[SPOILERS] ARRR Ye Scurvy Dogs! Hannah the Irin

[Mardoc]

Late check-in as your dedicated lurker. I have very little playing experience with the Lanun, so my advice may not be worth much.

A few corrections to your excellent Sheaim writeup: summons only last two turns for Summoners. This was an application of the nerf hammer when people were complaining that three turns was just too good. Both Sheaim leaders are trying to end the world, not hoping to wrest rule of it away from the demons.

Excellent. And yeah, I saw in the FFHpedia that the leaders want to end the world, but I figured the rank and file don't know that. Although, I'm sure Irgy will be trying to, to boost his various related powers. Glad to hear that Sheaim only get twice the number of spectres they'd otherwise have instead of three times.

[Amelia]

Yes their minions don't know about it. Their minions are thinking about conquering the world and so forth, and their leaders don't dispel the notion (otherwise their minions won't work for them).

[Mardoc]

Got the start, and it looks pretty darn good

The debate in my mind at the moment is quite simple, though. On the one hand, there's some excellent resources in the BFC right now. On the other hand, a city planted here only gets one pirate cove. I think I probably want to move, either 2E or south to the tile where my scout is, in order to still have most of these resources but get my hands on excellent coving locations.

I already moved the scout and warrior; the settler is, however, a super settler, so I can move up to three and then settle, and get quite a bit of visiblity along the way.

I have family obligations at the moment, though, so it'll be a few hours before I get back to the game and settle. Dave, other lurkers, any thoughts?

[Mardoc]

Hah! Looks like my decision to head east for the extra cove paid off, in the form of some replacement pigs! Yeah, they're in jungle, but it'll be a while before I get to a size where I need to work them instead of coves, wines, rice, and crabs.



This is looking like excellent Lanunish territory, too; maybe I'll even be lucky enough that this is an island! Still, even if it's not, I ought to be able to pack in lots and lots of coastal settlements around here

[Selrahc]

Glad to hear that Sheaim only get twice the number of spectres they'd otherwise have instead of three times.

Not even necessarily numbers, but operational range. A spectre lasting for multiple turns can travel a long way, particularly if the mage in question has spell extension. Trying to assassinate them can be pretty difficult if they aren't on the frontline at all.

[Mardoc]

The Sheaim are about destroying the world, and gaining power thereby; the Elohim are their foil, with a theme of preserving the world and those in it.

The first, most obvious ways they go about doing so are that they initially know the locations of all the Unique Features in the world, ostensibly to help preserve them. If WarriorKnight settles late, I figure this is why . Second, they have an opposing ritual to the Sheaim, the Hallowing of the Elohim, which lowers the AC by 5. Just like the Sheaim Elegy, it costs 600 hammers (normal) and is repeatable. The Elohim world spell is quite powerful; Sanctuary removes all non-Elohim units from their territory and keeps them out for 20 or so turns. Just the thing to respond to a sneak attack or a rush with.

The Elohim get Nature, Water, and Spirit mana, and just a handful of unique units and buildings - the Devout replacing the Assassin, and the Monk at Priesthood. Both are mid-range units; Str 5 for the Devout and Str 6 for the Monk. For buildings, the Elohim get the Reliquary (units built in a Reliquary city get the Spirit Guide promotion - upon death, half their XP goes to a random Elohim unit), and the Chancel of Guardians - an extra 25% defense and units get a 20% chance of being Defensive. However, to make up for their lack of much unique stuff, the Elohim are Tolerant - cities captured by them get to build/train the original owner's stuff. Finally, the Elohim hero, Corlindale, can sacrifice himself to halve the AC and have peace declared immediately by everyone.

WarriorKnight chose Einion Logos, who is a Philosophical Defender.

All this adds up to a civ that can be immensely strong on the defense, but has some ability to go on the offense (and a lot of motivation to do so!) I've not played much with the Elohim, so there might be something dramatic they can do I'm missing.

Finally, the Elohim are the perfect opposition to the Sheaim; most everyone else has limited ability at best to avert Armageddon (sanctifying ruins and purging Ashen Veil), but the Elohim have two direct methods to do so in addition to the normal methods. If the Sheaim start running away, some support to WarriorKnight would seem to be in order Or, of course, helping the Bannor to decide a Crusade is in order...

[Mardoc]

The Bannor are a relatively simple civ for Fall from Heaven. Their power lies in a unique Civic, Crusade, which is only available at Fanaticism. Before that, all they get is a free Guardsman promotion for their Archery and Melee units, and Earth, Law, and Spirit mana.

Once they make it to Fanaticism, however, all bets are off! Crusade has all sorts of valuable effects.
•Cannot conduct Diplomacy with any Civilization at
War with you
•-75% War Weariness
•+50% Free Unit Support
•+25% Unit Production in Cities with State religion
•+2 happy in Cities with State religion
•Not allowed to produce Workboats, Workers or Settlers
and may not Build the following Buildings
•Elder Council, Market, Monument, Moneychanger,
Theatre, Aqueduct, Public Baths, Herbalist, Carnival,
Courthouse, Gambling House, Granary, Smokehouse,
Library, Harbor, Alchemy Lab
•20% Chance each Turn for any Town to spawn a
Demagog and demote to a Village

Demagogs are a Str 5 unit, can use weapons, +25% against melee, doesn't cost unit support. Just in case they don't get enough Demagogs from their 20% chance in towns, their Worldspell spawns a Demagog in every town and city.

Sabathiel helps get the massive numbers of new free/cheap units off to a good start with Charismatic, and has Organized to hold the cities the Crusade captures.

The Bannor start out fairly slowly, without much boost to their economy or interesting war options. On the other hand - if you thought it was overpowered for the Sheaim to have a 6-15% chance per city of a free unit, the Bannor can put them to shame with that 20% chance per town!

I expect Mr. Yellow to spend the early game trying to stay on everyone's good side, and build as many Towns as he can (including moving workers off his developed towns onto new cottages to build those up too). Without Financial, going for a cottage economy and not even working his towns, I expect his tech to stagnate; however, if he makes it to Fanaticism, no one else can boost their Power as fast as he can. I expect his strategy to be adepts and priests boosting his stacks of Demagogs with courage, enchanted blade, and so on, then an absolute swarm attack!

The Bannor synergize well with either Basium or Hyborem, depending on their religion - don't sneer at their ability to produce a horrifying number of Manes or Angels. On the other hand, the Bannor are also the civ easiest to kill early. Plus, if I happen to hit them as a Raider after they've built some nice towns, but before they can launch a Crusade to kick me out, they ought to be a veritable piggybank!

That's all of the new civs in the game; next up is the last one from my wishlist, the Ljosalfar.

[Mardoc]

Not even necessarily numbers, but operational range. A spectre lasting for multiple turns can travel a long way, particularly if the mage in question has spell extension. Trying to assassinate them can be pretty difficult if they aren't on the frontline at all.

Oh, that makes sense. Which - although it's not as bad with two turn spectres as with three turn ghosts, and being Raiders ought to help, that'll still be a real concern if/when I fight the Sheaim. Maybe I should simply plan to take and keep the initiative; use my economic might to get horse archers, chariots, Rathas, Knights, and so on, and hit him deep enough in his territory that I don't have to worry about how far his spectres can reach.

The only problem here, of course, is that makes the third civ I need to take care of early, and I'm not exactly an early bloomer myself. So, I guess the order of the day is to wait and see. Maybe someone else will take the initiative on stopping the juggernauts.

I'm certain that the Ljosalfar, Bannor, and Sheaim all get strong late game (barring a pyre zombie rush); I have less experience with the Elohim and Malakim, but I wouldn't be surprised if I need to fear them too. I'll have to keep a close eye on Ilios' thread to see what the Malakim are capable of.

More, we have quite the rock-paper-scissors going here - Raider Lanun can cripple Bannor by burning down their towns. Elohim can seriously mess with the Sheaim by averting Armageddon, who in turn can burn down the Elven forests. Bannor and Sheaim ought to be able to cause me serious headaches by swarming me under - the Lanun weakness is in production, especially when I'm deliberately aiming to keep my cities coastal as much as possible, and I expect hordes to be my biggest headache. I'm sure Malakim fit in there somewhere, which I may even understand by tonight when I have the chance to read up and report on them.

[Mardoc]

As best I can tell, the Malakim have no single earthshaking bonus, instead making do with a plethora of minor benefits. Does it even out? I guess we'll have to wait and see.

First, the Malakim are a desert people. They get an extra commerce for every desert tile they work (practically, every floodplain), extra movement in desert, and extra str.

They have a few handy unique units and buildings

Palace: Sun Mana, Life Mana, Mind Mana, +10% War Weariness

Lightbringers: Str 2 Divine units, which start with Mobility 1 and Sentry. Frankly, not that powerful in themselves, but since they can be upgraded, I expect to see a fair number of these as well.

Camel Archers: resourceless horse archers. I don't expect these to make much difference, unless horses turn out to be rare (depends on how much time haphazard spent on the map).
Desert Shrine (replacing the Pagan Temple): adds 2 experince to every Divine unit built in the city - modest bonus here - likely want the building anyway for the happiness, particularly if he goes with a religious approach
Citadel of Light: unlocked by sorcery, damages approching enemy units up to 40% - this is a very nice defensive building. Of course, wars aren't won by playing defense.

His world spell is another free unit one - a free Priest of whatever religion he is in every city.

Finally, Varn Gosam is spiritual/creative(adaptive). Spiritual synergizes well with his various religious bonuses, and adaptive is quite powerful - he can be Financial, getting +2 gold in his floodplains, or Raiders to get the Priests moving fast on the offense. If he goes Financial and has decent territory, he's one of the two I expect to have a chance of keeping up with my tech.

[Mardoc]

Ah, the elves. Extremely Tolkeinesque, these folk love their forests, and prosper exceedingly in them. All as the result of a simple change in mechanics with widespread results - the elves can build improvements in forests without destroying the forest. Elves also get an extra move in forests; keeping them quick even without roads (I expect the elves to be the ones least conducive to exploiting Raiders. They get Nature, Air, and Life mana from their palace. The elves have a couple minor unique units (replacing the late-game crossbowman with a Flurry, and of course Gilden Silveric as one of the earliest heroes, at Archery), and make up for them by losing their access to catapults. Finally, their archery units get an extra Str, turning them from bad attackers to mediocre attackers . On the other hand...they don't need unique units, either. Why?



Well, combining their forest benefits with Fellowship of Leaves, of course! When a non-elven civ wants to use Fellowship, they can end up with Ancient Forests at 3/1/0; not really any better than a plains farm. If they want commerce, they need to chop the trees; if they want food, running Agrarianism with farms is a better bet. Elves, on the other hand, can put mines on their forests for 3/2/0, or towns for 3/2/5, or even farm the trees for insane amounts of food (and always that 1 hammer). Add in Guardian of Nature to essentially remove the health and happy caps, and Elven cities can end up in the size 25-30 range, working every tile for both food and hammers, with copious specialists to bend the empire in the direction they please. Once they have massive forests in their land, the March of the Trees spell, giving them a short lived Str 10 Treent for every forest can definitely give a headache to any attacker, or even a defender who's close enough.

On the other hand, this takes a long while to set up - they need to tech Fellowship, Guardian, and Priesthood or start in a forest before they can even start this insane progression; Elven workers get a penalty to workrate which means they start off slowly, and once they do have the ingredients, it still takes quite a while for the Priests of Leaves to Bloom every tile, the workers to follow behind cottaging or mining them, and the trees and cottages to grow up. Compare to my Lanun, who get 3/0/3 coasts at their first tech, and the ability to create coves immediately as well. Finally, as much as the Elves benefit from their forests, they can be a liability too - any Adept with access to a Fire node or of course the Sheaim can burn down their forests, taking away those benefits they spent so long developing.

Still, if the Elves are given time, I expect them to be one of the two civs who can compete with me in tech (the other being the Malakim). The ability to literally cottage every tile without giving up the ability to produce, combined with the ability to run half a dozen Savants per city, can lead to frankly ridiculous research rate, once everything's set up.