[Spoilers] Peace and Purity - Einion Logos of the Elohim

[WarriorKnight]

Chceking in with almost nothing to add

Don't worry, I'm just stating the facts right now. Soon enough I'll need help on something (like what religion to go for, I always have trouble with that)).

1) If bordering Lanun they would be my first and prime target regardles of wether they look soft or not. Hannah is a scary pick and the longer she's left to herself the scarier she becomes.

2) Bannor need to die before they reach Crusade. Charismatic Bannor need to die harder ( Bruce Willis ftw )

3) Elves would be a nice early assimilation ( repeat after me - there's no Borg in FFH ).

I agree with all that. Probably the priority that I rush civs would be something like:

1) Lanun
2) Bannor
3) Ljosalfor
4) Malakim
5) Sheaim

Of course, this is before doing any diplo or seeing the map, so I might not even follow that at all. I'll certainly try and get the Sheaim to side with me though since they are rushers like me and later on the Elohim do very well against them.

[WarriorKnight]

[SIZE="4"]Strategy Discussion - Monk rushing[/SIZE]

Alright so let's have a look at monks in more detail:

[SIZE="3"]Pros:[/SIZE]

[SIZE="3"]Strength[/SIZE]

At strength 6 with 2 moves, monks are quite strong and fast. They start with the Medic promotion too for somewhat faster healing (Demon slaying isn't important until mid/late game). The other thing to note is that they are Disciple units, which means their counter promotion is not available until Way of the Wicked, (which is not a tech that most civs get early) and they benefit from Altar experience.

Also with the 3rd layer of the Altar, any unit standing on the city tile gets the Bless promotion for free, which gives an additional strength but wears off after combat has taken place. Kinda neat for 7 strength monks for the toughest battle but it isn't a necessity.



[SIZE="3"]Starting Experience[/SIZE]

The Altar is one of the unique victory conditions in FFH. There are seven layers to and the majority of them are built by sacrificing Great Prophets. Each layer provides 2xp to starting disciple units, so building just a few layers can often be worth it. Keep in mind that there is no barracks building early on, so starting experience is hard to come by. Other ways to get starting experience:

Apprenticeship - This is a given, a civic available at Education (pre-req to Priesthood) which gives +2xp to all units. Seeing as it's the standard civic of its time, I would be foolish not to use it.

Conquest & Form of the Titan - These are a civic and wonder that both give 2xp available at warfare, needing BW and Education. The downsides are switching to Conquest requires going out of Agrarianism, which is both painful and obvious to everyone else, and building the Titan requires hammers that could be going to monks. Also Warfare is fairly out of the way of my tech path, so unless I'm delaying for a long time I'll probably skip it.

Military Strategy - This is a tech which requires Warfare and Philosophy. The main thing it gives is a free G.Commander to the first one to discover it, who could potentially either build a command post for another 2xp or join one of my monks for a 7 strength unit. Nice, but again I think it's too much out of the way.


Ideally, my monks would start with 10xp (3 promotions off the bat) but that would be a really late rush which requires several late Prophets. 5xp is a good alternative, but that requires 2 layers (apprenticeship is going to be happening in every scenario). Of course the other thing I can hope for is the Amathon event (give up 50 gold for a free Prophet). If I'm lucky enough to get that then that would be awesome.



[SIZE="3"]Appears early[/SIZE]

Priesthood is a early-mid game tech, requiring Education and Philosophy, which for allowing a Tier 3 unit is quite early. Priesthood can be bulbed with a Prophet (it is 2nd on the priority list, the AV founding tech is 1st) but then that's one less prophet building a layer on the altar.



[SIZE="3"]Cons:[/SIZE]

[SIZE="3"]Expensive[/SIZE]

At 120 hammers each (standard for a Tier 3 unit) Monks aren't cheap, especially given how early they come. This is the main obstacle to monk rushing. I'll probably have to use God King to get them out in any reasonable timeframe.



I can think of 2 rushes that might work


Plan A: The super speedy rush - Focus on getting monks out quickly.

Work priests ASAP, get the basic worker techs then beeline philosophy. There should be enough time to get 2 Great Prophets (maybe 3 if 2nd city works some quickly or the Amathon event appears). Use one to bulb Priesthood and the other 2 for Altar layers. After Priesthood is researched capital switches to production and builds monks ASAP (other cities might help too). After a suitable number have been built, (5-6?) send them towards target and hope for the best.

Advantages are obvious, has highest chance of success because it's the fastest rush. Downside is that I'll probably in a shockingly bad position afterwords since I'll have focused so much on military early.



Plan B: The not-quite-as-fast-as-the-super-speedy-rush-but-packs-more-of-a-punch rush

Basically same as above, instead delay to get Rosier or Valin. Maybe even get some Ritualists or Confessors with mobility as well (Ritualists are better though, collateral damage FTW). Delaying also gives more time to get prophets which means more likely to get 10xp monks (and Priests, although they get experience automatically so not as important).

Downsides are obvious, need a ton more techs/buildings/units which means target has more time to build defenses. Also I haven't tried this strategy out yet, so it could turn out to be a total waste of time.


Alternatively, I could wait until Corlindale, but by then the Bannor would have Crusade, Lanun would certainly be way ahead in tech, Malakim would have Sand Lions, Ljo's have a respectable number of ancient forests for treants to spawn and Sheaim have several Death Mages.

[Amelia]

Note to self, be wary of Mist in PBEM 2

Anyway, are you sure the Palace of Lanun is the one giving +1 food to Coastal? I'm not too sure myself.

[uberfish]

Note to self, be wary of Mist in PBEM 2

You said it for me :P

Actually I have no idea if Elf forest improvements work for Elohim or not (they don't usually work for non-elf civs)

[WarriorKnight]

Note to self, be wary of Mist in PBEM 2

Anyway, are you sure the Palace of Lanun is the one giving +1 food to Coastal? I'm not too sure myself.

Yep, it's the palace that gives +1 food, so I can tolerate it. Other cool palace effects are the Sidar (improved specialists FTW), Doveillo & Clan (-40% WW, although that pales in comparison to the Mercurian or Infernal bonuses) and Grigori (adventurer points, although it's so low that chances are you won't get any).

You said it for me :P

Actually I have no idea if Elf forest improvements work for Elohim or not (they don't usually work for non-elf civs)

After testing this it appears that I can't build on forests even with elven workers. Gives me even less reason to attack the elves. Ah well, nice to know about at least.

[WarriorKnight]

After messing around with rushes a bit, I've come up with the following before looking at the game:

• 10xp is impossible to achieve in any reasonable timeframe, even 5xp is hard enough
  
• I can realistically only get 2 Prophets in time for a rush, excluding lair pops and events
  
• Waiting for Ritualistic or Confessors is not an option, I consider Valin or Rosier a long time too (although they might still be in it)
  

I think if I do go for one of the Mounted heroes it'll be Valin since Way of the Wise has some of my unique buildings and Code of Laws is essential for Aristocracy.

[WarriorKnight]

Here's my starting position:



Looks quite nice. Tons of rivers and hills along with rice and wine. I also have the starting settler bonus too, and since I'm going to spend the first turn revolting to nationhood, I'll probably move the settler somewhere to scout (I start in pacifism which lowers military production, since it always rounds down you always lose at least 1hpt which for the first few turns is brutal).

Also we get visibility on all unique features. and since they are all on I get lots of vision. The most important ones are the remnants of patria to our W (bottom of the middle 3, right next to the guardian), dragon bones are E, the giant tree is further E and leptum frigus is immediately S (snowfall on Corlindale anyone? ).

I think I'll move the settler NE/N and the warrior stays in the capital (I don't want to burn sanctuary yet) while the scout pops the hut. If I see nothing important (and that's quite likely) I'll probably settle 1S of the wine.

[Mist]

My prefered settling spot would be 2E of the wine - less river tiles, but also much less forests to chop. You get rice + mana ( is that mana on the edge of the screen? ) in first ring, leave space for a monster production city to pick both pigs and cows with no overlap and have room for good commerce city to the north.

Settling in place or 1S of wine will invariably waste either cow or pigs and crowd out a city site to pick up those hills. It would also push mining high up on the list of techs to get first to chop all that wood.

Scout goes for the hut ( but only after the city is settled, iirc it's impossible to gain hut tech before setling first city ) and then off into the wilds.

Warrior scouts in circles around the capital.

Capital starts on worker.

PS. Please resize your screenshots to 1024, currently they stretch the forums and require sliders to move about

[WarriorKnight]

My prefered settling spot would be 2E of the wine - less river tiles, but also much less forests to chop. You get rice + mana ( is that mana on the edge of the screen? ) in first ring, leave space for a monster production city to pick both pigs and cows with no overlap and have room for good commerce city to the north.

Settling in place or 1S of wine will invariably waste either cow or pigs and crowd out a city site to pick up those hills. It would also push mining high up on the list of techs to get first to chop all that wood.

Good points, I hasn't really thought about where my next few cities would go. 2E is even better especially after finding a corn 2E1N of the wine.

Probably go Agriculture -> Crafting? We need mysticism and exploration also but first got to give the worker has something good to do.

Scout goes for the hut ( but only after the city is settled, iirc it's impossible to gain hut tech before setling first city ) and then off into the wilds.

Forgot about that. Pops next turn.

PS. Please resize your screenshots to 1024, currently they stretch the forums and require sliders to move about

OK, I'll try and fix them. EDIT - fixed

[Mist]

1) Agriculture
(do we go for aristoagri farms or cottages?)
if aristoagri
2) calendar - revolt agri
3) festivals ( why not? we're there and markets bring good income early on )
if cottages
2) AC
3) Education

Crafting/Mining are expensive and we can live without wine for a little bit