Sorry, but I just wanted to end the world ...

[DemonMaster]

Today, I (finally) played the crush them all civ, Sheaim. So I very soon become the most (the very most by the way) powerful of all and I made my war every now and then and won all of them. I created the Infernals (but I didn't switched). In my game 8 civs were good, 1 was neutral and two were evil, 3 with the infernals, but they are so small and tiny (at least at first) so I don't count them. Then:

On turn 300+ something I realized that the apocalypse is near (yes I knew It was high). So I thought, yes, the hell with it, and then at 100 all hell brakes loose (literaly). I knew that city pops are decreased more than half of the units will die or something like that (we go back to this later). I was at war when it happened with a civ that I now don't remember, it was yellow and I think it's leader started with a c. That is not that important. I had alot of units, mostly spell-casters and strong demons (and my three giants, which are very good for breaking down city walls) and Rosier. After the apocalypse I had nearly nothing (yes nothing) left. I had a tar demon, a couple of pyro, a mobius, and some succubus. Ok since this was my first apocalypse I thought, I'm not the only one (and I wasn't), starting to rebuild. A couple of turns later I at least had one unit in each city and a handful of extras from the gates (mostly guys called r... something), but then I saw a couple of angels (3) and a guy called herald ... something. To make a long story short (heh, it was short) they did a remarkable comeback.

This is a strategy I almost never play (normal or FfH), so I'm not so good at it (wasn't that obvious). So how much units are actually killed when AP triggers. So a question is AP. ever good for any other civ than the infernals? I can't say that I had read everything in the civilopedia or on the wiki, but is there any meaning of trigger AP if you play for example Shaeim (with AV religion of course)? Is there any units that I should have built that are not lost? Is there any civic that helps? Meaning it is very hard to play a Sheaim, go to a war and not eventually start hell.

PS
By the way, this is the best mod I ever played (above including), so a big thanks to you all for making this.

 

[frenzyslave]

Damn straight its the best mod. As for counters, um... will the loyalty spell help protect your units? Never tried it and just wondering if it would stop them defecting...

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Units don't defect when AC reaches 100, they simply die ...
I always thought raising the AC was bad to everyone apart from Infernals, and most evil civs will perform better if the AC stays rather low. That's why i proposed some evil (or Ashen Veil) only victory when AC is high enough and you then do something special. There was discussions about some victory when there is lots of hell terrain spead in the world. I think nothing has been implemented so far ... but i'm coming back to FFH after a few months playing other games (and than normal BTS civ).

This mod is great, but i think it's missing a real evil victory so far.

 

[TheJopa]

Units don't defect when AC reaches 100, they simply die ...
I always thought raising the AC was bad to everyone apart from Infernals, and most evil civs will perform better if the AC stays rather low. That's why i proposed some evil (or Ashen Veil) only victory when AC is high enough and you then do something special. There was discussions about some victory when there is lots of hell terrain spead in the world. I think nothing has been implemented so far ... but i'm coming back to FFH after a few months playing other games (and than normal BTS civ).

This mod is great, but i think it's missing a real evil victory so far.

Not really. Sheaim benefit from high AC as well, and it fits them.
Now, why would orcs, Balseraphs or Calabim vampires want to end the world? It would kill them as well, so it makes no sense that they'd want it. They don't want it destroy the world, but they do want it high, as it hurts enemies more than them. AV players trade everything for power, its a part of the strategy to manage AC from escalating too high and from staying too low either.

 

[DemonMaster]

I gave this "hell" another go. I was almost finished off (caught between, the yellow guy with the heralds and some barbarians), but then I had a little bit of luck at last. I made a sucide attack with my skeleton vs. the herald and wow, it must be a lucky hit, yeah, the skeleton died, but he damaged the herald to 8.5 (from 14 I think), my self-confidence was back, a marauder and a succubus finished him off. I know that he can have two more of these maniacs, but this little break-through at least bought me some time and I have almost rebuilt a couple of my beasts and in a couple of turns my reserach is done and I can build another beast

I must say that I have nearly no control over anything in right now, but I guess, playing chaos, I had it comin'.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Personally I think there needs to be a ritual (perhaps AV specific with a minimum AC requirement of about 50 or 60) that does what Wrath unleashed used to do: break all peace treaties with the barbs, then make peace between them and the ritual's builder (and maybe also open boarders). This would help the Sheaim greatly, plus (if is is a repeatable ritual) would allow AV civs to backstab eachother by breaking their rivals peace with the barbs while the horsemen are passing near them.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Non-living units don't die, which is why you still has some tar demons. You could try for golem mastery and protect your cities with golems before bringing the end, or make sure all you citieis have gates. Turn your arch-mages into Liches. Etc.

 

[Elm]

Does the immortal promotion work with this unit death?

 

[DemonMaster]

Thanks Nikis for that. I just realized that myself, but the AC went up so ... quickly. By the way, the Tar demons saved my ..., so I could find time to rebuild/spawn new units. Anyhow, I'm in the lead again in my game, but the next time I go for an apocalypse, I will surely go for the golems and liches before (if I can help it).

 

[MisterBenn]

I understand that once Basium (the Angel player) is in the game, good aligned living units that die are reborn as angels for him. If you had 8 good players in your game, he would have benefited greatly from their unit deaths as the destruction spread. That was probably the basis of his fightback.

A network of Planar gates is a brilliant thing to have as the Sheaim. The maximum gated creatures sustainable, and the chance of them appearing increases greatly with the AC increases, and all occurs in addition to your regular cities' production. Those creatures should be arriving pretty much every turn and should help you recover very quickly from Armageddon compared to your opponents.

It's possible that the barbarian demons should realise that killing the Sheaim (or whoever their summoner is) is against their interests. Perhaps there should be an (expensive) Ashen Veil late game wonder to secure peace with the barbarians? Or perhaps a consequence of a certain AC threshold should spare Ashen Veil worshippers from attacks?

 

[DemonMaster]

I understand that once Basium (the Angel player) is in the game, good aligned living units that die are reborn as angels for him. If you had 8 good players in your game, he would have benefited greatly from their unit deaths as the destruction spread. That was probably the basis of his fightback.

That would explain alot actually.

The most anoying with the whole thing is that the Barbarians attacks me too. I left a couple of my frontier cities that I have taken and fell back into a narrow passage, easily defended with Tar demons, a couple of stacks of barbarians attacked me, but then they started to turn to other civs to attack that was further away than I was.

I don't know if the game would be too unbalanced if such a "barbarian-friend" wonder existed. Perhaps it would become too "easy".

 

[vorshlumpf]

Now, why would orcs, Balseraphs or Calabim vampires want to end the world? It would kill them as well, so it makes no sense that they'd want it. They don't want it destroy the world, but they do want it high, as it hurts enemies more than them. AV players trade everything for power, its a part of the strategy to manage AC from escalating too high and from staying too low either.

Outside the AV and the Sheaim, I don't think anyone wants the AC to get high, Evil or not. Just because you're evil it doesn't mean you'll be happy if the world goes to hell.
I had fun one game as the rampaging Clan. I imagined them slowly coming to the realizations that their actions were bringing about the end of the world. As with climate change in our world , they first denied it, then decided that there must be some 'technological' solution (e.g., Sanctify the ruins of their victims), then they changed their behaviour (somewhat).

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I don't know if the game would be too unbalanced if such a "barbarian-friend" wonder existed. Perhaps it would become too "easy".

That's why I suggested making it a repeatable ritual instead of a wonder and that it also break the barbs' existing peace treaties (at least with civ you are at war with, if not with everyone). If the barbs are sparing the most recent builder, another AV civ would bring back some balance by building it themselves, thus making it only a temporary fix. It fits the AV flavor well that each AV civ would betray the others and act only in their own interest in this way.

Also, the game needs more rituals to make the Celestial Compass wonder more useful.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Yeah, that sounds good to me.

 

[3141592]

No matter what civ you are the AC is a huge advantage if your a human. You can ready adapts and workers at 40, fortify your cities at 70, and make sure to get lots of overflow in your cities right before 100.

The AC is bad, but a human has a huge advantage when dealing with it.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Mhh, that wasn't exactly the point but "pi" is quite right, the AI can have a very hard time responding to the AC. However, it could probably be coded to act like a human player would when AC is rising near some break points.

Now, why would orcs, Balseraphs or Calabim vampires want to end the world?

Then, there should be another evil religion apart from the veil. But well, religions might be added at some point so i won't start another debate on religions here.

Mhh, you might be right about Sheaims benefiting from high AC with their gates, i didn't play them often. However, when playing another evil civ, i always thought i would be better with low AC, so that just seem ... wrong. I like to play as Calabims, but high AC means Blight, fewer food, so smaller cities and less XP for my vampires. Even if i take the veil as my religion, and chose the "sacrifice the weak" civic, then it will counteract the loss of food, but just imagine what i would have with sacrifice the weak AND lots of food ... ah so many tasty humans

In addition hell terrain cripples everyone. Those snake pillars look nice, but their production is bad when compared to the resources they replace.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

There are other evil religions, albeit not quite as evil: OO and soon the Council of Esus.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

OK, i don't really count OO as an evil religion, nor do i count Runes as a good religion. To me, they are both neutral religions, on is leaning towards evil, the other towards good ... but obviously that's a matter of point of view.

Mhh, this Council of Esus sounds promising. Do you have more informations?