FFH2 Adventure 2 - DerWille' Song of Ice and Fire

[DerWille]

A Song of Ice and Fire

This is my first realms beyond challenge. I'm not sure if I did this write up correctly either. Anyways, I vastly prefer Fall from Heaven 2 to regular Civilization 4 so when I saw this, I had to try it out. I've been playing it again recently and I've worked my way up to Monarch so this scenario on Immortal is going to be difficult.

[strike]Also, before I begin, I should mention that I use one extra mod for Fall from Heaven 2, the better Naval AI mod. It does change a few details (mainly related to sailing) and vastly improved the AI's ability to wage war, run their economies, and choose their religions.[/strike] It wouldn't work unless I got rid of the mod.

I'm going to try and play 20 turns at a time and then ask for people's opinions. I might play once to twice a day.

Victory conditions:

I'm going to be aiming for the Red and Black stars, hopefully netting a domination or conquest victory. From what I can understand, summoning the Mercurians is going to be suicide since there will be no good aligned armies to get angels from.

In addition to the default rules, I'm adding one more, I cannot use fire mana. This is ice vs fire, if I win using fire, has winter really prevailed?

Objectives:

To go for this domination win, this is what I think I'm going to need:

1. Economy: Cottage.

My initial impression is to use a cottage economy and protect it to the death so I can run Apprenticeship + Conquest to help out my army. However, cottage economies are not very powerful in Fall from Heaven. An astroagarian might work too.


2. Army:

I'm going to be focusing heavily on the magic line. Charismatic will make up for the lack of summoner or arcane with a free Combat I +4 exp, my adepts should be able to put into mages quickly. However, the priests of winter are necessary early game.


3. Wonders: Form of the Titan and Heroic Epic

The only wonder I need to work for is the Form of the Titan. With it in my mage's guild city and my civics I should be starting at +6 exp on all my adepts. Add in charismatic and I'll only need 8 exp to make a mage. I'm not sure if the free Combat I from the Letum Frigus will push me up to level 4 though (it would be awesome if it did).

4. Mana: Death and Life

Illian starts with the perfect for mana for this adventure, Ice, Enchantment, and Law. Every ice spell is good, slow stops stacks of doom in their tracks, ice elements are going to be used in place of specters, and at level 3, we get snowfall that can do up to 80% damage to everything around my stack. Enchantment adds alot to the table, at level 1 we enchanted blade (20% strength to every unit on the tile), flaming arrows adds +1 fire combat (I'm tempted to not use this), and finally it gives spellstaff which I can crack to regain all of my spells again. Finally the law spells aren't that important except for 1, Summon Host of Einherjar. This spell summons Einherjar that have +2 holy combat. These guys will be doing the heavy lifting when it comes time to fight Hyborem.

The two other mana types I'll be focusing on will be Death and Life. The two spells I want out Death is "Summon Skeleton" and the Lich upgrade that will level me have 8 level 3 spell casters in my army. Life's primary use will be to fight off hell terrain and destroy undead. I'm going to bet money that this map has the Sheaim on it and that means nothing but Pyre Zombies.

For anyone reading who doesn't know, Pyre Zombies are probably one of the most overpowered units in the game. They are 4 strength Axeman replacements that do not require a training yard to build. What makes Pyre Zombies so powerful is that every time one is killed, it explodes doing damage to every unit in its adjacent tiles. A handful of Pyre Zombies a destroy large stacks of units, but there are 2 counters.

The first counter is to use Mages with the Life II spell, "Destroy Undead." A few castings of this spell will destroy an entire stack of Pyre Zombies without their explosion. The problem is that getting this spell requires a higher tier unit and a fair amount of time. The second counter and much easier to do is to use horsemen. Have your stack stand 1 tile away and have them fight one by one. When a Pyre Zombie explodes, it only damages the single horseman. You can them send them back to their original stack and bring out a fresh one.

---

Turn 1



Thankfully we start with copper in the capital's BFC. I'm also noticing furs, deer, and lots of hills. I'm thinking that an early conversion to God King to start pumping out units is going to be a great idea.

I'm thinking my initial plan is going to be researching Bronze Working ASAP. 4 strength warriors are far more efficient than Axemen and make great early game defenders. But I'm also thinking about building an elder council first and running a sage specialist to help boost research and use the Great Sage to either build an academy or light bulb Knowledge of the Ether so I can spend my time researching the economic techs I need.

I also noticed that we start out with alot of civics options, I immediately switch to God King, Apprenticeship, and Agarianism. I chose God King over Aristocracy because I'm going to need to produce a lot initially and I don't have any farms set up.



Also when I took a look at the city screen, I noticed not only do I have a happy of 9 but I have ancient forests in my lands too. That'll be useful for now, but I'll probably end up ripping them up later on for something more useful.

Also we start out knowing where the Infernal capital is and he apparently has an Entropy mana node set up from the get go. He also has copper right next to it as well, but that's not an issue because the Infernal palace starts with Iron I believe.

I also pop a supply wagon for a hunting lodge for the +1 happy and +1 health for the fur and deers. I send the other to go get my aggressive upgrade and two javelin throwers out to scout.



Turn 2

I get the Aggressive upgrade from the Letum Frigus with my extra supply wagon.

Turn 3

I forgot to take a screen shot, but I got a message telling me about power rating. Apparently I'm in the middle of the pack of 6 civs.

Turn 4

Goody hut pop! We get Animal Handling.



Turn 7

More scouting and I destroy a bear den! From the looks of the surroundings, barbarians are going to be a huge problem.

Turn 8

Hostile villagers pop from a southern goody hut. Hope my unit survives.

Turn 9

Nope, he didn't make it, but look what my other Javelin Thrower found Sheaim borders. I knew they would be here, I knew it! Ugh, they start one tech away from Pyre Zombies too. I was hoping they would be farther away.



Turn 10

Elder Council completes, a warrior. I'm going to expand west first. I'll need a few units to take out that bear den.

Turn 11

Wait? Why did I declare war when I came into contact with the Sheaim? Oh ****, I forgot the always war option. Well, might as well cause some havoc.

Turn 12

First warrior completes and I make more. I think I'll build up 4 then go after that bear den. Here's a look at the city, God King is really doing it's job. You'll notice I made a mistake in improving the furs first when I really should have gone after the deer.



Turn 14

Warrior done, make more. 2 warriors and my starting settler head westward. Meanwhile my Javelin thrower makes his way to the Sheaim capital. Here's what they got:



PYRE ZOMBIE!!! But wait, he can't move. While it looks like they start with copper and a Pyre Zombie, I don't think they have bronze working just yet. I plan on pillaging their improvements with this guy and trying my best to slow them down. Hopefully that can buy me enough time to beat them.

Turn 15

I somehow declare war on Flouros. I think I saw his scout. Warrior complete, start another.

Turn 17

Pillage the copper, warrior finishes, start another then queue up a market because I'm bleeding money.

Turn 18

Warrior finishes and ROSIER THE FALLEN HAS BEEN CREATED!? That is so not fair. In retaliation, I pillage her cows.

I found Lakis as well and have it start on a monument immediately.

Turn 20

I just noticed that I've messed up the turns, but I'm back on track. An event pops up and I'm going to take the temporary unhappy penalty. Later on that +2 health is going to be vital for my cities later on. Often times in FFH2 cities are limited by health and not happiness.



I took and I got the +2 health and no population hit! Score!

Turn 21

I destroyed the bear den and moved south to where I was going to build my new city, but it looks like a barbarian one popped up in the exact spot.



Turn 24

Someone got a great sage and I discovered the barbarian city was 1SW of where I wanted my city at. It's guarded by 2 archers, it'll be awhile before I can take it.

Turn 25

Garduk grows to size 7 and happiness cap. I start a settler and switch the new citizen to be sage. This costs only a single turn on the settler but nets me 4 turns on bronze working.

After reading some of the FFH2 PBEM 1 threads, I've decided to go for Philosophy next in order to get the Priests of the Hand, which are basically miniature hero units that will make up the back bone of my army.

Turn 27

Found yet another barbarian city.



Turn 28

An event!



And yet another barbarian city! Grrr, looks like my first war won't be with the Sheaim, but the barbarians that have me boxed in.

Speaking of which, my Javelin Thrower is dancing around their BFC pillaging improvements. I have 5 AI to kill and this one is the most annoying. I want her gimped.

Turn 29

Settler finishes, start a warrior. I continue pillaging improvements around a Sheaim city, but discover another across the lake.

Turn 31

Settler is off, more warriors.

Turn 32

Tolero settled. It starts a monument. After this warrior, I'll have Garduk start a worker to help out the other cities.

Turn 35

Monument in Lakis finishes, I start an Elder Council. I need to get as much research going as possible.

Turn 37

I've discovered Flouros is directly south of me and met Hyborem. I still have a Javelin Thrower running around destroying improvements, but they can rebuild them as fast as I blow them up. It's setting me up with a decent pillage economy. I use it to run deficit research.

Turn 40

I have 4 workers and 3 cities now. 2 of them are heading to Lakis the other 2 to Tolero. Capital started a carnival but afterward, more warriors for fog busting and anti-barbarian distractions.

My Empire:



Rivals and Southern Expanse



After I scout around in the fog a bit with the southern warrior, I'm going to have him pillage around to see if I can keep the deficit research going.

In other news, I have yet to find another mana node anywhere on the map. This worries me. I might have to scrap my plan for Death and Life mana and be forced to pick 1. If I have to, it's life. Hell terrain will destroy my icy economy. I can use Ice spells to serve as my suicide damage stacks.

Turn 41

Truffles!



Turn 42

Carnival finishes and I begin a Training Yard in my capital. With nationhood this is +1 happy faces and I can start to mass produce Axemen to capture, no RAZE, barbarian cities with.

Turn 43

I discover a Calabim city surrounded by flood plains and a huge stack of hunters with a great prophet, but... before I could start to pillage, my poor warrior was killed.

Turn 45

Elder Council in Lakis finishes and I start another sage specialist. It then begins to produce warriors. It's not really a production center so I'm going to have it make warriors for a basic defense.

Turn 46

Training Yard finishes right as Philosophy does. I immediately start the White Hand. Speaking of rituals, I don't plan on building the Samhain. It feels like a waste of time.

In other news, I got my first Great Sage. It's hard, but I think I'll pass on the lightbulb for now and grab the academy. I'm just not seeing the mana anywhere near by besides I need Conquest and Form of the Titan next.

And I begin researching Warfare.

Thinking about it, I'll get a great academy instead. Here's my beakers in my towns before:



And after:



A nice increase and it cuts off 2 turns on Warfare.

By the way, my Javelin Thrower is still pillaging around Sheaim. I think he might be the MVP of this game.

Turn 47

Monument finishes in Tolero and I begin an Elder Council. A scout also entered my borders. He has chosen unwisely.

Turn 49

I discover Jonas, an orc with a bad attitude and way too much aggression. In addition it looks like hell terrain has come to this Sheaim city. That's not good.

Turn 51

My MVP Javelin Thrower is being chased by a Calabim Bear! This might be the last pillage for him.

Turn 52

The bear go away! I discover Warfare and revolt to Conquest. I still don't see any mana nodes so I want hold off on adepts for now. The priests of the white hand will be filling that role for now.

I'm kind of split on what I should. Horseback Riding is great for the mobility promotion.

Turn 58

Priests of the White Hand complete. I get 3 7 strength priests. Awesome.

Turn 60

Writing finishes and my High Priests are learning Ice II, summon Ice Elemental. Awesome. My new objective is to expand southward toward Flauros' floodplains. I'll remove any barbarian cities I see and replace them with good Illian ones.

I'm starting to bleed money and not even my MVP Javelin Thrower can keep filling the coffers fast enough. I decide to go to Currency for the extra trade routes and Consumption. Also when I switch over, I'll also go over to City States instead of God King. My cities aren't far away but they already have a fair amount of cost on them.

Turn 61

I pop my second supplies in the capital for a free library. I switch another citizen to a sage losing a turn on the next settler but gaining 2 turns on currency.

Unfortunately there's a hell hound running around nearby. I need to get rid of that.

Turn 62

Southern expedition is ready. Here's the plan.



The Sheaim city worthless unless I can convert all of that to snow. I want to expand again immediately to my south and then to grab the gold city at the bottom City Here sign. I'll be destroying barbarian cities to keep funding my research.

Turn 65

I destroy the first town and continue forward to destroy the goblin camp that's nearby.

Turn 68

I destroyed the goblins on the fort without a problem, but when I went to explore it 3 scorpions popped out! Go! Go! Ice Elementals! They clean up the scorpions without a problem. I'm going to continue heading south and get rid of Flauros.

I also found my 4th city near where the barbarian city was.

Turn 69

No!!! My MVP Javelin Thrower was slain! He served his wintry cousins well.

Turn 72

First Stack of Doom incoming. I quickly change production in Tolero make another warrior and send up the warriors and axemen I had clearing out island city back to Tolero. I should be able to get there in time to have at least a decent stack for defense. It doesn't stop my plans of getting that gold city.

I'm still sending my priests to the south to take out Flauros. My plan is to expand from top to bottom and then work my way westward. Right now I'm concerned with as saving as much terrain as impossible from hell and hopefully find a mana node so I can make some Life I adepts to push back the hell terrain.

Worse comes to worse I may just have to rush buy temples of the hand in all cities I capture or build.

Right now as an overview, I'm thinking that I need to start choosing my tech paths. While I wanted to head heavy down the magic path (and still may), I don't think this game is going to give it to me. As a back up plan I may go down the metal and religion lines for the hero, iron weapons, High Priests of Winter, and Drifta the White Dragon (I'll easily knock off a civ or two meet the ritual requirements).

Afterward, when I have a more developed empire and possibly +6~8 exp Adepts that can be converted to Mages ASAP, I'll use Einherjar spam to fight off Hyborem. Also later, but when I secure the horses site, I can potentially pick up the cavalry techs as well, but first, my economy needs help and I need to expand.

Lastly, if the game goes late enough, I might be able to pull off an Auric Ascended.

Anyways since I'm stopping here for the night, here's a look at demographics.



I'm doing alot better than I imagined. So far in my head it's felt like a struggle to stay in the black and to develop a quick tech and production pace. I'm coming in at #2 on most of the important demographics except GNP where I'm 5th and and military where I'm 6th. Those are bad, but I think I'm alright.

I completely outclass every neighboring civ in food and have a slight manufacturing lead otherwise. Thankfully though, I can convert this food advantage into a hammers advantage through the Conquest civic. I'm pretty confident I can take out Flauros. take the entire eastern side of the map and push westward at my own pace.

One last thing, I've noticed I'm behind Hyborem by 120 points and his advantages are pretty huge, but that's ignoring how much we've improved. When I first met him, he was around 712 points and his 985 puts him at 273 points gained in this turn set. In contrast I met him at 470 and am now 867, a gain of 397. I'm catching up on his huge lead and that's going to sky rocket once I switch to City States/Consumption/Apprenticeship/Conquest.

Turn 73

After waking up my head is a bit clearer. After currency I'll go for Military Strategy and Horseback Riding. Hopefully I can Form of the Titan + Heroic Epic in my capital and have it turn out as many Mobility I promoted units that I can. But it's not going to be easy. I've got 2 SoD I have to worry about.

The first one was in the previous post, but as I was heading toward the Calabim Nubia, I discovered a new one:



Turn 74

And the second SoD retreated! Alright onward to Nubia!



I'm sure I can throw enough Ice Elementals at that to take it without many problems.

Also this turn you'll noticed currency finishes so I switched to City States and Consumption. Hopefully that'll help my economy out a bit.

Turn 75

Wait, what? Why can't Ice Elementals attack cities like every other Elemental in this game? Oh shit, they can't enter desert tiles. That is a really lame restriction, well screw Nubia, we're off to somewhere else.

Turn 77

The Lizardman stack attacks my city and fails to take anything. After losing a bunch of troops, they retreat.

Turn 79

Dammit! I lost 2 of my high priests of winter and its defending stack. Hopefully I can limp out in time.

Turn 80

And the priest falls. Alright, so I'm back to square one here. I'll complete the Pact of Nilhorn for bombardment then play a defensive war till I tech up to Mages.

Turn 82

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.... THERE'S 2 SHEAIM!? **** my life.

Turn 83

I'm the first to Military Strategy so I build the command post for +6 exp in my capital. Just need the Form of the Titan for the last +2.

Turn 89

Not much happens for now. I finish horseback riding and found another city at the gold site. I'm having to deal with alot more AI units, but it's manageable. A particularly favorite is Diseased Corpses that have 8 strength! Thankfully my Axemen have 62% odds against them because of all the experience they're gaining.

Turn 95

Pact of Nilhorn finishes and I start the heroic epic in my capital. Afterward a Mage guild to begin mass producing adepts.

Also, Flouros sent me a present.



I wish he would give it to someone else.

Turn 97

Dumb AI



His stack of diseased corpses trembled in fear of my 2 defending warriors and fled the scene! Honestly, I shouldn't be complaining, but there's no reason for that.

Turn 102

The AI is happy to dance around my city borders while the barbarians will charge head first. This is a bit ridiculous, but it's letting me inch ahead. I found another city on the lake for corn/wine/horses and start to thin out the lizard man stacks that like to buzz around me. I need to get a level 6 unit for that Form of the Titan.

In demographics news, it's much the same, except that I've pulled ahead in score, population, and food yield with my 2nd place manufacturing pulling ahead of my average rival. Somehow it doesn't seem like it's worth much when I see 20 unit stacks of doom dancing around my borders.

Also I've begun beelining Sorcery. Hopefully I can get mages and Law II summons to fight off the hordes of Diseased Corpses.

Turn 106

Another Great Sage is born and I was hoping to use him to light bulb sorcery but it's stuck at Alternation still. I decide to settle him so that the library + academy in the capital can push up his beaker yield to something higher than just settling him again.

Turn 109

The barbarian city near Lakis is captured by the Sheaim! My troops are moving south to hopefully do something about those annoying diseased corpses.



Turn 111

The Calabim finally decide to use that massive stack, but I've got reinforcements to try and take back the city. Will it be enough?

Turn 112

My small stack is attacked by 3 much larger stacks and I lose Larry in the process. I could reclaim my city, but that won't do much of anything except get them kill. I have all my adepts cast slow and then begin to retreat. I need to get mages ASAP to suicide summons against enemy stacks.

Turn 123

Been awhile without an update. Not much has happened besides building troops and killing some barbarians. I was finally able to get an axeman up to level and have immediately started construction of the From of Titan in my capital. In 8 turns I'll have it done and in 2 turns, I'll have Sorcery done.

Once I get Sorcery, I'm converting every single Adept I have into Mages and I'll start to head out. I'll probably take out the Sheaim to my west first and then push south. That hell terrain spooks me.

Turn 124

Sorcery done! Time to mass produce mages. I'm actually running next to no science so I can get these mages up and then I'll push forward with my massive regenerating stack of doom.

Turn 139

A bloody bloody turn. A Lizardman SoD outside of Tolero launched an all out attack against the city, killing the entire garrison (8 units) except for 1 of the 2 Mages. The loss of a Mage hurts, but soon they'll be replaceable Thankfully I held onto Tolero which is my 2nd production city and makes all of the Axemen and Horsemen for my empire.

In the aftermath, there was probably 12 Lizardmen left, but I was able to clean them because my handful of Mages (probably 6) were able to summon Einherjar to take the stupid risks while the rest of my army cleans up. This will be how I fight battles for the most part.

Bombard with Giants -> Einherjar/Ice Elemental Spam -> Move in with main forces

The reason why summons are so powerful in this mod is that they're are walking production centers. Every turn I can summon as many Einherjar/Ice Elementals as I have Mages. If an Einherjar is equal to a Bronze Axeman then my 6 Mages are producing 360 hammers worth of units every single turn that can attack immediately after being built. This equal to having 6 top tier production cities cranking out units.

Anyways, I had Lakis begin making a Great Library for the hell of it. It's not a production city and if it did make more units, it'd would make my unit upkeep go to complete hell. Instead I'll have it work on the Great Library to help speed up my teching. If an AI beats me to it, that's great too. The gold will be used to make more Mages. However if I do complete it, my research rate will speed up a bit and I can let me get a further tech lead on the AI.

If I'm going to win against these constant stacks of doom, I'm going to need to more than just Einherjar spam, but higher level hero tier units. I would love to pull out Drifta for this.

Bunch of Turns I used but Didn't Notice

Mainly getting money to buy Mages

Turn 159

Finally since this turn is where I took a break and then came to the game, let's take a look at my 4 objectives that I laid out earlier.

1. Cottage Economy - Success!

While I am still running a fair amount of specialists, I have 2 cottage cities and 2 production cities, with one of those production cities working some cottages with its spare population. It was pretty hard going at first, but now that I have city maintenance under control and these cottages going, I can make enough gold to turn 3 Adepts into Mages every 2 turns.

2. Magic Based Units - Success!

I'm not sure if I put this off for too long, but in the end I think it was worth it. I messed around in the economy techs trying to get a decent tech rate, but I believe it's working out. I am the most advanced civ and have the highest score.

Despite losing my 3 Priests of Winter, I have recovered nicely. I have about 5 or 6 Mages at the moment with 7 or 8 others waiting to be promoted. In addition, I can make Mages on demand now because of the next objective.

3. Form of the Titan and Heroic Epic - In 3 Turns

Not only did I pull of a Heroic Epic + Form of the Titan city, I actually upped the ante and made it better. My capital has Form of the Titan (+2 exp) + Heroic Epic (100% military production) + Command Post (+2 exp). As it stands now, without a Forge, I can produce 1 to 2 turn Adepts. If I put a Forge in the city I should be able to make an Adept every turn that can be promoted to a Mage instantly with the following promotions:

Combat I
Combat II
Mobility I
Summon Mobility I
Ice I (Free with 2 Ice mana)
Law I

Meanwhile in Tolero I can produce 4 exp Axemen in 2 turns with the following promotions:

Combat I
Mobility I
Shock I

That means I have a very mobile and well promoted only.

4. Mana - Failure!

I can't find a single mana node on the map which honestly is looking like poor taste. Sorry this scenario is great so far, but there's a problem when I can't find a single mana node to combat hell terrain, take a look at this:



Prespur is entirely blocked in by fire. The city can't contribute anything and I can't get to it. If I had Life mana I could sanctify the area and press on.

"But wait!" You might say, "You're suppose to rush them to get their yummy flood plains. This is the cost of not being fast enough!"

That is a fair argument, but Life I destroys flood plains. After I clear the fire that will be nothing but a desert that is entirely uninhabitable. As it stands now, I'm rushing my gold city to keep out the fire.

Demographics

I thought I'd give an update for demographics.



Looking at the demographics, it looks like the hell terrain is hurting the enemies more than it is me. Despite being the tech leader, I'm only average in GNP, but I've got the most people and food which I turn directly into military which is starting to show. I've up from dead last to 4th.

New Objectives:

1. Keep the Armageddon Counter below 30 and 50

The moment the AC gets to 50, I'm screwed. Hell terrain enters my lands and my economy cannot recover from that. I also get hosed if it gets over 30 and the blight strikes. Since I have the most population, I will received the most unhealthiness and subsequently the largest population hit.

2. Get High Priests of Winter

These bad boys will be perfect for softening up stacks of units with their blizzard abilities. I might not be able to train them because I lost my 3 Priests of Winter, we'll see. [Note: Later, I realize that you can only get these guys if you have the Priests of Winter from before alive, opps.]

3. More commerce!

I need more money to keep my expanding military afloat. I need to found more cities and get more cottages up and running. Therefore taxation might be a good detour when my cottages upgrade. This also means beelining my lost town to save it from hell terrain.


Turn 161

The battle for my gold city is going to be tough. I've used Einherjar to soften them up, but the enemies just keep coming.



There are 20 units 1N of the city. 3 inside the city. 1SW has another 10 or 12 and the stack 2W of that stack has another 8. Even with Einherjar spam, I just don't have the output to keep up with this. I retreat my units back to see if I can do some long range Einherjar nukes to keep them down.

I can't afford to lose this army.

Turn 162

Now I can formally say that I completed the Form of the Titan. I'm now beginning to turn out 1 to 2 turn Mages.

Turn 184

I've decided I can't count or keep track of how many actual turns I've used so we're doing it this way. The thingy says turn 184 and that's what turn I'm on.

Anyways I reconquer my city but hell terrain spread through half of its cultural borders. The gold was enveloped, but the river side tiles are fine. I can make this work with alot of farms, but I need to raze Nubia to free up its cultural borders.



Turn 185

Rosier the Fallen enters my lands right next to Tolero who only had a 1 warrior on defense duty! Thankfully he didn't attack, but he has to be dealt with. In the picture I had already used 2 of my recently created mages to attack him with 2 Einherjar. Notice how much damage they did. They reduced him from 10 str to 3.



The reason I've been using Einherjar over Ice Elementals besides not having the goofy restriction on what tiles they can or cannot enter, is that Einherjar have +2 holy combat. This is effective against most of the Ashen Veil based armies I've been fighting.

And soon after, an Axeman finishes off Rosier lowering the AC by 2. Be gone hell terrain.

Meanwhile, Hooplak has a Sheaim hunter stack charging forward. Rosier was a feint! I had rushed over guarding Axemen to defend but didn't notice this hunter stack coming to kill me.



However, the March of Winter cannot be stopped. My Einherjar have routed through the Undead of the Ashen Veil.



Turn 186

Some more hunters pushed up to Tolero again, but the 3 Mages standing around there used their Einherjar to shrink them down a bit.



Turn 187

Nubia falls to the host of the Einherjar, but there is heresy amongst my ranks. Within the quiet hours behind closed doors, some of my secretly pay homage to the Infernal. Their sins will be paid with their souls and they find themselves in the Infernal's service (In reality, as an Evil civ there's a chance my dead units will join the Infernal, even if they have +2 holy combat.)

However the winter is long. They will pay for their crimes.

Turn 188

Apparently my lands are too cold for the Sheaim and they depart while being chased by my Einherjar. It's impossible to destroy Prespur for now so I move on Jonas. I plan to build up Mages to capture the barbarian city south of Hooplak.

I also decide to an about shift from going down the religion line to down the metal line to see if I can find iron. As always I build more Axemen/Mages.

Turn 189

As soon as the Sheaim leave, the Clan of Embers wants to take their own shot. I reinforce Hooplak with 5 mages each of them summoning Einherjar at every opportunity.


Turn 191

I find my next victim.



Turn 192

I raze Renegade Hill to the ground and find a way to Prespur. One thing I noticed is that Einherjar can walk over hell terrain. If I move into that small opening I can send Einherjar to storm the city.

Also looking at this terrain, I have no choice but to go for a Conquest win. This land is worthless. There's no point in trying to build up everything.

Turn 193

I FOUND MANA!



But it's Fire mana and that's terrible. Who needs fireballs when you have the storms of winter? Besides, the world has enough fire, we need to bring it the Life of Winter.

However a single army is no where near fast enough for me. I've built up a second army that is taking the northern routes. Os-Gabella, you're time is up.



Turn 194

Unfortunately after a few tries my Einherjar still can't reach Prespur so I decide to abandon it entirely. Maybe I can find the Tomb of Succelus and be able to make my way over there later.

Braduk the Burning and Sheaim's top city both fall this turn, I raze them to the ground.



In other news, building a temple to the white hand does destroy all nearby hell terrain.



Turn 197

I capture a barbarian city with lots of flood plains, pigs, and copper. It's a good city. I've also sent out a squad to get rid of that barbarian city south of Hooplak.


Turn 199

1 Sheaim city razed. Jonas eliminated. If I get to it this game, I should be able to make Drifta, but right now the battles are mostly a clean up. The hell terrain decimated the AI into nothingness.

Turn 200

Prespur builds that Lyre wonder. How on earth did they manage that!? Their entire country side is nothing but a lake of fire!

In other news, I blew up the other Sheaim's attempts at expanding where Jonas once was.

Turn 201

Hyborem has the bestest culture apparently. Like that matters.



In other news, I thought I would do a demographics shot.



Here's the power divide between myself and Hyborem. I wonder if he's a paper tiger.



And shots of my northern empire



And my southern empire

[img] http://hatchetwrench.squarespace.com/sto...Empire.jpg[/img]

I've started settler spam now that barbarians and the AI are under control. I'm also going to start an aggressive terraforming project that will let me reach Prespur.

Turn 202

Captured a barbarian city to the north and then razed one of Orange Sheaim''s. I need to quickly eliminate some more AI so I can get rid of the war weariness plaguing my cities.

Turn 204

Another purple Sheaim city sacked. Os-Gabella eliminated.

Turn 210

Eliminating the AIs is helping with war weariness alot, but I'm bleeding money. Not sure why though. It may have something to do with the troops outside of border maintenance.

I explore a lair and find... a Disciple of the Leaves. I would love to found a religion, but aren't they disabled?

Turn 212

Orange Sheaim eliminated. That leaves just Hyborem, me, and.... Flouros stuck in his lake of fire.

Turn 213

Raze one of Hyborem's new cities, my library catches fire, and the game is in clean up unless Hyborem surprises me with something.

Turn 215

Cool, the Great Prophet event. It doesn't do too much for me right now, but 80 gold for a Great Prophet is a steal.

[img] http://hatchetwrench.squarespace.com/sto...0Event.jpg [/img]

Also, lookie who I found. I didn't know FfH2 had Diablo in it.



Turn 216

A change of battle plans. Hyborem is walled off by a river of fire, so I'll need to capture those two cities nearby and have them build Temples of the White Hand. If I can do that, I can push past the river of fire and launch my final attack on the Infernal heartland.



Turn 217

Hyborem reveals himself and I immediately counter attack with Einherjar.




Turn 219

I took the two Infernal cities the previous turn and my test at the old Sheaim city where the MVP Javelin Thrower proved successful. I was curious if building a temple of the hand would extend snow past cultural borders. It does.

Turn 220

I revolt to Military State for the unit support and the gold buy rushing for temples. I don't wait around longer than I have to.

[DerWille]

Turn 222

I wasn't paying attention lost alot of units when Hyobrem recaptured a city with a SoD that had about 80 units in it. That hurt, but I can still win. After I rush by a few temples, I'll go back to apprenticeship and replace the Mages I lost.



I'll have the two new cities build temples as soon as they come out of revolt.

Turn 226

Samhain completes because I could do it. I continue the siege. Meanwhile, at Prespur



Turn 228

I get a golden age and the temple of the hand at capture city completes. I'm suddenly wildly in the green. Which is great. however this unlocks the flood gates for Hyborem's army. He sends a stack of 40 or 50 diseased corpses straight at me.

Having completed my objective and got the fire wall down, I can stand to lose the city. I evacuate. I need to regroup and begin mass producing Mages again. I simply do not have enough units to weed through this.

I'll switch back to apprenticeship and begin mass producing adepts in 3 turns when I can revolt back, but in the mean time, I've got more things to deal with.



I'm perfectly fine with the Infernals retaking the city. I've made a path to their heartland, but first I need to deal with their forces. Take a look at this power graph.



The peak of Infernal power is when I was razing city after city of the Ashen Veil in attempting to run down AC. Which has been largely successful, it's somewhere around 5. Furthermore, the large drop of power the razing of some of their new cities. When I razed two cities he quickly added he gained more troops, and then the siege has lead to that casual decline in power. That said, I want to make a prediction with my nonexistent FFH2 demographics espionage:



Hyborem has 100~150 units more than I do.

If I want to be him, I must protect my stack from this stacks. My Einherjar must suicide into his stacks and snowball if I have a chance to beat him. If an Einherjar wins in combat, he gains an extra turn of life. In this process he can gain many promotions, often times being promoted up to Combat V. I cannot lose my remaining stack if I want to win.

I also need more bodies, therefore I'm calling up the Calabim campaign to fight the Infernals. This is going to be much, much harder than I initially anticipated.

Turn 229

That said, I didn't predict the enemy movement right and lost my stack. This frees up my economy but I need to recover quickly. War weariness is going to kill me. (By the way, how the hell do I stop that?)

Turn 231

I figured out my solution. I'll switch to Aristocracy + Nationhood + Apprenticeship + Conquest as soon as the Summer Palace at my flood plains city finishes. This will reduce my maintenance costs significantly. Also a Great Commander spawned. I'm thinking about dropping him on either another Golden Age or a Command Post in another city. We'll see when I come out of this Golden Age.

Turn 234

I rush buy the Summer Palace the turn before and I get this event.



Yes! The Winter will come. The song of ice and fire will continue to play. If I do this right, I can have 3 Golden Ages in a row to rebuild my armies with. I'm changing civics this turn.

Turn 237

So my armies in tatters, I must rebuild a new. Here is the before after a couple of turns.



Note 5 Mages and 4 Champions. I'll launch the second offensive when I have at least 20 mages. I have enough golden ages to do just that. I'll have 4 towns working on Champions, which should put me at 20~30 when I launch the attack.

Furthermore, I'm firing all but 6 of the workers. I didn't realize I had so many. Right now they're worthless unit up keep and my lands have all the improvements they're going to need for now.

Turn 240

I realize I haven't used my world spell yet, so I do. I might as well stop his growth somewhat.

Turn 246

I accidentally hit the join on the great commander instead of golden age. I reload the turn to make sure I hit the golden age. No other changes were made.

Turn 250

I complete the Pillar of Chains to further combat war weariness. Hopefully this will be enough for the coming fight with the Infernals.

Turn 255

The second great military build up is finished.



I've got at least 20 Mages but I don't feel safe. I want more. I need something bigger. Something drastic. I need a dragon. During the Golden Age I set my tech towards Drifta. Hopefully in the process I can pick up some High Priests of Winter too. We'll see.

However this build up is just in time.



The Internals are knocking on the gates with close to 100 to 110 units. My forces are only a third of this as most, but thankfully I have Einherjar. I plan on doing some hit and runs with them in an attempt to thin out their ranks.

Here is the power comparison between us. There may be hope.



Turn 257

The skirmishes have proved to be successful. While the Einherjar mortality rate has been abysmally high, they still break through and do damage. Each turn they kill one is another turn they can attack again. This lets me fill my city with free bodies after they attack further bolstering my forces.

Turn 258

The stack has been crushed. All that remains are the valiant Einherjar.



But what was the magnitude of this victory?


Turn 260

I waited a few turns so the power graph could be easier to see, but our time has come. Winter will prevail.

Turn 266

The second southern expedition has razed two infernal cities to the ground and crippled another stack, maybe 30 units strong.



Turn 267

Razed the last city before entering the Infernal heartland. What horrors await me there?



Turn 286

Within a single turn the first demonic city falls.



Turn 269

WHAT THE HELL!? A great person was born in a far away land? I can see like the entire map. What's going on!?!?



Turn 271

See that pink thing? I hate that thing. When I try to move my troops up toward Dis, it fears about 75% of them.



Turn 273

I raze Dis to the Ground and Calabim captures my undefended city with it's one remaining wandering hunter.. That actually might be a blessing. Here is the Infernal capital.



However that still bothers me. Where is this other land at? The Calabim may be a mixed blessing so I can investigate.

Turn 274

This is bothering me. Where is this other civ? I raze the city next to Odio's Prison. By the way, I'm exploring that next.

Turn 275

That was the last of the Infernal heartland but he's still around.



However the Calabim have escaped their fire lake and have started pushing into my lands! Thankfully have an army on the way to handle the problem, but I will let them live, for now. There's something amiss. I will find it.

Turn 277

Prespur burns. I start work on Galleys. I also learn you can't explore Odio's Prison. This is an old map of what they have.

[img] http://hatchetwrench.squarespace.com/sto...ansion.jpg[/img]

Turn 279

There are two things on the map I want to check out.




3 things of interest. That's a werewolf next to a lair. What's up with that? The second is the maelstrom. If you send a ship into it will randomly teleport to somewhere else. This might be related to that distant land thing.

Turn 283

I just found the worst joke ever. Take a look.



Ha ha ha, I could have had my Life node. I could have had sanctify. I could have actually tried to settle everywhere. Ha ha ha... BOO! GGGRRRRRRRRRRR! WHY DIDN'T I EXPLORE EARLIER?

Turn 284

The lair was a trap. Nothing special there.

Turn 286

I send a caravel into the whirlpool. And nothing happened. The fear towers proc all the units to jump away and so I decide to end this.



Summary

With victory in hand, let's look at the demographics for the game.



The turning point for the Illian-Infernal war was that battle outside of my city. It dropped his power rating enough and my triple Golden Age raised my enough so that we had the same power level. There is no way this AI can beat a human player unless it outnumbers them.



his is one of the major reasons why I was able to beat the AI swarms. While they had tons and tons of units they could throw at me, I could still out produce any one of them. Again you can see where the Golden Ages hit with those huge spikes in hammers.



While hammers is the reason why I won, this was the source of those hammers. Discounting the Infernals, I always had larger cities than about all of them. Hell terrain ruined their production base and starved their cities down. However, I was able to convert any excess food into military units via Conquest. This allowed me to get an even greater edge in production when I was at war.

As an aside this is why the Lanun production weakness isn't that big of a deal in my opinion. If the pirates ever need to go to war or build up a large supply of units, they should switch to Conquest and turn all those powerful sea tiles into their military.

And for anyone curious about GNP



And now for the unit stats

[img] http://hatchetwrench.squarespace.com/sto...0Kills.jpg[/img]

What a body count. I took the top 12 units slain because they looked like military units produced by the AI and it came out to 825 kills. The Infernals produced endless swarms of Hellhounds, Diseased Corpses, and Warriors to throw at my city endlessly.



You know, I found it interesting that I only lost 314 Einherjar. I felt like I suicided far more units than that. If throw them out as obvious kamikaze units, I can see that losing my entire army twice was only 73 units at most. I figured my losses would be much higher than that. Each loss of my army was a set back of 20 to 30 turns as I had to rebuild everything from scratch.



I thought I would include a final look at what I built. It should be no surprise that I made 65 adepts/mages. Champions come in next followed by Axemen and Warriors. I really focused on the melee/arcane lines only getting a few mounted units.

Also notice that I razed 37 cities to the ground. I have never blown up that much stuff before. Some of those cities were good, but I wanted to get the AC as low as possible. Razing Ashen Veil cities actually does just that.



You know, I've never understood how Cthulu has leadership abilities. He just goes, "Boo!" And all of existence is like snuffed out, but whatever, for my first Immortal game ever, I got the highest rank.

Conclusion

Before I go into post game thoughts, I want to thank Bobchillingworth for creating this map. It looks like he put alot of thought and effort into it, but I do have a few criticisms.

1. Only 3 victory conditions - While Tower of Mastery was enabled it is practically impossible to achieve. There's only a single free mana node that is hidden in a lair. Even if you convert it to a metamagic node and then change the other entropy/death/fire nodes that are around the map, you will have already won a conquest/domination victory unless the Calabim get locked in a lake of fire. Speaking of which...

2. Calabim - Their capital is nearly impossible to reach once hell terrain gets to them. I'm not sure how the fire left the burning sands for those few turns, but it did. A Life mana node or having a non-desert path to their capital would have been enough to fix this issue.

3. Hell Terrain - Alot of the difficulty was lost because most civilizations cannot thrive under hell terrain. With their religion as Ashen Veil they were hit with hell terrain before they had any technology outside of hunting. They just couldn't compete.

However he does deserve quite a bit of credit. The starting zones for the player and the lair/hut progression were very nice. He definitely opened up options with the free hut tech + bear dens. I also liked how we were able to have the Letum Frigus but it wasn't in our capital's BFC and we had the option to take our third trait. Another was the amount of detail put into map. The progression of forts and ancient towers gave the map the feeling of an older world. Also the werewolf and trap lair combo was cute.

Anyways, I made some very major mistakes this game. The early switch to City States, the attempt at a cottage economy, losing my entire army twice, and losing a couple cities. My economy was some weird hybrid of a cottage, specialist, and pillaging Sheaim's improvements. I think it was nearly impossible for me to run my research slider above 30% for the majority of the game.

What I should have done is switched to Aristoagararian until sanitation then switched Conquest when I began to mass produce soldiers. Furthermore my capital wasn't managed well at all. I had ancient forests until the end because I couldn't make up the food on farmed ice because they were cottages. Furthermore, I was too cautious in the beginning, probably because this was my first game on immortal. I should have rushed my settler forward to where I would found Tolero. These are the two best city sites on the entire map. These two cities were responsible for 80~90% of my military for the entire game. Securing them earlier would have made taking out Calabim and Sheaim, much, much easier.

However, I still won and did one major thing very right, I believe I made near optimal or optimal use of Auric's Charismatic trait. I consider the Charismatic trait to be a hybrid economic and military trait. Its use early game is to allow superior production for every city that has 1 more productive population than its rivals. Second it's a military trait in that it allows for faster deployment of mid tier (units that must be upgraded) that primarily being Mages.

I honestly believe that this game highlights how Charismatic is actually superior to Arcane in deploying a large quantity of Mages. My capital was able able to produce 2 turn mages with or without a golden age because of the combination of Apprenticeship + Conquest + Command Post + Form of the Titan + Charismatic. Arcane is better in that it allows those Mages to know a greater variety of spells because they learn them quicker. However in a war of summon spam, the Charismatic leader will defeat the Arcane leader.

While this strategy is potent, I don't think Auric is the best candidate. I believe that Cassiel and the Grigori would be able to implement this strategy the best. The most difficult aspect of this strategy is obtaining a level 6 unit to meet the Form of the Titan prerequisite. Cassiel's adaptive trait can allow him to obtain key wonders then switch to charismatic when he begins his military build up.

My other best move was pillaging Sheaim's improvements to fund my early deficit research. This allowed me to overcome many of my early game mistakes and supplement my sagging economy. That MVP Javelin Thrower is the real hero of this game. His pillaging earned m 200 to 400 gold that let me get my research off the ground.

Finally I want to talk about the Illians as a civilization. It feels like their power is lopped into the early game with a Priests of Winter rush and in the very late game when they translate that power into Drifta and Auric Ascended. They have no real mid-game advantage outside of charismatic Mage spam or converting their entire kingdom into a giant ice ball to dissuade people from knocking them off the map.

This makes them feel like a very all or nothing civ who must translate their early game power into an economic advantage by obtaining massive tracts of land. They don't have any special economic traits or abilities. If their Priests of Winter gambit fails to produce results, they have next to nothing left. If they can manage to live that long however, I don't think there's a civ that can stop their super weapons.

Scoring:

So what's my score?

1 Red Star of Courage - I got a Conquest victory.
1 Black Star of Annihilation - I purged the Infernals

Suggestions:

For future FFH2 Adventures and Epics, I would suggest that we also include the more Naval AI mod for the game. It really ups the difficulty and sanity of the computer. They build ships, go for intelligent religions, and actually attack with things that aren't Hunters/Lizardmen in the early game. The other great thing is that it lets most of the AI run a decent economy. I have only been able to out pace the AI once on tech, but that was with the Luann on Monarch.

You can find the mod here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=357824

[Ilios]

Wow, that's an impressive report...

You must have sunk a lot of time in it.

Interesting about the Naval mod...

[Bobchillingworth]

Thank you for this incredibly detailed report. I very much enjoyed reading it


Regarding this comment:

"But wait!" You might say, "You're suppose to rush them to get their yummy flood plains. This is the cost of not being fast enough!"

Actually, what I intended was for players to use the High Priests of Winter or some Archmages to put out the flames tiles with Snowfall. I think you found out for yourself later on that Temples of the Hand transform all that nasty Hell terrain into respectable Illian ice tiles, and Snowfall does the same thing. I admit that leaving out any raw mana nodes was a bit of railroading on my part... I really wanted players to have to push against the encroaching hell terrain with their pure driven snow :P



Your report also contains some enlightening insights into the behavior of the AI. The AI actually seems to have managed to tech a little in your game (the Calabim didn't start with Drama for the Lyre, and it looks like Hyborem researched Bronze Working on his own), but they still made poor choices (DRAMA?). They sometimes were proactive in attacking you (reading about how poor Flauros playing size 2 OCC behind his wall of fire managed to still take one of your cities and settle another of his own brought a tear to my eye :') ), but often seem to have moved their units quite literally randomly.

I'll have more to say on just how boosted the AI were in this scenario and how it performed in my Sponsor' Comments on Monday, but I agree that there's clearly something terribly wrong here. I think it makes the most sense to run at least one more adventure without the Naval AI mod, and then depending on how that goes consider implementing the mod as official policy. The next scenario won't be AW, so hopefully that will provide more insights into whether the AI was just screwed over by this map and the settings, or if it can't even challenge anyone normally.


Anyway, thanks again for playing! It sounds like your experience hit just about perfectly the level of difficulty that I was aiming for- a challenge, but clearly very winnable once you got a handle on the situation.

[uberfish]

wow nice report. Looks like you really enjoyed the game and found a good use for the Law mana that most of us ignored. I figured the lack of free mana nodes was by design too and worked out well to make us use/appreciate the Illian ice options instead of conventional magic solutions (Spring, Destroy Undead, etc)

[DerWille]

Ilios
Wow, that's an impressive report...

You must have sunk a lot of time in it.

Interesting about the Naval mod...

Kinda. I was aiming for a Sullla-esque report so I wrote it as I was playing. The longest part was actually taking screen shots and cropping them to only be one monitor wide (I had to use 2 image editing programs).

But definitely check out the AI mod. It still needs a bit of work, but it's not too unusual for me to find a runaway AI.

Bobchillingworth
Actually, what I intended was for players to use the High Priests of Winter or some Archmages to put out the flames tiles with Snowfall. I think you found out for yourself later on that Temples of the Hand transform all that nasty Hell terrain into respectable Illian ice tiles, and Snowfall does the same thing. I admit that leaving out any raw mana nodes was a bit of railroading on my part... I really wanted players to have to push against the encroaching hell terrain with their pure driven snow :P

I didn't learn about snowfall until after reading PBEM1. I usually never put much thought into tier 3 spells. I learned the hard way about temples of the hand. One way around this would have been to hide a life mana node behind the Infernals. Sort of as a last resort if an AI got trapped.

Your report also contains some enlightening insights into the behavior of the AI. The AI actually seems to have managed to tech a little in your game (the Calabim didn't start with Drama for the Lyre, and it looks like Hyborem researched Bronze Working on his own), but they still made poor choices (DRAMA?). They sometimes were proactive in attacking you (reading about how poor Flauros playing size 2 OCC behind his wall of fire managed to still take one of your cities and settle another of his own brought a tear to my eye :') ), but often seem to have moved their units quite literally randomly.

He got the one city because it didn't have a single defender in it... I thought he was trapped so I just skimped on defense and went to go attack the Infernals. Next thing I know Calabim have taken a city and I'm thinking, "How the hell did they get out?" I learned that burning sands could in fact stop burning.

I'll have more to say on just how boosted the AI were in this scenario and how it performed in my Sponsor' Comments on Monday, but I agree that there's clearly something terribly wrong here. I think it makes the most sense to run at least one more adventure without the Naval AI mod, and then depending on how that goes consider implementing the mod as official policy. The next scenario won't be AW, so hopefully that will provide more insights into whether the AI was just screwed over by this map and the settings, or if it can't even challenge anyone normally.


Anyway, thanks again for playing! It sounds like your experience hit just about perfectly the level of difficulty that I was aiming for- a challenge, but clearly very winnable once you got a handle on the situation.

I think it's a combination of both of them. The default AI for FFH2 is really weak. It's a little too biased toward flavor and doesn't even know how win a few of the victories like altar (which is probably the hardest one in the game). I also don't know if it knows about the wonders of the Astroagrarian economy.

Speaking of which, I will never doubt you again Astroagrarian. You are always the default option now. Always.

Anyways, do you plan on keeping up the trend of unusual races/leader combinations? The game is a bit too easy with Flauros/Hannah or Wood Elves.

uberfish

wow nice report. Looks like you really enjoyed the game and found a good use for the Law mana that most of us ignored. I figured the lack of free mana nodes was by design too and worked out well to make us use/appreciate the Illian ice options instead of conventional magic solutions (Spring, Destroy Undead, etc)

Honestly those Einherjar are pretty damn awesome. I can only imagine if you combined them with a summoner leader and a few medics. The neat thing about them is that after their first battle they usually gain 3~5 promotions and get an extra round of life.

I think for the mass production mage strategy, Law II is probably better than Ice II. Ice Elementals are nice, but they have some goofy restrictions and don't last as long as Einherjar (You can summon Einherjar to be stack guardians if need be). Ice I and III are definitely better than Law but I didn't plan on getting many Archmages if any at all and I could always grab Ice I (which I did).