Wanting to have more fun playing Fall from Heaven

[NobbynobLittlun]

This option might or might not be available to you, but you can always... play another game for a while! I really like to switch between Fall From Heaven and "Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic".

They're similar in that they are turn-based fantasy empire building games, but each has its own strengths and weaknesses. FFH is a deeper game in most ways, especially against human opponents, but when you want a computer AI that is able to employ all the dirtiest tricks of warfare, AoW:SM at higher difficulty levels will deliver that...

 

[readercolin]

My suggestion, switch to wild mana. Wild mana's AI is significantly improved for army management, - it was enough to drop me from playing deity and being able to win consistently with certain civs, and winning on immortal for most of the rest to playing on monarch and having a fun/enjoyable game, with emperor being a challenge and immortal possible only with a good start. At monarch, the AI will attack with stacks of 20+ units, and later in the game will actually use some magic (not as well as a human, but at least it uses is, unlike in regular FFH). Many of the AI improvements will be transferred to base FFH soon though, so if you wait for a bit then you won't need to use that to get a better AI. There are also a few other AI improvement mods floating around, but I'm not sure what other ones are up to date.

Also, if you start getting bored with regular FFH, please try out orbis, FF, and some of the other modmods in the modding subforum. Many of them add new things, changes some things, etc. But many of them (Fall Further and Orbis especially, but also rise of darkness, tweakmod and a few others) play almost as a completely different game. Most of the base mechanics are the same, as is the world, but they add so much that you cannot play them exactly like you would base FFH. Also, go ahead and try out the scenarios, some of them can be quite fun and do a good job of introducing some of the fun mechanics.

Lastly, as has been mentioned, the AI plays significantly better on land maps, where it doesn't have to do waterborn invasions. Quite frankly, it sucks at naval warfare. So I recommend pangea, lakes, and any other mostly land map.

-Colin

 

[Caradoc]

In my experience, if you play on a Large Archipelago map, the AIs are isolated enough in the early game to be able to get their feet under them. I find about half of them grow to become formidable challenges.

 

[Elyssaen]

Switching to Wild Mana has done much more than going up a difficulty level would do, I'm finding. I don't think I want to 'get good' at Fall from Heaven as many do – I enjoy making decisions based on roleplaying rationale, rather than on the basis that if I 'beeline' for such and such a technology I'll maximise my military prowess. Going up a few difficulty levels would make the AI less passive and idiotic, but only by giving it enough bonuses that it could act like an idiot and still manage to do okay.

I haven't seen any workers ganging up on the same raw mana source all trying to turn it into different things in Wild Mana.

My current game is actually quite fun. I'm playing the Calabim as Order. I'm not imagining them as 'Good', but rather a very peculiar Neutral (if Basium is Good, then Good is... not quite, well, good, so it's fine with me). Aristocratic, honourable, principled and dedicated to stamping out chaos. Also utterly brutal, of course.

I'm second in score. Perpentach actually has a brain. He might be the only one. He conquered the Kuriotates' city... he didn't war with them, a lizardman killed the Kuriotates early on (I should know – my scout popped a teleport, then popped the lizardman that killed them). He then conquered the Amurites. The Erebus map he was on gave him about a third of the land mountained off from everyone else, and the best pick of the land. He has about 16 cities and has introduced arquebusiers into his army. I'm not sure if they can stand against my perversely high level vampire paladins and brujahs led by vampire Valin, Sphener, Losha and Brigit.

The others are still a bit rubbish. I don't understand what the Clan and Ljosalfar are doing up in the northwest (another isolated territory). They're at war, they have 5 and 3 cities respectively, loads of land to expand into and no interest in expanding and no real worker activity. The Svartalfar and Bannor were on my isolated slab of land (note these aren't continents: it's one big continent that's partitioned off into three), the former doing quite well and the latter doing... better than the Ljosalfar, at least. I've conquered the Svartalfar, made a vassal of the Bannor and a permanent alliance of the Ljosalfar.

Next mission: destroy the Clan and take all that land the Ljosalfar are too idiotic to take. The AI can't wage a sea war so I figure there's no hurry to attack Perpentach. I'm stuck at war with him – I offered the Ljosalfar a permanent alliance without realising that the Clan were the Balseraph's vassal. Faeryl followed soon after. Calabim + Bannor + Ljosalfar vs. Balseraph + Svartalfar + Clan.

 

[JonathanStrange]

Changing maps to pangaea might help avoid the "AI is idiotic and I can do anything" feeling. I play Erebus maps mainly for relaxation.

 

[Gelvan]

it's interesting for me, to read (that often) that people find the AI too easy.. maybe I just suck, but apart from a tech lead in most games, I'm really not the strongest civ everytime. to be on place one at the score doesn't mean I could defend against a stack of 20 priests - therefore I most often play at noble or warlord, because I really don't understand how to produce stacks of 20 units (and still be able to build anything else than units). When I try a higher difficulty level this only means I have to build units everywhere and all the time, to get a chance of competition (and then the AI settles the whole world). I was barely at noble in FF, and after I installed wild mana, I'm back at warlord, so to me it seems as if the AI of wild mana is improved, escpecially regarding its economy. I like micromanagement as long as this means "should I use a priest or a sage" but I hate huge stacks of units on my borders after I barely succeeded to finish an archery range. therefore I don't think playing on a higher difficulty than monarch will ever suit me. I can't even complain that the AI makes mistakes, because - well, I do mistakes as well, so that evens out for me.