Uses for each religion

[Opera]

You already have a trout. Don't get too eager.

 

[A Moon]

You already have a trout. Don't get too eager.

I officially declare it as undeniable canon that Opera is actually the Octopus Overlords. All of them. Somehow. Giver of trout and denier of lumbermills. The tentacle that gives (trout) and the tentacle that takes (lumbermills). I'm thirsty. Good night.

 

[Jarwy]

I officially declare it as undeniable canon that Opera is actually the Octopus Overlords. All of them. Somehow. Giver of trout and denier of lumbermills. The tentacle that gives (trout) and the tentacle that takes (lumbermills). I'm thirsty. Good night.

Hmm, this could inspire a new useless poll: What Ffh2 religion are you?

As Overlords go, I think it's one of the better ones. You are slightly mad, you dance till you drop and you are surrounded by beautiful dominating priestess's. Yes, I could go for it.

 

[Krieger66]

I hate Lumbermills on ancient forests with passion, it's one of the biggest crimes against lore and roleplay you can commit as a player.

Personally I would love to see Ancient Forest downgrade into normal forests if you build a LM on it, possibly with a chance to spawn some kind of pissed off tree guardian (similar to what happens when you scorch them). This would also solve the biggest (roleplay) problem with AFs, forests that have been captured by non FL civs.

Elves in DND lore eat and use plants instead of animals because they believe "a harvested plant disrupts the ecosystem less than a slain animal". Lumbermills make perfect sense, they allow elves to harvest the gifts of nature w/o upsetting the balance by clearing out forests. Elves already use trees in the crafting of bows. Elves in the game already chop down trees and go industrial to mine metal. Is going the distance and using trees in a controlled sense for industry, as long as forests are not being obliterated, really that much of a stretch?

Maybe the ancient trees in the forest even go so far as to give up their branches to lumbermills run by FoL civs so as to help them against the evil industrialised civs in war? Sometimes even plants stagnate, and removing very old, sick trees in the forest would help in those cases with the growth of new trees in its place; preserving the balance by helping new trees to thrive in old tree's place.

 

[IronClaymore]

What could work would be to give the doviello a unique camp improvement that grows into the yaranga, and give both lumbermills and normal camps the same upgrade improvement for everyone else. This upgrade should only happen on ancient forests when the tile is owned by a FoL civ. That way, conquered/built lumbermills (and camps) will automatically become this theoretical improvement once the forest upgrades. Unfortunately, this will need extra coding, because as far as I can tell the .xml file only allows for improvement upgrades based on civ (eg doviello, kurio, grigori), not religion or feature type.

On-topic, this is what I tend to use the religions for:

The Order: awesome second hero, stay-at-home pacifist-type high priests, unique building that acts as a second courthouse (eliminate your maintenance with a couple of law mana), terribly awfully dull soundtrack

Ashen Veil: combatty fun normal priests who like to burn things, cool high priest summon, great heroes (squee! mershabber!), arguably the best holy city shrine (stigmata promo), savants can get disciple promotions then upgrade to mages (not all that great, but useful if you have spiritual trait), farms are irrigated with BLOOD, creepycool soundtrack

Runes: mithril golem avatar hero, normal priest has a buff that ISN'T removed by combat (in your face, order!), gold!, normal priest can use earth's bosom to level mountains (difficult to do; you need to be dwarven or jotnar, have a kuriotate airship, or get lucky with a captured dwarf priest), good unique civic, world wonder can help set up great engineer farming, soldiers of kilmorph to build dwarven mines (seriously, convert for a few dozen turns if only to build these guys), decent soundtrack

Leaves: ancient forests (pretty!), best looking farms and windmills (more pretty!), second hero is good for terraforming, normal priest can summon kitties, more health and happiness, ok soundtrack

Octopus Overlords: already been said, but tower of complacency for no unhappiness (combine with thousand slums/gardens of amatheon), undead units with water walking, archmage hero, high priests can utterly destroy enemy navies, soundtrack isn't great

Empyrean: Chalid (!), and high priests with AoE spell, normal priests have a spell to dispel magic AND see invisible units, temple provides science boost, essential shrine (especially if fighting d'tesh, sidar, or anyone following CoE), makes alignment more good (might just push you into hell terrain immunity), probably the best soundtrack

Council of Esus: archmage hero, surprise attacks, shadow riders, shrine makes your workers effectively invulnerable (at the very least)

White Hand: terrorist priests (when their summons die, they explode the surrounding land into ice), dragon hero, temples and shrine give extra production and commerce, slowly turns all your lands into glacier, and the AI has absolutely no idea that this religion is generally a BAD IDEA for them


Question time: the reason I didn't mention the ability for council of esus units to spread their religion without dying, is that it is not a useful point in RiFE (unlike other FFH modmods). This is because religions will automatically spread to cities even if they already have another religion present, eventually causing every city to have every religion. May I ask where this awesome piece of code is located? I really want to steal it and put it into every other CIV4 mod I have

 

[odalrick]

Elves in DND lore eat and use plants instead of animals because they believe "a harvested plant disrupts the ecosystem less than a slain animal". Lumbermills make perfect sense, they allow elves to harvest the gifts of nature w/o upsetting the balance by clearing out forests.

I think the main objection against Lumbermills in Ancient Forests is that lumbermills cut down old trees and plant new ones. Id est where you have lumbermills you don't have ancient forests and vice versa.

At least for me it is. It's as jarring as it would be to have a cannon that behaves as a melee unit.

 

[Krieger66]

I think the main objection against Lumbermills in Ancient Forests is that lumbermills cut down old trees and plant new ones. Id est where you have lumbermills you don't have ancient forests and vice versa.

At least for me it is. It's as jarring as it would be to have a cannon that behaves as a melee unit.

Well thats true normlly but in RiFE trees, and ancient forests can be magical, maybe some trees are even sentient in a limited sense. My opinion is elves or FoL civs setup a mutual agreement with nature to take old branches from some trees, which are still massive in their own right, or cut down dying trees to preserve the natural order. This would be in the instances where huge trees stop sunlight from reaching shorter trees and saplings already growing under the main tree canopy.

I guess this would still lower output of the lumbermill a bit, maybe -2 commerce, -1 production for fellowship of leaves civs or at least guardian of naure followers.

ps nice work with the ljosalfar knight valkrionn, and I thought I was the only one who used morrowind stuff in civ.

 

[odalrick]

This would be in the instances where huge trees stop sunlight from reaching shorter trees and saplings already growing under the main tree canopy.

And if you cut down the ancient trees in favour of new trees it is no longer an ancient forest. It might be a young forest that has been there for a very long time, but that is very different from an ancient forest.

It an inappropriate name. Changing the name of Farm to Hydroponics Bay would change nothing about the gameplay but it would still be a bad change.

I'm not disputing that Ancient Forests can be harvested for building material and food in a magical world; a Lumbermill is not the improvement that should do it.

 

[Torugu]

That's the exact opposite of what FoL worshippers would do as it would mean imposing human (well, elven) values on nature.

That young trees have some trouble growing in the shadow of the older ones does not make the eco system in the shadow any less vibrant, you'll have tons of species that specialize in surviving with very little light, either by adapting their metabolism or by parasitising other plants. Some of them will grow and procreate very quickly so as to give their host no time to respond others will turn carnivorous and many will favour trees over the ground when they choose their habitat.
Moreover by removing dead branches and old trees from the forest you rob the ecosystem of it's primary source of nutrients crippling the natural ecosystem even further.

It is of course true that the kind of treatment you're suggesting would help the trees in the forest (assuming that they are for some reason motivated to maximise the efficiency of their reproduction) but this would be little different from a huge wheat monoculture - an ecosystem tailored to fit the needs of a specific human symbiont. Doesn't sound like the kind of thing FoL worshippers would do...

 

[Valkrionn]

Odalrick and Torugu have pretty much stated my opinion on it.

 

[Morkonan]

That's the exact opposite of what FoL worshippers would do as it would mean imposing human (well, elven) values on nature. ..

I just couldn't help myself...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvQ2JF-glvw

 

[Krieger66]

I just couldn't help myself...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvQ2JF-glvw

Someone has to make a FoL wonder using that vid. Also, it should also let the first civ who creates it build lumbermills in any forest...

 

[Xenobenignitas]

AD&D and prog rock work together beautifully