Will forests with improvements turn Ancient?

[Maksim]

Hi!

Quick question on the latest version of FFH - if I'm playing as elves, start cottaging my forests, then go to Fellowship of Leaves, will these forests have a chance to turn Ancient? What if I just place roads on them?

Similiarly, if I place a cottage on flatlands, then later on use "Bloom" to raise a forest there, will this create a forest, and if so, will that forest have a chance to go Ancient? And would this work for non-elven civs (i.e. chop forest, build cottage, then bloom and wait)?

Thanks.

 

[xalien]

Yes, yes, no - only elves can bloom on top of existing improvements.

 

[Deon]

And also you cannot build sawmills in ancient forests, so if you want this, you should consider it before it turns ancient.

 

[Emptiness]

There were four questions in there, so I think the response should be "yes, yes, yes, no".

 

[Maksim]

Thanks, everyone!

This makes elves very nice - definitely not too much micromanagement as I feared.

 

[WCH]

Elves are very strong in terms of health... population can end up quite enormous. If they don't take adequate measures to protect against hell terrain, though, they end up pretty screwed in the late game. And the other civs each have their own awesomeness, so it stays competitive. Elves still are generally considered one of the strongest, but several other civs are also very powerful.

Calabim, for instance can end up insanely strong if played well, but in a very different way than Ljosalfar (devour population to gain XP. Settle into a rhythm where you have one vampire per city keeping that city at a bit under its maximum population -- before long you have lvl 15 units in every city. Gift vampirism to your arcane casters, upgrade to liches, and now you've got 8 of the most powerful archmages possible in addition to your vampire lords. By that point, the Ljosalfar probably have three times your total population, but the sheer number of ridiculously elite units you can produce is mind bending).

but... yeah. That's what's cool about FfH: each civilization is insanely, brokenly powerful in its own special way. The weakness of FfH is that not all civs are quite as well implemented, so a few of them aren't as awesome as they're supposed to be. Trick is always just to figure out what they're good at, and then proceed to do it really well. Each time, you're sure to be convinced that your civ is totally overpowered, but you'd probably also think that of most other civs if you figured them out too.

 

[Maksim]

So I gave the elves a go... Dark Elves, Erebus Continents, slightly more civilizations than expected. Flavorful start.

Ended up with several forests, corn, reagents and three wines in the starting spot. Research went:

Crafting -> Exploration -> Hunting -> Ancient Chants -> Calendar -> Education -> Mysticism -> Way of Forests

So, Crafting was worth it, I think - the wines gave +1 happy, and several commerce each.

Hunting was the next goal to get some defenders going - sinister hunters are 5/4 with move 2, making them a mobile force of roughly equal power to axemen with bronze (either I am attacking, or else sticking to forests).

Calendar was aimed to get commerce from reagents online, and also because I was aiming for a second city with a bunch of Calendar resources for commerce.

However, this was taking far too long, and I was getting worried my hunters would not be up to scratch - the barbs were getting groups of axemen out and about. So a detour to Education to get those cottages going, and get the first promotion on my hunters with +2 XP for Apprenticeship.

After that, it was a run for the Way of the Forests; this worked out alright, and pretty soon my empire was full of Ancient Forests. Of course, by that time, Immortal AI's have already expanded up to my borders, leaving me with just the tundra to go in. I actually switched over to Runes for an alignment change, hoping that it would lessen their chances of declaring (I had Falamar, good Decius of Malakim and Sabathiel right next to me).

So I'm wondering - what can I do better? Or am I just spoilt by the financial Khazad rush for Runes, and should get used to the slower pace that elves have?

 

[Azhral]

I'm not a big Svalt player, but you will want to get Poisons asap, and now that your Neutral you can go for Druids and that Tundra doesn't look so unappealing.

 

[Folket]

Tundra is never a problem for the elves. Tundra with town and ancient forest give 2/1/4 which is quite productive. Sooner or later you may change it into grassland depending on what you tech.

In general all you need are recon units and mages. Perhaps get a few fauns early to get 11/5 satyrs later.

A nice thing you can do is to get a couple of horsemen and cast your national spell. Protect the horsemen with rangers while plundering your opponents towns. With the raider trait this can give a good amount of money.