Roll up, roll up, to Selrahc's brand new FFH thread, featuring Bobchillingworth and the Reverend Doctor.

Since this is the first post and nothing meaningful can occur I think I'll end it now. See below, for all the juicy information that the other teams aren't allowed to know.


Although this image may give readers a handy hint

yes yes yes

topic made, will discuss more when the final picks have been made

Hey so I'm pretty infamous for my thread updating in Pitboss 2 + 3 so may as well get a headstart on the others with creating a thread! :neenernee

Obviously I have to type a lot of rubbish here incase one of the other players mouses over my thread.

So I'll just ramble a bit.

I first got started with FFH like many I suspect, playing the FFH scenario "Age of Ice" that came with BTS or something. It was a lot different to regular civ and had a lot of potential to be totally awesome. There were certainly some less praiseworthy aspects of the scenario but it presented fun new concepts such as magic, buffed promotions and so forth. The scenario itself was somewhat lacking after the first 100 turns as it was rather slow and took a long time to finish. That may be a reason why I never had much interest in it past that.

Then RBFFH2PBEM1 (rolls off the tongue doesn't it?) appeared and I figured I'd try it out and its' been pretty fun.

Anyway next post will be a bit about Civ's/Leader's

If you are only looking for the short version of this report, then a wall of these smilies would probably suffice . However, that wouldn’t do justice to the epic nature of the journey, the volume of , or the agony of the . So I’ll get straight to the text (and let you insert your own smilies along the way).

Before we start, thank you for clicking on a thread of firsts. This is my first civilization related post on the internet, my first attempt at a game downloaded from the web, my first one city challenge, and my first time playing on a level as high as Immortal.

Those last two firsts are the biggest challenges to overcome, here, so I started this with only a little confidence of victory, and very little expectation of achieving a good score. I thought I had a fairly good understanding of CIV mechanics, but I generally romp around on Prince doing whatever I feel like, rather than pushing myself to something harder during my fairly limited playtime. Not wishing to give away the details to come, but I now think I have a lot to learn.


The big question is “What did I do with the land?” The slightly sad answer is “Not as much as I could have.” As I expected the Christmas period to be very busy, I started on this immediately and still finished late! However, after some clarifications from T-Hawk and having another read of the rules, I went for a rather harsh interpretation by only placing tiles that naturally occur in the map scripts. While in what I believe is the RB spirit, this did make things a lot harder (still can’t believe I included a jungle gems! ). About 75 turns in, I started to wonder if maybe I’d made things a little too difficult for myself, and of course I’m also anticipating a post in this thread with someone pointing out that some of these tiles wouldn’t happen under normal conditions after all.

I won’t go tile-for-tile, but I will talk about the general plan, and what I guess will be some of the more contentious decisions. This was what I was thinking before I started:
• There is another continent, and I’m going to have the biggest city and therefore the best trade routes, so going coastal is a good idea (build ships for contact, plus a harbour which helps health and commerce).
• From my reading up on OCC games, I understand that a key concern is enough health to get my one city very big, so I want to max out health resources. That means almost all of the food bonuses, plus wines and spices for health from the grocer.
• Given that I’ve got lots more food than I need, pigs and sheep go on hills for extra hammers, and I can put my production resources and gold on plains hills, too.
• Early happiness is not that vital since I have the whip and a Plan (see below). The Plan in particular suggests ignoring “Hunting” tech, so I’ll skip all of those resources.
• However, the only other resources that let you have a forest on top are spices and silks, so I’ll fill the remaining space with these. I’ll look to cottage the spares after the chopping and before calendar, so my first few cottages look a bit Financial.
• City centre gets a stone resource for the instant connection (the Plan, again) and the extra hammer from the outset.

In the end, that gave us a BFC that looks like this:




Without having played too far into the game, I believed that an “any resource anywhere, and I can put a forest on top, too!” approach, would lead to land that looked pretty similar, aside from a couple of changes and a lot more forests. Upon reaching the modern age, though, I knew that the health issue was a massive read herring, and realised that I had neither enough commerce, nor enough additional food (via biology or corporations) for this arrangement to be considered anywhere near optimal. I was also often wasting hammers to unusable overflow, so putting food on hills was hurting rather than helping. :headbang:

So, with that set-up and a total lack of experience, it’s time to come up with a grand Plan. The basic initial strategy was focussed around building the Pyramids as quickly as possible, for Hereditary Rule prior to a Globe Theatre constructed as quickly as possible with the engineer the Pyramids produce and then Representation to get maximum value working some specialists. Then I guess I’ll see how it goes, but Great Library seems like a logical next target, followed by space. Easy

As this is my first ever report, it will probably be a lot longer than most of those on this Adventure. I hope anybody still reading enjoys a close examination of my questionable civving skills, or at least has some fun following the story.



We start with an extra warrior (because Immortal AI begin with HOW MANY units?!) and grow to size 2 before starting on a worker. Initial tech is mining, on the way to bronze working, then Masonry for the Plan.

The first civ we meet is Isabella, on turn 4, and we hit Suryavarman’s borders due east on turn 6. Isabella has founded Buddism before a Zulu scout is spotted on Turn 12. Other early international news has Shaka swapping to slavery early, on turn 20, with Hinduism discovered on turn 23 in a distant land.

It’s safe to say that early combats didn’t go exactly as expected, and after turn 24 we’re back down to 1 warrior and 2 workers. I never had much luck with the RNG in this game, as the results from much later show.

With Masonry in on Turn 31, some hammers go into the Pyramids to discourage anybody else from building pointy rocky hills. Having got that out of the way, we revolt to slavery and generate some form of army and some city walls with whip overflow going into the wonder. The Pyramids finish on Turn 52, which is the good news. The bad news is that the turn 51 historian thinks we’re the least advanced civ in the world, which really doesn’t bode well for scoring at the end of the game.

This disadvantage is confirmed over the next few turns, as Isabella gains Judaism, the Oracle is built somewhere else (Turn 71) and we get to see Shaka’s techs. This begins the Great Alphabet Siege, where he completely refuses to give up any techs, but I check every turn anyway. Our science priority is getting to Drama, which we achieve on Turn 81, four turns after the Great Engineer stumbles out of the Pyramids and into the light. That gets us the Globe Theatre on turn 84, and we’re off and running properly with the mega-city approach, including a civic switch to Representation.

With everything sorted at home, attention rather turns to foreign policy. While we were building the Globe, Isabella had put up the Buddhist shrine. This will already be paying off, as we got a missionary spread on Turn 71 and Shaka converted on Turn 79. Isabella has a polite request that I join them, and I agree. Suryavarman turned all Jewish a few turns earlier, so now the others really dislike him. It looks like our borders have formed on Turn 88, and the rather squashed Spanish fishing village of Toledo becomes the Confucian holy city a couple of turns later (it would later become the birthplace of Islam as well, but only suffer one Native American revolt during the course of the game).

The Great Alphabet siege finally ends after about a thousand years with Shaka trading us Sailing, Polytheism and Hunting in exchange for Aesthetics. At the same time (Turn 89), our first Great Scientist emerges and is immediately turned into an Academy to help us on the way to Literature for a big library and Civil Service for a big boost. Six turns later, Isabella swaps Aesthetics for Montheism and Archery as we both have Alphabet, but things have already started to heat up.

The continent is at war, with my Buddhist friends munching on a Blue Sury sandwich. Shaka makes an immediate city capture due north of his capital, and the fighting inspires the Spanish people into founding Christianity (Isabella’s FOURTH religion!). On Turn 96, Isabella asks for some help for the first time (accepting this made to the decision to go along with Shaka’s simultaneous request to stop trading with the Khmer a lot easier).

I figure that I can probably defend myself as part of a three on one, although news of any advances in the war has gone quickly quiet. The historians of the globe on Turn 101 do little to dissuade my growing concerns that I might not be doing so well at this challenge, but the first Khmer attack force is actually not that terrifying. Our first Great General medics up a chariot. The next assault is a single chariot, and there is good news on the science front as well as in the war.

After much deliberation, that Scientist is settled as we start to really push our teching pace. We are sped along with trades, CoL to Shaka for monarchy and Drama/Literature to Isabella for Construction/Meditation. My efforts to increase Great Person production bear fruit, but the Parthenon/National Epic combo give up a low odds Artist. Fortunately, this is one of the few points in the game when an artist is actually a really good thing – he immediately reproduces whilst making beautiful music.

Amidst all of this good news, I do still have some growing concerns. Shaka has made a quick peace with Sury after that single city victory, and the war hasn’t slowed down the Khmer progress as they have completed the Hanging Gardens. The Gardens’ city is in the previous screenshot and it is fantastic (and probably not size 5 anymore )!! :woot: Floodplains, sheep, copper, plenty of hills and some nice grassland.

Potentially an even bigger worry is highlighted in this next picture. Isabella’s religious mania means that everyone on the other side of the world is probably Hindu, and while my continent has been (fairly gently) roughing each other up, I can only presume the far side of the world have all been building in peace. A particular concern is the owner of the world’s second greatest city, which not only has four wonders but is also size 14! They also have calendar over there (nobody here does) so they aren’t ignoring the science.

A catapult and dog soldier fall in battle to take out another six unit stack, and I wonder whether I could just keep this war going to farm the experience points and stock up on Great Generals. Of much more importance is the Turn 116 discovery of Civil Service. That artist was indeed well-timed, as it allows me to kick start a Golden Age for a civic swap (now to Representation, Bureaucracy, Caste System and Organised Religion) and to start to push ahead. Notwithstanding my worries about failing to make the most of the variant rules, Khmer supercities and an uncatchable continent, things are looking up. What could go wrong from here?

I wasn't planning on posting my result of my game when I started as I thought I would end up with a hugely embarrassing early defeat.

However, my defeat was due to a ridiculously convuluted stretch of bad luck which really deserves to be mentioned.

Here is the start I went with:



I was going to go with masses of Gold (as others seem to have done) but as the other civs seemed to have their own sources of gold, I thought I would get more early trading value out of silver to maintain happiness and health.

I used the fish as my food to create only 2 access points for an invading army plus to make it a coastal city (which probably was a mistake).

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My game started off very strongly, I managed to land Pyramids and then Oracled Civil Service. My first three GPs were Engineers, one who rushed Globe Theatre and the other two who were settled. A nice double revolt into representation and bureaucracy later and I landed a Scientist for an academy a bit later.

In terms of my home continent, I thought I'd pulled a masterstroke by converting Khmer to Confucianism with my free missionary while I joined Hinduism with Shaka and Izzie. When Shaka went into military build up i was expecting a nice turf war between him and Khmer, but instead he declares on me at pleased!! Arsehole!

I managed to destroy the stacks he sent at me, but they kept coming and so my research & wonder builds kept getting pushed further and further back. It would cost a lot to buy him off so I sent a small expeditionary force to attack his nearest city to force peace. Just my luck, he had just managed to upgrade all his backwards units to Maces and crossbows and destroyed my small stack. So I had to swallow my pride and offer him 4 techs (luckily only 1 monopoly tech) to buy him off.

I had got a very quick Optics & Astronomy and had met all the other continent where Charlie & Hannibal were fighting. I was invited to declare on Hannibal and as there was no way he could attack me back I did so. This did put him in a war footing for a long time and did keep him far enough behind to not worry about. The 'war' lasted for a long time but only a couple of battleships died in it. Eventually he was bought off cheaply and strangely became my second closest friend at the end.

I managed to pull off a Superconductors liberalism swing, and generally kept ahead as I moved towards the building of my spaceship.

That's when all hell broke loose. Shaka took on Khmer and was slowly wiping him out, Cyrus attacked me out of nowhere (which also brought Izzie in due to my defensive pact) who was swiftly joined by Charlemagne not much later.

By now I had some superpowered Machine Guns and Mech Infantry so I did take down their invading stacks, but annoying submarines and destroyers kept pillaging my coastal resources while i was trying to power through my spaceship parts.

Given the crazy amount of warfare and Cyrus reaching near tech parity alongside a lot of spaceship parts, I thought I would rush my spaceship through and launch with all parts at full quantity except I put only one casing on so i could deal with the next big stack on the way. It was only a 10 turn journey time so I was confident that I would sneak an unexpected (to me) victory.

The stacks were taken down and with '1 turn to victory' I decided to use my two last ICBMs to hit Shaka as vengeance for his last war. I was so delighted to get that little fragment of revenge and expected the victory message next turn...

But the mission failed!!!!!

First time that has ever happened to me and I was ready to close the game and do some angry refiling of the notes on the game.

However, Cyrus was in an amazingly hot war with Izzie (god bless her) which led to about 5 Great Generals born with no names (that's how much war was in this game!) and my production was still strong, I was going to try and build a bare bones spaceship just to see what would happen.

I smashed one Shaka and Khmer combined stack (yes he piled in too!) and then bought them off with non-monopoly techs (though they gave Shaka nukes which he used lovingly on Sury!) and was building a surprisingly large amount of the parts without another launch.

FML!

I launched my barebones ship (1 of everything) on the same turn Cyrus launched a fully complete spaceship. 20 turns to victory my arse!

I am defeated!

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P.S - Given this impending defeat, I decided just to see how poor my luck was. I WB'd an army to destroy Cyrus' capital to see if my crappy ship would land.

During this 20 turns Cyrus managed to tear through Izzie's defenses at long last with help of nukes and with 10 turns to go he had 2 stacks of modern armors heading towards me. At this point I ravaged my own countryside with a hail of tactical nukes to keep him at bay.

With 1 turn to go, he got a half stack through and attacked my city, but they had been weakened just enough for my uber promoted Mech Infantry to hold the city.

Would 'victory' come this time?

Would it bollocks!

A second failed ship and that was where my experiment on my luck was firmly over.

Therefore I lose to Cyrus in a space race officially, and hate the RNG for all time!

Hope my report amuses you, even if it doesn't amuse me for a while yet!

All those in FFH2PBEMIV get out!

Everyone else - enjoy some fine (ahem) beer (ahem)...

Obligatory mouseover protectection post.

There is a place that is very near to my heart. It is very near my cottage - due west of it, right on Lake Huron. We call it The Rocks, although the area is actually known as Whiskey Harbour (after an incident when a ship sank nearby in a storm and the barrels came floating in there for the locals to collect.)

It has easy road and water access. It is an expanse of flat rock with a five foot drop off at the edge and then flat rock bottom sloping gently out into the Lake. There are artfully placed boulders a short swim out that make for excellent games of 'King of the Rock'. Because it is a limestone base, the water colours are that wonderful green-blue of the tropics.

Sunsets are spectacular there. Watching thunderstorms arrive there can make for equally spectacular moments.

It is the best swimming place I know. The swimming changes with the weather. It can be still as a swimming pool if the wind is from the east. It can range from challenging to impossible to swim if there was a recent storm. If there has been a steady west wind for a few days, it can be a warm swim. If the wind shifts to the east, the lake 'flips' (local terminology) and you can get an insta-headache from diving into the cold water, no matter how hot it is on The Rocks.

It has been used as public access swimming place since long before there was a road to it. (Locals from Pike Bay used to walk over or go by boat.) I was introduced to it in 1975 when the man who became my husband first took me there.

Eight years ago, the adjacent land owner decided that he owned it and put up big "No Trespassing" signs. The Whiskey Harbour Recreation Association was rapidly formed to contest his claim. And it has been in legal limbo since, as the courts worked their way through determining who had a right to have a say and what other interested parties there might be.

I, of course, was one of the first members. I have faithfully paid my nominal dues every year as well as kicked in extra money when it was needed.

And now, it will soon finally go to court. The man who has claimed it as his own certainly has a good reason to keep funding his side of the legal action. I reckon that he stands to gain a minimum of $250 K in property value if he can get away with this. Not a bad return on investment, eh? (Yes, I think he is motivated by greed, despite protests made about the terrible things that happen when you are adjacent to a public access. He knew it was so when he purchased it in 1985.)

I (along with many others) am being forced by him to pay just so I can keep something that I already had - public access to public land. So far, it has cost me $4 K of my own money and I am about to be asked for more to help defray the court costs. I know I have to do it; I want my children and their children to retain their ability to go to this magical place. I am still feeling bitter.

Land ownership is a very complicated legal issue. The Whiskey Harbour Recreation Association has hired *the* Ontario expert on this as our lawyer. We still have to go to court though, because that is the way the system works. So while I am confident of the win, I am still going to have to keep paying.

Thanks for reading. I had to get this off my chest.

I don't really have a report per se - I kind of half-assed my first (and only actual counting) try at this game, and then did about a dozen shadows afterwards. The psychology involved in this game is outstanding, I don't even know if you realized it when you set it up, T-hawk. First you have the basic questions - do I worry more about the early game or the late game, do I focus on food or commerce/hammers, etc. Then you have the do I suck up to my neighbors and tech blissfully in peace or do I go military heavy to keep my tech lead? I literally have tried this game a dozen times - by far my best result was a mostly gold start with a 2 coastal tiles + 2 lake fish for food, where I went privateer crazy. Of course, my result was nowhere near as spectacular as fluffyflyingpig's, but it definitely played best for me.

I have no report, because I lost the official game when I let Shaka get too advanced and he spent the majority of the late game forcing me to build military to beat him away rather than focus on spaceship stuff, and Hannibal launched on me.

Anyway, I guess I'm just posting to say I rather enjoyed this game.

Well, i'm tired and so on and i need a rest, but i figured i'm late, so might as well post a bit before i get more late.

Let's see the start.



Reminds me of Sirian locking up some people in adv4 heh. Anyway, here's the real start.



Horrible, lol. I completely forgot about Globe Theatre and National Park when i started out, and although i've played a few more games with this, since this is what my first game is this is the game i'm going to show.

I have like 50 over pictures, but i'm sick and tired so i can't put all of them up... so here's a few.

2 Pictures showing how successful my wars were.





Did i say successful? I meant unsuccessful! Suva just threw in like 5 Pikes per turn, along with all sorts of Junk. I killed a lot but at last the attack stalled out.

Also, the entire continent was Buddist apart from me. For some reason I totally forgot to change to it. I was under the impression that no one spread it to me yet.

Anyway...



I have the tech for Infantry. I have the Pentagon. I have 2k gold in my coffers. I'm unstoppable! I have like 10 Muskets at home, with some rifles/infantry returning from the war. I have a lot of settled GP, a super good city.



=(

Cut that short when Shaka turns up with 20 Artillery, and about 40 Rifles. 20 Infantry just couldn't do anything and were slaughtered. I had stack attack and quick defense off, so i watched in agony as he attacked, attacked, attacked.

Attacked. attacked. attacked. After like 15 battles, hey maybe i can hold this off for one turn? I had enough GPs for a Golden Age, one Infantry finishing next turn, could draft.

Attack, attack attack... How many does he have?

Attack, attack, ok i'll go take water first.

Come back and got that screen.

So anyway, my score is officially negative something, since when i lost my last city i instantly unknow all the techs i guess =)