Hi guys,

Basically I have got an XBOX 360 with XBOX Live in anticipation of going to uni and 'studying'. I was wondering if anyone else had one and fancied having mine in case we are online and want to play!

If you do, can you put a reply like this:

Quote:Gamertag

Twinkletoes1989

Games Owned

Call of Duty 2
Call of Duty 4
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2
Fifa 08
Halo 3 ODST
Lord of the Rings: Conquest

Hello all,

I am considering starting to play FFH2 and just wanted to know what else apart from the basic mod that comes with BTS I need to install to be running the up to date version of the game?

I am sure I read it somewhere months ago but I cannot find the post and am getting bored of searching.

Thank!

Has anyone played this game yet?

Seems to have a lot of civ-like qualities, except it's set in fantasy world. From the video walktroughs by the game designer it looks like a whole lot of fun.
Anyone tried it already? Is it worth investing time into?

Early Thoughts:

First things first: Even though it will cost us a turn and access to fresh water, I can't pass up the extra hammer from settling on the plains Ivory, so I will do that.

With the internet likely to give us all the starting techs and many other early techs, I don't think researching broadly will do us any good at all. So I know I want to put my research into a single tech path. Pottery--both for granaries and cottages--is the obvious first tech with the Japanese starting techs.

My plan is to start with a couple of warrior builds...head off to meet some neighbors...and choke them.

My tech plan pays off in spades:



...as I pop Writing from a hut right on Kublai's borders! Very cool. Now I can sign open borders with the neigh...oh...right...no.

Meanwhile, warrior number two heads south to pop a hut, then continues to the west to meet:



...death? I had 99.2% odds on that battle! Outrageous fortune! You have got to be kidding me! Half my Always-War army has been slain by a panther while defending on a forested hill?!

Might I quote T-Hawk's excellent report for a moment here:

Quote:Animals are not too threatening with Aggressive warriors and the +20% bonus on Monarch.

• 57g
  
• Mysticism
  
• Writing
  
• Mathematics
  
• 63g
  
• Experience (Early Woodsman II warriors rock!)
  
• Hostiles (Dead warriors are a bummer )
  
• Warrior
  
• Warrior
  
• Hostiles (Survived on hill!)
  
• Bronzeworking (in 2850BC!)
  
• Warrior
  
• Map
  
• Hostiles (Woody II in forest survives!)
  
• 57g
  
• 34g
  
• Scout
  
• ??? -- Hostiles that kill a scout, I think
  
• ??? -- Gold, I think
  

Before I start my actual report, let me say great scenario design, T-Hawk.
It’s nothing but war, you gave us a great crutch in ivory, and the map worked really well: plenty of choke points, but was also exposed on all sides. Tokugawa was a very good choice, thematically and mechanically, and the only Agg+Military trait we hadn't used yet.

FYI: I didn’t always take good notes during the game, it was too consuming at times…

The first 150 turns:
T0: I settled 1S (should have taken a screenshot), to trade some coast for useful tiles. Early game plan: Worker techs, then beeline Construction. Catapults and WE? Yes, please. So, Agri --> Hunting --> AH.
T4: Popped Agriculture. Well, that's always nice.
Next few dozen turns, nothing particularly interesting (Went for Mining and BW after AH, then on to Pottery and Writing). Then, on T69, the game changed forever:
I popped Metal Casting.
Well, there's only one good way to take advantage of this stroke of luck: Build a forge in Kyoto, then work an Engineer. Can we say "Police State"?
After some , namely forgetting to run an Engineer in Kyoto for a few turns, on T142 I rushed the Pyramids. Revolted to PS and OR (2t revolt...Epic speed can be obnoxious at times, but I'm glad we had the extra time for warring). HR, well, if I wanted HR, why rush the 'Mids? Rep, well, I don't want to tech. And US? A little tempting, but frankly the gold was never really there to fuel a cash-rush-athon. And PS has some happiness implicit in it, US does not.

Note: I did not have access to a religion. Paid OR's upkeep for a LONG time until I finally got a religion from a capture later.... Oh well, it's not like the gold was all that valuable anyway...

Almost done with Construction (and I forget if I got HBR myself or from my "friends"), as well. I was starting to see real AI stacks, and needed those WE to get some easy kills. Axes and spears weren't going to cut it here.

Here we go. Comments precede the report as usual.

http://www.dos486.com/civ4/epic27/

This was great fun but turned out to be too stressful and time consuming for me. I echo Krill that quick speed would have been better. Anyway, I beelined Pottery and Mathematics, seemed like the best use of early commerce.
This gave me a nice early expansion, and I expanded until my economy was crashed.

Situation when I stopped playing, west front:



My western front city has the Pyramids. This front is very secure. South front:

My southern front was a barbarian city and the placement isn't really optimal. A bit awkward to defend it against Egyptian War Chariots.



East front: I settled this city and quickly chopped out the Hanging Gardens. This front is hardest to defend, it is constantly assaulted by Mongolian Keshiks. In the screenshot, my 50-something XP Axeman was just killed.



North: Sees no action. I built the Great Lighthouse here to keep the economy in the black.



Some people may find my dotmap interesting - I placed my cities such that the Gems couldn't be worked. I prioritized defendability over commerce, and I wanted a port city towards Maya.

Plan ahead was to use Representation specialists to research Aesthetics and Literature and build some more wonders, while keeping the fronts. I've been waiting for ages for a second civ to research Horseback Riding, some War Elephants would really help against those Keshiks and War Chariots. I probably should have self-researched HR.

Other things worth mentioning? Can't remember, feel free to ask. Maya was probably slower off the bat than normal in my game, as I choked them with a single warrior on a forest hill, causing them to keep their first worker and settler at home until they had built six archers.

EPIC 27
Probably my last game of CIV IV and one I really enjoyed. I very rarely play Always War but remember my lessons from Epic 4 which was sort of similar.
Settled one tile south of starting position (on hill) and went Hunting to Archery with initial research until techs started flowing in from the Internet.
My focus was to settle several defensive border cities which were strongly defended and keep the enemy civs away from my heartland so it could fund my army. This strategy was helped by the tailored map which reduced the approaches to several choke points.
I'd settled six cities by 10 AD


Continued to fight off enemy stacks from this basis for the next 1000 years


Built up my own first offensive stack to start work on the enemy cities


First enemy city falls


The Mayans are the first to fall


The Chinese are next to go


They continue to fall - the Mongols are the last major civ to go leaving Justinians scattered cities to face me alone.


Last enemy city falls in 1938AD for Conquest victory. Top surviving unit is shown in bottom right of image (176xp).


A few final stats showing the 90 enemy cities razed


The research element was interesting. Once I'd self researched the first few critical technologies, the Internet provided everything up until around 1700AD. However I had to self research Steel and Rifling as AI was taking unusual research routes.
Overall I enjoyed this one much more than I thought I would. The War Elephants really helped kill off enemy stacks in front of my cities before they could attack.
Fairly comfortable win - only real stress came when I faced my first Grenadier stacks with only War Elephants, Samurai and longbows. Many Thanks.

Due to some hardware failure i lost my note document... so this will be brief.



I settled in place after moving my Warrior S. Research to Agriculture, Worker first, move my Warrior E to scout, who died to hut barbs before finding anything.
Erm, wonderful.



Ok, after my Worker was done, immediately started on a second warrior. A warrior going left found Isabella, than Mao. I kept beelining Techs, relying upon the Internet to get the outdated ones. Bronze Working, Animal Husbandry. Founded my second city for the copper.



Normally it's an exploit to attack the AIs early, but since this is early war, i decided to stunt Isabella.





ANOTHER GEMS! 2 tourney maps, 2 gems? Woah.

A Warrior to the right found Pacal, than suddenly i had 3 more enemies by other people finding me. Uh oh. But that also unlocked a lot of my techs.


A third city was soon found. This however was the extent i could expend, as i was soon under attack.



Chinese swordies, oh my! Also, notice that Spanish Archer on the hill, stopped my from irrigating wheat like forever (it was pillaged). Of course, swordies were no match for axes, and axes were no match for Archers, so they basically suicided.

Unfortunately, at Tokyo, it wasn't all that good.



I shuffled another HA inside, (it was my only source of Horse!), and it withstood the attack without problem. Bring in a couple more archers, look comfortable for a moment, oh my.

This is where i lost. Three HAs (All at combat 1/Shock), attacking at 90% each, ALL LOST. WHAT? That was my entire mobile army, and with them dead i was lost.

Worse came to worse. Axes against Swords lost. Spears against HAs lost. At like 85% each. I honestly gave up hope after 6 units of mine died at 85-90% odds, but i played on.



Well, f. There was simply no time to bring in new units, so i had an axe, a horse, and an archer, with walls completing.
Needless to say, that wasn't enough, and boom there goes my third city.



Confucius says, worship me if you want to survive. Needless to say i did want to survive!

That was the start of the end, and soon 3 other civs brought their armies against poor Kyoto, and that was that.



Game, set, and match.
WAIT!
How long could i last?



Wave 1. As someone once said, an attack must be a Dagger (Sneaky enough that the player doesn't see it coming) or a Sledge (Big enough that the player just can't do anything). This was not a Sledge, and the 30 + units suicided.



Wave 2. By this time they brought Cats, so i was in deep trouble. However, i put research at 0 and used the internet for techs. Also got Bureaucracy now, which i swapped to, in order to build more. more!

Surprisingly, this lasted enough for...



Longbowman! I was safe for now, nothing could get in.

By now, i had a secret plan. Samurai! I was dearly hoping for Machinery to get them... and when i finally got it...

I discovered they need Iron, and IRON ONLY.

WHAT? Didn't Maceman use copper? Urgh. Tell me why i hate the jap civ.

So, back to Longbowman.



Longbows in cities slaughter all Classical units for breakfast, and the Chariot was a Medic 3. Needless to say nothing came through. It took an average of like 60 units to kill one Longbow, and that was before he was promoted.



I'll record this as my highest EXP unit. I think he reached 140+ before he died, but since there was no screenshot, oh well.

Then of course, they brought the bigger guns.


Sure, one Mace or two isn't threatening, but when 15 of them comes together, everything was going to die, and it included me.



The sad fate of a loyal Axeman.



Well, that's it. Game, set and match, on turn 282.



This is my extremely powerful GNP graph. Needless to say i was bottom in every category. Period.



However, this was the list of units i killed, and i'm proud of the Japanese for being stubborn till the very end.

So, there ends the story of the Japanese. Although i primarily blamed the Random Generator for my loss, i also had a lot of screw up moments. So, i improved a lot. Thanks T-Hawk for this game.

Epic 27 is now open for reporting. Please post reports in the Tournament Discussions subforum.