FFH2 Adventure 1: haphazard1's attempt at arcane mastery

[haphazard1]

[Note: My game is not yet complete, although it is very close (see below). I will add the final turns and ending stats once I finish the game in a couple days.]

I have been following the two FFH2 PBEM games with great interest, and was planning to try the mod myself. Then this adventure popped up, so I jumped right in. Who needs information, or play testing, or even planning? Let's just dive into the deep end and figure out this swimming thing as we go.

I was cautious early on, and also had some poor luck with scouts and early warriors getting eaten. So it took quite a while to meet my nearest neighbors (Clan, Ljos, Luchuirp), and I did not meet the eastern civs until much later. (I did not meet the Elohim until turn 242!) But offsetting my poor luck with exploring was excellent luck with events and lairs. I got the free prophet event the same turn I accumulated 50 gold, and my starting warrior popped a great engineer from the dungeon near the Clan (the same one Amelia got mistforms from, I think). The warrior was that far west only because he became crazed after exploring a closer dungeon, and then survived a griffon attack -- just random luck. He then survived three more battles on the way home, escorting the GE. This guy is still alive at T259, over 40 XP -- my lucky melee unit.

So I settled the GE and GP in my capital for +5H, +5G, +3B from quite early on. This sizable boost helped me push out to an enormous lead over the AIs in tech and cities, pumping out settlers and founding several early cities while still running 100% science for many turns. I founded FoL, RoK, and OO (the latter two mostly because I could), teched to Priesthood for the PoL to bloom my lands, and started up the arcane tech branches to play around with magic. I expanded to 10 Svart cities, and added a barb city which had sprung up next to Yggdrasil. I did not get as much of the east as I originally wanted (Beeri got the double gems and ivory sites), did OK to the north, and pushed hard to the west (Jonas Endain was boxed in completed by my closed borders).

Orthus was a non-factor: he spawned in the far north and was killed by the Ljos almost immediately. Barbs in general did not cause me much trouble after the early years -- my God-King capital with settled GE+GP had no trouble supplying the military needed to suppress them, and my rapid expansion filled the available territory anyway. I focused almost entirely on a cottage economy with forests, GoN, and lots of adept springing and PoL blooming to maximize the value of my extensive lands. Around T170 or so, I finished blooming forests on every non-oasis, non-FP tile in my entire empire. Not being able to really modify your lands is one of the things I dislike about Civ IV, so I enjoyed the micro of making every tile bloom.

Jonas Endain had been moving a sizable stack of axes around my western border and making threatening noises, so over the following 20 turns or so I assembled a modest force of bronze swords and warriors, PoL with tigers, and illusionists with fireballs and haste. Haste plus Raiders with equal or superior units is very bad news for the AI; add tiger spam and fireballs and the Orcs did not stand a chance. Five cities were added to my empire and the PoL went back to getting the empire fully forested.

Around this time I finally met Alexis as she went to war against the Luchuirp and captured a couple cities which were in range of my hawks. She and the Ljos were roughly tied in tech, land, and power although well behind me (especially in tech). Beeri was a sizable step further behind, and was slowly losing ground. I built up and developed for a few dozen more turns, beginning the process of building the 4 magical towers en route to a planned arcane victory.

Around T220, the Calabim finally reached Feudalism and began turning loose the vampires. Beeri began losing ground rapidly, and at T238 his capital fell with Barnaxus dying as well. I did not want the vampires on my doorstep, so I decided to annex Beeri's western empire as a buffer zone. I had been preparing for a while, just in case, so I had plenty of melee muscle, PoL, and arcane units by the borders. Beeri had lost almost everything he had defending his capital, so I grabbed three cities defended only by warriors in 4 quick turns. First good civ eliminated, T242 -- not likely to win any speed points there! I did have sizable arcane forces, however; I will add the exact numbers with my final stats but it was something like 384 total arcane XP (3 archmages, 9 illusionists, and a bunch of adepts).

I had just beaten the Calabim to Beeri's relocated capital (they would have taken it next interturn), although I had to stretch a bit to do so. Unfortunately, Alexis was outraged and declared on me during the interturn. She threw a ton of units at my forces in Val'ron and managed to wipe them out, including one of my archmages and a valuable golden hammer. :anger: It cost her over 30 units to do so, including 12 vampires, and I immediately counter-attacked and killed another 7 vampires. But she still had a lot of units and I was badly positioned, so I then activated the Seven Pines to force peace. (Halving the AC was a nice bonus, although it had never gotten to 20 -- it has been a non-factor in this game.)

I was well along in my plans for arcane victory -- Elemental and Alteration were built, Divination needed 2 more turns and all mana sources for Necromancy were set up, with 14 turns of golden age remaining to hurry the construction. But the rest of my empire was mostly just sitting around building the odd wonder or building -- I shifted them to full war build up, with plans to exterminate the vampires from Erebus. Not a single bloodsucker would be spared! Units were moved into position, research set to 0% for upgrade cash (over 1200 gpt!), and the Nexus was planned for rapid construction once the Tower of Divination provided Pass Through the Ether tech.

On T259, with the Tower of Mastery under construction and my mana nodes restored to war time configuraion (2 fire, 2 life, 2 body to provide the most adepts and illusionists with haste, fireball, destroy undead), I launched my war of vengeance upon the Calabim! 105 units surged across the border grabbing three cities on the first turn. 4 archmages, 9 illusionists, almost 40 iron-armed champions, 8 PoL, and assorted hunters, hawks, warriors, tigers, etc. began the drive on the vampire homelands. Did I mention the Calabim had declared on the Elohim about 5 turns previously? Terrible bad luck for them to have their main forces so out of position.

So that is where events stand. I managed another golden age with the Mercantilism great merchant (my fourth, all during Tower construction) so the Tower of Mastery shows 32 turns. But with 12 golden age turns left I figure that will actually be more like 42 - 45 -- I should finish just past T300 I think. I could speed this up by replacing Thariss' towns with mines and such, but I just do not want to do that. This game has not been about speed, anyway.

I do not expect to finish off all the good civs -- the Ljos and Elohim are both pleased with me and I should finish my Tower before I could wipe them out anyway. (The Ljos have bronze long bows and their world spell, as well.) So I will end up with the 192 arcane XP scenario points, although this will have to be a shadow game anyway since I have not finished on time.

Thanks to Square Leg for sponsoring this game -- it has been a blast, and a fun introduction to FFH2. I expect I will be playing a lot more of this mod, trying different races and strategies. Hopefully we will see more Realms Beyond FFH2 events.

[Selrahc]

I did have sizable arcane forces, however; I will add the exact numbers with my final stats but it was something like 384 total arcane XP (3 archmages, 9 illusionists, and a bunch of adepts).

As far as I am aware it is only your highest XP arcane unit that counts. So if you have a unit with 10xp you gain 5 points, and so on.

If that isn't correct, then I was making a pretty ludicrous mistake in my game.

[haphazard1]

The scenario page said:

+0.5 for each xp on an adept line unit at time of killing 1st GOOD civilizations
+0.5 for each xp on an adept line unit at time of killing all GOOD civilizations

This could be read as on your best adept line unit, but it seems equally valid to read it as "on any/all adept line units". "An adept line unit" could mean pick one at random -- too bad if you get your brand new adept! My best archmage was somewhere in the mid-40's XP; I will have to recheck my notes for the exact number.

Not that it really matters in my case -- I did not finish on time, so it will be a shadow game anyway.

[Selrahc]

Yeah, it is ambiguous but there was some discussion of it in the game thread and it is meant to be the best single arcane unit at each point.

[haphazard1]

OK, as promised in my initial post I have completed my game; here is the update. Tower of Mastery victory, turn 278.

My initial report covered my game through turn 259, when I declared on the Calabim to avenge their sneak attack which killed one of my archmages. The Tower of Mastery was under construction in Thariss and I needed something to do while it was built; exterminating every bloodsucker in existence seemed a worthy goal. Also, it would be a good chance to try some offensive warfare against an opponent with more than the warriors (Luchuirp) or axes (Clan) I had faced earlier.

Unfortunately, the AI is deeply stupid. Deeply. The Calabim had declared on the Elohim a few turns before I declared, and their main army never stopped pushing further into Elohim lands. I ended up conquering the entire Calabim homeland, leaving the vamps with only a pair of captured Elohim cities, and still they kept going after the Elohim capital. I did face a fair number of vamps defending the Calabim core, but they were mostly less promoted (presumably still feasting and building up XP). Alexis did reach Poisons just as the war started and I faced a number of assassins, but the computer did not seem to understand how to use them offensively.

The whole war took six turns, from declaring to Calabim elimination. Since my army was in the neighborhood, I then took one more turn and put the Elohim out of their misery as well. Poor guys...it was probably for the best given how their entire game had gone.

I could have rolled my armies into Ljosalfar lands, but I had gone to a lot of trouble with all the mana nodes and towers and such, and the final victory was pretty close. So I just kept the troops amused crushing the various barb towns the AIs had inexplicable left alive. A GE from a late tech (Machinery?) plus a quick Pillar of Chains addition to the capital significantly reduced the final build time, and the game ended on turn 278 with only elves still alive in Erebus.

Some screenshots from the turn of victory:

Map view (note the minimap and mana counts):

City list (39 total at the end; GoN is incredibly powerful, look at all the spare happiness and health):

Final demographics:

Victory conditions (I was very close to both domination and religious victories; religious was at 77% before I founded CoE, Order, and Empyrean on the last three turns):

My army at the end, with most common buildings:

Opponents killed:

And my units lost:

The AI really could not handle a hasted, raider army. I averaged two cities per turn during the Calabin and Elohim wars, and probably could have done 3 per turn if I was willing to risk more losses. Admittedly I had a lot of adepts and illusionists supplying magical support (haste, fireball, enchanted blade, destroy undead, blur, rust, regeneration), archmages mostly working with fire elementals (3 fire nodes plus the promotion for the Tower of Elements gave strength 12 plus collateral damage), and about a dozen PoL spamming tigers. The 50+ champions with iron (and later mithril) weapons ripped through anything the arcane guys left alive. Even the main vampire stack at the end with heavily promoted bloodsuckers just got crushed.

I had maybe a dozen techs left to research at the end; I was managing 1250+ bpt with a profit. During my quadruple golden age (48 consecutive turns! ) I hit over 2100 bpt, so I was grabbing even end of tree techs very quickly.

Final scenario tally:

1st good civ (Luchuirp) eliminated at T242
Highest arcane unit at T242: archmage with 49 XP for 24.5 points

Never eliminated all good civs (Ljosalfar still alive at game end)
Highest arcane unit at end was an archmage with 67 XP (no points)

Thanks again to Square Leg for a very fun game! I will definitely be playing more FFH2.