FFH2 AI Survivor - Season 1

[Psillycyber]

One possible concern: the observer civ being isolated by mountains might not be sufficient to prevent it from being attacked. It has been a while since I played unmodded FFH2, but I believe there are at least a couple units which can enter mountain tiles. Not sure what might be the best way to handle that, if it becomes a concern.

Yeah, I have my city stocked with a few arquebusiers (musketmen for you FFH2 newbs) to protect against griffons or other random stuff, and if the four horsemen come out to play, I can always add more via worldbuilder.  

Great idea Psillycyber!

A few minor suggestions:
- Let the AIs play turn 1 before taking starting screenshots so you can see where they put their capitals.
- Will raging barbs favour the clan too much? I find them hard enough even unraging, but I'm not very good.
- If you want us to know which tile you're pointing at for screenshots you can press ALT+S to highlight it (then right-click to dismiss).

Are you going to be assuming complete FFH ignorance from your audience for your write-ups? In my case that would be very helpful...

I considered letting the AIs play 1 turn before taking starting screenshots, except for the fact that in my test games many AI had yet to settle either of their settlers by turn 1.  This is obviously different than default Civ4 BTS AI settler behavior, and I wonder if it is due to the starting settlers getting 4 movement points in FFH2.  In any case, showing the AIs on turn 0 just adds a bit more uncertainty and intrigue to the game, I feel.  

As for my writeups...it will be difficult for me to explain some things about FFH2 partly because I myself don't have a complete understanding of the mod.  If you've never played FFH2, you probably don't realize how MUCH there is in this mod.  But there's a LOT—much of which I have never encountered, except for a passing glance at it in the civilopedia followed by, "huh"?  (Note that explanations of some things are missing in the civilopedia—especially for rituals and a few other obscure mechanics).  

For example, I've probably played about 15 games in FFH2, but now that I think about it, I don't think I've ever tried playing as the Lanun.  So I couldn't even tell you how pirate coves work, for example.  

The FFH2 tech tree is very broad, with many distinct branches that can be skipped altogether if desired.  There are many techs that I've never researched, units that I've never built, buildings I've never built, civics I've never run, etc. For example, there's an entire animal handling branch that I've never messed with beyond hunters.  "Commune With Nature"?  Satyrs?  Yvain?  "Nature's Revolt"?  I vaguely know that these things exist, but have no appreciation for their relative strength or gameplay implications.   

I don't think I've ever used the Order, Empyrean, or Council of Esus religions either.  Apparently (from my reading PBEM reports) Council of Esus is OP in multiplayer for making one's units invisible or something, and Empyrean apparently has an awesome priest unit that does area-of-effect damage like an Octopus Overlords Cultist or Ashen Veil Ritualist, except better.  And apparently Chalid and rathas and blinding light are OP.  But it's all hearsay for me.  

So, I'll try and explain the best I can, but there are some gaps in my knowledge.

[haphazard1]

The greater movement on starting settlers could do interesting things to the openings. I am curious to see how that plays out.

There is so much stuff in FFH2. I feel similarly to what you described -- I have played quite a few games, but there are whole branches of stuff that I have not yet experiemented with much less mastered. Pretty much every civ has at least a couple of unique mechanics, so it takes a lot of games to really get familiar with everything. There is just so much to learn about, it truly is a huge mod.

[Aurorarcher]

Following with interest, FFH2 is truly a great mod.

[Psillycyber]

For those of you who are new to FFH2, I've written some short intros for each of the contenders this round:

1. Capria of the Bannor (Industrious/Spiritual). In the world of Erebus (the setting of the Fall from Heaven II universe), the Bannor are the righteous crusaders for good. They are somewhat of a “brute-force” or “vanilla” civ. Some civs in Fall from Heaven II have some really wacky or asymmetrical game mechanics up their sleeves (we will get to some of those later…) The Bannor, on the other hand, would not be too difficult for any vanilla Civ4 player to figure out. Their main advantage is their worldspell, “Rally,” which raises a decent mid-game melee unit, the Demagog, in all of their towns and cities. So the Bannor synergize well with a cottage-economy. Their hero, Donal Lugh, is a strong defensive melee unit. And their unique civic, Crusade, gives buffs to city happiness, lower unit support costs, less war weariness, and faster military production—at the cost of not being able to conduct diplomacy with enemies (which commits the Bannor to a war to the death, unless they abandon the Crusade civic. However, if they abandon the Crusade civic, they also lose all of their Demagogs. So the player, whether human or AI, has the incentive to fight doggedly to the last breath. In short, the Bannor can be a dangerous foe to provoke. As for Capria’s traits, spiritual is both an economic buff (no anarchy, double speed of temple production) and a military buff (disciple units gain XP at about twice the rate). Disciple units are the magic-casting units that come with religions, and AI Capria will almost certainly aim to adopt The Order and spam Confessors (a disciple unit that can cast “bless,” which gives each unit in the tile +1 holy-flavored base strength). Industrious is not the best AI trait since the wonders in FFH2 are more situationally than universally useful compared to vanilla Civ4. Organized or financial are generally of the better tier of economic traits for the AI in FFH2.

2. Valledia the Even of the Amurites (Arcane/Organized). The Amurites are master magicians. For human players, Amurite firebows (their replacement for the longbowman) are almost OP. Firebows can already summon fireballs in addition to doing their regular attack every turn. With buffs from quickly leveling-up Amurite wizards, you can also get firebows with flaming arrows (+1 fire strength), dance of blades (+1 first strike), blur (immune to first strikes), haste (+1 movement), and stoneskin (+3 first strikes and +2 defensive strength). And the craziest thing of all is that the Amurite hero, Govannon, can teach Amurite firebows all sorts of other magic, such as how to cast maelstrom (an area-of-effect spell that damages all units in a 1-tile radius 15-30%), or how to summon spectres every turn. Spectres are a 4-strength, 2-move death unit that cause fear in enemy ranks, (*so* OP ) dispersing enemy stacks into little penny-packets that can be pounced on and picked apart by other units. Sadly, all of these advantages are somewhat wasted on the AI (the AI do cast spells, but often sporadically and without a clear plan). I’m curious to see what Valledia can do in this game. Arcane will buff the XP growth on her magic units, for whatever that’s worth. At least organized is a solid economic trait.

3. Charadon of the Doviello (Aggressive/Barbarian). Generally considered one of the weakest races in the game, the Doviello are a momentum-oriented (as opposed to builder) civ. They NEED early conquests and/or expedited early expansion in order to level the playing field with those civs that have economic bonuses. This is especially true for Charadon, whose barbarian trait will permanently saddle him with a -10% research rate. On the flipside, Charadon starts at peace with orc and goblin barbarians, which might help ease his early expansion…although wild animals will still attack his troops and slow down his expansion as with the others. (The wildlands setting is a bit unfair to him in this regard, I’ll admit, but I wouldn’t expect Charadon to do very well regardless. And I like the wildlands setting for at least making a recon unit / animal taming strategy halfway viable). I’m not sure the barbarian trait really matters much for the AI, since the AI is likely to mechanically insist on large escorts for their settlers just the same (whereas this would be one potential area of cost-savings for a human player in the early game).

4. Ethne the White of the Elohim (Creative/Defender/Tolerant). The Elohim are the enlightened peaceniks of Erebus. They are a vanilla-ish builder civ. Their main gimmick is the “Tolerant” trait, which allows them to build the units and buildings of different civs in cities that they have captured from those civs. Also, the Elohim have a worldspell that forces a 10-turn peace treaty with the rest of the world. In human multiplayer, this barely buys any time at all from a relentless human’s predetermined plan to prosecute a war of conquest, but the worldspell is slightly more useful in an AI game, where war declarations come more at random. If other AIs get stalemated in their wars, the Elohim may be able to sit back and pull ahead as they build and research away peacefully. But if some other AI gets on a roll, I expect the Elohim to be left behind.

5. Tasunke of the Hippus (Aggressive/Raider). They live by the horse and die by the horse. Their palace provides a horse resource, their hero is a cavalry unit. Think Mongols, but on steroids. Actually, a good human player can execute a rush with Tasunke even with just starting warriors + the apprenticeship civic to give them shock-1 (+40% vs. melee). With the Hippus worldspell (“Warcry”), those warriors will become 4-strength, 2-move beasts. Remember that we are talking about as early as the first 50 turns of the game here. Sadly, the AI is unlikely to put together a finely-crafted early rush. In general I expect the Hippus advantage in fast-moving troops to be largely wasted on the AI, who will probably try to pair the Hippus cavalry with 1-movers in one large stack. That said, with the raider trait even those 1-movers will be moving fast through enemy territory (raider leaders get the commando promotion added to all units, allowing them to use roads in enemy territory). But unless the Hippus get off to a good start, I expect them to fall behind those civs that have more economic bonuses in the mid-game.

6. Hannah the Irin of the Lanun (Financial/Raider). From what I’ve seen of the Lanun in PBEM games on Realmsbeyond, the Lanun tend to be economic powerhouses as long as they start near the coast (and in this game they do!) According to the wiki (I’ve never played with them), they get +1 food and +1 commerce on water tiles, and they also get to build pirate coves (I assume using workboats) every 3 tiles apart on the water. Coves apparently act like sea cottages, upgrading their bonuses over time. The Lanun naturally pair well with the Octopus Overlords religion, as that grants them access to the powerful Cultist unit, which can walk over water and do area-of-effect damage to surrounding units next to water tiles. Cultists won’t be quite as powerful on a Pangaea map, but they’ll be unstoppable along the coasts and along any random lakes in the center of the map. Their leader for this game, Hannah the Irin, has one of the best economic traits paired with one of the best military traits...for a human player, at least. The AI won’t know how to fork cities with fast-moving raiders, so it’s possible that Falamar’s charismatic/expansive traits might work better for the AI. We’ll see…

7. Cassiel of the Grigori (Industrious/Agnostic/Philosophical/Adaptive). The Grigori are a strange civ that feel like they want to be played in several different, mutually-exclusive directions. On the one hand, they have buildings that generate great people points for a special type of great person called an “adventurer,” which is an otherwise useless unit that starts with the hero promotion (passively earns 1 XP per turn up to 100 XP) and which can be upgraded to many other types of units. On deity, however, quantity typically beats quality, and a few super-units are not going to single-handedly win the game for the AI. As a player of the Grigori, I’m often tempted to use the adventurer great-people-points to expedite my first academy and subsequent sages in order to build up a research powerhouse in my capital. And if I happen to get adventurers anyways, then I’ll rely on them to skimp on building other units, boosting my builder strategy. The Grigori are a natural fit for running the pacifism civic to boost great people generation. The Grigori worldspell, Ardor, resets the great-people point levels back to 100, meaning that you can generate more than twice as many great people as a typical civ in a game (perhaps even more if you build the “birthright regained” ritual, which allows them to trigger their worldspell a second time, resetting the great-people point levels a second time). The big drawback of the Grigori is that they are agnostic, which means they can’t adopt any of the religions (and unlike Auric Ulvin they don’t get their own civ-specific disciple units), so they miss out on some great disciple units with area-of-effect or summoning capabilities. However, they can still build mages and go down that magic route, which can achieve pretty much the same capabilities with air and death mana (for maelstrom and spectre-spam, respectively).

8. Auric Ulvin of the Illians (Charismatic/Defender/Agnostic). Speaking of Auric Ulvin, here’s a leader who plays by very different mechanics than any of the other civs in Fall from Heaven 2. Like Cassiel, Auric Ulvin can’t adopt any of the seven standard religions. However, Auric dreams of ascending to godhood and return Erebus to the Age of Ice, and he basically has his own ice-themed religion with his own ice-themed disciple units, which he builds via rituals rather than the typical way. The 3 priests of winter that he gets to build at philosophy tech come MUCH sooner than other tier-2 disciple units. In this particular game, it looks like Auric Ulvin got lucky enough to spawn next to Letum Frigus, which will boost his priests with extra ice mana (and thus extra strength for themselves and their ice elemental summons). If Auric survives into the lategame, we might even see his high priests of winter and maybe even Auric himself attempt to ascend into godhood (at which point the leader himself becomes a nigh-invincible unit on the map, similar to Basium or Hyborem). Auric isn’t the most commerce-strong leader, so he will need to conquer some early territory to stay near the top. He should, however, have no trouble with food. He can transform any city radius tiles to snow tiles with the “white hand” building, turning those tiles into the equivalent of grassland tiles for him (and frustrating any opponents who then try to conquer his territory and lack sun mana for the “scorch” spell to turn the land back to a more temperate climate). Oh, and Auric has the single most overpowered spell in the game in the form of “stasis,” which freezes all enemy research and production for 20 turns.

9. Cardith Lorda of the Kuriotates (Philosophical/Expansive/Sprawling/Adaptive). The Kuriotates are all about building the three megacities which they are limited to using as production centers. (They can settle more cities, but these cities only count as “settlements” for the purposes of claiming more territory. They do not produce anything). Their three megacities get to work many more tiles than a typical city—up to a 3-tile radius instead of 2. Their civ also has starting happiness boosts, and they can get free culture to expand the culture radius of their cities to the third ring any time they would like with their “Legends” worldspell. Therefore, the Kuriotates can get off to a very fast start, and on a small map like this, they won’t be disadvantaged too much relative to the other AIs by having only 3 production centers. As for strategy, the Kuriotates tend to come across to new players at first as a builder civ, but soon players will discover that they get a whole unique line of early-to-midgame centaur units that human players have used to great effect in PBEM games on Realmsbeyond.

[Quagma Blast]

A couple more points that FFH newbies might want to know:

Most combat promotions give twice as much combat strength as in base Civ IV; thus Aggressive and Charismatic are both somewhat stronger than you might be used to.

Cassiel and Cardith Lorda have the "Adaptive" trait. This does nothing on its own, but every so often it gives them the opportunity to swap out one of their traits for any of the "standard" FFH leader traits (Civ IV traits, Arcane, and Raider). Which one is swapped out is fixed: Cassiel is always Philosophical and Agnostic but can swap Industrious out, and Cardith Lorda can trade out Philosophical. As you can imagine this is very powerful, though the AI frequently doesn't use it well.

Ethne and Auric Ulvin have the "Defender" trait. It doubles production speed of most defensive buildings and gives all units a promotion which gives 10% withdraw chance always and +10% combat strength in their own borders. If this reminds you of Civ IV Protective, you're not far off. Defender similarly is considered nearly useless.

[shallow_thought]

Also, the Elohim have a worldspell that forces a 10-turn peace treaty with the rest of the world.

Actually, IIRC this is an ability of their hero, Corlindale: casting it kills him. There is a similar one-off effect that can be cast by the Civ that has the unique feature "Seven Pines" in its's territory.

The Elohim worldspell is Sanctuary: no enemy unit can enter their borders for 30 turns. Very useful for a human player to survive a threat or to aid them in holding cities on attack. AI tends to fire it earlier than they need to and waste it.

So much stuff in FFH! You've barely touched on religion, high tier units or alignment. I also need to go back and check if "Compact Enforced" was selected in the settings. Or not .

[DaveV]

Fun idea, I'll be reading. Are you looking for predictions?

(spoilered, just in case)

The AI is pretty good at playing the Lanun, and the Remnants are a nice boost. Auric with free Aggressive (assuming he doesn't manage to wander past Letum Frigus) should be good for second. Capria third, because, again, that seems to be a civ that the AI can handle.

More predictions added later:
First to die: Valledia.
Victory condition: Time; turn: 500
Number of war declarations: 20

[Psillycyber]

Yeah, we're not doing formal predictions, but I'd be curious to hear what people think about winner, runner-up, victory condition, victory date, first to die, # of wardecs (the usual stuff).  

By the way, I've played x number of turns (oops, edited for spoilers) a lot of turns (don't want to reveal how long the game is going just yet) and written my report for about half of those, so my full game report for Game 1 should be ready this weekend.

[Brian Shanahan]

Fun idea, I'll be reading. Are you looking for predictions?

(spoilered, just in case)

The AI is pretty good at playing the Lanun, and the Remnants are a nice boost. Auric with free Aggressive (assuming he doesn't manage to wander past Letum Frigus) should be good for second. Capria third, because, again, that seems to be a civ that the AI can handle.

I thought the Letum effects don't pop for the AI

[Old Harry]

Well I've played (badly) as Elohim, Lanun and Kuriotates and would say the latter were easiest to play - so I'll go for them as winners and Lanun second. Elohim were terribly slow, so I'd have them first to die except Sanctuary will probably save them, so I'll guess the Doviello instead. And I'll guess none of them get it together enough to force a win condition so a time victory on t500.