Primal Fury Terraforming seems useless

[revjwh]

The trees are so scattered that it seems pointless? Other than your starting city you will rarely if ever have another tree near enough to another city if you want to keep your empire cohesive. Hoping the devs will fix this and make a new mechanic so all your cities truly change the terrain! Ugh.

[Balekai]

At minimum the auto terraforming is perfect for your Capital City provinces. It would be nice if there was some type a way to "build" a spirit tree if you can't find one for your other cities. Maybe locked behind the top tier City upgrade for balance.

For any Spirit animal that uses a terrain in which you can gain access to terraforming spells via Tomes, it works fine the way it is.

For example: For Storm Crow that uses Grassland, you may want to research Tome of Fertility for Restore the Land (a 1 hex conversion to grassland terraform spell), and Tome of Paradise for Enchanted Bloom (city spell that spreads grasslands throughout the map like primal trees but better and more bonuses). Shadow's Cold Dark Tome has similar functionality for artic etc.

The way it's set up now promotes terminating tomes for Primal culture and using those terminating spell more offensively, rather than just relying on domains automatically converting the world without any investment (other than finding and annexing spirit trees).

[revjwh]

I like the Spider - does the Nature Tome that makes trees make mushrooms???

[flintfakeer]

Originally posted by revjwh:

I like the Spider - does the Nature Tome that makes trees make mushrooms???

yep

[Balekai]

Originally posted by revjwh:

I like the Spider - does the Nature Tome that makes trees make mushrooms???

Yesshh! (Mushroom eating voice/accent or something! :D )

From Tome of Glades:

CREATE FOREST
Adds Forest feature to target friendly or unowned province. Turns into Mushroom Forest Underground.

Doesn't work on Mountains, Desolate, Lava or Ice terrain.

Also useful are the grassland terraforming spells I mentioned from Tome of Fertility and Tome of Paradise respectfully (maybe, unless spider specifically needs underground mushroom forests):

RESTORE THE LAND
Adds grasslands feature to target friendly or unowned province. Works on Desolate terrain. Turns into Fungus Fields Underground.

Doesn't work on Mountains and Ice terrain.

ENCHANTED BLOOM
Target friendly city starts altering terrain to Grasslands at 1
The spell extends up to 1 Province outside the Domain.
While the spell is active, provinces with Grasslands provide +2 Food and +2 Production income.

Watch out for Enchanted Blom though. I'm guessing it acts like Restore the land giving Fungus Fields, but there's the possibility it may create true grassland underground. I doubt it though. Or maybe it doesn't work on underground tiles or cities? I would have to test it out.

[Balekai]

I just wanted to add that yeah the Glades Tome seems perfect for expanding as Primal Spider, especially for above ground.

In addition to Cave Walk and building farms on cave tiles form Primal spider, you can get Forest Walk and Forest Camoflauge from Leafskin transformation in the same Tome (which will work on Mushroom Forests too).

Then when you expand or venture above ground, you can use Create Forests to camouflage your units as they move around and/or within your City domains. Get Nature's wrath Tome later for further forest synergy.

[The Big Brzezinski]

It's very difficult to develop an economic strategy without solid information about incompatible terrain features. I tried croc worshipers, and quickly found I could not make armories because my swamps had no trees, fatally blocking my recruitment.

Marching winter mammoth tribals, on the other hand, very quickly became the dominant military power. I suspect enchanted bloom raven and wolf are solid combos.

Kitties are screwed, though. Trees don't grow in ash. If you're doing a merciless slaver/doomherald/subjugation strat to blow gold on, maybe they can work.

I think at some point I'm going to have to try going full spiders. Go beasts & evolution, spam baby spiders all over the place. Poison everything.

[NecRomance]

i would say it's a far cry form useless, but I agree it has complications. Timing when you build your temple is very important, as if you build it too early, you may deprive yourself of the opportunity to gain draft, for example. I think it'll need a little more tweaking before it's all said and done.

[Frienby]

The weird thing where primal terraforming wipes out all forests seems some huge anti-synergy with primal culture. I hope that's a bug and not working as intended.

[Alexander]

Several players, including me, have already proposed to add a reward for the totem spirit quest that would allow to terraform all cities, regarding of the spirit stump positions. You'll still have to go out of your way a bit to claim at least 3 stumps to finish the quest, but at least it would be an interesting challenge with an interesting reward.

[Midas]

Originally posted by Alexander:

Several players, including me, have already proposed to add a reward for the totem spirit quest that would allow to terraform all cities, regarding of the spirit stump positions. You'll still have to go out of your way a bit to claim at least 3 stumps to finish the quest, but at least it would be an interesting challenge with an interesting reward.

Honestly, I'd prefer that over the ruler passive you get. Just gain the ability to build the totem structure in any city, with or without the tree.

[Fendelphi]

Originally posted by Frienby:

The weird thing where primal terraforming wipes out all forests seems some huge anti-synergy with primal culture. I hope that's a bug and not working as intended.

You are not required to build the terraforming building to utilize the Primal Culture.

Just build your foresters as well as your draft buildings early, then eventually build the temple for an economic buff.

[Godsheal Powerloader]

Originally posted by Fendelphi:

Originally posted by Frienby:

The weird thing where primal terraforming wipes out all forests seems some huge anti-synergy with primal culture. I hope that's a bug and not working as intended.

You are not required to build the terraforming building to utilize the Primal Culture.

Just build your foresters as well as your draft buildings early, then eventually build the temple for an economic buff.

Funnily, I played ash sabretooth and I'm pretty sure that if you build a forester on a forest, it stays there after ashlands remove it, lol.

[Frienby]

Originally posted by Omar Telo D. Rego:

Funnily, I played ash sabretooth and I'm pretty sure that if you build a forester on a forest, it stays there after ashlands remove it, lol.

That's exactly right. I've taken to building whole forester chains... and they remain foresters long after your temple completely strips the land of all forests. It's... a very silly mechanic and I'm not sure how "build all your necessary forest buildings before your primary gimmick" is at all intended.

[Isseus]

In my first game with Primal Fury the map was absolutely filled to the brim with totem trees. Like on the island I started there were three and everywhere else was filled with them. Every game since has had exactly one next to where I start and 0 more. Good thing I finished the totem quest on the first map because it would have been absolutely impossible to do later. I guess it's about which type of map you play on, so if Ashland is rare on your map, so will the Ashland totem trees. First game was loads of grasslands with Storm Eagle and that had a lot of totems. Then on a divide map I played Wolf and had exactly one where I started but the map had a little bit of forest elsewhere.

[Godsheal Powerloader]

Originally posted by Isseus:

In my first game with Primal Fury the map was absolutely filled to the brim with totem trees. Like on the island I started there were three and everywhere else was filled with them. Every game since has had exactly one next to where I start and 0 more. Good thing I finished the totem quest on the first map because it would have been absolutely impossible to do later. I guess it's about which type of map you play on, so if Ashland is rare on your map, so will the Ashland totem trees. First game was loads of grasslands with Storm Eagle and that had a lot of totems. Then on a divide map I played Wolf and had exactly one where I started but the map had a little bit of forest elsewhere.

I can't say I agree with that. On my Ash sabretoth run I ran a grasslands map with no native ashlands. Dens were sparse, but definitely there, over some random forests. Mayhap they are tied to the ammount of forests on the map?