Writing this report a couple of weeks after finishing unlike the first adventure so far less detail as I didn’t start playing this with an intention of reporting.

So first thing to note is its on Immortal difficulty, this initially put a lot of people off (including me). I don’t believe I ever won a BTS always war game so to jump up to Immortal for one seemed like a bad idea. Common sense doesn’t often prevail however so I gave this a try anyway.

Second thing to note was that we were playing as the Illians and had an icy start. Great for defence.

Last thing of any importance was the removal of all religions except Ashen Veil. This is going to mean ploughing through hell terrain and what I believed at the beginning to be multiple Infernal Civs. Fortunately the last assumption proved incorrect.

First off I decide not to take the aggressive trait from Letum Frigus, if the game was to play like my previous AW games, I doubted the combat 1 would save me.



Used 2 Javelin Throwers as scouts early on and delayed putting down my second settler for too long (around 15 turns), the southern scout popped a hut to reveal the Calabim to the south. On the same turn as founding my 2nd city Os Gabiella created Rosier, if he came anywhere near me I would’ve been toast.

Lot’s of scouting popped a lot of mildly bad results, on the other hand my explorers kept surviving these encounters and got a heck of a lot of XP.

Meet the other civs on the eastern side of the world plus Hyborem, I’d meet Tebryn quite a lot later.

Get people marvelling at monument event, naturally I dedicate it to Mulcarn.



White Hand ritual completed Turn 98, I wasn’t exactly trying to rush it out. Built a half dozen warriors beforehand and roads to Os Gabiella’s eastern cities so on Turn 103 I popped Stasis and invaded. Took out her 2 cities nearby very easily.

Hawk’s showed a nice view of ghastly poles (Necrotem’s I think they’re called?) guarding the Infernal coast. Guessing they were meant to discourage naval manoeuvres as I believe they hit units with fear if they move to adjacent tiles. Didn’t affect the few ships I sent out though.

Anyhoo since I didn’t lose anything taking 2 cities from Os Gabiella I moved right onto Jonas…



He was eliminated Turn 124, I razed his cities because of the distance, perhaps I shouldn’t have.

Turn 125 grabbed Bone Palace just because I could really.

Since I took so little damage in attacking 2 civs I moved right onto Flauros noticing city ruins on his NW border, whether barbarians razed a city of his or the other way around remained a mystery.

Built Form of the Titan Turn 129

The Calabim proved a tricky conquest with all the deserts stopping my Ice Elementals, I captured Prespur easily but then the Calabim kept parking their stack on flood plains where I couldn’t hit them, eventually by leaving Prespur unguarded I lured them onto a non desert tile and that was it for the Vamps. I kept both of their cities.

The game then went into a quiet period of economic then military build-up. I neglected to settle much of the central east of the map because of laziness + my natural Civ aversion to having enough workers.

Anyhoo not much happened for ages, the most noteworthy thing was popping a mana node after exploring a goblin fort. That would seen be converted to a life node.

On turn 169 I was ready to start conquering again, as expected the AI had started to resettle the old CoEmbers land.



Initial fights went smoothly, the new Sheaim cities went down fast, the only blip was my adventurer I had popped dying to Rosier at 85% odds.

Decided to knock Os Gabiella out first to went straight up the coast and only kept her capital.

Then I thought I’d push into Infernal land…



What’s that, 130 units? My stack consists of about 40 but considerably higher strength, could get interesting. Hyborem joins the stack and marches towards the old’ Sheaim capital.

Of all the Tier 1 spells in the game, slow is one of the best. I kept hitting their Infernal stacks with slow and they became incredibly disjointed, when he finally brought diseased corpses in I was bringing in Life 1 and 2 mages.

The AI didn’t want to attack my army on the hill though and went for the city instead, I only had a few axemen in there but they took out a lot of Infernal attackers, the city itself wasn’t a big deal so I didn’t place any importance it its defence.

I don’t have the screenshot but what followed was a mix of AI weediness and… well just AI weediness. Hyborem left himself open and was killed, I kept sitting on my hill, whittling down Infernals stacks with Elementals + Destroy Undead. Eventually I got tired of this long drawn out picking at the Infernal stack and destroyed 90% of it in 3 turns of all out attacking.

Incidentally AC went down to 0 Turn 190.

Turn 198 saw a chariot appear in my land, no idea why because I didn’t remember building one, weird.

T221 Get Gaelan after a series of events. Far too late for him to be of much use but he’d eventually clean up some annoying settlements that the AI liked to spring up.

T226 Finally explore the graveyard next to my capital and I pop Mithril Working



Pretty useless at this point as the Infernal army has been crushed and I’m just running around taking his cities now.

Turn 232 sees my mini stack in the south kill Tebryn who was still fielding pitiful numbers of hunters.

T235 Get Mary Morbus from an event, totally useless to me because on the same turn I capture Despero, which was the last of the Infernal cities.

T236 confirms my conquest victory



Endgame log shows a 9 hour 53 minute game and a 96264 score.

So I believe I earned

The Red Star for winning
The Black Star for eliminating the Infernals
The Blue Star for not using the free Aggressive trait from Letum Frigus

I was never really tempted to try for the White Star and win as the Mercurians. Having never played them before I felt switching to them would just prolong the game unnecessarily.

Thanks for the game Bob.

We start with 3 javelin throwers, 2 Supplies (which let you build several basic buildings) and a bunch of techs pre-researched

Since exactly what is out there is unclear the safest play will be to go for Priests of Winter quickly which means researching philosophy quickly

The supplies are costing upkeep, so I decide to use them for Hunting Lodges in the first two cities. I also start a quick Elder Council to get research up, and revolt to God King, Pacifism, Agrarianism and Apprenticeship.

the Graveyard yielded 28 gold.



Meet Flauros (war automatically declared). I built a hunter after the Elder Council and after philosophy I started the White Hand ritual, then Knowledge of the Ether to freeze enemy units if needed, then Writing. I decided not to assign the Sage specialist until Garduk capped out at size 9.

On turn 69 picked up bronze working from a hut. Once the local resources were improved I connected Letum Frigus to give ice elementals +1 strength (turning down the free Aggressive promotion.)

I sent the priests of winter south, razing a barbarian city and attacking Flauros. His first city (Nubia) was on a desert making it impossible for Ice Elementals to attack his hunters, but Priests had 96%+ odds to attack (because of the desert defence penalty) so this turned out to be a decent source of experience too.

Also, I stole 2 workers and a slave from Flauros with my hunter that happened to be in the area. Didn't think I could hold the city without dedicating my priests to defence duty and it was too far from my core, so I razed it.

In the meantime after writing I went for Sanitation. With most of the research infrastructure done in the capital (Elder Council, Library, Mage Guild, Academy, Deruptus Brewery) I switched to aristocracy to fund my expansion



Flauros wasn't able to put up much of a fight, Priests of Winter are just extremely strong for the timing they appear in the game. To avoid paying tons of maintenance and have a massive defensive headache, I just razed everything and slowly expanded south with new cities



Next on the chopping block were Jonas' orcs:



In the meantime Os-Gabella had built Rosier the Fallen so I had to recall the priests up to the north after defeating the Orcs. They caught him wandering alone outside a city (nice work there from the AI) and two Ice Elemental attacks defeated him. At some point in the last year of active FFH development, the AI was patched to use spells better and they did a pretty good job with that. Unfortunately, at the same time, it made the AI very dumb in its use of basic units.

While I was distracted dealing with the purple Sheaim forces Infernal forces managed to take out a newly founded size 1 city and a Hellhound behind my lines captured one of my cities for 1 turn. Didn't do much damage, but spread Ashen Veil to the city giving it a -4 happiness penalty for being at war with its religious brethren It's clear that all this city razing strengthens Hyborem, but the longer I take to destroy the mortal civs, the more free Manes he'll get later.

Anyway I cleaned out the eastern half of the map, explored all the lairs and dungeons, and suppressed all barbarian cities because barbarian units combined with the occasional small AI raid were becoming a serious nuisance at this point. I settled everything to prevent barbarian cities respawning. Hyborem had some dangerous stacks in the computer controlled half of the map that I didn't want to expose my priests to alone so I was teching up to champions and mages.



Diseased corpse stack... I was going to get Life mages to deal with the undead but it turned out there wasn't a free mana node anywhere on the map.



And the classic 150 warrior 40 hellhound stack (lol). I had a triple length chained golden age from an event + Bone Palace + burned Great Bard at this point. I only froze about half my cities with temple of the hand (to terraform bad terrain.) Ice removes the river commerce bonus so I didn't build the temples if the city had a river and good terrain.



good to go with 10 champions + more coming, the 3 priests, 7 mages, 1 adept. With about 3 slows, all of Hyborem's warriors and diseased corpses were unable to move allowing me to attack his stack while only worrying about the Hellhound counter attack. Iron champions in forest could hold off the hellhound numbers easily. After a few turns of this Hyborem got fed up with his incompetent minions and showed up in person to stomp one of my reinforcing Champions.



He wasn't escorted though so I just threw some ice elementals at him to soften him up... oh wait suicide ice elemental #2 just got lucky and won wasting 56 XP. Argh. Gave the axe to Wilboman.

Anyway with Hyborem dead it took a few more turns to clean out the rest of the Infernal troops and conquer everything up to the wall of fire. I just kept the cities to save time and brought up some newly trained royal guards to hold cities and get a quick cultural expansion.



Hyborem's new army, 40 more diseased corpses. I just finished High Priests and had switched to slavery to whip out Temples of the Hand. The one being completed here in Poena would freeze my way through the wall of fire. I didn't have Snowfall until one more promotion for Ice III on the priests, but summoned elementals + Rust (from the captured Sheaim entropy mana) + Heal after attacking were more than enough to deal with these anyway.



Accidentally hit domination on t223 because I was keeping captured cities without thinking, but I just played on a few more turns to finish off the infernals anyway getting all stars except the Mercurian one on t232.

Quick report for now - no time for a detailed report (possibly till after Monday).

I didn't finish my game (as the title suggests).

I popped Letum Frigus' Aggressive Bonus, because this was a custom map; I feared that there would be some nasty surprises that would require every advantage I could get, but it turns out it was completely unnecessary.

Rushed for the Priests (built around T80), and immediately sent them to stake Flauros. Then they went for Jonas, then for Os-Gabella's empire on the eastern shore. After that, they barged through some Infernal cities that were in their way towards Tebryn Arbandi. Then they went for Os-Gabella's remaining empire on the Western shore - She built Rosier, which didn't make much difference, honestly. Hyborem's allies were completely wiped off the face of Erebus on T144.

Clever touch with the Burning Sands wall blocking the remaining 3 Infernal cities. I had enough promotions on my Priests to get Resist Fire to bypass it, but just as I was about to take the promotions and move into Hyborem's borders, I saw (with a Hawk) his huge Diseased Corpse/Hellhound/Warrior stack on Odio's Prison move towards them. So I called off the attack.

Now, this wasn't that long into the game. Hyborem had an awesome army due to the fact that I burnt down every single Ashen Veil city in existence.

Apparently, this had the consequence of completely crippling his economy, as he never seemed to research any tech at all since the fall of his last remaining ally till the time I stopped playing (after I settled around half the map in peace).

Hyborem never moved his units out for any offensive or even attempt to claim more land beyond his 3 protected cities after I eliminated his earlier cities and his allies, instead preferring to send out Savants to spread AV to barbarian cities. Nice free XP for my priests.

I could have just spammed settlers and win a Domination Victory easily, since I was well close to the limit, but I didn't. This was because I had thought that the closing day was on Monday.

Well, anyway my main complaint is that the AI completely sucks big time. Hyborem never attacked me, and the AI couldn't stand against the might of 3 lone Priests (with their Ice Elementals) and the occasional Mobility Javelin Thrower that accompanied them when he was not busy pillaging the countryside.
Also, I was pillaging the Eastern Os-Gabellan city with one of my starting Javelin Throwers for ages before it was finally killed off. Must've burned down several towns before he was taken down, despite being badly injured for a long time.
And Hyborem seemed to be deciding his movements with the rolls of an 8-sided die.

After Hyborem's last ally fell, the Priests were busy pillaging the countryside - This was crucial in resurrecting my completely tanked economy (broke even at 0%), and allowed me to continue to research at 100% science for many, many turns.

If I had the patience to play it out and avoiding the easy Domination Victory, I'd have tried to go get all my best units (Drifa, Wilboman, all the highest tier units, Ice III Archmages and High Priests) and boat Hyborem - it's not as if he was ever going to attack me with his huge stack of junk anyway. But it was too boring, even for autopilot play. Stopped a little shy of T200 - kept wavering on whether to just finish the damned game by planting settlers on the remaining land or just abandon it altogether, till I missed the deadline.

Also, I happened to pop a Thane from a Dungeon and founded RoK in Garduk. Eventually i popped a GProphet from another lair, and built the Tablets of Bambur.
Too bad I didn't get a Zealot for OO and Necronomicon. Water-Walking would've been totally awesome. I would've probably tried to build the Rites of Oghma project to get some nodes, if I had the time and Strength of Will (to finish the game, and the tech, too, heh).

By the way, what do Necrototems do? I never built a ship, so I never found out. And what does the Tormented Souls feature actually do?

Screenshots will come later, when I have the time.

For order and future generations

This is a succession game in Crusader Kings with Deus Vult expansion patched to 2.1 beta

As chronicled by

• Brother Mist, the Experienced
  
• Brother Regoarrarr, the Concise
  
• Brother SleepingMoogle, the Cautious
  
• Brother Ichabod, the Unlucky
  
• Brother Twinkletoes, the Bloodthirsty
  
• Brother Archduke, the Absent
  
• Sister Pling, the Enthusiastic
  
• Brother Uberfish, the Skilled
  

A Song of Ice and Fire

This is my first realms beyond challenge. I'm not sure if I did this write up correctly either. Anyways, I vastly prefer Fall from Heaven 2 to regular Civilization 4 so when I saw this, I had to try it out. I've been playing it again recently and I've worked my way up to Monarch so this scenario on Immortal is going to be difficult.

[strike]Also, before I begin, I should mention that I use one extra mod for Fall from Heaven 2, the better Naval AI mod. It does change a few details (mainly related to sailing) and vastly improved the AI's ability to wage war, run their economies, and choose their religions.[/strike] It wouldn't work unless I got rid of the mod.

I'm going to try and play 20 turns at a time and then ask for people's opinions. I might play once to twice a day.

Victory conditions:

I'm going to be aiming for the Red and Black stars, hopefully netting a domination or conquest victory. From what I can understand, summoning the Mercurians is going to be suicide since there will be no good aligned armies to get angels from.

In addition to the default rules, I'm adding one more, I cannot use fire mana. This is ice vs fire, if I win using fire, has winter really prevailed?

Objectives:

To go for this domination win, this is what I think I'm going to need:

1. Economy: Cottage.

My initial impression is to use a cottage economy and protect it to the death so I can run Apprenticeship + Conquest to help out my army. However, cottage economies are not very powerful in Fall from Heaven. An astroagarian might work too.


2. Army:

I'm going to be focusing heavily on the magic line. Charismatic will make up for the lack of summoner or arcane with a free Combat I +4 exp, my adepts should be able to put into mages quickly. However, the priests of winter are necessary early game.


3. Wonders: Form of the Titan and Heroic Epic

The only wonder I need to work for is the Form of the Titan. With it in my mage's guild city and my civics I should be starting at +6 exp on all my adepts. Add in charismatic and I'll only need 8 exp to make a mage. I'm not sure if the free Combat I from the Letum Frigus will push me up to level 4 though (it would be awesome if it did).

4. Mana: Death and Life

Illian starts with the perfect for mana for this adventure, Ice, Enchantment, and Law. Every ice spell is good, slow stops stacks of doom in their tracks, ice elements are going to be used in place of specters, and at level 3, we get snowfall that can do up to 80% damage to everything around my stack. Enchantment adds alot to the table, at level 1 we enchanted blade (20% strength to every unit on the tile), flaming arrows adds +1 fire combat (I'm tempted to not use this), and finally it gives spellstaff which I can crack to regain all of my spells again. Finally the law spells aren't that important except for 1, Summon Host of Einherjar. This spell summons Einherjar that have +2 holy combat. These guys will be doing the heavy lifting when it comes time to fight Hyborem.

The two other mana types I'll be focusing on will be Death and Life. The two spells I want out Death is "Summon Skeleton" and the Lich upgrade that will level me have 8 level 3 spell casters in my army. Life's primary use will be to fight off hell terrain and destroy undead. I'm going to bet money that this map has the Sheaim on it and that means nothing but Pyre Zombies.

For anyone reading who doesn't know, Pyre Zombies are probably one of the most overpowered units in the game. They are 4 strength Axeman replacements that do not require a training yard to build. What makes Pyre Zombies so powerful is that every time one is killed, it explodes doing damage to every unit in its adjacent tiles. A handful of Pyre Zombies a destroy large stacks of units, but there are 2 counters.

The first counter is to use Mages with the Life II spell, "Destroy Undead." A few castings of this spell will destroy an entire stack of Pyre Zombies without their explosion. The problem is that getting this spell requires a higher tier unit and a fair amount of time. The second counter and much easier to do is to use horsemen. Have your stack stand 1 tile away and have them fight one by one. When a Pyre Zombie explodes, it only damages the single horseman. You can them send them back to their original stack and bring out a fresh one.

---

Turn 1



Thankfully we start with copper in the capital's BFC. I'm also noticing furs, deer, and lots of hills. I'm thinking that an early conversion to God King to start pumping out units is going to be a great idea.

I'm thinking my initial plan is going to be researching Bronze Working ASAP. 4 strength warriors are far more efficient than Axemen and make great early game defenders. But I'm also thinking about building an elder council first and running a sage specialist to help boost research and use the Great Sage to either build an academy or light bulb Knowledge of the Ether so I can spend my time researching the economic techs I need.

I also noticed that we start out with alot of civics options, I immediately switch to God King, Apprenticeship, and Agarianism. I chose God King over Aristocracy because I'm going to need to produce a lot initially and I don't have any farms set up.



Also when I took a look at the city screen, I noticed not only do I have a happy of 9 but I have ancient forests in my lands too. That'll be useful for now, but I'll probably end up ripping them up later on for something more useful.

Also we start out knowing where the Infernal capital is and he apparently has an Entropy mana node set up from the get go. He also has copper right next to it as well, but that's not an issue because the Infernal palace starts with Iron I believe.

I also pop a supply wagon for a hunting lodge for the +1 happy and +1 health for the fur and deers. I send the other to go get my aggressive upgrade and two javelin throwers out to scout.



Turn 2

I get the Aggressive upgrade from the Letum Frigus with my extra supply wagon.

Turn 3

I forgot to take a screen shot, but I got a message telling me about power rating. Apparently I'm in the middle of the pack of 6 civs.

Turn 4

Goody hut pop! We get Animal Handling.



Turn 7

More scouting and I destroy a bear den! From the looks of the surroundings, barbarians are going to be a huge problem.

Turn 8

Hostile villagers pop from a southern goody hut. Hope my unit survives.

Turn 9

Nope, he didn't make it, but look what my other Javelin Thrower found Sheaim borders. I knew they would be here, I knew it! Ugh, they start one tech away from Pyre Zombies too. I was hoping they would be farther away.



Turn 10

Elder Council completes, a warrior. I'm going to expand west first. I'll need a few units to take out that bear den.

Turn 11

Wait? Why did I declare war when I came into contact with the Sheaim? Oh ****, I forgot the always war option. Well, might as well cause some havoc.

Turn 12

First warrior completes and I make more. I think I'll build up 4 then go after that bear den. Here's a look at the city, God King is really doing it's job. You'll notice I made a mistake in improving the furs first when I really should have gone after the deer.



Turn 14

Warrior done, make more. 2 warriors and my starting settler head westward. Meanwhile my Javelin thrower makes his way to the Sheaim capital. Here's what they got:



PYRE ZOMBIE!!! But wait, he can't move. While it looks like they start with copper and a Pyre Zombie, I don't think they have bronze working just yet. I plan on pillaging their improvements with this guy and trying my best to slow them down. Hopefully that can buy me enough time to beat them.

Turn 15

I somehow declare war on Flouros. I think I saw his scout. Warrior complete, start another.

Turn 17

Pillage the copper, warrior finishes, start another then queue up a market because I'm bleeding money.

Turn 18

Warrior finishes and ROSIER THE FALLEN HAS BEEN CREATED!? That is so not fair. In retaliation, I pillage her cows.

I found Lakis as well and have it start on a monument immediately.

Turn 20

I just noticed that I've messed up the turns, but I'm back on track. An event pops up and I'm going to take the temporary unhappy penalty. Later on that +2 health is going to be vital for my cities later on. Often times in FFH2 cities are limited by health and not happiness.



I took and I got the +2 health and no population hit! Score!

Turn 21

I destroyed the bear den and moved south to where I was going to build my new city, but it looks like a barbarian one popped up in the exact spot.



Turn 24

Someone got a great sage and I discovered the barbarian city was 1SW of where I wanted my city at. It's guarded by 2 archers, it'll be awhile before I can take it.

Turn 25

Garduk grows to size 7 and happiness cap. I start a settler and switch the new citizen to be sage. This costs only a single turn on the settler but nets me 4 turns on bronze working.

After reading some of the FFH2 PBEM 1 threads, I've decided to go for Philosophy next in order to get the Priests of the Hand, which are basically miniature hero units that will make up the back bone of my army.

Turn 27

Found yet another barbarian city.



Turn 28

An event!



And yet another barbarian city! Grrr, looks like my first war won't be with the Sheaim, but the barbarians that have me boxed in.

Speaking of which, my Javelin Thrower is dancing around their BFC pillaging improvements. I have 5 AI to kill and this one is the most annoying. I want her gimped.

Turn 29

Settler finishes, start a warrior. I continue pillaging improvements around a Sheaim city, but discover another across the lake.

Turn 31

Settler is off, more warriors.

Turn 32

Tolero settled. It starts a monument. After this warrior, I'll have Garduk start a worker to help out the other cities.

Turn 35

Monument in Lakis finishes, I start an Elder Council. I need to get as much research going as possible.

Turn 37

I've discovered Flouros is directly south of me and met Hyborem. I still have a Javelin Thrower running around destroying improvements, but they can rebuild them as fast as I blow them up. It's setting me up with a decent pillage economy. I use it to run deficit research.

Turn 40

I have 4 workers and 3 cities now. 2 of them are heading to Lakis the other 2 to Tolero. Capital started a carnival but afterward, more warriors for fog busting and anti-barbarian distractions.

My Empire:



Rivals and Southern Expanse



After I scout around in the fog a bit with the southern warrior, I'm going to have him pillage around to see if I can keep the deficit research going.

In other news, I have yet to find another mana node anywhere on the map. This worries me. I might have to scrap my plan for Death and Life mana and be forced to pick 1. If I have to, it's life. Hell terrain will destroy my icy economy. I can use Ice spells to serve as my suicide damage stacks.

Turn 41

Truffles!



Turn 42

Carnival finishes and I begin a Training Yard in my capital. With nationhood this is +1 happy faces and I can start to mass produce Axemen to capture, no RAZE, barbarian cities with.

Turn 43

I discover a Calabim city surrounded by flood plains and a huge stack of hunters with a great prophet, but... before I could start to pillage, my poor warrior was killed.

Turn 45

Elder Council in Lakis finishes and I start another sage specialist. It then begins to produce warriors. It's not really a production center so I'm going to have it make warriors for a basic defense.

Turn 46

Training Yard finishes right as Philosophy does. I immediately start the White Hand. Speaking of rituals, I don't plan on building the Samhain. It feels like a waste of time.

In other news, I got my first Great Sage. It's hard, but I think I'll pass on the lightbulb for now and grab the academy. I'm just not seeing the mana anywhere near by besides I need Conquest and Form of the Titan next.

And I begin researching Warfare.

Thinking about it, I'll get a great academy instead. Here's my beakers in my towns before:



And after:



A nice increase and it cuts off 2 turns on Warfare.

By the way, my Javelin Thrower is still pillaging around Sheaim. I think he might be the MVP of this game.

Turn 47

Monument finishes in Tolero and I begin an Elder Council. A scout also entered my borders. He has chosen unwisely.

Turn 49

I discover Jonas, an orc with a bad attitude and way too much aggression. In addition it looks like hell terrain has come to this Sheaim city. That's not good.

Turn 51

My MVP Javelin Thrower is being chased by a Calabim Bear! This might be the last pillage for him.

Turn 52

The bear go away! I discover Warfare and revolt to Conquest. I still don't see any mana nodes so I want hold off on adepts for now. The priests of the white hand will be filling that role for now.

I'm kind of split on what I should. Horseback Riding is great for the mobility promotion.

Turn 58

Priests of the White Hand complete. I get 3 7 strength priests. Awesome.

Turn 60

Writing finishes and my High Priests are learning Ice II, summon Ice Elemental. Awesome. My new objective is to expand southward toward Flauros' floodplains. I'll remove any barbarian cities I see and replace them with good Illian ones.

I'm starting to bleed money and not even my MVP Javelin Thrower can keep filling the coffers fast enough. I decide to go to Currency for the extra trade routes and Consumption. Also when I switch over, I'll also go over to City States instead of God King. My cities aren't far away but they already have a fair amount of cost on them.

Turn 61

I pop my second supplies in the capital for a free library. I switch another citizen to a sage losing a turn on the next settler but gaining 2 turns on currency.

Unfortunately there's a hell hound running around nearby. I need to get rid of that.

Turn 62

Southern expedition is ready. Here's the plan.



The Sheaim city worthless unless I can convert all of that to snow. I want to expand again immediately to my south and then to grab the gold city at the bottom City Here sign. I'll be destroying barbarian cities to keep funding my research.

Turn 65

I destroy the first town and continue forward to destroy the goblin camp that's nearby.

Turn 68

I destroyed the goblins on the fort without a problem, but when I went to explore it 3 scorpions popped out! Go! Go! Ice Elementals! They clean up the scorpions without a problem. I'm going to continue heading south and get rid of Flauros.

I also found my 4th city near where the barbarian city was.

Turn 69

No!!! My MVP Javelin Thrower was slain! He served his wintry cousins well.

Turn 72

First Stack of Doom incoming. I quickly change production in Tolero make another warrior and send up the warriors and axemen I had clearing out island city back to Tolero. I should be able to get there in time to have at least a decent stack for defense. It doesn't stop my plans of getting that gold city.

I'm still sending my priests to the south to take out Flauros. My plan is to expand from top to bottom and then work my way westward. Right now I'm concerned with as saving as much terrain as impossible from hell and hopefully find a mana node so I can make some Life I adepts to push back the hell terrain.

Worse comes to worse I may just have to rush buy temples of the hand in all cities I capture or build.

Right now as an overview, I'm thinking that I need to start choosing my tech paths. While I wanted to head heavy down the magic path (and still may), I don't think this game is going to give it to me. As a back up plan I may go down the metal and religion lines for the hero, iron weapons, High Priests of Winter, and Drifta the White Dragon (I'll easily knock off a civ or two meet the ritual requirements).

Afterward, when I have a more developed empire and possibly +6~8 exp Adepts that can be converted to Mages ASAP, I'll use Einherjar spam to fight off Hyborem. Also later, but when I secure the horses site, I can potentially pick up the cavalry techs as well, but first, my economy needs help and I need to expand.

Lastly, if the game goes late enough, I might be able to pull off an Auric Ascended.

Anyways since I'm stopping here for the night, here's a look at demographics.



I'm doing alot better than I imagined. So far in my head it's felt like a struggle to stay in the black and to develop a quick tech and production pace. I'm coming in at #2 on most of the important demographics except GNP where I'm 5th and and military where I'm 6th. Those are bad, but I think I'm alright.

I completely outclass every neighboring civ in food and have a slight manufacturing lead otherwise. Thankfully though, I can convert this food advantage into a hammers advantage through the Conquest civic. I'm pretty confident I can take out Flauros. take the entire eastern side of the map and push westward at my own pace.

One last thing, I've noticed I'm behind Hyborem by 120 points and his advantages are pretty huge, but that's ignoring how much we've improved. When I first met him, he was around 712 points and his 985 puts him at 273 points gained in this turn set. In contrast I met him at 470 and am now 867, a gain of 397. I'm catching up on his huge lead and that's going to sky rocket once I switch to City States/Consumption/Apprenticeship/Conquest.

Turn 73

After waking up my head is a bit clearer. After currency I'll go for Military Strategy and Horseback Riding. Hopefully I can Form of the Titan + Heroic Epic in my capital and have it turn out as many Mobility I promoted units that I can. But it's not going to be easy. I've got 2 SoD I have to worry about.

The first one was in the previous post, but as I was heading toward the Calabim Nubia, I discovered a new one:



Turn 74

And the second SoD retreated! Alright onward to Nubia!



I'm sure I can throw enough Ice Elementals at that to take it without many problems.

Also this turn you'll noticed currency finishes so I switched to City States and Consumption. Hopefully that'll help my economy out a bit.

Turn 75

Wait, what? Why can't Ice Elementals attack cities like every other Elemental in this game? Oh shit, they can't enter desert tiles. That is a really lame restriction, well screw Nubia, we're off to somewhere else.

Turn 77

The Lizardman stack attacks my city and fails to take anything. After losing a bunch of troops, they retreat.

Turn 79

Dammit! I lost 2 of my high priests of winter and its defending stack. Hopefully I can limp out in time.

Turn 80

And the priest falls. Alright, so I'm back to square one here. I'll complete the Pact of Nilhorn for bombardment then play a defensive war till I tech up to Mages.

Turn 82

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.... THERE'S 2 SHEAIM!? **** my life.

Turn 83

I'm the first to Military Strategy so I build the command post for +6 exp in my capital. Just need the Form of the Titan for the last +2.

Turn 89

Not much happens for now. I finish horseback riding and found another city at the gold site. I'm having to deal with alot more AI units, but it's manageable. A particularly favorite is Diseased Corpses that have 8 strength! Thankfully my Axemen have 62% odds against them because of all the experience they're gaining.

Turn 95

Pact of Nilhorn finishes and I start the heroic epic in my capital. Afterward a Mage guild to begin mass producing adepts.

Also, Flouros sent me a present.



I wish he would give it to someone else.

Turn 97

Dumb AI



His stack of diseased corpses trembled in fear of my 2 defending warriors and fled the scene! Honestly, I shouldn't be complaining, but there's no reason for that.

Turn 102

The AI is happy to dance around my city borders while the barbarians will charge head first. This is a bit ridiculous, but it's letting me inch ahead. I found another city on the lake for corn/wine/horses and start to thin out the lizard man stacks that like to buzz around me. I need to get a level 6 unit for that Form of the Titan.

In demographics news, it's much the same, except that I've pulled ahead in score, population, and food yield with my 2nd place manufacturing pulling ahead of my average rival. Somehow it doesn't seem like it's worth much when I see 20 unit stacks of doom dancing around my borders.

Also I've begun beelining Sorcery. Hopefully I can get mages and Law II summons to fight off the hordes of Diseased Corpses.

Turn 106

Another Great Sage is born and I was hoping to use him to light bulb sorcery but it's stuck at Alternation still. I decide to settle him so that the library + academy in the capital can push up his beaker yield to something higher than just settling him again.

Turn 109

The barbarian city near Lakis is captured by the Sheaim! My troops are moving south to hopefully do something about those annoying diseased corpses.



Turn 111

The Calabim finally decide to use that massive stack, but I've got reinforcements to try and take back the city. Will it be enough?

Turn 112

My small stack is attacked by 3 much larger stacks and I lose Larry in the process. I could reclaim my city, but that won't do much of anything except get them kill. I have all my adepts cast slow and then begin to retreat. I need to get mages ASAP to suicide summons against enemy stacks.

Turn 123

Been awhile without an update. Not much has happened besides building troops and killing some barbarians. I was finally able to get an axeman up to level and have immediately started construction of the From of Titan in my capital. In 8 turns I'll have it done and in 2 turns, I'll have Sorcery done.

Once I get Sorcery, I'm converting every single Adept I have into Mages and I'll start to head out. I'll probably take out the Sheaim to my west first and then push south. That hell terrain spooks me.

Turn 124

Sorcery done! Time to mass produce mages. I'm actually running next to no science so I can get these mages up and then I'll push forward with my massive regenerating stack of doom.

Turn 139

A bloody bloody turn. A Lizardman SoD outside of Tolero launched an all out attack against the city, killing the entire garrison (8 units) except for 1 of the 2 Mages. The loss of a Mage hurts, but soon they'll be replaceable Thankfully I held onto Tolero which is my 2nd production city and makes all of the Axemen and Horsemen for my empire.

In the aftermath, there was probably 12 Lizardmen left, but I was able to clean them because my handful of Mages (probably 6) were able to summon Einherjar to take the stupid risks while the rest of my army cleans up. This will be how I fight battles for the most part.

Bombard with Giants -> Einherjar/Ice Elemental Spam -> Move in with main forces

The reason why summons are so powerful in this mod is that they're are walking production centers. Every turn I can summon as many Einherjar/Ice Elementals as I have Mages. If an Einherjar is equal to a Bronze Axeman then my 6 Mages are producing 360 hammers worth of units every single turn that can attack immediately after being built. This equal to having 6 top tier production cities cranking out units.

Anyways, I had Lakis begin making a Great Library for the hell of it. It's not a production city and if it did make more units, it'd would make my unit upkeep go to complete hell. Instead I'll have it work on the Great Library to help speed up my teching. If an AI beats me to it, that's great too. The gold will be used to make more Mages. However if I do complete it, my research rate will speed up a bit and I can let me get a further tech lead on the AI.

If I'm going to win against these constant stacks of doom, I'm going to need to more than just Einherjar spam, but higher level hero tier units. I would love to pull out Drifta for this.

Bunch of Turns I used but Didn't Notice

Mainly getting money to buy Mages

Turn 159

Finally since this turn is where I took a break and then came to the game, let's take a look at my 4 objectives that I laid out earlier.

1. Cottage Economy - Success!

While I am still running a fair amount of specialists, I have 2 cottage cities and 2 production cities, with one of those production cities working some cottages with its spare population. It was pretty hard going at first, but now that I have city maintenance under control and these cottages going, I can make enough gold to turn 3 Adepts into Mages every 2 turns.

2. Magic Based Units - Success!

I'm not sure if I put this off for too long, but in the end I think it was worth it. I messed around in the economy techs trying to get a decent tech rate, but I believe it's working out. I am the most advanced civ and have the highest score.

Despite losing my 3 Priests of Winter, I have recovered nicely. I have about 5 or 6 Mages at the moment with 7 or 8 others waiting to be promoted. In addition, I can make Mages on demand now because of the next objective.

3. Form of the Titan and Heroic Epic - In 3 Turns

Not only did I pull of a Heroic Epic + Form of the Titan city, I actually upped the ante and made it better. My capital has Form of the Titan (+2 exp) + Heroic Epic (100% military production) + Command Post (+2 exp). As it stands now, without a Forge, I can produce 1 to 2 turn Adepts. If I put a Forge in the city I should be able to make an Adept every turn that can be promoted to a Mage instantly with the following promotions:

Combat I
Combat II
Mobility I
Summon Mobility I
Ice I (Free with 2 Ice mana)
Law I

Meanwhile in Tolero I can produce 4 exp Axemen in 2 turns with the following promotions:

Combat I
Mobility I
Shock I

That means I have a very mobile and well promoted only.

4. Mana - Failure!

I can't find a single mana node on the map which honestly is looking like poor taste. Sorry this scenario is great so far, but there's a problem when I can't find a single mana node to combat hell terrain, take a look at this:



Prespur is entirely blocked in by fire. The city can't contribute anything and I can't get to it. If I had Life mana I could sanctify the area and press on.

"But wait!" You might say, "You're suppose to rush them to get their yummy flood plains. This is the cost of not being fast enough!"

That is a fair argument, but Life I destroys flood plains. After I clear the fire that will be nothing but a desert that is entirely uninhabitable. As it stands now, I'm rushing my gold city to keep out the fire.

Demographics

I thought I'd give an update for demographics.



Looking at the demographics, it looks like the hell terrain is hurting the enemies more than it is me. Despite being the tech leader, I'm only average in GNP, but I've got the most people and food which I turn directly into military which is starting to show. I've up from dead last to 4th.

New Objectives:

1. Keep the Armageddon Counter below 30 and 50

The moment the AC gets to 50, I'm screwed. Hell terrain enters my lands and my economy cannot recover from that. I also get hosed if it gets over 30 and the blight strikes. Since I have the most population, I will received the most unhealthiness and subsequently the largest population hit.

2. Get High Priests of Winter

These bad boys will be perfect for softening up stacks of units with their blizzard abilities. I might not be able to train them because I lost my 3 Priests of Winter, we'll see. [Note: Later, I realize that you can only get these guys if you have the Priests of Winter from before alive, opps.]

3. More commerce!

I need more money to keep my expanding military afloat. I need to found more cities and get more cottages up and running. Therefore taxation might be a good detour when my cottages upgrade. This also means beelining my lost town to save it from hell terrain.


Turn 161

The battle for my gold city is going to be tough. I've used Einherjar to soften them up, but the enemies just keep coming.



There are 20 units 1N of the city. 3 inside the city. 1SW has another 10 or 12 and the stack 2W of that stack has another 8. Even with Einherjar spam, I just don't have the output to keep up with this. I retreat my units back to see if I can do some long range Einherjar nukes to keep them down.

I can't afford to lose this army.

Turn 162

Now I can formally say that I completed the Form of the Titan. I'm now beginning to turn out 1 to 2 turn Mages.

Turn 184

I've decided I can't count or keep track of how many actual turns I've used so we're doing it this way. The thingy says turn 184 and that's what turn I'm on.

Anyways I reconquer my city but hell terrain spread through half of its cultural borders. The gold was enveloped, but the river side tiles are fine. I can make this work with alot of farms, but I need to raze Nubia to free up its cultural borders.



Turn 185

Rosier the Fallen enters my lands right next to Tolero who only had a 1 warrior on defense duty! Thankfully he didn't attack, but he has to be dealt with. In the picture I had already used 2 of my recently created mages to attack him with 2 Einherjar. Notice how much damage they did. They reduced him from 10 str to 3.



The reason I've been using Einherjar over Ice Elementals besides not having the goofy restriction on what tiles they can or cannot enter, is that Einherjar have +2 holy combat. This is effective against most of the Ashen Veil based armies I've been fighting.

And soon after, an Axeman finishes off Rosier lowering the AC by 2. Be gone hell terrain.

Meanwhile, Hooplak has a Sheaim hunter stack charging forward. Rosier was a feint! I had rushed over guarding Axemen to defend but didn't notice this hunter stack coming to kill me.



However, the March of Winter cannot be stopped. My Einherjar have routed through the Undead of the Ashen Veil.



Turn 186

Some more hunters pushed up to Tolero again, but the 3 Mages standing around there used their Einherjar to shrink them down a bit.



Turn 187

Nubia falls to the host of the Einherjar, but there is heresy amongst my ranks. Within the quiet hours behind closed doors, some of my secretly pay homage to the Infernal. Their sins will be paid with their souls and they find themselves in the Infernal's service (In reality, as an Evil civ there's a chance my dead units will join the Infernal, even if they have +2 holy combat.)

However the winter is long. They will pay for their crimes.

Turn 188

Apparently my lands are too cold for the Sheaim and they depart while being chased by my Einherjar. It's impossible to destroy Prespur for now so I move on Jonas. I plan to build up Mages to capture the barbarian city south of Hooplak.

I also decide to an about shift from going down the religion line to down the metal line to see if I can find iron. As always I build more Axemen/Mages.

Turn 189

As soon as the Sheaim leave, the Clan of Embers wants to take their own shot. I reinforce Hooplak with 5 mages each of them summoning Einherjar at every opportunity.


Turn 191

I find my next victim.



Turn 192

I raze Renegade Hill to the ground and find a way to Prespur. One thing I noticed is that Einherjar can walk over hell terrain. If I move into that small opening I can send Einherjar to storm the city.

Also looking at this terrain, I have no choice but to go for a Conquest win. This land is worthless. There's no point in trying to build up everything.

Turn 193

I FOUND MANA!



But it's Fire mana and that's terrible. Who needs fireballs when you have the storms of winter? Besides, the world has enough fire, we need to bring it the Life of Winter.

However a single army is no where near fast enough for me. I've built up a second army that is taking the northern routes. Os-Gabella, you're time is up.



Turn 194

Unfortunately after a few tries my Einherjar still can't reach Prespur so I decide to abandon it entirely. Maybe I can find the Tomb of Succelus and be able to make my way over there later.

Braduk the Burning and Sheaim's top city both fall this turn, I raze them to the ground.



In other news, building a temple to the white hand does destroy all nearby hell terrain.



Turn 197

I capture a barbarian city with lots of flood plains, pigs, and copper. It's a good city. I've also sent out a squad to get rid of that barbarian city south of Hooplak.


Turn 199

1 Sheaim city razed. Jonas eliminated. If I get to it this game, I should be able to make Drifta, but right now the battles are mostly a clean up. The hell terrain decimated the AI into nothingness.

Turn 200

Prespur builds that Lyre wonder. How on earth did they manage that!? Their entire country side is nothing but a lake of fire!

In other news, I blew up the other Sheaim's attempts at expanding where Jonas once was.

Turn 201

Hyborem has the bestest culture apparently. Like that matters.



In other news, I thought I would do a demographics shot.



Here's the power divide between myself and Hyborem. I wonder if he's a paper tiger.



And shots of my northern empire



And my southern empire

[img] http://hatchetwrench.squarespace.com/sto...Empire.jpg[/img]

I've started settler spam now that barbarians and the AI are under control. I'm also going to start an aggressive terraforming project that will let me reach Prespur.

Turn 202

Captured a barbarian city to the north and then razed one of Orange Sheaim''s. I need to quickly eliminate some more AI so I can get rid of the war weariness plaguing my cities.

Turn 204

Another purple Sheaim city sacked. Os-Gabella eliminated.

Turn 210

Eliminating the AIs is helping with war weariness alot, but I'm bleeding money. Not sure why though. It may have something to do with the troops outside of border maintenance.

I explore a lair and find... a Disciple of the Leaves. I would love to found a religion, but aren't they disabled?

Turn 212

Orange Sheaim eliminated. That leaves just Hyborem, me, and.... Flouros stuck in his lake of fire.

Turn 213

Raze one of Hyborem's new cities, my library catches fire, and the game is in clean up unless Hyborem surprises me with something.

Turn 215

Cool, the Great Prophet event. It doesn't do too much for me right now, but 80 gold for a Great Prophet is a steal.

[img] http://hatchetwrench.squarespace.com/sto...0Event.jpg [/img]

Also, lookie who I found. I didn't know FfH2 had Diablo in it.



Turn 216

A change of battle plans. Hyborem is walled off by a river of fire, so I'll need to capture those two cities nearby and have them build Temples of the White Hand. If I can do that, I can push past the river of fire and launch my final attack on the Infernal heartland.



Turn 217

Hyborem reveals himself and I immediately counter attack with Einherjar.




Turn 219

I took the two Infernal cities the previous turn and my test at the old Sheaim city where the MVP Javelin Thrower proved successful. I was curious if building a temple of the hand would extend snow past cultural borders. It does.

Turn 220

I revolt to Military State for the unit support and the gold buy rushing for temples. I don't wait around longer than I have to.

Confession: I'm going to steal something I posted on CFC and say, day when I was chillin in

Kentucky Fried Chicken. Just mindin my business, eatin food and finger lickin. This dude walks in lookin strange and kind of funny. Went up to the front with a menu and his money. He didn't
[SPOILER]walk straight, kinda side to side. He asked this old lady, "Yo yo, um... Is this Kentucky Fried?" The lady said "Yes", smiled, and he smiled back. He gave a quarter and his order: small fries,
[SPOILER]BIG MAC.
[SPOILER]

You be Illian.

Illian. Illian. Illian.
You be Illian.
Illian.
You be Illian. Illian. Illian.
You be Illian.

Just as a foreword, I've never made an adventure report before, so I dunno if this is too long, or has too many pictures, or whatever. Bear with me.

Prior to this game, I had never played with the Ilians. I had also never played on Immortal, usually playing on Emperor previous to this. However, emperor was getting a bit too easy, so switching to Immortal felt like a nice thing to do. I’ve also never summoned the Mercurians, so I decided to get one of those awards by summoning Basium and winning the game with him. I would not refrain from using the Letum Frigus though, as I’ve never played with the Ilians I want to use the different stuff they have to offer. I wasn’t sure when I’d switch to the Mercurians, I just figured I’d play on and see what happened.

So here was the start:



I scouted around a bit before settling my second city, deciding on a place a bit to the west, which got deer, fur, ivory and wheat. Also a bunch of river tiles, but I later learned that ice tiles don’t get the extra commerce for being next to rivers sadly.



I move one of my javelin throwers into the Letum Frigus right away to take the aggressive trait. Otherwise I just scout around in the beginning, getting some infrastructure up and starting work on some more settlers. Third city is founded to the south, grabbing marble, cotton, copper and corn, and also a lot of hills, it would become one of my best production sites.



I then realize I should start on The White Hand already, and I do so, completing it on turn 87. Using the powerful priests of winter I get, I move to the west, capturing a barbarian city at the coast.



Not much of note happened in the beginning, I was just expanding as much as I could, with the peninsula to the north getting two cities, and also expanding further south. This would start to bleed my money away fast, and I had to go down to 40% research for quite some time. At some point in time I also realized I hadn’t cast stasis yet (), so I do so, allowing me to quickly tech past the enemy. Here I would grab the #1 score spot and hold on to it for the rest of the game. At one point I get the dreaded goblin clan dumping garbage, but luckily the tile they dumped on was… a mountain! So no harm done there



Around turn 100 I was at five cities, with two of them being new and small ones. At this point I had only met Flauros and Hyborem, but I know a Sheaim player was down to the southwest, as I could see their borders. I decided they would be my first target. With a force of three priests and three warriors (together with the three ice elementals that priests could summon) I attacked Os-Gabella and Graelingvig was taken down on turn 109.



I started working on a temple of the hand there to get some nice snow, but later on I realized it was pretty pointless, the tiles didn’t get much better, if at all, but at the time I thought that hell terrain would be much worse than snow. Shows how much I knew, I guess. I was also appalled at the extreme anger in the city, which prompted me to raze the second Sheaim city I came upon, Steinvik. But that made me realize that razing lots of cities would only help Hyborem even more by giving him manes, so I refrained from razing after that, taking the anger penalty for a while instead. It wasn’t too bad anyways. I would actually never replace that razed city, and much later on a barbarian city would take its spot, which would go on to become one of my most important cities. More on that later.

By hawk scouting I find Os-Gabella’s last city, and see that she has created Rosier. I was sure Hyborem had done so, but apparently not. Os-Gabella was already out of contention anyways though, and I would never see Rosier on any offensive attacks in the game, so no big deal. I was afraid of her then though, with all five combat promos and heroic strength and defense added to that. Following the attack on Os-Gabella there was a time of relative peace. My economy had grown completely out of hand, only way my economy survived was through city plundering, I was running at a big deficit at 60% research. So I had to settle down, and build up some infrastructure. To be honest I don’t really know how I got to this situation, since I didn’t have much of an army either, my three priests of winter together with their summoned ice elementals doing nearly the whole job for me against the Sheaim and barbarian cities. I was basically only building military for city garrison duty, 1-2 per city (except for the border cities) but still my unit costs were really high. Eventually I revolted into Military State which almost by itself saved my economy, almost completely removing unit costs.

A few golden ages really helped me build up my economy too. First I popped one from exploring a barrow,



then right after that I got one from completing the bone palace, and after that I used a great sage to get yet another one. Usually I don’t use great sages for golden ages, finding them to be more useful elsewhere, but all my cities had awful beakers, I had gone with a cottage economy instead of aristocracy, because I always go aristocracy otherwise. The cottages grew very slowly, and it took a loooong while before I got a half-decent tech rate. I’m sure my tech rate is embarrassingly slow compared to the other players. Oh well. By the time my long golden age had ended, my economy was pretty much fixed. The increased hammers had helped me build some important buildings (markets, courthouses, inns, gambling houses, etc) and the increased tech rate had helped me get some vital techs, like trade, taxation and later on mercantilism. I revolted to mercantilism right away, since there’s no foreign trade to worry about in this game. I had been using conquest up to this point, so I didn’t like losing the 2 exp bonus, but I felt it was worth it.

I probably could have just continued on with the priests and axemen, just razing everything in my way, and I’m sure some players did, but at this point I decided to just take it slow and build up the empire, there’s no score given for fastest elimination after all. Around turn 160 I invaded Flauros, and talk about fertile lands!


(this was taken much earlier with a hawk/hunter pair I had running around in enemy lands)

Tons and tons of flood plains, crazy stuff. No idea how he didn’t do better, and on Immortal at that. The AI overall was much worse than I expected it to be. Never having played on Immortal before I thought it would be a bit tough, but it wasn’t really at all. I guess it could have something to do with the great lands we get at the start, but still. The enemies made a few raids into my lands, mostly it was Jonas Endain sending in 15 or so lizardmen into my lands, but they were never any trouble, the whole lot of them just kept suiciding on my cities.

Anyways I made quick work of Flauros. I thought you couldn’t summon ice elementals on desert, but apparently you can. You can’t move them to desert terrain, but you can summon them on it. Pretty weird, but it helped me defend against some huge stacks by Flauros. None of them had any really threatening units, but since I was basically just using the three priests and 7-8 axemen who were only along for city garrison duty later on, the three ice elementals really helped. Flauros was eliminated pretty quickly, and I threw out another temple of the hand, to make Prespur’s terrain snowy and white. The main reason I did this is because the burning sands fires really annoy me, and I’m pretty sure it makes turns load slower. Besides none of my units can traverse them, so they were even more useless than regular desert tiles.



What did I say about AI stupidity? Here Jonas Endain provides us with the worst move of the game, moving 10 lizardmen out of Renegade Hill, the turn I arrive with my army next to it, leaving only three units left! Now, I would have killed them anyways, but it would have taken a turn or two longer, allowing him to reinforce. No idea what he was doing with that move. That stack would go on to attack Prespur, which had three axemen in it, but not a single Lizardman would survive that battle, so that was a really weedy move overall.



I get an interesting event I hadn’t seen before, with a hunter offering to sell me that stuff he caught. I chose a gorilla, and right away get the option to stuff him into a cage at the carnival, for some happiness and culture. But I can’t do that to a poor helpless gorilla! I move the gorilla to an ancient forest, where he sleeps for the rest of the game. Speaking of ancient forests, I really didn’t know what to do with them for this game. Usually when I have ancient forests i’m one of the elf civs and can build improvements on them. But in this game any improvement would remove the forest, and I couldn’t even build lumbermills on them. So I just decided to leave them be. 3 food and 1 hammer is a pretty decent tile anyways, so I figured it was okay to leave them like that. Maybe there was a better choice though.

A while after the defeat of the Calabim, I get the option to build a hero! I had no idea about any heroes the Ilian had, so that was a welcome surprise to see Wilboman in the build queue. I wouldn’t really use him much though, for various reasons. I continued to expand by taking a barbarian city near the razed Sheaim city, which I would have big plans for later.



I also conquered Braduk the Burning, killing off Jonas Endain, but after that my first great loss arrived.

…Aaand anti-climactically enough, I don’t have any pictures of the event. What happened was my three priests of winter all getting killed in one fell swoop. Well not really one fell swoop, more like around 50 swoops. A few turns after taking the former Clan capital, Hyborem himself together with a hundred or so hellhounds and warriors showed up outside the gates. I was scared at first, but when Hyborem (the hero) left, I felt secure. I shouldn’t have. My army was really stretched out at this point, and aside from the three priests and their elementals, I only had like five axemen in the city. Hyborem’s army stayed several turns outside the capital doing nothing. But suddenly he attacked, and while my troops fought valiantly (around 60-70 deaths on Hyborem’s side out of a hundred or so) my troops finally got overwhelmed, and the priests died.

Damn. Well, not much to be done about it, I figured, and I decided it was time to jump off the sinking ship of the ilians and jump on the Mercurians wagon. The barbarian city I had captured near the old razed Sheaim city was decided to be my mercurian gate town. It had good stuff nearby (two floodplain, iron, copper, incense, dyes, silk (or sugar? I can’t tell from the screenshots) and pigs). I had also gotten guilds at this point, which made plains workshops 5 hammer 1 commerce, and GL workshops 1f, 4h, 1c. It was close to the remaining enemies, so it was as good a site as any. But I didn’t want any old town, my mercurian town was destined to be the greatest city of all! I also didn’t want its tiles to be stolen from nearby Ilian cities with good culture. So I built a bunch of wonders in it, settled a great bard, took Syliven’s Perfect Lyre, etc. On the turn before I completed the gate, I also rushed the city of a thousand slums in it with a great engineer.



On the turn I completed it, my last great Ilian act was done, my Braduk the Burning withstood a massive Hyborem attack, killing around 40 units. All was not perfect though. Since the AI is dumb, before I managed to switch to Basium, the AI fired off his world spell! Not that I’d have much use of it later either, but it was annoying to say the least. And this wasn’t the last of stupid things the AI would do. Following the switch, AI Auric would proceed to first complete the Samhain ritual, spawning frostlings and stuff all over. They weren’t much trouble, but seriously Auric was it really necessary? He then continued by completing The Deepening ritual, making the world a much colder place to live in, and ruining some of my city tiles. Ugh. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was trying to get Auric Ascended, but luckily the game ended before he had time to do any more damage to me. My only ally was pretty much my most dangerous enemy.

The turn before I created the mercurian’s gate, I had also destroyed Tebryn’s first city (what’s up with him having the same color as Jonas Endain btw?) Not much left for Basium to do then. I wanted to kill off Hyborem, but I realized I wouldn’t have time to do that before I won domination. I didn’t feel like razing any cities, even though I easily could have and still defeated Hyborem. Anyways, after switching to Basium, I march off towards enemy lands with an army of five. Basium himself and his four angels of death. I really didn’t need any more at this point, and I easily captured Tebryn’s second city, Grottiburg.

A fun incident I must recount is the tale of the Zealot. One day a warrior of mine was patrolling the edges of a forest in the heart of Ilian territory. He heard strange sounds coming from the forest, and headed in to investigate. What he found was an abandoned barrow, and being a fearless Ilian warrior, he decided to climb down into the crypt and explore. Expecting to see dead people, he was shocked to find a live human being down there! Even stranger, the man was blabbering on about some religion called “Octopus Overlords” if you could believe anything as stupid sounding as that. Everyone knew the only religions in the world were the evil Ashen Veil and the (slightly less evil) cult of Auric. But being a compassionate man, the warrior helped the Zealot out of the crypt, and walked him to the nearest town, Deluoc, a town that was just about to complete building a great gate to the heavens.

Upon arrival, the Zealot started preaching about great tentacled horrors, but no one really listened. The Zealot was a very stubborn man however, and proclaimed himself that “Octopus Overlords has been founded in Deluoc!” Officially the religion never existed, and it’s doubtful if anyone actually converted, but he himself still walked around in the city, jabbering on about “Cthulhu” and “Nyarlathotep”. People forgot all about him until one day, a big temple-thing just rose up from the river nearby and plonked itself in the city. The “Necronomicon” people started calling it, for some reason, and it became pretty popular, because there was an endless supply of running water in it. Great things were achieved with this water.

So with a wholly unsatisfying ending, the story about the Zealot is concluded. Sorry about the bad writing. Basically, I got a zealot from a lair, tried spreading the religion in my soon to be Mercurian capital, failed even though it said that the religion had been founded in it (since all religions aside from ashen veil were removied) but then I got a great prophet, and was able to use him to create the OO shrine. It was actually really helpful, because even if I didn’t get any shrine money, I did get the water mana, and was able to spring a bunch of desert tiles with an adept. The only adept I built, coincidentally.

To get back to the main action, I created four paladins, and they became my second army. They easily captured an Infernal city, and just after they did, I saw a golden opportunity for some divine justice. Hyborem, in reach from Basium. 77% odds. I have to do it!



Said and done, Basium wrecks Hyborem, and marches back to the safety of his angels of death. Very satisfying, after what Hyborem’s army did to my poor priests of winter. A short while after this my Basium and friends army march up to yet another infernal city, take it, and… what?



Oh. Domination victory. That kinda came out of nowhere. I should’ve paid more attention to the victory screen, I guess. I wanted to get the medal for killing Hyborem, but oh well. It was a really fun game, though surprisingly easy. I’m sure I’m one of, if not the slowest winner of this game, but I had fun and that is what matters I guess.

So I get the The Red Star of Courage and The White Star of Revenge. If I had razed some cities instead of capturing them I would've had time to eliminate the infernals as well, but I'm okay with this result. It was good fun anyways. Thanks for this, Bob!

... over a pile of dead bodies ...

Fun though really easy game, but probably a nice play for new FFH players.

A few highlights, or at least stuff I screenshotted while playing in one sitting:

*Popped sailing from a hut on T59.

*First two settlers went here...



*White hand completed on T86. It's incredible how much having three super units with throwaway summons changes AW in Civ. Immortal FFH always war in this game was probably easier than Noble BtS always war, and it was mainly because you can attack out of cities on the defensive even with a production disadvantage. In BtS you can attack out (if you need to to avoid collateral) but you'll loose hammers even if you win on hammer ration. In FFH you can attack out dozens of times and loose zero hammers.

*Looks like the first enemy city died on T103 to the priests...



*Pact of the Nilborn on T05. I actually used cats in my mid-game offensive stack, but still it's nice to have 2-move siege on hand.

*Founded this city (ugh! gems in the fog), built GLibrary, Catacomb Liberalas, Bone Palace, and the Brewing House in the T110-T120 range for some econ boost...



*Game-winner...







*T129 gave me my first "a mediator will make peace between you and ___" events, which of course cause peace+autoDOW.

*Thanks to the easily defended corner spot, solid civ, commerce resources, and awesome first-ring land demos at T130 show the easier pace of economic development in FFH..



*More midgame stuff since this wasn't a fastest finish game and so I could stand to chase shiny thing: Guild of Hammers, Form of the Titan, City of 1000 Slums, all in cap. My cap was really a wonder city all game.

*Meanwhile I razed two Calabim and one purple Sheaim city during that period.

*From T200-217 I eliminated the Clan, which wasn't protected by water or flames.

*~25 more turns to knock out the two Sheaim civs. Nothing fancy here, I had mages and priests and summons.

*Spotted the rather impressive Infernal army for the first time...



*And so that has to lead to a discussion of the pretty darn boring rest of the game. Those flames are impassable most of the time. Initially I thought I'd have to built a fleet and sail around them, which was milking since those techs come late. Then, totally by accident, while snowfalling just a few units via the archmages that had, I think, recently arrived on the scene I noticed the flames went out. This was actually the scariest part of the game, because had that enemy stack been on the right tile, and had my army not had movement, and had they attacked I would have lost every unit.

*Instead I moved my army back via roads, razed the flame-encircled Calabim cap, and then came in with a stack composed of cats, mages, chariots, champions, giants, priests of winter, Wilboman, archmages, Baron Dune Halfmoon, beastmasters, the Black Dragon, and Auric. A lot of that was me screwing around, and I didn't need to wait for anything past archmages. Still, I consider even archmages an instant-win with the Illians at least, and so I'm not sure about requiring the player to tech that far in to win the game should have been necessary.

*Snowfall owns...



*Total non-summer unit deaths: 591. Total kills: 13.

*Mixed feelings on the fire aside, really nice map and scenario Bob.

I earned The Red Star of Courage, The Black Star of Annihilation, and The Blue Star of Coolness. While I can't say for certain that The White Star of Revenge was attainable in my game, I made no effort for it since it seemed firmly in the milking phase which had already gone on too long.

Errrrr ... sorry I'm late posting this thread; I didn't have an opportunity until today. On the other hand, the absence of reports suggests that maybe people weren't waiting with bated breath anyway. Or...?

So, I figure I'll leave reporting open until either a couple days after someone bravely decides to post a report after all (or was just waiting for this thread to remind them) or until greater interest develops in the Imperia again. In the meantime, it looks like the format of choice will be the Succession Game for now!