Civ 4 - Fall from Heaven 2 (version .41N) and more - Updated 6/3/2010

[Cheddar]

Patch "e" released- see first post.   Also someone typed up a summary since the Wiki is dead currently. Patch fixed the uber lich guy who would kill you on site.   

[Merusk]

Patch "e" released- see first post.   Also someone typed up a summary since the Wiki is dead currently. Patch fixed the uber lich guy who would kill you on site.   

He could?  Guess I'm lucky in that I never found him until I had 3 archmages with +2 stars.  He died quick to 9 high-damage fireballs.

[Cheddar]

Patch "e" released- see first post.   Also someone typed up a summary since the Wiki is dead currently. Patch fixed the uber lich guy who would kill you on site.   

He could?  Guess I'm lucky in that I never found him until I had 3 archmages with +2 stars.  He died quick to 9 high-damage fireballs.

He spawns randomly, so if he is nearby he will wipe you out pretty quickly with a series of elementals and grim reapers.  Taking away the summoner trait will allow one to survive!

I did have one awesome game where I was the orc leader (peace w/ barbs 4tw) and had him spawn next to my capitol.  He would constantly take out bad guys and allies alike- was very very awesome.

[Raguel]

I read the notes but if there's anything in there about evangelism, I missed it. 

[Raguel]

This is more of a vanilla civ question, but what determines the type of Great Person you get? I used to get a lot of prophets, but lately it's been sages to the exclusion of all else.

Also, can anyone explain how religion is spread? do you only get free acolytes when spreading the Order religion? Is it random, even with the Order?

[Roac]

This is more of a vanilla civ question, but what determines the type of Great Person you get? I used to get a lot of prophets, but lately it's been sages to the exclusion of all else.

Also, can anyone explain how religion is spread? do you only get free acolytes when spreading the Order religion? Is it random, even with the Order?

1) If you look at your city, it'll show a Great People Points bar.  Mouseover to show percent.  It's based on wonders and specialists - if you have engineers working your city, you're more likely to have a great engineer.  If you're getting sages, you probably have a lot of science stuff.

2) Spread is fairly random, but I believe you have to have open borders.  When you discover a religion you get your free prophet you can use to found the religion in a city if you don't have one already, so from there you can build the temple (having the religion is a prereq) and build a prophet army (temple is a prereq for this).  If you found a religion, you can use a Great Person to found a wonder in the holy city (alternately, you can capture the holy city it was founded in).  These wonders also push the spread of the religion. 

Esus is the one exception.  There are no prophets for it; instead, any unit built in an Esus city with Esus as the state religion can spread Esus, for a cost of 25 gold.  Unlike prophets, the unit is not destroyed.  There is a bit of a problem at the moment, because if someone else founds Esus you're unlikely to get it to spread to you, because they're unlikely to adopt Esus.  Rush it if you want it.

[Cheddar]

Kael is beginning to release information for the next major push- looks like more world spell balances and lots of events, including race specific events!

God, why can't game dev houses be like this guy?  He openly admits to this being his first foray into software development.

[Chenghiz]

Soo I managed to get to play as the infernals, but the world spell that they're supposed to have isn't on my unit order bar. ):

edit: And it's really good.

[WayAbvPar]

Necroing this to avoid spamming the What are you playing? thread with FFH2 questions.

I dug around the wiki a bit, but I am too much of a novice to even begin to know what to look for there. Some quick questions-

What are the ruins and other crap scattered on the map? I understand some of them are exporable dungeons, but others don't see to do anything.

Speaking of dungeons-what all can I find in them? Do I need a big task force like in MoM, or can one or two units do it safely?

I see talk of unit promotions- is that done only through combat, or are there improvements you can build that stream XP to certain units?

Is there any sort of walkthrough for the first 100 turns or something? I am lost and don't really know what questions to ask. Other than-

Is there a good n00b civ? I banged through a few dozen turns with the dwarves and one of the other good civs, and one of the evil civs, but I don't know enough about the game to even be able to tell ther difference.

[jth]

This gaming diary might be helpful, at least for me it gave some clues for the game mechanics. The first link below goes to the start of the diary, but at some entries the link for next part is missing so once you run into a missing link, select the next one from these:

http://fidgit.com/archives/2008/12/fall-from-heaven-ii-madness-i.php
http://fidgit.com/archives/2008/12/fall-from-heaven-ii-send-in-th.php
http://fidgit.com/archives/2009/01/fall_from_heaven_ii_gandalf_wa.php
http://fidgit.com/archives/2009/01/fall_from_heaven_ii_victory_la.php

In the last one he says there will be one final entry, but I couldn't find it.

[WayAbvPar]

Perfect! Gracias.

[Teleku]

Also, theres an in game encyclopedia.  You can look up just about everything you see in game, so its a good way to learn.

[Merusk]

Is there a good n00b civ? I banged through a few dozen turns with the dwarves and one of the other good civs, and one of the evil civs, but I don't know enough about the game to even be able to tell ther difference.

I haven't played in about 6 months, but Elves were always a fantastic noob race. Build on forested areas and focus on getting druids so they can cast the "create forest" spell all over the place.  Tons of food and production bonuses.

I also liked the Sheaim, but found I was much more effective after learning a game or so via the elves. 

Best hint I can give is if you take a leader with the "Arcane" trait build as many mages as early and often as possible.  Then try to take as many of the crystals (then build  other mana nodes on them) as possible.  The Arcane trait grants your mages experience at random, so they'll level without having to fight (which is good because they're fucking squishy as hell.)   Then they'll be able to cast tons of silly shit and destroy cities.  The mana nodes give you access to different spell schools.  If you have 3 of a mana type, your casters gain that spell school without having to invest a talent point in the first spell rank.

Watch out for the elves if you don't play them.  I don't know if it's fixed or not, but you'll find several of us referencing them and their damn cat priests.  They'd build a ton of the fuckers, stack them, and then spam "summon cat" 25+ times, destroying almost any garrison via attrition without losing a single member of their 'instant army.'

[Tebonas]

The links should work fine, but here sone quick answers for the impatient.

What are the ruins and other crap scattered on the map? I understand some of them are exporable dungeons, but others don't see to do anything.

Some are explorable, some are guard towers which increase sight range when on them, some are razed cities from an unfortunate enemy.

Speaking of dungeons-what all can I find in them? Do I need a big task force like in MoM, or can one or two units do it safely?

Its a random chance of different things happening. Which range from getting allies and benefitial Promotions to harmful promotions, spawning enemies or the exloring unit just getting imprisoned or dying. The higher the level of the unit, the better the chances for a good outcome, but numbers only matter if enemies are spawning.

I see talk of unit promotions- is that done only through combat, or are there improvements you can build that stream XP to certain units?

Some units get XP over time, with buildings or wonders increasing that XP gain, some buildings/wonders give units XP on creation. Arcane units are a good bet if you want free XP, as are heroes who get 100 free xp over time.

Is there a good n00b civ? I banged through a few dozen turns with the dwarves and one of the other good civs, and one of the evil civs, but I don't know enough about the game to even be able to tell ther difference.

The Elves are THE newbie civilization. Also, the Lanun if you don't mind sticking to islands and exploiting the fact that the AI is too dumb for naval warfare.

[Typhon]

If you have 3 of a mana type, your casters gain that spell school without having to invest a talent point in the first spell rank.

It's slightly more complex than this:

If you have :
1 node of a mana type, your magic users* will be able to train in this school.
2 node of a mana type, your magic users* get the first level spell in this school for free
3 nodes of a mana type, your magic users* get the first two levels of spells in this school for free
4 nodes of a mana type, your magic users* get all the spells in this school for free
*mages and some special units (e.g. Sheaim witches that come through the portal, hero units that cast spells)

So, if you know you are going with a heavy mage focus, build a "throw-away" mage as fast as possible, have him build on as many nodes as possible those schools that you want for free, THEN build your mages that will become your archmages.  This makes for very powerful archmages.

You sacrifice flexibility (many different schools) for power (you archmages don't spend training points on spells, they spend them on range and power), whoever came up with this design was very clever.

:(  I started typing notes and I couldn't stop.  Maybe this will help, definitely you can skip.

Note 1: Good races to learn the game.  As mentioned, the elves are a solid race that is easy to use (mostly due to the economy) - if you happen to start in an area that doesn't have forests, restart the game.  If you are getting your feet wet with elves, it's better to focus on ranged, beast and priest tech, they do very well in these areas. (the aforementioned druids are in the priest lines).
Note 1.1: The Dwarves (Khazad) are good if you start with mountains and a source of cash nearby.  Definitely research the Earth-mother tech. Do your best to keep cash on-hand as it increases the productivity and happyness of your people (I don't remember what the exact mechanism is for this).
Note 1.2: The Hippus are all about mobility.  If you are playing on a large landmass, they can be very powerful.  Worth researching Honor tech (it gives a religion) as it has one of the more powerful heroes in the game that makes Hippus lack of siege unimportant.

Note 2: Unless you are playing the Grigori, religion is very important.  Until you are more conversant with the pluses and minuses of not focusing on religion, it is advised that you try hard to be the first to discover whatever religion you want for that game.

Note 3: When you feel like you want to try a mage-focused game, play the Amurites.  When playing as the Amurites, definitely always get at least two fire-nodes as this will give you three sources of fire mana, which will give your mages fireballs for free. Fireballs are cheaty-good.  Getting the Firebow unit with the Amurites is also a very good idea.

Note 4: Many of the races do not play anything like any of the other races, which is why this game is so very, very replayable (unlike, say Civ 4, oddly enough).
Note 4.1: Sheaim.  If you are playing with all the rules turned on (i.e. not a custom game), you need to play the Sheaim very aggressively because 1) this race is really, really good at early aggression and 2) eventually everyone hates you (because you are destroying the world).
Note 4.2: Illians.  Goal here is to last long enough to create your god unit.  Then have your god unit fly around the map and destroy everyone else.  Aggressive turtling is advised.

Note 5: Barbarians and the races that love them.  Barbarians are actually a very useful way to get cities and amass a veteran fighting force.  Choosing to play as a race that is friendly with the Barbarians (Clan of Embers or Doviello) places more pressure on you to find a non-barbarian target early in the game.  I think these races are difficult to play, but maybe that is because I'm too reliant on taking barbarian cities.  This is also a decent point to make about something else - most races need to be aggressive fairly early in the game if they are going to do well in the mid-game.  The Elohim and, to a lesser extent the Elves (Ljosalfar) can play a more defensive game if that style of play is appealing to you. 

The Kuriotates can as well, but in a different way - they are like rats and can spread rapidly without actually taking other cites... most NPC races consider this to be an act of aggression of another form, so you will be attacked.  Since taking cities doesn't actually give you that much of an advantage, in the mid game it's easier to pump out settlers until your cancer has spread to all colonizable land mass.  This is another race that plays much differently than the others.

[Sky]

For your first civ, you might want to read a guide to get to learn them. You mostly want to learn their focus and tricks.

As mentioned, elves are great because you can build in forests without cutting them down, so you get lots of production. Later on treants will spawn if you're attacked in an ancient forest. Druids can upgrade tiles and plant forests (with proper upgrades), as can your treant hero unit. This is pretty cool on tight maps, because you can build in deserts and arctic zones other races might avoid or be stunted in; or take over a stunted civ and upgrade their terrain.

You basically want to figure out which strat you want to take, arcane or religious (mages or priests) and stick to that; as well as the usual combat focuses of mobility vs naval vs metal upgrades.

Also, http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=15583.10 

[WayAbvPar]

Ooh good link. Jesus, Lum should have written a strategy guide for it!

[Sky]

Started a game last night as the Clan. Kind of got screwed with initial placement, two decent cities then a big stretch of desert. Luckily, there are all kinds of barbarian and animal mobs beating on everyone. Bannor got wiped out, and they were next door to me, but the spider likes to drop my warriors. My first 'real' playthrough as Clan, teching to metals almost exclusively. One word: Warrens. Hey, pumping out two warriors for the price of one is pretty cool, but getting two settlers for the cost of one is amazing!

Been pumping out warriors like mad, about half slip past the hidden spider and I'm massing them for future slaughter after I do a bit of expansion with my doubled settlers. Getting around the spider with settlers by using a galley, the peninsula I'm stranded on is very close to a resource-rich part of the mainland, so I'm jumping over.

Normally play on archipelago or islands, one of my few continent games, I just let everything go randomly. So far I've found three good civs (four counting the extinct Bannor), so it's going to be a tough one for the lone evils on the continent. Luckily, the dragon spawned in a city between two good civs, buying me some time.

[WayAbvPar]

Started a couple of games last night. Played Elves on the Erebus map for 30 minutes or so, but decided to start again after losing a 2nd city to barbarians. Tough to fight them off when you have nothing but shit warriors for the first 200 turns...

Tried again as the dwarves. Founded my capital JUST out of range of the Mirror of Heaven, but got it with my 2nd city. 3rd city on the coast. Trying to get a 4th near the Pool of Tears, but there is an invincible barb giant spider lurking up there that has eaten everything I can throw at it. Finally got some better military tech, so maybe I can squash it eventually. Have the Shaim pinned in right next to my 3rd city (culture bombs ftw), so I am sure there will be blood soon.

Really feels a lot slower paced than vanilla, which is doubly frustrating because I am really just feeling my way around the tech tree and don't have a plan yet. Makes for tough going when I start up a dead end/wrong path.

[Sky]

FFH2 start is a lot tougher with the barb cities, and is not very forgiving of non-specialists. The double fun of that tough spider unit is that it's also stealthed if you don't have scouts...like the Clan I'm currently playing. Such a great gameplay element, though, it's really added a lot to what could be a pretty standard opening phase of the game I'm in right now. I'm so far from the battlefront that I hope I can expand quickly enough without the spider soaking up too many units/cities, because the goodies are already pulling way ahead in technology. The horde...it's time to march!

Luchuirp are so awesome, I left off a game with them because I was so dominant it was a matter of just cleaning up the rest of the planet. You want to really stick to golem tech: golems and the buildings that upgrade them. One upgrade is fireballs, so all your golems (even your worker unit) can cast fireball. Unless you meant the Khazad dwarves, who I haven't played yet.

[WayAbvPar]

Yeah it was the Khazad. I ended up founding a religion, but I am not sure how much good that does me. It seems like each one is really different- is that the case, or are they mostly the same?

[Merusk]

They're all really different.  It's a complete change from vanilla, where you just wanted to found them so you got the capital and that sweet, sweet religion income.   The FFHopedia in game is really good at explaining the differences.

[rk47]

Yeah it was the Khazad. I ended up founding a religion, but I am not sure how much good that does me. It seems like each one is really different- is that the case, or are they mostly the same?

Order : Militaristic Good Guys - Temples boost military unit production
Ecclesiastic : Scientific Good Guys.

Rune of Kilmorph : Neutral Money money money - Productivity Wonder
Fellowship of Trees : Neutral Healthy + Ancient Forest Growth in borders

Ashen Veil : Armageddon worshipper - Plague Zombies & Fire Priests able to cast ring of fire - DEADLY
The Deep : Unique evil units & wonders and culture boosts.

[Sky]

I tried a daring move on that huge map. Since I could ferry settlers across the peninsula gap and had scouted out a slight bottleneck just short of the three good civs, I rushed a ton of settlers over there (Clan doesn't have to worry about settlers getting killed by barbs). Varn Gosam had the same idea, so it got pretty tense as we land rushed to cut off each other's expansion. Then I discovered that Mahala had a city on the other side of that damned spider in the south and was expanding, so I rushed to also cut him off (this is where warrens shines, popping out double settlers like mad). Fortunately, he wasn't in land rush mode like Gosam and only got in one city before I firmed up that border.

However, in the middle of all this my golden age ended, just as I was starting to tech towards wealth. Clan has money problems :) My units went into revolt, but I was able to switch to God King and make just enough to keep units from revolting...but no research. Then a wonder I had forgotten I had started hit completion and I was able to finish my expansion and grab the first few monetary techs. Barely got my infrastructure in place as that golden age ended. The interim was interesting as I really had to squeeze my civ to have enough money to keep the units from revolting (lost about six total). Recalled all my troops, went God King (capital on the ocean + rivers), spread religion, expanded trade routes, traded food resources for money resources, etc.

The first expansive golden age put me in the lead of the evil civs and the second eked out the lead of all (known) civs. Also resource grabbed like mad, have one of the two iron deposits on the continent and all but one of the mana nodes - three fire (free fireballs on all new shaman!) and a death.

Game has been fun and interesting, completely different from anything I've played before. Still not sure how it'll go, I managed to not piss off Gosam too much, but war is nigh and I'm stretched thin and completely out-teched by all the good civs. Some more military tech to flesh out my new iron resource (plus mah elephants!), pump out some shamans now that they're born with fireballs and can learn summon skeleton, if I have enough time to firm up the massive new empire, it's friggin' clobberin' time!

[Khaldun]

I just started playing this recently as well, and it's just a shitton of fun. It's like MoM and Civ had a baby and while he's a bit homely he's still fucking genius in most respects. The narrative hooks are really great, and there's a bigger variety of interestingly random or complex shit that can happen. I had a Fawn in the early game get the Subdue Beast promotion and he happened to survive an attack by a 5 strength giant spider while scouting. So then I had a spider with Hidden Nationality and I proceeded to more or less smash the crap out of a few barbarians cities and take them easily and then moved on to rip up Van Gosam in a completely deniable manner.

Right now the big issue for me is Acheron the Red Dragon, who is sitting in a very big barbarian city surrounded by stacks of almost every remaining civilization in the game, but none of them seem interested in actually attacking him. I tried moving a stack with several heroes, a lot of champions, two trebuchet, some werwolves, the Yvain, treeants, priests and tigers to see if I could take him out. The entire stack barely scratched him.

[BoatApe]

He gets beat on until he has an insane amount of promotions then the AI just stands around and looks at him. HUGE stacks of catapults or cannons are a good way to whittle him down.

No, I mean really huge. And his Hoard is kinda lame.

[Sky]

Varn Gosam just summoned the Mercurians across the bay from my front lines. That should be interesting. Luckily, I had just begun grabbing some naval techs because my galley discovered an island with GOLD in them thar hills. Time to make that bay full of pirates, heh.

Cut off Gosam's rush, but Mahala slipped a stack with a settler through. Don't know where the hell he was going, he passed up two good sites (one with mana!) and I was able to strand him in the middle of the desert, so he disbanded the settler.

Then my nascent pirate fleet found out that just off my southeast coast is the land of the sheaim (Gosam and Basium are west/southwest). I have a feeling Basium is going to try to lay a holy road through my borders...

Then the barbarians decided I'm too snooty with my book-lurnin' and called off our truce, with a crapload of them in my borders. Mid-game is certainly getting interesting. But I've got the groundwork lain for a big military push (third golden age fleshed out a lot of the midlands), about to get mithril and have four fully-optimized military production centers and two naval centers. Also ready to start pumping out shamans now that I have 4 fire nodes, 3 death nodes, so mages start with a nice spellbook (might swap out the 4th fire for a death to get quick liches/spectres).

[Lum]

Something to try is the Orbus modmod (you know, mod of a mod). It expands out the economic side of the tech tree, adds corporations (because come on, what's a medieval globe-spanning empire without the Hansa and the Bank of Rothschild, er, Vivaldi?), fixes some of the underused civs (Sidar have more immortal units now in place of the kind of sad waning ability, Amurites have tons more mage-style units) and adds some entirely new civs:

Mechanos: Steampunks. Devils? Mages? KILL IT WITH FIRE. At the top end they get a mech. Really. And helicopter gunships. Surprisingly not as broken as you'd think (longbows shooting down gunships is a Civ trademark, I think) since gunships are just strength 11 infantry units that can fly. They also get the ability to build factories that can increase production 50% in every city, so there's that. To balance all this out, they don't get mages OR religious units (instead they get "adeptuses" stolen from WH40K for all their healing needs)

Scions of Patria: originally in Fall Further (another modmod which I don't think is maintained any more). Undead Romans. Has lots of interesting quirks, such as fallow cities (they ignore food, just like the infernals) that grow thanks to how well you worship the elder gods. Really, there's a percentage chance of spawning new settlers (which are used to add pop points) based on how well you dig up artifacts and the like. Plus you get an insane immortal mage that randomly flips out and kills people (including your own).

Tlacatl: also originally in Fall Further (there they were 2 civs, good and evil - here it's merged into one, and you can select good or evil leaders). Aztec lizard people that love jungles and make more.

Dao and Palatinate: two civs that just got added this past month so I don't have much experience with them. Dao are an Asian civ that autospawn elementals similar to the Sheam and the Palatinate are the Empire from Warhammer.

One thing to remember with this: there will be balance issues. Kael is AWESOME in terms of being gatekeeper for "don't add this cool sounding ability that breaks the game". Modmods for FfH came about because some people wanted the cool sounding abilities anyway. Generally the AI can't play the new civs well at all, for example (I've never seen them do well as Mechanos, probably due to lack of religion). It's a fun sideshow, but vanilla FfH is much more polished.

I still play this game entirely too much so hit me up if you have strategy questions.

[Lum]

Right now the big issue for me is Acheron the Red Dragon, who is sitting in a very big barbarian city surrounded by stacks of almost every remaining civilization in the game, but none of them seem interested in actually attacking him. I tried moving a stack with several heroes, a lot of champions, two trebuchet, some werwolves, the Yvain, treeants, priests and tigers to see if I could take him out. The entire stack barely scratched him.

Acheron got a HUGE buff in the past few patches - now his city spawns cultists that cast fireballs at attacking stacks. It was put in to prevent people from using cheesy exploits to kill him, but also makes him effectively unkillable (which is why the AI is avoiding it, they know they have no chance). Your best bet if you HAVE to take him out is to get in stacks of assassins to kill all the mages, and then follow it up with dozens of suicide cannons to soften the dragon up before your level 15 hero maybe has a 50% chance of killing him.

Or you just avoid him, which is what I've been doing every game.

Edit: oh wait, Yvain? Treants? Trebs? Are you playing as Elohim FoL or something? Normally you'll have either druids OR siege.

Unless you have a hero with maxed out combat and drill scores, you have no chance whatsoever. (Maxed out drill = up to 4 free attacks, which hopefully will finish him off before he eats you. Maxed out drill is critical for heroes in general, the free attacks makes them survivable when the AI throws 50 units at you.) If you do, build a LOT of trebs, and suicide about 20 of them at once to soften them up.

[Lum]

Also, my FfH screenshot is a lot more  then Tom Chick's "Gandalf wants beer" shot:

[Sky]

I'm definitely going to check out the modmod, I was bummed Fall Further got abandoned before I had a chance to get to it. Also, maybe the best FFH2 screenshot I've ever seen. HYBOREM WANT BANANA!

Another thing I figured out a little too late in my Clan of Embers game...those goblin forts? You can buy units from them. I was buying up some chariots when the barbarians broke away from our peace treaty. So many cool touches to this mod.

[Lum]

The modmod handles goblin forts differently (at least for non-Clan players  - not sure if they handle them the same way for Clanners) - there's already a system of forts extending culture similar to vanilla Civ4, and when you take a goblin fort, you can raze it for cash, take it over as your own fort, or just enslave all the goblins.

I'm currently playing a fairly epic Orbus game as the Sidar, because I never play as them. Took over a fairly large chunk of the world unmolested and made a green haven of FoLeaves worshippers, then ran into the Doviello over the mountains to the north and Hyborem shitting up a big chunk of world to the east. Well, unlike vanilla FFH, in Orbis recon units can cross mountain ranges. So the Doviello snaked some barb cities I had my eye on in my 'quadrant', we declared war, and started duelling with rangers in each other's rear areas.

Meanwhile, Garrim Gym the Luchiurp, who surprisingly enough is not only not sucking but actually is in the lead, summons Basium and immediately declares war on Hyborem and his patron, the Balseraphs (who are #3 - I'm #2). The rest of the world then all jumps in on the war and starts sending expeditionary forces to get in Hyborem's business. It's actually pretty damned epic.

And... Hyborem is the only thing between me and a straight shot into the Doviello. Guess who's entering the war!

[Sky]

Oh, shit. In my rush to get my mana nodes set up for free promotions, I forgot my favorite thing about death mana....spectres get death affinity. Set up four death nodes and not only do you get all the death promotions free, but your summoned spectres are str 3 + X death, where X = amount of death mana nodes. So str 7 summoned units, take a couple summoner promotions with the xp you saved from the free promotions, and....yeah, I remember why I liked that strategy before. Also, double your mage power with archmages + liches. Yeah. Gotta get on that one tonight, I'm just about ready to start building my mages.

[Tebonas]

Since you talked about it I decided to give Orbis another try (my old computer was too slow for it, at the beginning after each turn I waited about 5 seconds) and finally it is playable. Gotta sink my teeth into it this weekend. First to find out whats different about it in detail.

[Sky]

Hitting the end of my consolidation and upgrade phase, starting to put together my armies. Gosam and his buddies have been getting real demandy for tribute and all good civs are now annoyed, even though I've tried to keep them somewhat happy. So far two of the evil civs have come running to me for vassalization, I accepted Doviello since they're basically in my borders now, but the Illians are surrounded by the good civs...sorry, Auric. You're on your own, pal.

Doing a secondary expansion phase with my new navy so I could get the last two mana nodes I want (for 4 death and fire) and stumbled across the only mithril node in the world just shy of Os-Gabella's conquest push (it was a rough game for the dwarves, who are now extinct). So I quickly diverted one of my colonization queen of the lines to nab that island at the end of what is now her archipelago.

I'm about 11 turns from getting the Nexus, finally. Not used to playing a civ that's not research-heavy, hopefully one of those twinkle-toed mofos doesn't snag it on me the way they did the Catacomb Libralus.