Spreading forests

[Ackillez]

I've been playing a bit as the Svartalfar and have a few questions about spreading forest tiles (quite important for the civ).

1. How does building improvements on your forested tiles affect their ability to spread the forest to a nearby tile? I know forests won't spread -to- improved tiles (except roads, but even they decrease the spread chance drastically iirc) but will building cottages and mines on my forest tiles also prevent them from spreading?

2. Are there other ways to spread forests except to sit and wait patiently? I know of the trick with burning jungle, what I'm looking for here is ways to make forest spread.

TIA

 

[dyx]

1. As far as I'm aware, yes.

2. Priests of the Leaves can plant forests. Takes two turns to cast and you can cast in on top of you improvements.

 

[UncleJJ]

As far as I can tell the usual BtS method of forest spreading by random event doesn't work in in FfH2. I don't remember seeing the messages or seeing any new forests, but I could be wrong.

It has been replaced by two methods that elves and anyone running the Fellowship of Leaves religion can use. One method is the Bloom spell that can be cast by the Priest of Leaves and any of it's upgrades (druid, paladin and High priest) plus the Hero Yvain. The other method is by the death of a Treat which will make a New Forest in a tile that is not improved.

Forests are not just forests in FfH2 . There are three types and they are all different in one way or another. The spell Bloom and the dying Treant both make New Forests which add a hammer to the tile but are not yet a proper Forest. After some time any New Forest will mature into a Forest that has the full normal effects. There is a small chance each turn that this will happen.

If you run Fellowship of the Leaves as your state religion then any Forest has a 3% chance each turn to mature into an Ancient Forest. The main benefit of this is that tile will now give +1 food and it allows soem very large cities to be grown even on areas that would normally be considered barren and low food like Tundra and Plains. Even deserts can be converted to plains with the Spring spell and turned into lush Ancient Forest given enough time.

The civic Guardian of Nature supports these big cities by giving +1 happy for each Forest and Ancient Forest (but not New Forest). That sort of locks you into FoL and GN since your big cities become dependent on them for happiness and health. But with other sources of happiness (e.g. Gambling House) you can often switch to another religion for a short time and then back again after building a few priests and temples to meet you needs.

 

[Ackillez]

As far as I can tell the usual BtS method of forest spreading by random event doesn't work in in FfH2. I don't remember seeing the messages or seeing any new forests, but I could be wrong.

It has been replaced by two methods that elves and anyone running the Fellowship of Leaves religion can use. One method is the Bloom spell that can be cast by the Priest of Leaves and any of it's upgrades (druid, paladin and High priest) plus the Hero Yvain. The other method is by the death of a Treat which will make a New Forest in a tile that is not improved.

Forests are not just forests in FfH2 . There are three types and they are all different in one way or another. The spell Bloom and the dying Treant both make New Forests which add a hammer to the tile but are not yet a proper Forest. After some time any New Forest will mature into a Forest that has the full normal effects. There is a small chance each turn that this will happen.

If you run Fellowship of the Leaves as your state religion then any Forest has a 3% chance each turn to mature into an Ancient Forest. The main benefit of this is that tile will now give +1 food and it allows soem very large cities to be grown even on areas that would normally be considered barren and low food like Tundra and Plains. Even deserts can be converted to plains with the Spring spell and turned into lush Ancient Forest given enough time.

The civic Guardian of Nature supports these big cities by giving +1 happy for each Forest and Ancient Forest (but not New Forest). That sort of locks you into FoL and GN since your big cities become dependent on them for happiness and health. But with other sources of happiness (e.g. Gambling House) you can often switch to another religion for a short time and then back again after building a few priests and temples to meet you needs.

I was aware of everything here except the part where FoL priests can spread forests...awesome! I've been spending ages waiting patiently for forests to spread while withholding building improvements on adjacent tiles

So as an aside I can confirm that forests do indeed spread 'naturally', that is without intervention, but as far as I can tell only unimproved forest tiles seem to be able to spread forests to adjacent nonimproved tiles.

This should deffo make things easier.

 

[Grey Fox]

I think roads make it impossible as well, not just unlikely.

 

[popejubal]

Priests of Leaves can cast the Bloom spell to create a New Forest in a tile.

It takes them two turns, so don't think that you'll just cast the spell and then move away from the Ogre that's wandering through your lands...

Priests of Leaves of any civ can cast Bloom on any tile that doesn't have an improvement on it. Elves get the special bonus that Elf civ Priests of Leaves can cast Bloom on a tile that already does have an improvement.

Also, you don't have to have the religion, you just need the priests. That means you can switch out of Fellowship of Leaves once you build a few Priests if you need to do so. I generally switch out of Fellowship of Leaves once most of my regular forests turn into Ancient Forests. I'll switch back if I take over a large territory that I want ot Ancient-ify.

 

[Emptiness]

As far as I can tell the usual BtS method of forest spreading by random event doesn't work in in FfH2. I don't remember seeing the messages or seeing any new forests, but I could be wrong.

Ackillez is correct, this is wrong. Forests (and Jungles) can spread by themselves in FfH2. You will also get the message when they spread, like in Civ4. Forest tiles with improvements in them won't spread. I don't think roads affect the spread, but I'm not sure - maybe Grey Fox is right. Either way, I usually avoid roads (when trying to encourage spread) too just in case it matters. Also, random spread to a tile with a resources will never happen, even if you can't see the resource yet. Even resources that normally coexist well with Forests (Ivory, Fur, Deer) will block the spread (much to my chagrin).

Ancient Forests will never spread randomly (even if they don't have improvements), and I don't believe that New Forests or Burnt Forests will spread either.