Some noob-ish FFH2 questions

[haphazard1]

I am looking for some advice with FFH2 (no EitB mod-mod, just the basic mod). I have played a couple games in the past, and have followed some of the FFH PBEM games here at RB. But I am still mostly a noob.

I recently started a game to try to learn a bit more about the mod. I am playing as the Ljosalfar, with Theesa (sp? the Expansive/Arcane leader). Normal speed, low-ish difficulty (Prince I think, I didn't want to face anything too rough until I get my feet under me), fractal map, large size with 1 fewer AI than normal to leave a bit more space for early expansion. No Acheron, all unique features, otherwise default settings.

The hopes for more space early were for naught, as the Amurites under Valledia founded their capital close enough our borders touched after the first pops. I really dislike this when you have a large map, but it seems to be pretty common in FFH. I would destroy the Amurites early with a warrior rush, helped by having the Mirror of Heaven in my BFC to allow vision on their capital. Managed to steal a worker in the process, so I don't think this set back my development too much.

What did slow me down significantly was a lack of food. My best food tile was a plains cow. Should have wandered with the settler perhaps, but Dragon Bones and Mirror of Heaven in the BFC was too tempting, and some incense was also nice. Of course I was very short on food to work those tiles until I got some farms up, and grew very slowly even after.

Anyway, on to the current situation (and my questions!). It is around T130 and I have expanded to 7 cities. There is still a fair bit of open land although it is starting to go quickly. I am in the northern part of a landmass with Perpentach, Os-Gabella, Tasunke, and Jonas Endain. (What fun neighbors! ) I just finished Mining tech (yes, I know, T130 and all....) and of course there is no copper anywhere near me. In fact, the only sources I can see (and I have pretty good exploration of the continent, having managed to get one warrior south of the AIs and somehow survive) are both on the border with Perpentach. I can probably push out a settler and grab one, although either will be ugly cities: one has no food at all, the other is buried in jungle. But it may provoke a war with the clowns.

I have been wandering around the tech tree without much of a plan, not being familiar enough with FFH to know what is important to prioritize. Just grabbing whatever looks shiny at the moment, really. I have founded Fellowship of Leaves and the ancient forests are starting to help my food problems in my capital and a couple other food-poor cities. Hidden Paths and the Guardian of Nature civic look attractive to resolve happiness issues and start growing my cities larger. But I need better units: Archery looks good with the dextrous boost, plus Silveric, or I could go for Swordsmen although without metal they are just much more expensive bronze warrior equivalents. I do have horses, although no deer for Fyr-whatevers despite all the tundra and ice to my north. Priesthood would be cool for Priests of Leaves and Bloom, and of course with arcane trait I should get around to KoE at some point. But my palace mana sources have meh tier 1 spells and I only have 1 mana node in my borders. There are a couple more I can grab, although they will be horrible city sites otherwise so I keep putting them off.

I guess I am looking for advice on what to prioritize. Os-Gabella has pyre zombies, and Jonas Endain has founded OO and could come wandering up the coastline. Tasunke could send raiding horsemen, and who knows what the clowns might try. I think I will need more military strength sometime soon, but where to get it? I do get dextrous archers, maybe pursue Bowyers? Try to grab the copper and go for Swordsmen? Focus on adepts and mages? Priests?

There are all sorts of useful possibilities, but I have no real idea which way to go to actually turn some of them into reality. Some advice for this noob would be greatly appreciated!

[Ichabod]

I have been wandering around the tech tree without much of a plan, not being familiar enough with FFH to know what is important to prioritize. Just grabbing whatever looks shiny at the moment, really.

That's probably the biggest problem that new players in FfH have. The FfH tech tree is not like the one in BTS, where you are going to get to certain points no matter what you do. In FfH you can win games without ever coming close to some parts of the tech tree.

In your particular situation, I'd go for Priest of Leaves. They are strong units (strenght 5 in pretty nice for that time), with passive xp gain and a very nice permanent summon (PoL have the bloom spell, but also the summon tiger spell). Tigers have 4 strenght and 2 moves and they get empower promotions based on the combat promotions of the priest that summoned them (combat 1, for instance, give a 20% bonus, while empower 1 gives only 10% bonus). You can summon as many tigers as you have priests and you can summon more when the ones you had die.

In FfH, in my opinion, the best military usually comes from either summoning, doing collateral damage or highly mobile/retreat units. You are closer to a good summoning unit, so I'd say you should go for that and then start thinking about going for mages (and level 2 spells).

[haphazard1]

Thanks, Ichabod!

The Priests of Leaves do look useful, both for Bloom to help my cities and for combat and tiger spam.

Mages also look attractive, although it will take several techs to get there. While my level 1 spells mostly stink, I have several good level 2 spells available: Destroy Undead (in case those pyre zombies head my way), Maelstrom (or whatever Air 2 is called), and Blinding Light (sun mana from the Mirror of Heaven). If I can get a couple more nodes I would love to add Fire for fireballs (elven and no siege) and Body for haste. Need to keep one in reserve for Metamagic, given my lack of nodes, as I could certainly use at least a couple adepts with spells from other mana types. Spring would be useful for a couple patches of desert, for example.

Can someone explain what the Arcane trait actually does? Other than the double production of mage guilds, that part is pretty obvious. What does potentcy actually do?

[Bobchillingworth]

Yeah, it sounds like you need Priesthood ASAP- blooming forests will solve most food issues & give you some extra production, tigers are disposable troops to help shore up your military, and the Priests themselves can also go found some temples for you. After that you should head for Sorcery, for Maelstrom Mages. You already start with Air Mana, so take whatever Sorcery prereqs you think provide the most useful secondary spells. Also, if you aren't already building any adepts, get on that really soon. You want to get at least a half-dozen of them sitting around to take advantage of your Arcane trait & accrue enough exp for Mageification.


I wouldn't bother much with Archers at this point, but the tech itself is worth it just for Gilden, who is a decent combat unit, and more importantly unlocks a nice national wonder that gives a free promo for any unit built in its city if he dies.


Swords are a waste of your time without at least copper.



Edit: Potency significantly increases the rate at which arcane units gain passive exp, meaning their chance to gain a free exp point every turn. This is important, because adepts & mages need to be a certain level to upgrade, and you probably don't want to actually send your expensive strength 3 adepts into physical combat to get them their promotions.

[kjn]

7 cities by turn 130 is quite the good development in FfH - in fact very good if it's standard speed.

In a way, it's easier to get food in FfH than it is in standard Civ. The agrarianism civic comes really early and gives +1 food to farms at the cost of a hammer on the tile (not a problem for grasland farms), and sanitation comes early mid-game with another +1 to farms.

Agrarianism is only so-so for elves, but it can help in a pinch and early game.

Sun mana (from the Mirror of Heaven) has an awesome level 2 support spell in Blinding Light. Maelstrom (Air 2) is a good collateral damage dealer, though you have to be careful with its use. Poisoned Blade (Nature 2) is a good combat buffer if you use plenty of recon units (fawns, hunters, rangers...).

Against Pyre Zombies, Blinding Light will fix them in place, then you can collateral them with Maelstrom, and use fast movers to pick them off without the explosions being too dangerous. Tasunke can be dealt with by thick forests, a carefully laid-out road network and simply out-teching him. Blinding Light would be awesome against him too, for that matter.

You might also be interested in taking a look at this thread - it's Brian, Hart, and me playing Capria of the Bannor at Emperor level, specifically as a learning tool. Feel free to come over and join in - we've only just started (at turn 45 with two sets played).

[Selrahc]

What does potentcy actually do?

Adepts gain XP just by sitting around on their arses, talking about the latest spell theory from WIZ! magazine (Is my boyfriend bringing entropy magic to the bedroom? Ten easy to scry signs.). Potency greatly increases their passive XP gain by upgrading them to a subscription to National Thaumaturgic and New Alchemist.

When adepts get enough XP they can be upgraded to the much more useful mages. Potency basically means your adepts have a quicker maturation. They'll keep levelling up quicker as mages too, which is handy since spells are tied to promotions.

[haphazard1]

After that you should head for Sorcery, for Maelstrom Mages. You already start with Air Mana, so take whatever Sorcery prereqs you think provide the most useful secondary spells. Also, if you aren't already building any adepts, get on that really soon. You want to get at least a half-dozen of them sitting around to take advantage of your Arcane trait & accrue enough exp for Mageification.

I have been meaning to tech KoE and start building some mage guilds (half price ) and adepts. But with all the level 1 spells sucking, I kept finding other things to research. Oooh, shiny, let's go do that! But it sounds like I need to get that moving Real Soon Now so the adepts can accumulate XP.

I wouldn't bother much with Archers at this point, but the tech itself is worth it just for Gilden, who is a decent combat unit, and more importantly unlocks a nice national wonder that gives a free promo for any unit built in its city if he dies.

Hmmm, sounds interesting but I have no idea which national wonder this would be. And of course there is the whole hero dying thing, not sure I would want to do that anyway. Not that it would be entirely under my control, of course.

Swords are a waste of your time without at least copper.

I was thinking this was probably true, due to the increased cost plus the cost of the training yard(s). All for 1 point of strength. Glad to hear my instincts are not completely wrong in this game.

Edit: Potency significantly increases the rate at which arcane units gain passive exp, meaning their chance to gain a free exp point every turn. This is important, because adepts & mages need to be a certain level to upgrade, and you probably don't want to actually send your expensive strength 3 adepts into physical combat to get them their promotions.

Very useful to know, thanks! How much XP can an adept gain? I seem to remember reading there is a cap on passive XP for adepts, unless they get promoted to mage and then there is a higher cap. Something like that? Or do they just keep gaining XP? What about mages and then arch-mages?

7 cities by turn 130 is quite the good development in FfH - in fact very good if it's standard speed.

This is normal speed, yes. I do have the Expansive trait, which feels more like Imperialistic but better with +100% hammers on settlers. I have a couple decent hammer cities so turning out the settlers has gone pretty well.

This expansion did sort of tank my economy for a while, until I realized I needed Education to start planting cottages. Commerce is certainly harder to come by than in BtS.

In a way, it's easier to get food in FfH than it is in standard Civ. The agrarianism civic comes really early and gives +1 food to farms at the cost of a hammer on the tile (not a problem for grasland farms), and sanitation comes early mid-game with another +1 to farms.

Agrarianism is only so-so for elves, but it can help in a pinch and early game.

Since almost all my farms are on forest tiles, I have not used the civic as it would cost me all those nice hammers. That may have been a mistake, at least early on at the very food-poor capital. Most of my other cities have had at least decent food.

Sun mana (from the Mirror of Heaven) has an awesome level 2 support spell in Blinding Light. Maelstrom (Air 2) is a good collateral damage dealer, though you have to be careful with its use. Poisoned Blade (Nature 2) is a good combat buffer if you use plenty of recon units (fawns, hunters, rangers...).

The Mirror of Heaven has been very useful, giving excellent fog-busting with a unit permanently stationed there. This let me spy on Valledia and know that it was possible to attack, and also to track Orthus when he appeared. And of course there is the Sun mana. Even Sun I will be useful, as I can scorch all those useless ice tiles north of me to tundra and eventually Bloom them for some semi-OK tiles. I need a city up there to grab a mana node, might as well get something other than ice for it.

I had not really considered the effects of Nature 2. I only have a couple hunters (they keep getting killed), mostly as recon platforms for hawks to keep an eye on the AIs. But boosting their combat effectiveness would be very helpful.

Against Pyre Zombies, Blinding Light will fix them in place, then you can collateral them with Maelstrom, and use fast movers to pick them off without the explosions being too dangerous. Tasunke can be dealt with by thick forests, a carefully laid-out road network and simply out-teching him. Blinding Light would be awesome against him too, for that matter.

I also have Life mana from my palace -- I was assuming Life 2 (Destroy Undead) would be helpful against pyre zombies. But I haven't used it before, so I am not certain.

I have probably built too many roads through forests -- commando is so rare in BtS that I wasn't really thinking about raiders. I probably need to pillage some carefully placed choke points, especially once I can start Blooming my non-forest tiles.

You might also be interested in taking a look at this thread - it's Brian, Hart, and me playing Capria of the Bannor at Emperor level, specifically as a learning tool. Feel free to come over and join in - we've only just started (at turn 45 with two sets played).

I have been following your game, actually. If you are still accepting players, maybe I will come join. Obviously I am very much a noob at FFH, so don't expect high-quality play just yet.

Adepts gain XP just by sitting around on their arses, talking about the latest spell theory from WIZ! magazine (Is my boyfriend bringing entropy magic to the bedroom? Ten easy to scry signs.). Potency greatly increases their passive XP gain by upgrading them to a subscription to National Thaumaturgic and New Alchemist.

I had not considered adept matuation in quite these terms before.

When adepts get enough XP they can be upgraded to the much more useful mages. Potency basically means your adepts have a quicker maturation. They'll keep levelling up quicker as mages too, which is handy since spells are tied to promotions.

I am assuming I have to actually take promotions -- locking in choices -- to qualify for the upgrade to mage? And most of my currently available options are not too great. But I need the prereqs for the better level 2 spells anyway, so I guess that does not matter too much.

Additional noob question: how does one break through the Ring of Carcer and liberate the angel? It says a level 15 unit is needed. Is this even possible for a non-Calabim civ? Maybe a hero, but even 100 XP is only going to get part way to level 15. Does FFH have a Charismatic trait for cheaper promotions, that would help a lot.

Also, is there any special point to Odio's Prison? (Not sure I spelled that right.) It mentions a combat bonus (or maybe just defense) for nearby units. Is that it? I know some unique features act as "super dungeons/lairs" with especially good -- or especially bad -- results. But when my exploring warrior passed through there was no option to do anything. Was it already popped by another civ, or this feature just doesn't have such?

I am having a lot of fun with FFH, even if I don't know what I am doing much of the time. Thanks to everyone who has given advice, it is very much appreciated.

[Ellimist]

Additional noob question: how does one break through the Ring of Carcer and liberate the angel? It says a level 15 unit is needed. Is this even possible for a non-Calabim civ? Maybe a hero, but even 100 XP is only going to get part way to level 15. Does FFH have a Charismatic trait for cheaper promotions, that would help a lot.

Promotions are very powerful in FFH. Once you get certain units to a high enough level, you'll often be able to cut through AI units at 99.9% odds. At that point, it's just a matter of killing enough units, and the AI is usually pretty accomodating.
I believe level 15 requires about 200 exp, so attaching a great commander to the unit can help considerably. Blitz is also pretty mandatory.

One tool that I've used to get that high in single player is the Aeron's Chosen promotion, which is given to the first(global) assassin unit to reach level 6. It increases the unit strength and causes it to heal a bit after each combat. I've also gotten Chalid Astrakein(very powerful Empyrean religious hero) into the 500s of exp points.

[Mardoc]

Hmmm, sounds interesting but I have no idea which national wonder this would be. And of course there is the whole hero dying thing, not sure I would want to do that anyway. Not that it would be entirely under my control, of course.

It's called Shrine of the Champion. It mostly depends on which stage of the game you're in, but an extra promotion on each high level unit can be worth a lot more than an old, low base strength hero.

Very useful to know, thanks! How much XP can an adept gain? I seem to remember reading there is a cap on passive XP for adepts, unless they get promoted to mage and then there is a higher cap. Something like that? Or do they just keep gaining XP? What about mages and then arch-mages?

This is off the top of my head, so I might be slightly off. But I believe it's 20 for an adept, 50 for a mage, 80 for an archmage, and Potency adds 20 to each threshold. But more - the chance each turn of gaining XP is the unit's cap-current XP, as a percentage. So they really slow down as they get close to their cap, which means a Potent adept will get to 10 XP more than twice as fast as a non-Potent one.

Since almost all my farms are on forest tiles, I have not used the civic as it would cost me all those nice hammers. That may have been a mistake, at least early on at the very food-poor capital. Most of my other cities have had at least decent food.

Elves are one of the few who are unlikely to want Agrarianism - although as you say, in the early game that's a bit different.

The Mirror of Heaven has been very useful, giving excellent fog-busting with a unit permanently stationed there. This let me spy on Valledia and know that it was possible to attack, and also to track Orthus when he appeared. And of course there is the Sun mana. Even Sun I will be useful, as I can scorch all those useless ice tiles north of me to tundra and eventually Bloom them for some semi-OK tiles. I need a city up there to grab a mana node, might as well get something other than ice for it.

It won't effect this game, but for future - remember you can always grab the specials with your second city .

I also have Life mana from my palace -- I was assuming Life 2 (Destroy Undead) would be helpful against pyre zombies. But I haven't used it before, so I am not certain.

Yes, it's excellent against them. The only trick is getting enough mages in time.

I am assuming I have to actually take promotions -- locking in choices -- to qualify for the upgrade to mage? And most of my currently available options are not too great. But I need the prereqs for the better level 2 spells anyway, so I guess that does not matter too much.

Yes, that's right. And yes, you need the level 1 spell to get the level 2 spell. If you have nothing better to do, you can always grab a Combat promotion or Mobility.

Also, is there any special point to Odio's Prison? (Not sure I spelled that right.) It mentions a combat bonus (or maybe just defense) for nearby units. Is that it? I know some unique features act as "super dungeons/lairs" with especially good -- or especially bad -- results. But when my exploring warrior passed through there was no option to do anything. Was it already popped by another civ, or this feature just doesn't have such?

If it's in the BFC of a city, it grants +25% defense bonus to those tiles. But yes, it's pretty insignificant overall.

[DaveV]

Hmmm, sounds interesting but I have no idea which national wonder this would be.

Shrine of the Champion.

How much XP can an adept gain? I seem to remember reading there is a cap on passive XP for adepts, unless they get promoted to mage and then there is a higher cap. Something like that? Or do they just keep gaining XP? What about mages and then arch-mages?

Each Channeling promotion gives a % chance per turn of gaining passive XP, minus the current XP. Channeling I is 20%, so an adept with 5 XP has a 15% chance per turn to improve to 6 XP. Potency gives an extra +20%, so that chance soars up to 35%. Max XP for an non-potent Adept is therefore 20, although he only has a 1% chance to increase from 19 to 20.

Mages have Chanelling I + Channeling II, for 20% + 30% passive XP chance (+20% for Potency still). Archmages add Channeling III, for +40%. So the theoretical maximum passive XP for a Potent Archmage is 110.

Since almost all my farms are on forest tiles, I have not used the civic as it would cost me all those nice hammers.

As Bob said, Fellowship of Leaves is the answer. Each turn, each forest in your borders has a small chance to mature into an Ancient Forest for +1 food. Early game, it's worth building some Agrarian farms if you need them. You can always change them to cottages or workshops later.

I was assuming Life 2 (Destroy Undead) would be helpful against pyre zombies.

Extremely .

I had not considered adept matuation in quite these terms before.

I am assuming I have to actually take promotions -- locking in choices -- to qualify for the upgrade to mage? And most of my currently available options are not too great. But I need the prereqs for the better level 2 spells anyway, so I guess that does not matter too much.

Research Horseback Riding and give all your adepts Mobility I. Trust me . Also, Spell Extension is very handy if you're planning on using any summoning spells.

Also, is there any special point to Odio's Prison? (Not sure I spelled that right.) It mentions a combat bonus (or maybe just defense) for nearby units. Is that it? I know some unique features act as "super dungeons/lairs" with especially good -- or especially bad -- results. But when my exploring warrior passed through there was no option to do anything. Was it already popped by another civ, or this feature just doesn't have such?

Odio's prison gives +25% defense to any unit within 3 tiles. I'm pretty sure it has to be inside your borders to give the bonus.

The only explorable unique features are Bradeline's Well, Pyre of the Seraphic, Broken Sepulcher, and Maenalus (Aifon Aisle in the manual). You explore them (and barrows, ruins, dungeons, and goblin lairs) by clicking the "explore lair" button: it's treated as casting a spell by the game.

Curse you, Mardoc! I should have just waited a few minutes...