[Spoilers] Biggus Decius and the Sucking Vampires (Bobchillingworth / Calabim)

[Bobchillingworth]

Looks like we're on haitus for a while waiting for pocketbeetle. Here's an image of how things stand:








Beef is heading back home, I'm going to pop that hut along the way next turn; if warriors come out then I might be screwed, but that seems to happen surprisingly rarely for FFH, and almost any of the potential hut rewards make the risk worth it, I think.


I have the marker for city 2 up, I'm between a few locations for city 3 (you can see my two options marked); which I decide on depends on what future scouting reveals in that direction, and whether I think that I can produce enough bloodpets to defend a flatland city next to a lizardman lair to be worth it.

[Bobchillingworth]

After about a week of waiting for pocketbeetle to get back, I have the save and Bloodpet Beef finally pops the hut, revealing...








The village is populated entirely by gold coins! Thankful that it didn't contain a potentially game-ending mob of orcs, Beef hurls the coins over the length of 4 tiles, directly into the treasury of Prespur, where they shall live out the rest of their days, until they won't.

[Bobchillingworth]

So, while we wait for something to happen with the game under stasis, do any lurkers have questions for me regarding FFH in general or my civ / plans in particular? I'm happy to answer whatever I can, otherwise there won't be many posts in my thread for the next dozen turns unless something interesting pops out of the fog (both bloodpets will be fortified in my capital).

[Ilios]

Use of magic?

[darrelljs]

I gave an overview of the mechanics in the lurker thread, but a discussion on specific spells would be cool. Really the lurkers probably want to know what are the best abuses .

Darrell

[Bobchillingworth]

Hmm magic, okay.


I'm going to assume that darrell or someone else already posted the basics of how magic works in FFH (I can cover that if no one has), so I'll note what spells I intend to use.


As I think I mentioned / vaguely alluded to in this thread, my vampire UU gains access to two different "spell spheres", or spells based on two mana types, in this case Death and Body. Vampires also have Channeling II, which means that they can cast level I death / body spells, and then level II spells after receiving an appropriate promotion (Death II or Body II).


Death I summons a skeleton, essentially a warrior replacement. Like all summoned units, it gains +10% strength for every combat promotion on the summoning unit- all of my vamps should have combat V, so anything they summon should be +50%. I *think* that my summoned units also all get the free commando promotion from my Raiders trait, but I might be wrong on that. Anyway, skeletons kind of suck individually, but they're free and utterly disposable suicide troops. Most importantly, I can summon a new army of one per vampire every turn, until I hit the "summoned units cap" (which I think is 1 per spell caster, but I might be wrong).

Death II summons a specter... they're like skeletons (strength 3 as well), but have 2 movement, and disappear automatically after a turn. They also get +1 strength for every death mana owned, so even 3 death mana nodes means my vampires can summon 6 strength, 2 move units every turn. They also cause "fear", which means that they can randomly scatter stacks of units they attack, or cause an attacker to freeze up and not do anything when they (the specter) defends.

Body I is an awesome spell, and a critical part of my Raiders trait synergy- it gives every unit in the stack of the caster +1 movement for a turn.

Body II gives the "regeneration" promo to every unit in the caster's stack for a turn. TBH I'm not even sure what this does, I think it works like the "march" promotion? I'll probably only promote one vampire per stack to Body II.


For my adepts (lowest, basic tier spell casters), I really want two spells, water I and enchantment I. I don't intend to get non-vampric spellcasters better than adepts for a long time, as I have many more important techs to research first.


Water I turns non-flood plains desert tiles to plains. The importance of this should be obvious, especially given how much food my cities will need for feasting. I think it also puts out fires or something.


Enchantment I gives a permanent "enchanted blade" promotion to all melee units in the caster's stack, which gives a 20% strength bonus. Vampires are melee units, so hopefully clear why I want this one



There are a lot of other neat spells, but given that I doubt I'll own more than 5 or 6 mana nodes for a long time (if that), death, water, and enchantment are going to be the main focus. I also start with free body, shadow, and law mana. I've already explained what body does. Shadow allows adepts to cast Blur, which makes you harder to hit... maybe. Law does something, I guess. I don't really ever bother with Law of Shadow mana in sp, I suppose I should give them some more thought for this game tho :P

[DaveV]

More backseat driving:

For the benefit of the FfH newbies, it's probably worth pointing out the difference between permanent and temporary summons. Permanent summons (skeletons) are unable to move on the turn on which they are summoned, and stay around until killed or disbanded. Their deaths and victories count for war weariness. Temporary summons (spectres) are only present for one turn (2 if you have the Summoning trait), and can move on the turn on which they are summoned. If a temporary summon dies, it doesn't count against war weariness; if it wins a battle, it does count. Don't ask.

You can have one skeleton for every unit that is capable of summoning a skeleton, so one for every vampire or adept with Death I. The skeletons can be summoned by any unit, though, so ideally you want your guy with Combat V and Spell Extension II (+2 moves, only available to adepts) to summon them.

The Body I spell, Haste, only affects *living* units. So it's no use for catapults, skeletons, or spectres.

Another interesting difference: skeletons can't pillage, but spectres can. So if the enemy has a good road network, a stack of vampires can move deep into their territory, then summon spectres who can pillage two tiles. Spectres also have the Fear promotion, which means enemy units might refuse to attack them.

As far as mana nodes, if you're going to build Death nodes, it's worth building Entropy and Chaos, too. Not only do these spheres provide good level 1 spells, but if you have all four of Death, Shadow, Entropy, and Chaos, you can build the Tower of Necromancy. This gives +1 strength to all undead units, and gives an extra Death mana.

The Entropy I spell, Rust, gives the Rusted promotion (-10% strength penalty) to opposing units and also removes their bronze/iron/mithril weapon promotions, but has a chance of being resisted, so you want several units that can throw it. Chaos I, Dance of Blades, gives 1 first strike. Enchanted Blade removes the Rusted promotion, another reason to have that spell.

The Shadow I spell, Blur, is another good one for attacking units: it makes all units in the stack immune to first strikes. Law I, Loyalty, makes it impossible for your unit to defect to another team. Meh.

Having multiple mana sources is helpful because it gives free promotions (sources are palace, nodes, shrines, and wonders). For example, if you have two sources of Death mana (one node plus the Tower of Necromancy ), your adepts are automatically born with the Death I promotion, at no cost. If you have three sources of Death mana, adepts will automatically receive the Death II promotion when they're upgraded to mages.

Several mana types have a passive effect: just having one or more source of that type of mana makes something happen. Body magic gives increased healing; Enchantment gives +1 happy per node; Entropy makes enemy units heal more slowly in your territory; Law gives -5% maintenance per node. Chaos gives a chance that your units are born Mutated. This lets them have any combination of 27 promotions, most of which are good.

[Bobchillingworth]

Good point about the Tower of Necromancy- another reason to try to found Ashen Veil, for the free Entropy Mana from the shrine.


Octopus Overlords would get me my water mana, but I suspect I'm going to get beat to that religion, as I'm not going to prioritize it and have no use for fishing.



Another way to get free mana- build the Mercurian Gate and take the two that Basium starts with (I believe Law and Earth) I'm not going to bother with that though, as I already have Law and don't need Earth mana, and you can't summon Basium anyway if you're Ashen Veil. Hyborem also starts with two Mana, but the only way to convince an AI to part with their mana is to capitulate them (or be on the same team as them, as is the case for Basium when summoned), and I'm under the impression that vassals are off for this game.

[DaveV]

I'm under the impression that vassals are off for this game.

We would all know for sure if you'd post a screenie of the F8-Settings page (nudge, nudge!).

[Bobchillingworth]

Alright, here you are:








Some surprising settings here. Large size for 6 players... I hope my computer is able to handle that. Given that FFH doesn't really encourage settler spam, and that maintenance costs will be high considering the difficulty, I don't foresee all of the land being used. Pocketbeetle is going to have to do a lot of scouting before placing his second and third cities in order to secure optimal locations. The size also puts Cull at a bit of a disadvantage, since it's costly for the Kazahd to expand. Archduke will benefit, his traits and leader are well matched to establish and maintain a large empire- cheap settlers, cottage spam, and quick horses to reinforce extended front lines. Organized looks a bit better now as well.


Vassals are apparently on, so summoning Hyborem may make sense in the distant future- it's almost trivially easy to force an AI to capitulate.


All unique features on is nice- that means I'll essentially have a free hero, Bridgit. For the unaware, Bridgit is a hero unit which players can capture if they have a level 14 unit; most players will never manage to get a unit that experienced, or will have much better things to do with them, but it should be fairly simple for me to simply feed a vampire in some backwater high-food city until they reach the requisite level.