Any good resources for learning ffh2?

[Dp101]

Last question, is there ever a time or reason to transition out of aristrofarms?

[Ellimist]

Last question, is there ever a time or reason to transition out of aristrofarms?

It depends on your overall situation. There are some alternatives that may be worthwhile, especially in EitB. Foreign Trade boosts cottages and is especially useful for a civ like the Lanun, so they're probably going to go with city states or godking. The Kurioates are limited in expansion and can develop towns into enclaves, so they're more likely to use republic or godking. The more expansive civs, such as the Clan of Embers, may find that the marginal benefits of aristocracy commerce is weaker than the passive cost savings provided by city states(and prefer to just work cottages or other sources of commerce).

[Bobchillingworth]

Generally, if you've been running aristofarms for a substantial period of time, you aren't going to want to switch out because you aren't going to have enough cottages built to sustain your economy. One exception is if you've researched enough to have all the tech you think you'll need to secure victory. In that case, swapping out Aristocracy for City States and Agrarianism for Conquest will give you additional exp on your units and a significant boost in production. Obviously this is less painful for Spiritual leaders, who can always jump back into an aristofarms economy if circumstances demand they return to prioritizing research and growth.


As Ellimist noted above, there are also plenty of situations where you won't want to use aristofarms in the first place.

[DaveV]

Aristofarms are also weaker on certain map types: see 33, which was toroidal wrap and Immortal difficulty. City distance costs were absolutely ruinous, and 80% reduction under City States was a significant savings versus 40% under Aristocracy (2-3 gold per city).

Surprisingly, one of the best economic civics in my games usually turns out to be Military State. FfH games tend to require a large standing army and a lot of workers, and support costs can be significant, especially once inflation kicks in.

[Lord Parkin]

That's March of the Trees (his worldspell). That's the one that creates a Treant for every forest in his borders - but those all expire 5 turns after he casts the spell.

Neat. Figured it had to be something like that, but was surprised by the sheer magnitude of the power increase and dip. Geez, you wouldn't want to be the first to mess with the Ljosalfar. How does that typically play out in multiplayer? Clearly the player attacking when they cast that spell is going to get pummelled.

As an extension of that question, what are generally viewed as the most powerful/weakest worldspells in multiplayer? I know the Calabim one is pretty good (+2 pop in your city / -2 pop in everyone else's). The Amurite one looks like it could be dangerous late in the game (stopping everyone except you casting spells). Lanun could be pretty powerful in the right circumstances (weakened coastal cities for a naval invasion). Elohim should be impossible to kill in a surprise attack (30 turns enforced peace!). Not sure what to make of the Illians, always annoying to encounter a production/research standstill but seems like it's most dangerous early on. Hippus seems pretty powerful (extra strength and movement and blitz for all units for an average of 10 turns). Balseraphs are simple and nice (double golden age). On the other hand Svartalfar seems pretty weak sauce (what human will be fooled by the "barbarian" elves attacking them?). And does Hyborem really not get a worldspell in multiplayer (as the manual claims)?

[Ellimist]

That's March of the Trees (his worldspell). That's the one that creates a Treant for every forest in his borders - but those all expire 5 turns after he casts the spell.

Neat. Figured it had to be something like that, but was surprised by the sheer magnitude of the power increase and dip. Geez, you wouldn't want to be the first to mess with the Ljosalfar. How does that typically play out in multiplayer? Clearly the player attacking when they cast that spell is going to get pummelled.

Keep in mind that the "power rating" stat really only exists so that the AI can make (somewhat) better decisions. What that worldspell actually gives you are dozens of temporary units with 10 strength. They aren't particularly fast and they're spread all over the empire, so usually you'll end up getting zero benefit from most of them. Even the ones that you're able to use have limited usefulness... In FFH-20 I paused my invading army and put skeleton spam in front of it until HidingKneel's treants were gone.

As an extension of that question, what are generally viewed as the most powerful/weakest worldspells in multiplayer? I know the Calabim one is pretty good (+2 pop in your city / -2 pop in everyone else's). The Amurite one looks like it could be dangerous late in the game (stopping everyone except you casting spells). Lanun could be pretty powerful in the right circumstances (weakened coastal cities for a naval invasion). Elohim should be impossible to kill in a surprise attack (30 turns enforced peace!). Not sure what to make of the Illians, always annoying to encounter a production/research standstill but seems like it's most dangerous early on. Hippus seems pretty powerful (extra strength and movement and blitz for all units for an average of 10 turns). Balseraphs are simple and nice (double golden age). On the other hand Svartalfar seems pretty weak sauce (what human will be fooled by the "barbarian" elves attacking them?). And does Hyborem really not get a worldspell in multiplayer (as the manual claims)?

Most of the worldspells are pretty good, and only a few are actually worthless. It's a bit difficult to evaluate worldspells outside of the context of the rest of the civ, though, and even then it will be stronger or weaker depending on the situation.

For the Illians, keep in mind that it's a lot easier to conquer people when you can turn their production off at a convenient time. There was one game where Amelia used the Lanun worldspell to help obliterate an invading stack of vampires. Arcane Lacuna is weird... It seems like the threat of it has more of an impact than actually casting the spell(because people expect it and adapt.)

[Bobchillingworth]

Bear in mind that the Ljo WS reverts all of their ancient forests into regular forests, so it can be painful to deploy. Treants do spawn new forests on the tiles they die though, for some small consolation.


The manual is incorrect- Hyborem's WS works just fine in MP, provided you're playing a PBEM. You can't take the city of anyone who is at war with you though.

[Lord Parkin]

Came across something weird... Arturus Thorne's Myconid just cast Spores next to my Centaur Charger and immobilized it. Thing is, we're not at war (and in fact have Friendly relations). I thought spells could only be cast against other players when you're at war? I have a Mary Morbus, and when I attempted to use Contagion in his territory I got a pop up warning that this action would cause war. So why can Spores be used against me without declaring war?

[Lord Parkin]

The manual is incorrect- Hyborem's WS works just fine in MP, provided you're playing a PBEM. You can't take the city of anyone who is at war with you though.

Thanks, good to know. Is that also the case in single player (doesn't work for people Hyborem is at war with)? I don't think that's mentioned in the manual.

[Bobchillingworth]

Came across something weird... Arturus Thorne's Myconid just cast Spores next to my Centaur Charger and immobilized it. Thing is, we're not at war (and in fact have Friendly relations). I thought spells could only be cast against other players when you're at war? I have a Mary Morbus, and when I attempted to use Contagion in his territory I got a pop up warning that this action would cause war. So why can Spores be used against me without declaring war?

Yeah, it's not as clear-cut as you would think. I believe that only spells which cause damage can trigger war. Or maybe it's only for if the spell would hit nothing but neutral / friendly units. I can't remember.

Thanks, good to know. Is that also the case in single player (doesn't work for people Hyborem is at war with)? I don't think that's mentioned in the manual.

I've actually never tried before! Never makes sense in SP to declare before grabbing the city, since you want whatever you gate in to have full movement points when you attack.