Please help with early FFH game!

[timboobaa]

Hello
I haven't played a lot of vanilla Civ ( a few games a while back) , but I really wanted to get stuck straight into this nice looking fantasy mod. I run into some problems in the early stages of the game and would really appreciate some help. I've started a few games but haven't manage beyond certain hurdles too succesfully yet!

1. The big barbarian! I think he's called Orthus? The nasty one. He comes and trashes all my cities, haha. My solution, in my latest game attempt, has been to concentrate on the archer-friendly race (the wood-elf type ones with the archer hero) and build up city defence and military, with archers defending. Orthus has yet to attack so we'll see!
Concentrating on military, I think may have lead to problems in other areas though. namely;

2. My main city grows, my 2nd and 3rd are really slow to expand.

3. There's Unhappiness in my cities due to ovrcrowding. Do I need to build housing? I need to research a tech for this I know, the tech trees in Civ/FFH are quite big and intimidating when you're starting out.

Thanks for reading, any help really appreciated. I'm getting quite addicted now.

 

[avalonnn]

Learn about which buildings generate happiness

Research Fellowship of Leaves, if you're Ljosalfar.

Search for strategy on your civ of choice. Here's one of many pieces of advice

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=226812

Here's how to use Google

http://www.google.com/search?num=10...vfanatics.com+ljosalfar+strategy+favorite+civ

 

[timboobaa]

Here's how to use Google

Yes I do know how to use Google!

As I said, the problem is that I don't have my own Internet, and that I'm not familiar with the game yet, so googling actually doesn't help that much.

I've got so far with several games now (roughly 150 turns on easy) and I run into difficulties. I have downloaded the big PDF file so I can learn more, but it is a huge game so here I am on the strategy section of this games forum asking for specific advice. Remember that we were all 'noobs' once.

The main thing that I don't know is how to stop overcrowding in cities.

 

[DaveGold]

Orthus usually comes when you have warriors so put a lot of warriors in a city with a palisade. He'll usually punch himself out and weaken enough for you to kill him. Warriors are cheap.

Work the local resources to give yourself happiness. Position your second and third cities to collect those resources if you're not doing so already. After that you can research religions and build temples for early game happiness. Carnivals (from Festivals) are early buildings that also provide happiness. Turn off city growth before your cities grow unhappy rather than repair the damage afterwards.

If your second and third cities are poor you may be positioning them badly or just not producing enough workers to develop the land.

 

[scutarii]

The main thing that I don't know is how to stop overcrowding in cities.

open your city

look to the right to the city management tab

and activate button " turn on avoid growth"

 

[timboobaa]

Thanks DaveGold and Scutarii for the tips. I playedas the Dwarves last night and found that much easier -seige weapons are good!

I saw the 'avoid growth' button but thought it might do the opposite ie. restrict city size rather than population growth - I'll try that, and try adding more happiness buildings early on.

Don't know if this is true but FFH seems more delicately balanced than vanilla Civ. I got through quite a few vanilla games just with a kind of random "I'll have a bit of this...ooh and maybe some of that..." approach which doen't quite seem to work here.

 

[avalonnn]

Yes I do know how to use Google!

As I said, the problem is that I don't have my own Internet, and that I'm not familiar with the game yet, so googling actually doesn't help that much.

I've got so far with several games now (roughly 150 turns on easy) and I run into difficulties. I have downloaded the big PDF file so I can learn more, but it is a huge game so here I am on the strategy section of this games forum asking for specific advice. Remember that we were all 'noobs' once.

The main thing that I don't know is how to stop overcrowding in cities.

Sorry about that! Have you noticed that each religion provides a different benefit? Also, note that the acquisition of resources is very important in the early game. If you get lots of fish, build a harbor. If you have many meat types, build a smokehouse. If you have many grains, build a granary. The Herbalist is also your friend (later, the Aqueduct).

Finally, don't just go for population growth -- in a few squares, go for hammers.

Commerce strategies are more complicated. Some like to go for money cities, others prefer Aristrocracy + Agrarianism + Farms, and of course a holy city helps a lot, as does the RoK religion.

 

[timboobaa]

Sorry about that! Have you noticed that each religion provides a different benefit? Also, note that the acquisition of resources is very important in the early game. If you get lots of fish, build a harbor. If you have many meat types, build a smokehouse. If you have many grains, build a granary. The Herbalist is also your friend (later, the Aqueduct).

Finally, don't just go for population growth -- in a few squares, go for hammers.

Commerce strategies are more complicated. Some like to go for money cities, others prefer Aristrocracy + Agrarianism + Farms, and of course a holy city helps a lot, as does the RoK religion.

Thanks Avalonnn !

That's very useful.

 

[darklord1115]

Regarding Orthus, defense is definitely your best options, especially when trying to take him down with piddly warriors. Get palisades early and fort up your units. Orthus will pick a city to attack and ignore other targets; just reinforce four or five warriors and let him wear himself out, then counterattack with your remaining units. You'll probably lose two or three warriors, then Orthus will go down and you get his ax!

Regarding happiness, you've probably noticed that FFH buildings and settlers are very expensive. A lot of the time you'll have better luck controlling happiness via resources than via happiness buildings, so city placement in the early game is very important. It can be worth it to establish a colony ring and then back-fill your empire. Also, trade with the AI to grab gold, gems, and especially fur. Fur lets your hunting lodges increase happiness, and they're relatively cheap military buildings.

Regarding expansion, FFH does not let you expand quite as fast as vanilla civ because your settlers are so expensive. Between that and workers from goody huts, it's entirely possible for your home city tiles to be pretty developed by the time you plop down your second and third cities. The easiest way to give your core cities a boost is to establish them near livestok resources or flood plains; both will crank up your food production. You also want at least a couple of workers from the start to connect your empire and start on tile development.

 

[Clove]

1. Orthus. Don't worry about him too much. Just get some extra warriors. Then if he appears far away, you can still use the warriors for whatever else you need them for.

2. New cities are slow to expand? So are you talking about population size growing too slowly, or the cultural borders? Both? When positioning your cities, make sure you have plenty of food around. Also, if you don't have the creative trait, you need to get a monument up ASAP.

3. Get happy resources and buildings, just as has been already mentioned. If you can get one of your early cities on a river with a decent amount of hammers it will help you since you need the river to build the brewery which yields Ale as a happy resource too.

The flip side is maybe your capital is growing too fast. Each population point generates an unhappy face just for being there. Get more hammers, and/or specialists instead of food. Scientists and merchants are my favorites, because they get you Great Scientists and Great Merchants. Look at the food bar and see how much excess food there is causing the city to grow.