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

[Paelos]

If Calabim end up next to me, I just restart now. I have no idea how to stop them.

[Sky]

Bals and Calabim got tired of my shenanigans and they made nice with each other and attacked me...when I rushed my troops to the border, Auric decided to invade my southern flank. Calabim had a sick army of summoners and Auric had been sitting back pumping out weenie units for years. Someone somewhere was keeping the AC too low for me to get much through my planar gates, and I had just started my future lich army (meaning I had a couple of crappy low level death adepts). I got totally smashed. 

I hate me some Calabim. Should try to play them next!

[Typhon]

Their tech develops slowly due to the lack of elder council.  I believe that the game cheats a bit to make them competitive.  When you get the bloodsuckers rolling, they become very powerful.

[Raguel]

It's been awhile since I've played Civ/FFH, so I'm still playing at the default difficulty (chieftain?). I'm not sure why playing as Malakim is so much easier than Capria/Bannor. I guess because I'm too passive/aggressive.


I don't know why, but I never had too much difficulty before with the Calabim. My main threats (I usually play as Bannor or Malakim) have usually been: Viconia, Hippus, and the Evil Clowns Whose Names Escape Me At the Moment :p. As I say that, I can't think of a time when the Calabim came after me with vamps. At most I had to kill the hero over and over again.

[lac]

the Evil Clowns Whose Names Escape Me At the Moment

That would be the Balseraphs.

Their hero Loki is incredibly powerful in the early game. Leave a cheap unit/captured animal as a scout at your neighbours border to keep an eye out for settlers. Once you spot one, send in the clown and flip the new city. Leaving your neighbours pinned down in their capital surrounded by their former colonies now under your control.

Mimics (swordsmen, I think) steal promotions from defeated units. It's not uncommon for a high level mimic to have so much promotions (20+) you can't see his stats anymore. If you fight spellcasters your mimics will  be able to cast the stolen spells.
I usually use cheap warrior units in the arena until they survive 3 or 4 times and then upgrade them to mimics. Once the promotions start rolling in a stack of these mime playing, sword wielding, spellunking irritants becomes nigh unstoppable.

[Sky]

Never really paid attention to what difficulty level I played on before, I've been on cheftain   I usually play for more of a simciv empire building thing, but I've become more comfortable with FFH2 (at least with about a third of the civs, heh). Seeing as I was talking about a new Calabim game (my first!), I decided to start that game at Warlord.

Thus far the main difference for me has been the barbarian spawn. There are waaay more barbarians pouring out of the lairs, every five turns or so. Luckily, I knew there would be some more (but not that many!), so I'd beefed up on bloodpets (warriors). Having a scout retreat to my second town before the palisade was up saved it, two warriors got killed by the constant two-punch of skeletons and lizardmen; two skeleton spawns and a lizard spawn right outside its borders, no units tough enough to clean them out.

Same situation on the other side with my capital, a few skeletons and a lizardman every five turns or so. And then I find a barbarian town about eight tiles away. And then Archeron decides it would make a nice cozy place to hang out. Again, no units tough enough to clean it up before he moves in. So...now I'm also dealing with four orc spearmen every now and again, too.

Pushed for my vampires, though. They're not /too/ deep in the tech chain and after grabbing Agriculture right off the bat, I was set up for a Agristocracy. Combine that with Flauros' financial trait, and we're supporting all those bloodpets, able to expand decently and still 100% research. Got my first vampire, quickly ate some population and set out to clean up all these damned barbarian spawns. Within a couple turns I already have a str5 unit with regeneration, haste and death 2. Slowed my start, I know of about half of the dozen civs on the map, and I'm second-to-last...but that's about to change pretty quick.

Not sure which religion to go with, though. Don't like AV, and all the others except Order and maybe Esus have been founded. Maybe Esus? Or Order could be funny, Good Vampires!

[Typhon]

Since you rushed to vampires you don't need religion, it's a distraction to you at this point, especially since you have Flauros (you don't need the econ benefit from having the religion founding city).

That said, if you play them again I find that the forest religion or the cthulhu religion have nice synergies with the vampires.

[Sky]

Since you rushed to vampires you don't need religion, it's a distraction to you at this point, especially since you have Flauros (you don't need the econ benefit from having the religion founding city).

That was my thinking. I was just considering priest units, but since Vamps have regen...

I have two religions sprouted in my empire already, I've declined to make either my state, having no state religion thus far. My main decision factor was having Governor's Manors and not wanting the happy face. MORE SAD FACES! Bleed and cry, peasants.

[MrHat]

Dammit guys.

/loading Wildmana.

[rk47]

Having Ashen Veil / Deep is good research booster that you wouldn't want to waste though.

[Lum]

Order is actually a good synergy for Calabim. You can bite the Order knight hero (the name escapes me) and turn him into a vampire, and you get basilcas which help a lot in keeping your teeming cities rolling.


Really though - just research up to vampire lords, then you are (literally) unkillable.

[Merusk]

Vampire Lords + Nexus

In my sole Calabim game I just called it a win at that point and started a new one.

[Sky]

I'd say Nexus is one of the only things I don't like about FFH2, it's just way too overpowered. Pretty much any game you build the nexus is over at that point unless you really fuck up.

[Sky]

Wow, the rush to vampire and early barbarian onslaught really stunted my start. Then Khazad did some culture bomb on my border and took about three or four tiles width of the border from me. Bastard! My only option is to settler rush the jungle and hope to nab up a few more towns from the elves and tech asap to vampire lords. Khazad (or course) already has some seriously badass iron axemen that might actually lay a hurt on my three vamps, he's obviously working the metal techs.

Right now it's balancing a settler rush vs making some workers to improve my farmlands to boost populations for vamp food vs making combat units to survive long enough to get vamp lords. Meanwhile my cities are under-improved because they've been making so many units they haven't had time to build many beneficial buildings. Also low on workers due to the early barbarian infestation - I barely made it through the first 100 turns with all my cities intact mostly pumping out bloodpets. Whew.

Still, barring a serious attack from Khazad I should be able to turn it around once I have enough army to go on full offensive....Warlord is a lot more stressful than Chieftain was, but also a lot more fun. Every couple turns it's like "NOW what?" as some new threat turns up. Seems like a good balance of more difficulty vs not having to use game cheese to win. I don't mind a challenge but I hate metagaming and game cheese.

[Typhon]

I don't mind a challenge but I hate metagaming and game cheese.

This is me as well.  My experience is that the Prince level was as high as I could go without going, "what?! NO FUCKING WAY YOU LEGITIMATELY GOT THAT YOU COCKSUCKER!!!".  At that point the game stops being fun for me.

As Calabim, you definitely don't want to skimp too much on workers or the basic city improvements (granary, breeding pool and smokehouse) because you need your cities to grow quickly to feed your vamps.  (I think you realize this, but I like to watch myself type).

Paelos, I do the same thing with Calabim that I do with Belseraph if they start next to me - build 9 or 10 warrior-class units and go on the offensive (and hope they aren't doing the same thing and hope I don't get screwed by the RNG).  Unless you have a really good starting position (and they have a bad starting position), I find that it's really hard to SimEmpire them into the ground.

[Sky]

I also made the mistake of trying to consolidate my position on two fronts by expanding both ways, Khazad is on a dead-end. I should've expanded into the jungle and let Khazad build up his towns for me to take over :) But if I lose, it's from what you mention Typhon, the workers. Not being able to keep my workers alive for more than basic roads and a few resources, as well as not having archery to chop down forests...that put a hurt on my city sizes. I'm trying to bridge that gap in vamp power by cleaning up the barbarians. These next 50 turns will pretty much decide whether I survive, thrive, or get utterly crushed.

And all that isn't addressing Archeron who is about a dozen tiles from my capital. :)

[Sky]

Khazad culturally stole two of my cities, dammit. One didn't hurt much, since it was a barbarian city I had just taken. The other one I Feasted down to 2 pop, but it still hurts a bit to lose it when I had only a handful of cities. Didn't help that we were under goddamned Stasis, so I was unable to counter whatever culture bomb he was using.

Understanding a bit more about the vamps, I think I might reroll on the same map and try a different strategy, rush farms and mining (for cutting down forests), maybe construction to extend farms...THEN rush the vamps.

[Typhon]

It's a balancing act.  You definitely need to tailor your actions based upon your starting location with the Calabim, as they are 'weak' early on unless you're dealt a nice starting area.

I've had luck with your suggested strategy, but I find that you have temper that based upon those around you.  Sometimes the starting conditions just dictate that you have to churn out a dozen warriors and stomp on someone early and then build up infrastructure and THEN push for vamps.

When that is the case, it may be necessary to tech up a religion. THAT being the case, the easiest religions to tech up that you'll have synergies with are forests and cthulhu (the others have more steps in between and earth mother doesn't really have synergies).

All that babble I just wrote is yet another reason why I think this game is so great - at higher difficulty levels you can't just say, "I'll do X, Y and Z".  You often (especially with higher difficulty) need to say, "can I do X, Y and Z?  Hmm, Balseraph, no, I need to do Y, W, X and then Z".   There are some races were that is less important, but they play so differently that it's not a big deal.

[Teleku]

Man, I love this game, but I've always played it on either the hardest difficulty or second hardest (the absolute sea of barbarians generated at the highest difficulty can get a bit aggravating).  Anything down lower is just to easy once your good at the game.  Theres just more re-playability for me when I'm struggling to keep up with the PC civs.

[lac]

Turn 485. My army is parked next to the Ljosalfar capital. My Chalid Astrakein has aoe'd the entire stack of defenders into pulp. All defending units are still alive but they have very little strength left. I can't see how many defenders there are, the stack is too big but it's mostly tigers and priests of the leaves.

I finish my turn and go afk.

30 minutes later I return to my screen only to find the Ljosalfar are still attacking my army. A Stygian Guard is patiently slaughtering 12 tigers a minute (I hadn't put fast combat on). About ten minutes later all tigers are dead and the Priest of Leaves start attacking. They've been doing that for about 20 minutes now. As far as I can tell I haven't lost a single unit yet in this battle that has lasted over an hour by now. The AI has at least lost 800 units but just keeps throwing in more.

I think I'll just keep this running during the weekend.

[Sky]

I did end up restarting, grabbing agriculture and mining (for forest chopping) early then rushing vamps, then grabbing construction to extend farms. That seems to have given me a solid start, but I'm still in last place in the known civ list (about half known). About to push out my first vamps in the new game, finally. Had stasis cast again, the dragon again picked the town right by my capital (must be decided on map generation - and five bloodpets couldn't take out the two archers guarding the town), but this time I also had Mokka and friends spawn right on my doorstep. I was barely able to hold my newest city against Mokka (str8) by just spamming bloodpets in there until I won by freak RNG roll. Luckily the barbarian spawn was WAY down from the first game, that was ridiculous.

Still a fairly tough start, but I'm in much better position by getting my cities a bit bigger earlier and extending east instead of west. Next turn my first vamp rolls off the line, so I think I'll pop my world spell to boost their initial Feast bonus so I can get to a'conquestin' sooner. Nothing but basic warrior units for the first 150 turns or so is pretty brutal, I can skate on defense but there's almost no offense.

[Raguel]

I forgot how easy mode elves + FoL was. I damn near fainted when Decius/Calabim made Chalid, but then about 5 turns later he switched to another religion.  

[Lum]

Elves/FoL is only easymode if you have no wars in the early game. Late game you can have druids + Yvain carry you through, but they have very, very little offensive punch early on.

[Sky]

Not sure which religion to go with, though.

An interesting post on the topic, with some maths:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=356181

[Merusk]

Elves/FoL is only easymode if you have no wars in the early game. Late game you can have druids + Yvain carry you through, but they have very, very little offensive punch early on.

I always rush Archery + Longbows, then build nothing but defensive units.  There's nothing that can take a well-fortified Archer behind a palisade out for a long time.  Particularly in Orbis where you get the ranged strike before they can attack on their next turn.  Who gives a damn about offense early game.

[Khaldun]

There are a few early game situations where offense is enough to smack down enemies before they can go full archer, though: barbarian conversions or getting Larry, Curly and Moe and promoting them, for example.

[Raguel]

Do you guys save/reload when popping dungeons? I think the game would be more interesting/difficult if I didn't reload often, but the rewards of clearing barbs are too great and the punishment for getting a bad roll are too large for me to seriously contemplate playing straight up.  

edit: I finally dl'd Orbis . consider yourselves e-slapped for not letting me know about this sooner.

[Merusk]

Depends.  If my level 4-5+ unit pops a "powerful enemy" that wipes it out the next AI turn because of the stupidly powerful beast units in Orbis, I will.  If it was a no or low-level unit I just roll with it.

[Sky]

Usually only when it teleports my unit to a bad location. Most teleports I try to deal with, but teleporting my hero unit into the arctic before I have ocean-going vessels sucks. I like the barbarian pops, troop training!

[Raguel]

Is there a way to set Priests of the leaves to auto-Bloom tiles?

Is there a Oribis manual? I thought the "everything has been changed" warning was an exaggeration.  (well, it is, but still: )

edit: wrt barbs and troop training, I don't mind skels and orcs, but I've lost a couple of cities to lizardmen on bad rolls, so I pop them ASAP if I can.

2nd edit: I like the concept of Orbis, but the AI appears to be seriously lacking.  I'm at turn 300 or so and the other civs on my continent only have their cap cities.

[Lum]

Is there a way to set Priests of the leaves to auto-Bloom tiles?

Is there a Oribis manual? I thought the "everything has been changed" warning was an exaggeration.  (well, it is, but still: )

edit: wrt barbs and troop training, I don't mind skels and orcs, but I've lost a couple of cities to lizardmen on bad rolls, so I pop them ASAP if I can.

2nd edit: I like the concept of Orbis, but the AI appears to be seriously lacking.  I'm at turn 300 or so and the other civs on my continent only have their cap cities.

Pick up Wild Mana - mod similar to Orbis, but has much better AI and auto casting.

[koro]

I have FFH sitting on my hard drive uninstalled. I am essentially a total novice at Civ: I know the basics, and even some of the intermediate stuff, but actually being good at it eludes me.

Should I even bother attempting FFH? I read the big manual for it and looked a bit of stuff over for it; it seems really interesting, but is it a mod that's more for people who are already good at Civ looking for something different, or does it have something to offer the noob as well?

[Typhon]

Play on the easiest level.  Expect to play ten games before you start going, "Ah ha! That's why they said each race plays differently".  Since each game lasts many hours (unless you get stomped), we're talking that much of an investment of time.

When teching up use the overview to get an idea how the trees are connected.  Use the encyclopedia to look stuff up.  Try to figure out what your races' unique units are and tech up those.  If your race can get a religion, in most cases racing for a religion is worth it.

[Kail]

Play on the easiest level.  Expect to play ten games before you start going, "Ah ha! That's why they said each race plays differently".  Since each game lasts many hours (unless you get stomped), we're talking that much of an investment of time.

To be fair, I think that's part of the fun.  It's not like you must play for 50 hours before you can do anything fun, it's just that once you attack the Ljosalfar and they suddenly pull a hundred Tigers out of their asses you can deal with it on easy difficulty and it becomes a reasonable challenge to overcome.  And you know to watch for that when you bump into them again on Noble.

I don't know that being masterful at Civ is really necessary to enjoy the game, beyond knowing the mechanics behind settlers and culture and so on, which you can pick up from FfH about as easily as you can from vanilla Civ. I agree that it's more complicated than base Civ (the magic system especially) but I would say it's definitely still worth playing.

[Typhon]

Play on the easiest level.  Expect to play ten games before you start going, "Ah ha! That's why they said each race plays differently".  Since each game lasts many hours (unless you get stomped), we're talking that much of an investment of time.

To be fair, I think that's part of the fun.  It's not like you must play for 50 hours before you can do anything fun, it's just that once you attack the Ljosalfar and they suddenly pull a hundred Tigers out of their asses you can deal with it on easy difficulty and it becomes a reasonable challenge to overcome.  And you know to watch for that when you bump into them again on Noble.

I don't know that being masterful at Civ is really necessary to enjoy the game, beyond knowing the mechanics behind settlers and culture and so on, which you can pick up from FfH about as easily as you can from vanilla Civ. I agree that it's more complicated than base Civ (the magic system especially) but I would say it's definitely still worth playing.

I would as well.

Recently someone posted in this thread, "I don't get it!  This game isn't special at all!  Y'all are morons!"  (ok, not exactly like that).  I felt like they played it two or three times (maybe once), probably not being a fan of strategy games to begin with, and decided that FFH2 wasn't all that.  My point above was this - if you want to figure out why this special cocktail is so delicious, you're going to have to put some time into to get the nuance of how all the pieces come together.  A game or two won't do that for you.