Primepolar's adventure through hexapoda research

[Primepolar]

Is city gifting allowed, because I'm not entirely sure how taking over the hyberium works, but if I could focus getting a bunch of national wonders in one city, and then trade it to the internals before I take it over like you can in single player that would be pretty sweet esp if I had shades settled there. I guess the beginning will depend on how the start looks, but I'm feeling pretty excited for this. My idea for pillaging the elves was to spam warriors or archers and run them over while invisible, and if they had the woodland promotion and guirilla if on hill they could get some pretty strong pillaging off. Can tigers pillage, because if I could get an ally that went fol, I could capture a bunch of tigers and send them off to pillage.

[gtAngel]

You wouldn't be able to gift Hyborem any cities because the instant he spawns you have to pick him or your old civ. However, Hyborem's world spell steals an Ashen Veil city of his choice. So if you just set up a really juicy city....
Do not that you need to research Malevolent designs first, so it's not immediate.

Also yes that pillage plan would work fine, and would be extremely annoying I'm sure

[Qgqqqqq]

The new player can prevent this by declaring war on hyborem FYI.

[gtAngel]

Ah, that makes Hyborem a much safer plan! You can just war dec and no more city stealing! So you don't have to worry about losing a city when you research Infernal Pact. You still need to rush the Grimoire so that Hyborem doesn't steal it, but otherwise it's a really safe tech.

(Can you tell I've never played a game with Hyborem/Basium in it? :P)

[gtAngel]

After some practice I'm going to recommend Fellowship of Leaves as an early tech goal. Ashen Veil takes a very long time to research, and until you have a religion you only have monuments for culture, which is disgusting. (Aside: I love how religions can be powerful for early gold and culture. It's a good niche for religion: passive benefits that don't rely on buildings.)

FoL synergizes nicely with your recon goals as well. You get to use Fawns, which unlike normal recon units do not get a penalty for attacking cities. They are also very strong in forests, which works out nicely: you want to be attacking the Ljosalfer (forests), and you want Hippus to move slowly through your territory if they attack (forests). If you get a lot of level 4 Fawns then grabbing Hidden Paths and upgrading to Satyrs would also be an extremely powerful move to make. Satyrs are 9/4 units, which is absolutely absurd for units that come out so early. To put this into perspective, Iron Champions require 3330 beakers of tech and have 8 strength. Satyrs take 1420 beakers of tech and sit at 9 strength and the ability to convert animals. (However, Satyrs do require level four units, because they must be upgraded towards and cannot be build.)

This makes the early tech path something like that:

Agriculture->Calender->Mysticism->Exploration->Hunting->Way of the Forests

This gives economy (Agrarianism/God King/Elder Council) and military (Hunting/WotF) and culture (WotF). I recommend using your first Sage to bulb Knowledge of the Ether, giving you access to Mage Guilds (2 sage specialists) and Divide Soul. You can easily come up with another Sage for your Academy, especially with the Mage Guild specialist slots.

[Qgqqqqq]

So your plan is to tech Using resources?

[gtAngel]

This plan techs using resources + river commerce + sage specialists. Keep in mind that post-mysticism every city can easily get one sage specialist, and post KotE all strong cities can grab two more. Aristocracy is really the only big commerce gain, but Sidar don't actually need it that much because they can already turn food into beakers very efficiently. For Aristocracy you trade 1 food for 1 beaker. With a sidar specialist you trade 1 food for 1.5 beakers and 6gpp.

[TheQuizzicalEyebrow]

I'm also going to be dedlurking this, due to Prime roping me in to help. I used to play a metric shit ton of FHH2, but I haven't actually played it in a while. I can still help, and can do micro or macro. I can beat the Emperor AI's depending on who I'm using. Quick notes, I gotta say I like going Ashen Veil more than FoL. Yes, you need to go through hunting anyways, but you're going to need collateral. Ashen Veil flames are about as good as you can get, and I think will be more useful than tigers. The tigers will have a harder time keeping up with the main, incredibly mobile recon troops. Alternatively, possibly do both, FoL at first, and then pick up AV later for collateral.

[Qgqqqqq]

I just meant until fol...
Is that your commerce gameplan?
If so I'll be interested in seeing how it works...

[gtAngel]

I also agree that Ashen Veil is much better than Fellowship of Leaves, and ultimately is the religion that benefits Sidar the most in this situation. I just want Fellowship for the period of time before Corruption of Spirit/Priesthood, because that takes a very very long time.

And Qqqqqqq, Code of Laws is probably going to be picked up shortly after Fellowship, opening up Aristograrianism. I just think that delaying FoL hurts commerce more than delaying CoL because you'd be stuck with 9 tile cities rather than 21 tile cities, so you would lose a lot of good land and resources because you would be forced to settle based on 9 tile city strength.

Of course, it's also possible to grab Education->Code of Laws before heading for WotF if you feel like your cities will be strong enough with the smaller BFC. I don't think you can afford to delay hunting that long though, because you need to defend against Pyre Zombies/Horsemen and warriors aren't going to cut it.