Questions About Capturing

[maGz]

Ok I'm very new to FFH for starters, so I'm having some difficulty grasping certain concepts.

A major question I have is in regards to the capture system involved with FFH. I am currently playing a game with the Balseraphs and through some reading I have found out that capturing animal barbs and opponenets is possible. I cant figure out how this whole thing works for the life of me though...

Do I need a particular building to capture... or a certain unit? Also, how do cages work, and what exactly do you use captured animals and units for? I read that you can use them in either carnivals or freak shows for city benefits but once again I'm not quite grasping the whole idea.

As a last question, is there a guide that goes over the general gameplay of FFH rather then just the units, buildings, and civs? My main difficulty with the game lies not in understanding the basic principles of the mod and I really cant find much to help me with that...

 

[Jie]

Q1. With certain promotions, you can capture enemy units you have defeated. So subdue beast/animal (note these are 2 separate) promotion gives you X% (I forgot what X is) chance to capture the unit. You need certain other promotions and techs before you can get them, if you go to the civpedia promotion section it'll tell you what you need, I can't remember off top of my head.

Also there's the command promotion (for priest types) that allow you X% to capture living units.

Q2 The subdue animal/beast promotion I believe requires Scout/Ranger/Beastmaster line of units.

Q3. When you capture the slave/animals when you bring them back into the city there's an option for you to make X (being type of animal, ie bear) animal cage provided you have a carnival, or freak show for slaves.

Q4. The caged animal/unit provides culture and happiness

Q5. Check out the stragety sub forums I think they go over this stuff, also just playing around....I'm a bit biased as I been playing for a while and just kind of pick it up as you play.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

You capture any unitcombat_animal defeated by a unit with the Subdue Animal promotion. This is available to recon units after the Animal Husbandry tech. Rangers, Druids, and Beastmasters start with it.

Most (but not all) animals are able to be sacrificed in a city to create a building (cage). Most require Carnivals, but Bears and Spiders do not. I'm not sure if all of these really do anything (I know Dancing bears provide happiness and culture though), but they are needed in order to build the Grand Menagerie wonder.

You can capture any unitcombat_beast unit (like the Dragons) with a unit with the Subdue Beast promotions. This is available to recon units after Animal Mastery, but also require Subdue Animal, combat 3, and Hero. Only Beastmasters (and the Khazad UU of this unit) start with this promotion.


The Command promotions also give you a chance of capturing any rival living unit defeated in combat. These are only for disciple units. Command 1 requires channeling1 (i.e., it is only for priests and druids), and Command 2 and 3 require channeling3 and the lower level of command (these are just for high priests, and druids). Channeling4 has similar requirements, but is only for civ following The Order state religion.

Of course, you can capture workers just like in vanilla.

You are probably talking mostly about slaves though. The Slavery civic gives all of your units (excluding summons) a 25% chance of capturing a slave whenever they defeat a living, non-animal unit. The slave will be of the race of the defeated unit. The Balseraphs Taskmaster and Courtesan UUs can also capture slaves without the slavery civic.

Slaves can be used as workers (only slower) and can also be sacrificed for production (like a great engineer, but not neary as many free hammers). If you are on the Underocuncil and the Slave trade resolution passes, you can also buy and sell slaves for gold.

The Balseraphs also have the ability to cast "Add to Freak Show" with slaves. This sacrifices the slave to create a human cage, elf cage, orc cage, or dwarf cage (depending on the slave's race). These each provide + and let you assign one bard.



Xienwolf's FfH manual might help. There are numerous guides that have been made, but I never really use them so I can't say which is the most helpful.

 

[A_Hamster]

Most (but not all) animals are able to be sacrificed in a city to create a building (cage). Most require Carnivals, but Bears and Spiders do not. I'm not sure if all of these really do anything (I know Dancing bears provide happiness and culture though), but they are needed in order to build the Grand Menagerie wonder.

To elaborate on the Magister's point, all of the animals that can be caged will provide Happiness and Culture. When you reach Animal Handling, Spiders can be sacrificed in a city to make a Spider Pen, which provides Silk. (The resource works as normal.)

Bears and Lions can also be sent back out into the wilderness and released to create Bear & Lion Lairs respectively. These will then generate animals as per any other lair feature. However, to do this, the animal must be at full health, at least four tiles outside any cultural borders, and on a tile with zero improvements.

The Balseraphs also have the ability to cast "Add to Freak Show" with slaves. This sacrifices the slave to create a human cage, elf cage, orc cage, or dwarf cage (depending on the slave's race). These each provide + and let you assign one bard.

Another use for Slaves when playing the Balseraphs is the Arena. If the slave survives 50% chance, it will now be a Warrior with some exp. More experienced players in this forum build lots of Warriors and Scouts, send them into the Arenas, and once they have a decent amount of exp, promote them appropriately. (Harlequins are good units for the Balseraphs and are found in their Recon line of techs.) You do have to be willing to take the inevitable losses though. With Slaves, since they were a freebie granted from winning a combat with a Taskmaster, who cares what happens to them? To the Arena!

If you combine the Arena with Mokka's Cauldron (a Wonder revealed by Necromancy), when the victim dies, you get a Flesh Golem. These basic golems aren't worth much, but you can use them as fodder. (I suspect from reading this forum, that flesh golems can be made much more powerful, but it may be an exploit. Don't know, since I've only five more games worth of FfH experience than you do. Have played the Balseraphs though, and did have lots of fun with their Recon line.)

 

[Pyr0mancer]

Recon units with Capture Animal will ALWAYS capture any defeated animal units. This includes Baron Duin Halfmorn, the werewolf. Captured units appear on the capturer's tile from before the combat (Animal attacks capturer and loses -> animal appears on capturer's tile, capturer attacks and wins -> animal appears on tile attacker attacked from) with 1/4 health I believe, along with all promotions and XP.

Capture Beasts only really applies to a few units, and is very late-game. The only beast units that exist are the dragons (Acheron, Abashi, Eurabatres), Beasts of Agares, the two giant monkeys that can appear late-game (Gurid and Margalard), and Leviathan. All except Abashi, Eurabatres, and Beasts of Agares are barbarian, and Leviathan is naval so I'm pretty sure it's impossible to capture using Beastmasters. Capture Beasts is only available to Beastmasters, who start with it, and Hero recon units.

Not all animals give happiness when used to create a cage. IIRC, wolves only give culture.

The Command promotions, as mentioned, are only available to Disciple units. Command I is a 10% chance, II-IV are 20% each for a maximum of 50% on most High Priests/Druids/Luonnatar and Chalid Astrakein, and 70% for Priors (Order High Priests), Sphener, and any Druids that you happen to get with the Order religion. It only works on Living units, which doesn't include Angels, Demons, or Undead.

Finally, there's the Mind III spell Domination, which targets the strongest living unit adjacent to the caster and has a (fairly high) chance of successfully and instantly capturing the target. If it fails, however, the caster loses the Mind III promotion and must spend another promotion/level to regain it.

Oh and as for Flesh Golems, their strength lies in the fact that you can sacrifice any living unit and add its promotions to the flesh golem. They start with the same base strength as whatever created them, but consider that they can get a total of +7 strength (by taking Bronze, Iron, AND Mithril weapons promotions), along with all sorts of fun abilities, and you can turn them into real powerhouses.

 

[A_Hamster]

Not all animals give happiness when used to create a cage. IIRC, wolves only give culture.

I stand corrected. In fact, I didn't know that wolves had an use other than exp, but after consulting Xienwolf's manual, I see that they do provide +2 Culture when caged. The other animals provide +3 Culture and +1 Happy.

Oh and as for Flesh Golems, their strength lies in the fact that you can sacrifice any living unit and add its promotions to the flesh golem. They start with the same base strength as whatever created them, but consider that they can get a total of +7 strength (by taking Bronze, Iron, AND Mithril weapons promotions), along with all sorts of fun abilities, and you can turn them into real powerhouses.

Okay, thanks. As regards Channeling, wasn't that something that was to be removed in .31 (since people were using it to get around the National Unit limit on Archmagi) but slipped through?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

It already removes channeling 1-3 and divine (it used to also remove sorcery and summoning before .31), but unfortunately it doesn't remove the spell sphere promotions obtained before grafting. Since golems have no unitcombat (thus cannot use xp for promotions) and no religion, all this really does is make them a little more likely to defend.

 

[Ksi]

These explanations are more than sufficient but I'd like to mention for the sake of completion that spiders (with the animal mastery tech) will provide you with the silk resource if used in a city.

 

[Caradoc]

Satyrs also start with Subdue Beast and they have their own Mesmerize Animal ability.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Satyrs also start with Subdue Beast and they have their own Mesmerize Animal ability.

No, Satyrs start with Subdue Animal. You can't use a Satyr to Capture a Dragon. The Mesmerize spell is right though.