Strategies that do NOT work

[Onionsoilder]

List some things you've tried that do not work very well, so others know to stay clear.

My recent Sheaim game I started next to Amurites, Grigori and Lanun on a Fractal map(They were the only ones on by continent), The Lanun founded OO, and since I was a long way from AV I decided to claim the OO holycity(as well as the remaining Lanun cities) for myself. I thought that since they had no real melee line, Drowning my highly promoted warriors then upgrading them to Stygian Guards and finally Eilodons would make a nice overseas strikeforce when accompanied by a few Cultists. It also brought extra mana, extra gold, and extra culture, and the Tower of Complacency. For a while, OO Sheaim sounded really good.

The reason it didn't work so well is that is took about the same amount of time to research Mind Stapling as it would have ot research Ashen Veil. Pyre Zombies were more effective than my Drowns amd were cheaper to build. Cultists were a huge help, but I don't see how Ritualists would have been any less useful. It was taking far too long to get Stygian Guards, so I swiched to AV. All OO activity stopped after that; I couldn't upgrade any of my Drowns to Guards, and I couldn't Drown any more warriors. I eventually just wrote the game off as a failure.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

The most common complaint about the Ljosalfar is that they don't have any effective killers to channel their excellent mid/late production into. I recently decided to try to remedy that by getting the GoN thing going, then heading for honor + religious law and switching to empyrean.

Switching out of GoN brought unhappiness and unhealth on my cities like a ton of bricks. They all ended up starving down to a pretty normal size. And while I still had good production because of the forest improvements, the mass deaths + the riverside commerce choke from the forests made my research rate tank. But hey, I got Chalid, so all ended well, right? Indeed, I set forth with a big horde of archers guarding him and conquered many cities... which proceeded to become unproductive drains on my already sagging economy, leading me into complete financial ruin before I could get any high tier units like champions or longbowmen. The economies of my neighbors who I didn't beat up chugged along healthily, and before I knew what was happening it was horse archers, vampires, knights and eidola vs. axemen, archers, radiant guards, and a really powerful spellcaster who could only be in 1 place at once.

Didn't end well.

 

[Delenn]

Cartography is your best friend for city spam
I'm running around on guardian of nature as the svart. Thinking of researching champions, beastmasters ect. Their rangers are an 8 strength, not bad. My research is pretty good, I'm working on combining the tower of alteration with some divination stuff to get really hard to resist dominate..

 

[scutarii]

once I tried to counter vampires hordes with destry undead spell. Vapires still got good meal.

Crown of brilliance did not work on Basiums hordes.

 

[AsmodeusUltima]

Ha, first time I ever played Sheaim I did not know how the Mercurians and Infernals really worked. It was late game, I had missed out on the Celestial Compass, and the AC was still much lower than I would have liked. Basium was summoned and he and almost every other civ declared war on me. So I thought, okay, I will skyrocket the AC by razing a bunch of my enemies' cities. I used my stack of Rosier, Meshabber, Abashi, Duin, and Marderro plus some Berserkers, Eidolons, Beasts of Agares, and Profanes to raze city after city, laughing maniacally until... I ran into Basium. With his stack of more than 200 angels. I managed to kill about half of them before my army was destroyed. Next time I will make sure I either take out the Mercurians before razing any big good-aligned cities...

 

[Demus]

Ha, first time I ever played Sheaim I did not know how the Mercurians and Infernals really worked. It was late game, I had missed out on the Celestial Compass, and the AC was still much lower than I would have liked. Basium was summoned and he and almost every other civ declared war on me. So I thought, okay, I will skyrocket the AC by razing a bunch of my enemies' cities. I used my stack of Rosier, Meshabber, Abashi, Duin, and Marderro plus some Berserkers, Eidolons, Beasts of Agares, and Profanes to raze city after city, laughing maniacally until... I ran into Basium. With his stack of more than 200 angels. I managed to kill about half of them before my army was destroyed. Next time I will make sure I either take out the Mercurians before razing any big good-aligned cities...

basium gets angels from killing good units, not razing cities (that's hyborem). Still, that'll teach you to go down the drill line and invest in collateral damage. That, or pop your world spell (angels are damaged by world break aren't they?)

 

[readercolin]

Actually, Basium gets angels from good cities being razed, while neutral and evil razed cities go to hyborem

-Colin

 

[civ_king]

Being Basium and going around and razing evil civ's cities to the ground, if Hyborem is in the game that is a sure fire way to die

 

[DarkxL0rd]

If you build Alazkan, make sure you dont have any "open border" friends cruising through your city at the time. i have lost alazkan on the first turn I built him about 4 times now. didnt even get the chance to declare nationality. just 1 chariot and he's a gonner!

Also, the first time i did "Purge the Unfaithful" every city went into revolt, i lost tons of population and my economy tanked! I literally haven't built it since! AND THAT WAS BACK IN .23!

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Actually, Basium gets angels from good cities being razed, while neutral and evil razed cities go to hyborem

-Colin

Neutral cities don't.

 

[darklord1115]

Once playing the elves I got pushed into a corner in the late game and tried to even the odds with March of the Trees. Never thought about what it would do to my economy with FoL until too late. A bunch of my cities starved down, and I lost most of my specialists, which knocked my research into a hole and filled it over. I eventually recovered, but it cost me much more than the production loss of the one city I was trying to defend.

Another time playing the elves I got stuck without any direct damage mana and tried to use tigers as a stand-in. I ended up losing tons of champions for every city I took until I got air mana and maelstrom.

 

[Clove]

When another civilization is building cities aggressively near many of my borders, I find that war with them is inevitable, regarless of how nice I am or how happy they seem to be. I've hesitated in declaring war sooner rather than later, and it turns out bad.

It doesn't matter if you are already at war with someone else I've found, which is the usual reason to not declare war on someone in this situation.

You still need to declare war on the person who is closest and boxing you in, since they are so close they can be conquered faster. AND they can threaten you the most since they are right next to you if you wait and let them declare war when they are ready.

 

[DaveGold]

When another civilization is building cities aggressively near many of my borders, I find that war with them is inevitable, regarless of how nice I am or how happy they seem to be. I've hesitated in declaring war sooner rather than later, and it turns out bad.

This sounds more like the CIV5 forums. In FFH you can get along pretty well with your neighbours if you've the same alignment and/or religion. There are usually plenty of other hated nations that will, at the very least, be scheduled for annihilation before you are.

 

[Clove]

My experience tells me the only diplomacy that reliably works in this game is to conquer close neighbors who can be the greatest threats. There was ONE game where Decius liked me, and I adopted his favorite civic and he became friendly and he wasn't a bad neighbor. Elohim can make a good neighbor since they are so pacifistic.

And if I am in a position where multiple nations are bordering me about the same amount, then I choose to go to war with the nation that has the highest score. This is because if someone doesn't start messing up their business, they will get so far ahead it is nearly impossible to catch up. This is more applicable on higher difficulty levels where the computer just out-produces a player in every way.

Letting Tasunke become too powerful is another mistake. If Tasunke is my neighbor in any way, I try to make war with him as soon as possible. Or at least be ready for him to declare war on me. He just likes war too much, and with the raiders trait and mounted units with +1 bonus movement he is just too annoying. If we are going to be fighting anyways, it might as well be started with my army walking into his lands and not the other way around.

 

[avalonnn]

Sometimes you have to let the enemy come to you and destroy their stack of doom. Venturing into enemy territory can be bad, especially against a stack of 100 tigers or 80 orcs or 50 hippus chariots.

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If you're playing as sheaim or infernal, beware a strong mercurian player, or anyone wielding order. In particular, beware of the mercurian beastmaster unit with hill upgrades if it's sitting on a hill. Lost many many troops that way in a bottleneck.

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The AI has only run an OO naval war correctly against me once, but when it did, it was extremely powerful. Did not expect those peaceful elves to have a navy -- and they didn't, but they had a nifty combo of Stygians and OO priests.

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Don't attack the Khazad early, if they have had enough time to build the Mines. They'll have strength 10 units. I was using monks as Elohim. Bad move.

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[DaveGold]

Don't build flesh golems with Gibbon Goetia. They're illusionary and will get dispelled as soon as they go near a vicar.

 

[civ-wrecked]

I didn't actually do this but just killed the AI for doing all these mistakes:

If you're playing the Kuoritates:

- it's not a good idea to build the Mecurian Gate, especially using your highest production city or, even worse, your HE city. It will take away one third of your troop production leaving you vulnerable. Losing a city is not a big deal for other civs but it is a big deal for the Kuoritates.

- if you do build the Mercurian Gate, don't use the city close to another civ's city with high culture (like the capital). The new Mercurian city won't get much land to work on in that case and the city population will shrink.

- if you do both of the above, then do not declare war on the civ which can now use their own roads to get right next to the new Mecurian city and destroy it before it gets any free angels from fighting.

 

[darklord1115]

Thought of a few more:

If you're the Calabim, do not neglect the feasting if you don't have happiness resources! I did this one game to try to build my cities up, but they ended up getting incredibly unhappy with me. This was not a problem for cities with the Governor's Manor, but I had neglected to build them in some of my cities and results were predictable. Plus, you lose out on all the experience points.

Also for Calabim, don't feast on small cities. You get experience based on how large the initial pop is that your vampire eats. A small city might only get you 2 or 3 xp; a 20-strength city will get you something like 18 or 19 xp.

Also, for Bannor don't neglect the towns! It's incredibly tempting to go for Aristograrianism, but if you try to go Crusade later you'll miss out on demagogs.

 

[Irgy]

Diving in without reading the manual.

I saw a wonder called "Mercurian Gate", which said something about reducing war weariness. Well, reduced war weariness sounds great, why don't I build that in my best production city? Next thing you know I've lost a city, and declared war on the highest scoring AI civ, who I was previously Friendly with. The funniest thing is I'd founded (and shrined) the AV, and spread it to all my cities, although I was running OO for diplomatic reasons.

Fortunately for me I was only playing Monarch and had a good position already. A huge stack of catapults and bazillion suicidal skeletons backed up by vampires, fireballs and assorted other magic can come under strategies that do work. It probably did me good in the end, the forced DOW made me finish off my main rival a lot sooner than I'd have got around to it otherwise.

 

[strategynoob]

Try to conquer the world with only Moe, Larry, and Curly, haha. I learned this the hard way!