expensive, there is no cheap equivalent of Stonhenge, Great Wall or the Oracle which can kickstart a mixed wonder and specialist SE in BtS.

But I think the main reason a SE is slower and less effective is the higher cost of GP in GPPs. In BtS the cost of the first GP is 100 GPPs (normal speed) and the second costs 200, the third 300 and so on up to the 10th that costs 1000 GPPs. Then the cost increases to +200 for each sucessive, GP so the 11th costs 1200, the 12th 1400 and so on. For FfH2 the cost of the first is 100 as well, the second costs 300, and the third 500 and so on with each costing 200 more than the last one, for the first 10 GPs at least. That makes a huge difference to the rate at which GPs can be produced.
The total cost of the first 5 GPs in BtS is 1500 GPPs while for FfH2 it is 2500. Similarly the first 10 cost a total of 5500 in BtS and 10,000 in FfH2.

But I think it has to be like this or some of the extreme economies that can be made in FfH2 would produce too many GPs. There is generally much more food in FfH2 with a grassland farm producing 5 food (Agrarian and Sanitation) early in the game compared with 4 as the maximum in BtS with Biology, relatively later. Then ancient forests and GoN can produce very large cities for elves that farm some of their grasslands (gives 5 food and 1 hammer plus 1 happy and 0.5 health). Then there are the Kuriotes mega cities and the Sacrifice of the Weak civic (1 food / citizen).

 

[UncleJJ]

@FreeTacos

You have plenty of good advice here from others and this is a great thread. Here are two points I'd add.

Elves don't have to use FoL and GoN all the time and there are significant benefits from a brief change to other religions before your cities get so large that they are completely dependent on GoN for happy and health. In my games I have started out with FoL (for the Priests to start Blooming) and then switched to OO and RoK to build the alternative priests. These are a cheap way to build the coresponding temple (using hammers in a well developed city) and a certain way to spread the religion in a new city if there are other religions there. After building a few spare priests of each religion I switched back to FoL and GoN and in the meantime many of the new forests the priests of leaves had Bloomed, had turned to forests. I used a golden age to help the anarchy from all that switching back and forth. Incidentally upgrading a cultist to druid makes a great "Sea Druid" that can cast Tzunami and keep a Kraken as a pet, so no more worries about naval battles (if they fix that part of the AI)

Elves can settle coastal sites very effectively. A seafood resource and 6 or 8 land tiles (eventually with AF) can make a useful city that makes a lot of commerce from trade routes. The coastal tiles are weak but you need them to grow the city and it's size that counts for trade. The harbour (+50% trade), Lighthouse (+1 trade route) are very helpful and make a size 20 coastal city much better at trade than a size 20 inland city. If you build or capture the Great Lighthouse then the extra 2 trade routes are very profitable and they justify choosing coastal sites where possible. Coastal cities for Elves are better than most other nations since the combination of ancient forests and GoN allows them to grow bigger faster and with less investment in happiness or health, and the extra hammers build the expensive Inn and Tavern faster. The Elf Trade Economy is one of the easiest to set up and big cities really help make it profitable. See post 40 in this thread for the factors that affect the value of trade routes (size matters ) And don't forget that a late game Nexus gives an extra trade route in all those large cities for a big boost if you developed a Trade Economy.

 

[FreeTacos]

Thank's UncleJJ,

I've seen your signature all over the BTS strategy forum too

I have used trade economies in BTS, and I know there are more trade routes available in FfH2, I just hadn't translated that into an elven economy yet, though I should have, huge pops = nice trade routes.

Good info on the GPPs I knew they took longer but I hadn't been tracking the increases, just trying to get pagan temple/temple of leaves up as early as possible for the first 2 prophets ( shrine, hidden path ) then I add a sage and a bard in second city, and 2 more priests in the shrine city. looking for priesthood/academy/tech bulb, or maybe tower of luonnatar stages.

I have read some units disband if you switch religions, I assumed it was all religious units past tier 1, another thing I needed to look in to. Unfortunately I can't make druids yet, as I have been playing the good aligned Arendel, though now I see druids are exempt from the religion switch, and I could use an alignment changing religion to make my druids and switch back.

 

[Emptiness]

If the unit doesn't have the text "Unit will abandon civilizations that don't maintain its Civic or Religion requirements" in the description, then you can switch religons (or civics) safely without it leaving you. See the civilopedia entry for the unit to see exactly what requirement it has.

The units with these requirements are the High Priests of the various religions, religious Heroes, the Demagog, the Royal Guard, and the Shadowrider. (I think that's all of them, anyway. I may have missed some.) Other units won't care if you change religions (or civics), although the change may prevent you from building more of that unit.

 

[UncleJJ]

I have read some units disband if you switch religions, I assumed it was all religious units past tier 1, another thing I needed to look in to. Unfortunately I can't make druids yet, as I have been playing the good aligned Arendel, though now I see druids are exempt from the religion switch, and I could use an alignment changing religion to make my druids and switch back.

Emptiness has partly answered this, but my main reason for switching religions was to build up the tier 2 priests of them and spread the religions efficiently since I had their shrines or would capture them soon. For instance the Priest of Leaves you have already built will stay around when you switch to OO and build some Cultists. They will still be able to cast Bloom or summon tiger and continue to gain exp through channelling 2 but you can't build anymore of them. Later when you switch to RoK so you can build Stonewardens, both the Priest of Leaves and Cultists will stay around and be able to cast their spells.

Another effect of changing religions is to change your alignment. I am fairly sure that a Good player that adopts to OO will become Neutral (and hence be able to build druids). I can't remember all the permutations but Ashen Veil always changes to Evil from anything. Similarly Order forces alignment to Good. FoL and RoK don't change your alignment (IIRC) and Empyrean will change an Evil player Neutral. By careful manipulation of religions it is possible to have Paladins, Druids and Eidolons at the same time, although if any of them are killed you can only re-build the type whose alignment you currently match.

 

[Emptiness]

Order: All -> Good
Empyrean: Evil -> Neutral
RoK: Evil -> Neutral
FoL: No Changes
OO: Good -> Neutral
CoE: Good -> Neutral
AV: All -> Evil

(Personally, I would prefer:
Empyrean: Neutral -> Good, Evil -> Neutral
OO: Neutral -> Evil, Good -> Neutral

...so that there would be less tendency for everyone to cluster toward Neutral. I don't know how easy to implement that would be, or if it matches the lore, however.)

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I agree on how religions ought to change alignment.

It would probably require DLL changes though. It should be easy to implement it in python using the def onPlayerChangeStateReligion(self, argsList): call in CvEventManager.py, but it seems that said call has been deactivated.