Hello all.

I know that the phase of scenarios for FFH is set to the Ice phase, but since I have some technical difficulties with my comp, which render playing quite annoying, I’ve been thinking about making a scenario myself, although with the non-existent programming skills that I have, it’s gonna be interesting.

It’s your mistake anyway Kael, coz of those videos you made.

I already have some ideas on how it should look, and what should be in it, but all is just in the preparation phase right now, and I want to find out, what could be done with the current state of the mod, and what would need to be implemented. Also this is my very first attempt at a creative writing, so please everyone, be gentle, but also I would like to get any feedback I can get. If I suck terribly or if it was any good. Also if something manages to get out of FFH canon, let me know. Also note that all this is just a preparatory draft, I can’t promise you anything as of now. Mostly brainstorming anyway.

Ladies and gentlemen, game developers and modmakers, modmodmakers and lurkers, FFH fans of all ages.
I give you the 5th age of the Erebus. The Age of Despair.

Backstory:
30 years have passed. Some see that time as eternity. Others fear what will follow. The way life is now, makes the troubles and constant wars of the Age of Rebirth look feeble and childish. 30 years ago, the wicked Sheaim almost faced extinction. But they had managed to finish their masterplan. 30 years ago, they called forth the infernal forces of hell. Into creation. At first they were underestimated. The forces of hell were wrongfully considered just another Sheaim attempt to twist the forces of magic and materialize creatures unimaginable. That was a mistake. The first mistake of many that were to come. But the last one that we remember, the oldest one that we shall never forget. The mistake that cost us the most. Our future.

Some said the stories of survivors of the devilish scourge were frightful babblings of cowards. Others said the Overlords played with them and spared their lives at the cost of their sanity. Maybe they were both right, who knows.

One after another, the proud nations of Erebus fell. Arrogance, pity, disconcern, all played in favour of the Infernals. It took them only 5 years to conquer their 1st continent. Countless demons swarming from infernal cities. Strange beasts appeared near the gates of the remaining Sheaim settlements. Beasts magical, burning, with horns and teeth everywhere. Another 5 years later they conquered everything. The good guys and the bad guys. The weak and the powerful. The rich and the poor. They didn’t care. The only thing they cared about was the screaming, the pain, the flames. And of course the tormented souls to fuel their blasted crusade to purify creation of all life.

Some say it was our arrogance. That we had become too proud in our achievements. The late Age of Rebirth was a glorious age full of wonders and magic and technology breaktroughs. It was a testimony to the gods that we were starting to become like them, we were going to reach them, become equal. It was a marvel whose shining glory could only be compared to the depth of the pitch black darkness that was about to come.

As the time passed, it started to get obvious that the governments were not going to handle the coming crisis. Some nations had hoped for change of luck by changing the rulers. Other decided to test their luck by keeping the old ones. Some tried to flee. Or hide. In the seas. Under the mountain peaks. In the forests and the jungles. Using magic means. All pitiful attempts, as they soon learned. The demonic forces twisted the sky blue waters of Erebus’s oceans, that the Lanun so loved, into an unholy mass, crimson like blood, and black like darkness made solid. Vessels could no longer sail safely, for the ships of those who were devoured by it, soon returned. But the crew was always different. The Luchuirp and the Khazad joined forces and built underground fortresses. And soon discovered the beauty of the earthquake. From the wrong side, however. Because of the tainted earth, their resources soon withered and dried out and the elemental forces of earth, which unbeknownst to them had become tainted as well, turned against their summoners. The forests and the elves. They couldn’t stop waging war against each other even as they faced extinction. The ancient forests near Evermore and Thariss remembered the elves as a single nation. “They withstood the ice, they withstood fires, they shall protect their children”. But the fire that was about to come was no ordinary fire, for hell had spit these flames out itself. And from those fires, the sky became dark, and day had become as night. And so the sun god lost contact with his faithful Malakim. The Amurites, arcanists till the bitter end, just like the Sidar, sought the cure for the problem in magic and simply hid their cities. The ignorants. Never underestimate a demons thirst for fresh souls and the hellhounds that follow him. The Calabim ended up dry when their “food supplies” were recruited into Hyborem’s legions. When they displayed concern, they found themselves back in the ages past, when they had to scavange for any survivors for any drop of blood they could find. The Bannor had the most experience with fighting demons. However, the demons also had the most experience with fighting the Bannor. The day they built the Mercurian gate was supposed to be the turning point of the war. A shining light that will drive the Infernals where they belong. But it was too late. For every angel that arrived, legions of demons crawled from the pits and portals in their blasted lands. As for Basium himself, lets just say, he went back to Arawn. For good. He took a whole army down, before Hyborem himself had to stand up to him, but at that point, it was more of a theatre play than a real fight. I dare not imagine what Hyborem did with the corpse of his nemesis laying lifeless like a sac under his feet.

As Hyborem’s campaign was successful, some other unimaginable forces were so satisfied with him that they granted him additional powers and he grows in power each passing year. 10 years ago, some surviving outcasts said they heard rumours, that he is summoning more of his demonic kind. Not that they would be necessary, now that Erebus has definitely become a place you don’t want to spend you life in. No idea if it was true, no idea if it was necessary. No idea if the ritual has been finished successfully. No idea if its still not in preparation phase…

With her last breath, the great prophet Cailleach Beara, told Os-Gabella’s torture mistresses the following words. With the last spark of hope, conscience and hopefully clear mind:

„In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees
And the voices of those who stand looking
And a new day will dawn for those who stand long
And the forest will echo with laughter“
(Courtesy of Led Zeppelin)

Some say, that there is still hope. Maybe she had a vision that we shall eventually be victorious and the spreading of hell will stop. Maybe we will even press them back to the bottomless pit from which they came from. Or maybe she was just disillusionate and couldn’t stand that much pain any longer. What gives a brink of hope to us is the fact, that all those who participated in the torture were punished with death at Os-Gabellas personal order. And a very slow death to be more precise.

No-one knows anything nowadays. Survivors try hard to find food to salvage for their bodies, not to find food for their hope. Contact beyond the handful of fortresses is practically non existent. No-one dares to enter the burning lands nor the haunted forests. No-one even knows if any of the fortresses still stand.

Gameplay:
This will probably end up(and I surely hope to finish it:)) quite differentiated form FFH, mainly for the scenario, if successful and with sufficient help, it might become a modmod itself.

Game is strongly focused on survival. Armageddon counter starts at 100 and its up to you to bring it down.
Due to the fact that I would like to have the Infernals start with a huge empire and have many barbarian demons rampaging the lands, I would like to consider following mechanic:
Plenty of demons roaming the lands, from which you don’t get exp. The fact that you survived a wave of demons doesn’t have to mean you developed an effective mechanic against them.
The exp inflation in FFH would be toooooooo much of an advantage in such a setting. I also want to avoid having one unit capture all the attackers and so you end up with 1 uber unit, specialized in everything and a bunch of veteran noob warriors.

Q1: Is it possible to have barbarian demons spawn, that are far below the tech line? By adjusting the weight the AI gives to them. (Imagine barbarians spawning warriors when they can do rangers) Probably will use the hellfire tile mechanic to spawn a certain unit type otherwise.
Q2: Is it possible to set up AI permanently allied with barbarian? (I know Kael once had barbarians build Mercurian gate/ +10 on coolness factor, even if it was just a bug)
Q3: Would it be possible to have a unit gain exp by defeating at least 2 units in the same turn? even if weak ones? (Imagine giving a unit Valor promotion after victory, that lasts one or two turns. If you had gotten 0exp from killing a simple unit, you will get +1 exp from killing the next one. No pain, no gain.

As for the combat itself, I imagine the following mechanic. Give fortifications minimal defence bonuses (10% each to palisade, stone wall, castle - max). Instead increase the max value of unit fortify order. 10% each turn for a max of 50-70% plus possibility of defensive promotion to double that value. You know your surroundings, you can set up traps for any attackers. The demons wouldn’t receive defence bonuses in their cities, but rather higher defence for using the hell terrain they are on.

Q4: Is it possible to have a tech give promotion to all existing and future units? Not possibility of promotion, but directly the promotion.

I imagine the unit to have higher defensive strength than offensive strength, and that offensive strength could be increased by researching technologies like Doctrine: demon fighting (SMAC anyone?) granting +1 attack strength.
If that wouldn’t be possible, I would like to elaborate more on the weapon promotions, but these would probably only increase attack strength, at least most of them. Basically they would leverage the units offensive and defensive strength. Copper weapons +1/0, iron weapons +2/0, silver weapons +3/+1, mithril weapons +4/+1, adamantium weapons +5/+2. And I would love to get the way weapons were handled back. Meaning you would need a forge to give the boost to units. This would probably make even more quests, kind of like finding a new metal to forge into weapons, or a sacred forge that can only grant you adamantium in the tileset where it is. You decide if you want your units with mithril and ready to battle, or make a pilgrimage to give them a slight boost.
Combat I-V as we know them now would probably be reduced to Combat I-III of 20% strength, after that you would need to specialize against the specific demon types. When defending a city, you would need to diversify your defensive forces, and not just leave one super powerful unit behind to kill everything. Leave one that has specialised itself against mounted units, and one against melee units, just in case. And also you’d better leave an archer behind so that he can soften the attackers. Meaning it would probably require the same mechanic that was used in Age of Ice scenario on BTS.

Q5: Would it be possible to assign the Armageddon counter value to the barbarian player? I don’t want the player to stop Armageddon by simply defeating the Infernal lord, while the world is still a burning ball of fire.

If you have played some of the scenarios shipped with original Civ4, you might remember Genghis Khan Scenario (might be another) where you had units built by having your mobile camp stand on a terrain for a certain time, instead of building cities. I would like following a mechanic (might be a quest). You start with a few units and a mobile camp kind of like a Survivors unit. Only after you have defeated a nearby bunch of demons, do you find the place that has great potential for defensive structures/library of ancient wisdom/old city ruins where you are allowed to have your Survivors unit settle into a city. Overall city construction would probably go similarly to using the restore city spell on unpillagable city ruins tile features strategically set upon the world. You scavenge what you get. NOT build vast empires upon ashes.

Q6: Would the above written be possible?

Improving the city tileset would be different from FFH as well. I would imagine cheaper workers sacrifice themselves for tile improvement. If you played Call to Power series and remember the system of public works, you know what I’m talking about. Roads would be unavailable, or only buildable with a late game tech. That means that all features would require the same mechanic that gives you sea resources without connecting to route network. The reason is
a) I don’t want the players to focus on building an advanced empire while their neighbour is a demon lord bent on destruction of what’s left. Plus I’m a buildaholic and try hard to get rid of that.
b) building a road system in a burning world is pointless
c) I don’t like having mercenaries and mounted units with commando promotion be able to storm the core city of the enemy.

Travel between cities could be managed by allowing obsidian gates much earlier (repair ruins, etc. imagine some quest to work if you want)
I would like to limit the movement of all units in general. Recon line might get a max of 2+1, just like Mounted, but Hell terrain might require 2 movement points instead, to compensate. Or even make the mobility promotion unavailable. Also any hell terrain should do damage to all units on the tiles, regardless of resources and cultural borders. This would require units to be experienced to travel out to the unknown, or travel with medics. Later you could get certain promotions (courage) that would neutralize such damage from tile sets.

Q7: Any feedback on that? Is that with the workers doable? Maybe with a spell for the unit?

I would like to incorporate seZ’s ancient forest graphic and create a hell version of Ancient forest, named Haunted forest, which would hinder unit vision, and spawn barbarian treants/bloodhawks/wights/whatever… Bloodhawks would use the aerial interception combat mechanics from BTS.

Q8: Is it possible to have a beast lair work for airborne units? (Cant remember how airfields work in vanilla…) Possibly have a tile feature /permanent or pillagable generate negative culture?

Battle system would probably be considerably realtered. T1-3 units only. No national units limit for T3 units. T4 units probably only available as upgraded heroes or from quests.
The tech race would probably be even slower than in regular FFH, I love the epic and marathon gameplay options. You focus on survival, not on magic and technology breakthrough. Instead, some technologies would be capturable from the infernals (we now have an effective countertactics agains a demon subspecies) or salvagable for ruins (now THIS might come in handy) or from quests.

Q9: Is it possible to make researching a technology lock out researching another technology?
Possibly for even more specialization.

I would like to have a mana node be unpillagable, but only give its resource if on right terrain. E.g. Once you purify a land, the forces that corrupt the node are gone and you can use the node’s power.

Q10: Possible? You (who have more experience) decide.

If all of this were to be done, I would probably make some new leaders, with either 3 traits, or just one. Was it Maniac or Magister who beefed Basium and Hyborem with 7 traits? Would definitely love to add that. As the backstory says, I would like to beef up Hyborem as well, make him more a pain in the ass. He was rewarded, so I’d want to make his immortal promotion permanent. Also from the rituals to be completed, Id like to summon upto 5 more nigh-undefeatable demon heroes. The 4 raiders and Avatar of wrath would probably also start at the beginning, although they would be either tuned down on their speed, or set to islands, separate continents, as not to bother in the early phases of the scenario. Or have certain avatar units to counter them based on quests. E.g. you manage to wake up a slumbering Mithril golem the Khazad left in their ruins. This will help you get rid of them. Maybe have the mithril golem be so damaged in the combat that he would be rendered unrepairable, or only good as a softener for another of the Horsemen, if you’re lucky.

Also moving some spells would be necessary. E.g. I imagine the sanctify spell a T2 spell for only the plot where you are and a T3 spell for 3x3 plot in a game where turning hell land nodmal is the aim of the game.

Q11: Is it possible to add a certain coeficient to aramgeddon counter based on the number of tiles having hell promotion? Meaning if you manage to sanctify whole islands and continents to regular state, then hell is actually loosing, right?

Q12: In current mod, barbarian heroes benefit from all mana node types, regardless of ownership.. See Horsemen. Would it be possible to reverse this? Meaning the more Life, Nature, Spirit, Law nodes, whatever are in the world, regardless of ownership, the weaker the Horsemen/demons get?

I would like to implement heroes as early units, not directly from start, but gainable soon. Imagine a holy book of rituals that will allow you to summon those that help in times of need. At beginning they would mainly help defending your city, while you go to do quests with your band of adventurers/scavangers look for more survivors. They wouldn’t be undefeatable, but would be hard to defeat by the enemy. If they die, you can bring them back like you do now, by sacrificing a life node. However you would have to decide if you want back a hero, or keep the life node to weaken the demons.

Q13: Since the demons would have their heroes too, I was thinking if it would be possible to tie down 2 units lives. Imagine Infernal twins, where you’d need to kill both in the same turn, else the living one brings the dead one back from hell. Possibly include Immortal promotion on both.

Another great question would be civilisation mechanic. I would like to focus more on the survivors and their mixed races. “Civilisations” would rather be groups of survivors with differentiating racial majority. E.g. Elven survivors would have 50% chance to have units built have elven promotion and 10% each of none(maybe make an empty promotion - human, just to show that the unit has a race), dwarven, vampire, half-angel, half demon. The Dwarven survivors would have 50% of dwarven units and the other 50% would again be divided. Reason for vampire is that I would consider them being at the bottom of the food chain once again, due to recruitment of “food” by hell. So they start again like in the civilopedia, they help as hunter for drops of blood. They could make good recon units, and it would be on the player to decide if they want to starve them to death or give them a chance to redeem themselves and help the survivors.
Half-angel and Half-demon would resemble the fact how much the world has been tainted by the divine and hell forces. Half demons would probably be able to gain the stigmata promotion, and would be more useful at the beginning, while half-angels would have a “tranquility” promotion, basicly an anti stigmata, you would get bonus, the lower the armageddon counter would be. This would help in late game as double band mechanic.

Q14: Is it possible to set a building (palace) have 100% chance to give ONE of a number of promotions? Have all units start with racial promotion, but avoid having a vampire/elven/halfangel hybrid.

Q15: Is it possible to have the max number of national units be variable and not a constant? Imagine having a cap on vampire units equal to number of cities. Flavourwise to avoid falling into the depth of the vampire fangs as the Calabim did before, but still be able to use their powers.

Q16: Would it be possible to make a unit turn barbarian and then back to same AI? I imagine the half-demons to be able to go berserk, but they could turn back to sanity later. Imagine you have a campaign going, and 2 of your attack units get crazed. You can decide to kill them for exp, and continue the fight, or retreat, till they get their anger back under control. Or use charm on them so that they cant attack you, use a druid to entangle them and then when back to normal continue back to your army.

I still haven’t though about how to implement the religions. Maybe even make the surviving civilisations religions themselves and disregard the whole religion mechanic.
The only civilisations I considered and their mechanics are as follows:

Empyrean: Focus on finding the contact with the lost gods. Since fire would be totally under the control of the infernals, the Whitefire and Crown of Brilliance would be the only spells that damage surrounding units and only be available to the empyrean units.

Order: Focus on direct demons fighting, Basium style. The demon slaying promotion would probably be a late game promotion, however some Order units would be able to get it by quest/start with it.

Runes of Kilmorph: Focus on hills and earth mana summonings. Same as usual, bonus to production. Siege units. Enchantments on weapons. Maybe make the adamantium promotion only available to Runes of Kilmorph units.

Fellowship of leaves: Focus on forest combat and fawns, following this would allow you to recruit nature creatures (Imagine a planar gate mechanic as Ancient forest tile improvement, that activates once the whole forest has been purified). Bonus to tile reverting.

Council of Esus: Focus on stealth and assassins (what else did you expect?) Flavourwise, the CoE didn’t get their “share of the loot” so they decided to take it away by force. You would have invisible units sent deep into enemy territory to devastate the demons strongholds, before your regular army takes it. Units would start with high attack strength, and very low defence strength and a bit evasion. Imagine a lonely Fro’ D’oh get tracked in the depths of Mordor- sorry, just checking if anyone is actually reading all this - and being surrounded by a horde of thirsty demons. Best used with hit and run tactics.

Octopus Overlords: Mostly barbarian, not available to player. The Ocean would be full of krakens and other sea monsters, and the players ships would have to be very careful in the waters. The Overlord would even have his 8 tentacles reach out of the depths and traverse the waters for unwary prey (Each would have movement of 1, to be avoidable, but have high attack and defence strength as being highly lethal)

Ashen veil: Courtesy of Hyborem, not available to player, demons summoning and stuff.

As for the promotions of the demons, especially the weak ones, I would imagine a similar mechanic that allows the mutate spell to give various promotions. Then some demons would be additionally strong against a certain type of units, or resistant against a certain type of spells, some would be even immune to magic, others even more vulnerable by it. Some would be loyal, others could under certain conditions be subdueable and spared… Only to be used as cannon fodder the next turn.
The basic units the player would build would probably be a basic good for everything/good for defense only, but along with racial promotions, it would start with a few random promotions that give bonuses in certain lines. A warrior would start with 1/4 strength, but only when upgraded to a T1 unit, he would get 2/2, or 3/2, or 3/1 for recon line units etc.

Imagine an Arcane-like promotion called “Strong willed” on a warrior. You could still upgrade him to a swordsman, but if you made him an apprentice, you could have him cast more powerful spells (Summons start with strong promotions). Or Ambidextrous, which would have an extra first strike if on a recon unit, but provide nothing if upgraded to mounted line. Animal friend (1 extra movement on mounted line, else nothing)
The whole thing would look like the Children of Kyrolin in Age of Ice, basically a T0 unit


What follows now are the 4 thankses.
Thanks to you for reading all of that.
Thanks to anyone who can provide any useful feedback to the questions, or provide any constructive opinions or any help at all.
Thanks to 2Kgames for making all those wonderful games, like Civ4.
Thanks to the whole FFH team and all those that help making it the most fantastic mod in history.

Your ideas are really cool. It would be great if you could implement this as a scenario. If you can't get it done yourself, maybe the team can can add it in "Ice."

this sounds really good. i'de play it.

That sounds AWESOME.

Very interesting storyline. I think that is how Hyb. was envisioned in FFH2 but he doesn't ever get to that level thanks to the AI not being able to play him effectively.

Good ideas. 2 points strike me...

1) you don't list what your victory conditions are. Is it only by AC back to 0 ?

2) if no roads and low mobility, large/huge maps may become unplayable

Good ideas. 2 points strike me...

1) you don't list what your victory conditions are. Is it only by AC back to 0 ?

2) if no roads and low mobility, large/huge maps may become unplayable

1)The main victory condition would be, as you say, bring AC back to 0. However this would require more roleplay strategies, because just killing Hyborem wouldnt make the AC 0. You would however need to kill him as the final step. (Imagine the Barbarian player have 95 AC count and Hyborem as unit the remaining 5 AC. Plus some infernal or barbarian units would start with prophecy mark promotion).
Maybe other conditions as well. (free up all life and law nodes to bring the demons strength to 1/0.
Maybe have a counter of number of hell tiles. If you revert all to normal, you win.
Maybe a builder victory (The demon-be-gone wonder)
Maybe raze all demon cites option. Still i imagine youd need to raze the cities anyway, then santify the ruins and only then rebuild the ruins into a city.


2) Travel between cities would be allowed by Obsidian gates by same mechanic as currently is. Meaning you have an OG in departing city, you can send it to any city. You have OG in destination city, you can move unlimited number of units there (1 unit per city of course).
The cities would probably be further away anyway, so youd more likely get a kind of "city states" empire. Minimum city distance would probably be turned to 3 or even 4, depending on map type. Id rather have the Infernals bring in forces via tile improvements, like the hellfire tile, or the barrow mechanic and not only by building them in cities. Maybe make the cities build expensive T2-4 units, and tile improvements spawn plenty of T1s... depends on game balance.
Also maybe make the roads available later as to empower double band mechanic, but id rather have the player use the OG to travel from city to city, instead of using the roads over dangerous burning lands teritory.
The workers, since they would be rather consumables, would have 5 movement, as to be able to build your city quickly. But have the infernals destroy the improvements automatically, like the Warmachine does, and since the workers would be cheap, it wouldnt be such a nuisance. If you can defend your teritory, doesnt matter even moreso.

Does anyone know how is the development of ZOCs implementation into BTS continuing?

Lategame roads flavourwise: Survival is not so urgent anymore, we can start to rebuild the empires.

This is very interesting. I would definitely give it a shot.

Would you consider adding some new races? Fawns, Centaurs, Lamia, Giants, and other races are likely to have disbanded larger empires when they were losing. It looks like an awesome modmod.

Great ideas, most of them seem like they would be implementable (though I haven't messed around with any of the code in Civ IV and I'm basing my guess on what I've already seen and what I can do in an entirely different programming language). However, why not make OO playable? It would allow the player to make the tough choice of getting rid of Hyborem, but giving the world to the Overlords in process, thus creating a similar situation. They would also get aid from the Overlord and his Tentacles, which I can imagine as their own civilization (starting on a small island with some mind-slaves, but slowly creeping back to the mainland if they are aided by a civ that worships them).

Also, would the map be random or premade? I think a premade map would be best, though you could still get very different experiences from it by choosing different groups of survivors in different parts of the world. The majority of the other survivors would be killed, but you could ally with the surviving survivors in the lategame. Or make war with them, if you don't like how their method of saving the world (you are playing as the Order, but they are sacrificing the world to the Overlords).

However you handle it, this sounds like a great idea.

I love it. i would definately play it. I think Kael and the team should seriously consider this scenario in ICE. *hint hint*

1. Not sure about AI weights. You could just try to limit Barbarian techs.

2. Sure it is.

3. Probably, though promotions like you said.

4. You could easily have researching the tech trigger an event that gives out a free promotion, by to all current and future units of a specific unitcombat. It should be possible to have multiple events if you want to give it multiple unitcombats. You could also use python to apply them directly.
(I'm also thinking of adding more weapons promotions with more requirements. I think I'll probably have to set the weapons tiers promotions and resources in CIV4GlobalDefinesAlt.xml to NONE and add spells that apply them. I am concerned that it might hurt the AI though. I'm also implementing the barrage mechanic in my modmod)

5. I'm not sure what you're asking.

6. Probably, although I don't know how to do it. I could make it so that there was a spell creating each type of unit, but I don't know enough to implement the Ghengis Khan or the similar Rhye's Mercenary mechanics.

7. Making the workers need to be sacrificed isn't hard; I'd probably do it my making all the builds spells instead, but you could also delete the workers in python if you want them to still take time to build them. I think there may be a problem with having no roads. The reason that you get water resources is that water is a trade route.

8. I don't see why not.

9. It isn't hard in python, but it wouldn't be documented in game and could get confusing. I want to get Kael to add this ability in xml/SDK, since I personally want to use it too. (I also want ways to un-research techs. I guess I could make an event that removes the tech in python, and probably trigger it by researching other techs. I also want alignment restrictions for techs.)

10. If the terrain it was on was set to be a trade route (like water) then it should be possible. You could also easily make the sanctify spell remove the mana.

I made Basium have 7 traits; my Hyborem has 11. The stuff writen between 10 and 11 isn't hard. I'd like to see a Pieces-of-Barnaxus-type equipment for the mithril golem, allowing it to be rebuilt.

11. Possibly. I think it is possible, but wouldn't be the most efficient use of resources. It could slow down the game significantly.

12. I actually don't think that the barbs do get everyone's mana anymore. They did in Fire (I actually the one who proposed it to Kael when he first suggested affinity and passive effects, although the wording od his quick acceptance made it sound like he was considering it already), but I've tested with world builder and not see it work since BtS. If it were re-added, then it wouldn't be hard to give them negative affinity for good mana types.

13. Hmm..you could give them a promotion that has a pyperturn python define spawning a new unit of the same type if there is only one of that unitclass in the world. It wouldn't be the same as the defeated one though (not the same promotions, xp, etc), although making it identical to the surviving one wouldn't be hard.

14. Sure, in python.

15. I would love that, but I certainly don't know how to do it.

16. It would be kinda complicated. It would probably require that a each civilization would have a different promotion that is given to all of its units.

On #13, you could also likely do it through a spell that can only be cast if there are less than two in existence, and can only be cast by those two units.

Q5: Would it be possible to assign the Armageddon counter value to the barbarian player? I don’t want the player to stop Armageddon by simply defeating the Infernal lord, while the world is still a burning ball of fire.

5. I'm not sure what you're asking.


As far as i know, currently the AC is the sum of AC values attactched to each player. You raze the cities, so you have the AC value. Try a game where you raze the AC to the limit, and you will have a negative diplo penalty "You are destroying the world". This comes from the fact that you have a major portion on the value of the AC. Its even set so, that the more of the world you destroy, the higher the penalty gets.

Also if you kill an evil AI with high AC, you not only lower the AC by killing an evil civ, but you also delete the AC that it was associated with.

The barbarians on the other hand can never be defeated, hence if i give 100 AC to Infernals, and you defeat them, the AC is back at 0. But if i give 80 AC to barbarians, and 20 AC to Infernals, even if you defeat infernals, you still have 77 AC left (100 minus the Infernals 20 minus 3 for defeating evil civ)


7. Making the workers need to be sacrificed isn't hard; I'd probably do it my making all the builds spells instead, but you could also delete the workers in python if you want them to still take time to build them. I think there may be a problem with having no roads. The reason that you get water resources is that water is a trade route.

What you wanna do with the workers is just like I envision it, make them cast improvements instead of build and get consumed using the fireball autodelete mechanic (more probable) rather than build regularly and then autodelete.
That with the roads seem to be a problem indeed. I had no idea that water was consided a trade route. Maybe ill overcome it by setting the roads on all the map, with being invisible and without bonus to movement, hence useless. But that would probably hurt if they are later made useful and are all over the world...

I'd like to see a Pieces-of-Barnaxus-type equipment for the mithril golem, allowing it to be rebuilt.

Thats a fantastic idea. :goodjob: Could be a multi level quest too.

11. Possibly. I think it is possible, but wouldn't be the most efficient use of resources. It could slow down the game significantly.

Yeah, i feared that too. But when i saw how they implemented the thaw mechanic, without significant increase in memory requirements, i was impressed.
For my laptop, every megabyte counts, late game gets sooo laggy, that after a few turns it gets like 5 turns per hour. Talking about standard ocean map, 15 AIs, save for me and 2 AIs only 1 city each. 10 AIs are my vassals.
However one thing is to have the whole thing run in the beginning, when the AI doesnt have to run all those checks for each spell it can cast etc. The other thing would be running it each turn for a standard/large/huge map, with techs researched.

13. Hmm..you could give them a promotion that has a pyperturn python define spawning a new unit of the same type if there is only one of that unitclass in the world. It wouldn't be the same as the defeated one though (not the same promotions, xp, etc), although making it identical to the surviving one wouldn't be hard.

The mechanic I imagined was probably by having them check on casting a spell "Summon evil twin", To bring them into the creation, either make an event, or make Hyborem build a unit that casts a spell to summon one, and the summoned one will then summon the other. Have them check each turn if they can cast the spell. Both units would probably be world units, but different ones. As for the exp/promotions, i see no reason why not have them get summoned with lets say 3 free promotions, which they choose at the time when built/summoned back. Or define them with the promotions as "starts with". Or have them cast a "self mutate" spell for variability each time they are killed :eek: Options are limitless :D

15. I would love that, but I certainly don't know how to do it.

Perhaps make the cap be a boolean instead of integer? But then i dont know if this cap would be valid for all the other caps, which might be a problem.
On the other hand, the Sheaim would probably get past the cap problem because of their planar gates /units being summoned and not built/ same as infernals. Heck, maybe the cap on vampires will be the only cap there will be.

16. It would be kinda complicated. It would probably require that a each civilization would have a different promotion that is given to all of its units.

Maybe ill just have the half demons go inactive/immobile for a set number of turns to signify the "conflict within" if that turns out to be too hard.

Would you consider adding some new races? Fawns, Centaurs, Lamia, Giants, and other races are likely to have disbanded larger empires when they were losing. It looks like an awesome modmod.

Definitely new races. Especially for FoL, id like a broader range of creatures that would be spawnable.

Id also like the player to find some lets say surviving units from either quests or events. Like lets say, you find a group of dwarven survivors on a lone island, that are headed by an elder dwarven hornguard.
Or a few surviving bannor, protected by a season and scarred angel.

As for the other things, firstly the world, that would definitely be pre-made. The way i imagine it now would probably require a custom map script specific to the scenario. A regular map just wouldn't fit.
Maybe ill make/ask arround/generate a few maps and play with them. For strategic gameplay. I imagine standard/large/and huge map versions, not necesarily of the same world. I know there was a map in the forums somewhere that tried to remake Erebus according to the cannon, but that wouldnt fit to my taste.

My current idea of the map setting is following. One large continent, surrounded by few /4-7 smaller subcontinents and some islands, divided by a portion of shoreline. Low water level, because the water was tainted/evaporated by infernal flames. The player would probably start on a large subcontinent, in order not to be overcome by the Infernals right from the beginning, but still to provide a challenge and help leveling units. Maybe the Infernals would have some stygian hags or hapries (with flying promotion) fly over the ocean and harrass you, (to avoid turtling, combat needs to be beneficial). Many quests however, would need to be triggered by visiting other islands/continents or having more than a certain number of cities (more than you can have on your starting subcontinent. I want the player to experience some of the navy fun. With quests like "you have discovered the wreckage of the Black wind with magic artifacts in its safes" which you naturally couldnt experience if you were limited to having secured the forest nearby...

There would probably be more Survivors civs, although they would probably play an inferior role, since i cant imagine having the AI know how to handle them properly in these hard conditions (no settlers buildings, only rebuilding ruins via spells of certain units - the AI in FFH cant even handle casting spring on desert tiles, let alone have it purposefully cast sanctify to remove hell terrain on its continent) so i imagine them rather in the role of your to-be-vassals, future permanent allies. I wouldnt like to have more AIs since in a regular mod, they would probably just want to war each other, and the only war i want to have in the game is Hyborem/OO Barbarians vs. Whats left of Erebus. In a sceniario, its easy to set permanent war/peace with respective civs, but a regular game is much more dynamic.

The AIs would be more useful for quests and events, much like the calabim refugees or khazad forge events that are in FFH right now. Imagine a quest "For sanctifying the ruins of a Cave of ancestors near the ruins of what used to be Cevedes, the surviving Amurites send you one of their most tallented youth"
Or "upon making contact with a group of Khazad warriors and helping them tender their wounded, they decided to join your fortress at "random city" and set up a store/forge there".


Still i need to consider how to make the cannon Erebus civilisations work in this scenario...

I'de be willing to help, if you need it. i am somewhat proficient in XML.

Old city ruins could use the Unique Feature mechanic, to distinguish the various ruins from one and other (as in a cevedes ruin, a jubilee ruin, a brduk the burning ruin)

these could also supply the mana given be the original civ's palace...

That could get really complicated, requiring a unique feature (probably not marked it as unique, so the Elohim won't always see them, but just unbuildable) for every city in the game. I guess it could be interesting though if it were only for a civ's original capital. Of course, this would be odd if there were multiple versions of the same civ in a game. Also, a tile can only provide 1 resource, not all 3 that a palace would.


Oh, wait....I forgot this was in the thread about Moon Hunter's proposed modmod, not the main game! (By the way, this should probably be moved to the Fall from Heaven Maps & Scenarios subforum.) I thought you meant generating a unique feature whenever a city was razed, which has far more problems than just having unique features representing the ruins of fallen civilizations (like remnants of Patria, but from a different age). Yeah, the unique feature mechanic would be good for this.


The ruins of Braduk the Burning though should probably actually be the Eternal Flame, the crater though which Bhall fell into hell. It should probably now be a portal though which many fire-demons to return to creation. More creative names for the other city ruins would probably be better too, probably refering not to the city itself but to some prominent structure found there. Some of the palaces had more creative names in the FfH lore, for instance the Bannor Palace is actually called the Halls of Sabathiel.

Yeah, i was thinking that a major wonder that is there in the lore would make a good name for the ruins.

amurites could have cave of the ancestors. (i know that it is't a wonder, but i figure cevedes would have the largest, most sophisticated network.)

So:
Amurites: Caves of the Ancestors:
Balseraph: Halls of Mirrors
Bannor: Halls of Sabathiel
Calabim: Pillar of Chains
Clan: Eternal Flame
Doviello: probably none
Elohim: ????
Grigori:?????
Hippus: Hall of the Horselords
Illians: Letum Frigus
Khazad/Luchuirp: mines of Dol-Goldur
Kuriotates: ????
Lanun: ???? (though could be the wreck of the black wind)
Ljosalfar: Yggdrasil, with a small colony of elves
Malakims: Gem of the desert
Sidar: ?????
Sheim: planar gate (should spawn more barbarians)

I wonder why Hyborem's rule changed "Cold Ruin" into "Cheerful Cold"? (you misspelled the first word of Letum Frigus, and changed the meaning greatly)


Edit: I actually starting thinking of ways that the change might seem appropriate. For one, it is a monument to the fall of Mulcarn, showing the world that even a God (who is surely more powerful than a mere angel like Hyborem) can be defeated. Also, I suspect that the frigid climate maintained thereby the remaining power of Mulcarn would actually be considered a refuge from the surrounding hellfire. Many men may now look back on the Age of Ice fondly, in comparison to the Age of Despair. I actually think it would be pretty interesting if Auric remained in Erebus, and was close to regaining his Godhood. Although it is clear that he wants to reestablish the tyrannical reign of the Age of Ice, that is considered a good alternative to the current state of creation. The chief struggle in the Age of Despair would be not between good and evil, but between different kinds of evil. (It may also be that Mulcarn is moving closer to being good, seeing his old enemies the fallen angels of Bhall taking over creation)

oops... edited.

what makes this more embarrasing is that i know the diefference between letum and laetum. (i took latin for a few years, and that was among the few thing i gleaned from those classes)

Sounds great! Maybe the sheaim could be a vassal state of hyborem? They presumably brought him into the world and brought armageddon, I bet they regret it now. :p

Both their leaders would be dead btw so they would need a new one. Probs some demon or something - I minotaur would be cool and probs not to hard to get a pic of.

I think the player should be forced to choose between aiding other evils and gaining more fighting strength, or aiding good for a better result, but weaker units. Like I said, earlier, I don't think the OO and Hyborem should be allied, after all, Hyborem brings fire, while the OO should want the world to flood (or at least want a lot of water).

so, a sort of "which is the lesser evil" possibility?

Exactly. Of course, if the OO conquered the world, the Infernal rule might seem like paradise, similarly to how the Age of Ice seems like paradise in the Age of Dispair.

I really like the sound of this one - a real "it's going to get a hell of a lot worse before it gets better" take on the next part of the story. I've actually made passing reference to the Age of Despair in Dannmos' pedia entry as I love the idea of a continued timeline beyond the Age of Rebirth.

If you do want to run as lead for this one Moon Hunter and would like any coding backup, I'd be happy to volunteer with what I can.

There are some fantastic ideas in this thread :)

Previously, as I said that the ruins of a cave of ancients, i meant it just as plain text in a pop-up, but now that the implementation of such buildings as unique features was suggested, i really like that idea. Would definitely provide a more flavourful way to provide various types of mana. And flavourwise, the mechanic to provide 1 unit of mana seems good... Those are ruins, so probably only the strongest one would prevail. E.g. i can imagine the Amurite ruins would only provide mind mana for the boost to research, rather than fire(which will probably be infernal only in the scenario) or body (i cant imagine the amurite ruins of a magocracy society provide body mana flavourwise...

As for the "lesser evil" thing, im starting to get convinced that if complete, this will be probably playable only on custom made maps. So rather a scenario than a modmod.
As for the flavour of it, right now id like Hyborem to start overpowered, but limited in movement. If played on a regular map, that would mean
a) hes gonna waste everyone sharing the same continent (Remember how Barbatos started?)
b) everyone is soon gonna start turtling (Hyborems problem right now)

Also the quests would be harder to implement, even thought the though of the Unique ruins feature having a random chance to appear, kindof like the 25% for each unique feature of the current mod would be awesome (each time you play, you find other surviving ruins)

As for the civs, since this would be a scenario that focuses more on role play, i would rather want the good and neutral civs to strive to bring back peace to erebus, rather than have other evil civs want to conquer it themselves.

Another brilliant idea of this thread was the idea of bringing back Auric Ulvin back as Mulcarn, probably fighting Hyborem. Flavourwise One wants to scorch the world, the other wants to freeze it. By keeping this fight up, they make the world suitable for life, basicly they cancel each other out. Also that may be one of the reasons why Hyborem hasnt destroyed Erebus already and why he is trying to bring in reinforcements.

As for the playable races, the evil ones would remain canon Erebus, while the good and playable ones would be survivors. Basicly the good ones lost their leadership, coz they were prime targets.
Now the civs that would be playable, would be survivors defined by their predominant civilisation, that would have other civs units too. This means i would need to reintroduce the way civ-specific units were handled in vanilla.
So that if you play an Elven survivors race, you dont get a mage unit that has dwarven tag instead of elven and uses elven model, but really use the khazad adept unit that Sez has brought us recently. So back to literaly unique units. Most would be only gainable by events or by aiding/finding them on the map.

The problem here would be following:
If i want to set the Palace to give the units random chance of giving out racial promotions, I would need to set the build order not to build a unit, but a unitclass instead which i cant imagine how hard would that be. After implementing into BTS, the game command function just uses unitclass and makes unit retain former promotions. I once captured an orc archer with an inquisitor, and to my surprise, it had the default archer skin, but orc racial promotion. Probably could bypass this problem by having the racial promotion affect the unit looks (see Hero promotion), but that would mean i would need to set the racial promotions to be civilisation-like promotions and so alter the unit. Meaning you dont build a human adept, but a lanun adept. Not a Elven horseman, but a Ljosalfar horseman.

Another way to handle this would be to define the race-specific units as build orders. E.g. At first you can only build human archer, (that would give random human race promotion/or maybe not) but after researching/making contact with elven survivors near Yggdrasil, you can get/research a tech for building an elven archer (that would again have Ljosalfar/Svartalfar racial promotions). I certainly would like to rework the techtree and this way seem f(l)avorable enough at the time.

But back to the original civs question.
Right now i have defined the following civs:
Infernals (powerful, dominant), AV
Sheaim... would remain as in FFH, but would be ally/vassal of Hyborem, AV
Auric Ulvin/Mulcarn of Illians... Would be the equalizer/main target of Hyborem, OO or White hand religion.
Maybe some corrupt OO Lanun faction

Other civs would have been destroyed, therefore made into surviving civilisations.
Those that flavourwise were CoE, were defeated along the good and neutral civs. And always remember, that although There are 7 evil civs in the canon FFH, only the Sheaim want to destroy the world. And only Sheaim and Infernals give diplo bonus for raising the AC.
Imagine the Calabim: No humans = No food
One thing is destroying the world, another thing is conquering it.

All the civs would be defined for the purposes of this scenario, but only newly defined survivors would be playable...

@Kol.7 : The sheaim brough Hyborem into the world. But i dont think they regret it. I think they are constantly drunk from the victory after finally (almost) destroying the world :)


Id like the player to bring back the good old times and make some of the evil civs defeated...
Kyleen: Giggles told me to help you mister Hyborem.
Hyborem: WTF? Why you calling Ishn'trel, the commander of the 5th legion of Balors, a trusted luitenant that served me for five centuries Giggles? I have no use for imbeciles.
On the battle field:
Perpentach:
A little meteor I shoot to the air.
What it hits, I do not care.
Hyborem: Another dimwit. - whispers to a nearby ruhin archer -
When he makes another of those non-sense speeches on one of his cattle-pults, see to it, that someone accidentally pulls the lever, is that clear?

...others seeking redemption and survival... like the Calabim
So playing as the evil civs, would probably be hard if your goal would be to get hell where it came from, only to get yourself be proclaimed the next unquestionable ruler.

Another reason for the premade map(s) would be that i would need, that the game would not only run script for making unique features, but also for certain game scripts.
Maybe some of you heard that Kael and co. want to bring back Bhaals 2nd in command angel who refused to fall with her, but need to start some mechanic.
I on the other hand would like a quest where on an impassable area/island surrounded by volcanoes (near the ruins of Barduk the Burning) you find Bhaal and his Angel fighing out (dunno how to make it impassable to other units, maybe make it on a desserted island surrounded by volcanoes, both Bhaal and her unfallen angel would use the catapult mechanic as to not kill each other, they could fight each turn, been given a powered march promotion) where you could help the Angel finally kill Bhaal and then get her as a hero unit to help you, maybe even remove the damage limit by applying some promotion/spell. (Absolutely no idea how to make this possible, would probably need to assign the Angel to a different civ, if i want the Infernals not make fight with the Barbs)

Reasons why i wanted to make the OO barbarian allied to Hyborem was rather from not knowing whom to assign the OO religion otherwise. But if I make a corrupt Lanun nation, that might be a better target for the OO religion.

This concept is still in phase of brainstorming, I will certainly add new civics if i get that far. The council membership would be very much pointless now. Since the war with Hyborem would be permanent, in order to lower the war weariness, i would either make some way of getting it lower, or making a civicclass similar to the mechanic in the Alexander the Great scenario, that means applying it here would mean id need probably a city counter, that would allow a constantly better civic, that would help lower the weariness (5 civics, the first would not alter the weariness, the last one would eliminate it) Or the civs capital ruins would provide a stockable -10% to weariness option along with the mana.
But this way i would probably need to reconsider the way of building the cities, if i would have the civ specific buildings act as unique features. Maybe have the "regular" ruins near "unique ruins" and make the unique ruins along with the lost palaces a regular harvestable resource.

Its fantastic to see how many people got interested in this idea of mine and how many people would be willing to help. Thomas.berubeg and Vehem, when i get that far, i will definitely remember you offering to help :)

An idea i had for one of the WH mods civs (lizardmen) was that they cannot build settlers, but instead have a powerful mage unit that can rebuild city ruins.

perhaps if this becomes a scenario you could use a similar mechanic and stop settelrs from being abel to 'found' new cities but rather 'rebuild' the ruins of old ones. this way you could control the expansion of surviving civs.

An idea i had for one of the WH mods civs (lizardmen) was that they cannot build settlers, but instead have a powerful mage unit that can rebuild city ruins.

perhaps if this becomes a scenario you could use a similar mechanic and stop settelrs from being abel to 'found' new cities but rather 'rebuild' the ruins of old ones. this way you could control the expansion of surviving civs.

Thats precisely the way I had it in mind.:)

I thought of an idea for the lanun. a completly OO dependant civ (if possible, only water cities, who send pirates out for the sole purpose of capturing slaves for the Overlords.

Bhall's second in command is Brigid the Shining, and she is imprisoned in the Northern wastes. it'd be interesting to have a fully healed from her fall bhall taking on Brigid (but we'de have to see what the mechanic kael and co think up for Brigid.

It'd be really hard for Hyborem to destroy Perpentach: at his death, he transfers his mind to a new body, so i can see the belseraph surviving, maybe as something similar to the gypsies of Europe.

actually, now that i think of it, the belseraph could just be an event civ (refered to only in events, with no actual presence in the game aside for some units given (freaks, or the like)

something like:

A large nomad Carnival has entered [CITY]. at it's head is a man, who our mages say is a powerful mind archmage. what should we do?


What civs are you planning on having playable?

Personally I would put in the following:

Good

Elohim (They do have monks who speacalize in killing demons...)
Bannor (They're very powerful, and too are experienced in demon killing)
Kuriorates (Perhaps not Cardith but Eubrates could be their leader)
The Luchurip have descended to the underhome, along with the Khazad
The Malakim were among the first to fall as the deserts became burning sands

Neutral

Ljosalfar (Thessa leads the Elves in there hidden glades)
Amurites (Their magical prowess has made them slaves to the Infernals. They start as vassals of Hyborem)
Cassiel was executed by Hyborem early in the invasion
The Hippus are now merely mercenaries, and not an organized group
Lanun (Now led by Hastur, the Lanun are mindless slaves of the overlords, probably evil)
Sidar (They have managed to stay hidden)

Evil
Xienwolf's idea for Balseraphs
Calabim are disbanded, vampires work for food
The Clan (They have thrived with Bhall's help)
The Doviello are dead, there tundras destroyed
The Illians are now in Mulcrarn's hell where they have revived their master
Sheaim (Led by Os- Gabella, they are willing vassals of the Infernal)
Svaralfar (Esus hides them, and they have gotten over their strife with the Ljosalfar to keep the elven race alive)

I think it would be cool for a few Luonnatar to have survived, although Grigori society as a whole and Cassiel probably couldn't have made it. After all, the Luonnatar's faith in The One protects them from both arcane and divine magic, and they have managed to walk away from divine fire unharmed in th past; presumably, the most faithful of the Luonnatar could not be harmed by the powers of hell.

I actually thought it might be cool for refugees of the the fallen Elohim and Grigori civilizations to come together to form the most "Good" civilization in history, devoted to keeping themselves pure, helping others, and serving only The One, perhaps under the leadership of a Luonnatar (I was thinking it might be interesting to give the good leader a dark past though, like making him a child of a profane who was born with the Stigmata and fated to become a powerful dark sorcerer, but then adopted by a Luonnatar and raised to turn against his dark nature and reject magic). I've always assumed that the Elohim and the Grigori got along pretty well, and that Immanuel Logos (who abandoned his goddess to serve those in need, regardless of their faith) was probably greatly admired by Cassiel. Once the Holy Sites that the Gods entrusted to the Elohim are destroyed, it seems like what religious differences they did have would greatly diminish.



I tend to assume that the Age of Despair would come after the Bannor became corrupt, and that in thier fallen state they could not have withstood Hell's onslaught.

It might be interesting to have Eurabatres raging about creation on his own, but I'm not entirely sure that most of his society would have made it. He could have protected some of them though.


The initial summary already states that the Dwarven civs both withdrew, but were then destroyed.

I'm not sure there would be any hidden glades left for the Ljosalfar to hide in. I don't think that Esus could hide the Svartalfar either, but perhaps they could use their skill in deception to gain the protection of some other civ (perhaps triking the Sheaim into thinking they are loyal to them and gaining protection)

I'm not sure all the Amurites would be enslaved by demons; Govannon or Dain might be leading a small group of mages that try to serve the good.

I don't think that the Hippus could hold together either, but again remnants of them may remain and join other civs (perhaps though events)

I'd say that the Lanun should probably be under Hannah the Irin (Falamar is too good-natured), who is now clearly evil and under the control of the overlords. Hastur still shouldn't be in control of Danalin's dreams, but they should be truly dark. Hmm..should Hemah still be around (possibly leading the civ?), or would the creations of his sleeping mind (the overlords) outlive him?

I'm not so sure there is anywhere left for even the Sidar to hide, but possibly.

Perpentach himself at least should still be around. It would be interestong if he randomly switched sides rather frequently. Perhaps he is losing what control over his mind that he has, so control over his body passess back and forth between the different minds it contains (evil Kyorlin, good Kyorlin, Gastrius, followers of Sirona). Perhaps he should just be one unit that cannot be deleted and often randomly switches civs.


The calabim would be in trouble, if they are still alive.

The Clan should be doing OK (not necessarily thriving). If Brigit is in the game it would be interesting to have a good Orkish faction split off that is devoted to her (perhaps under Rantine? He doesn't seem nearly as evil as most orks)


I doubt that the Doviello would survive.


It would still be more interesting if the (re-)Deified Auric Ulvin was still in creation actively trying to return the world to the Age of Ice. I think that the greatest threat to evil in this age should be other kinds of evil.


Sheaim would be allied with or vassals to Infernals





Overall I think that it might be better for most of the civs to not be present, but to create one or two new civs founded by the refugees from other civs.

I agree with magister about his last comment, as well as what he said about rantine.

However, i say we wait until we know more about Kylorin and the godslayer. what happened to him after the age of ice?

I think the Hippus should be hirable with a mercenary system similar to the one in Dragonia II, offering some elite cavalry to aid you in your fight, but you may also see some on the side of your enemy (and possibly have a chance to steal them by offering a higher price for their services).

I dont really see how the hippus would survive in a hellish enviroment without huge cultural changes. horses can't survive in hell, right? (and riding nightmare, well... )

Monn hunter, what plans do you have for civs?

Also, What civs will be playable.

Even if not for the Hippus, I would still like to see a mercenary system, since I imagine there would be a lot of survivors offering their services to whomever will give them a slice of bread and shelter for the night. This would be a good way to explain how the good guys where teamed up with vampires or previously evil characters (though you may have to sacrifice population instead of gold for the vampires).

Also, I doubt many, if any, of the previous civilization will have survived. It would mainly be just groups in who happened to be in the same area joining up, meaning that most civilization would just be Eastern Survivors, Wester Survivors, etc., with their races determined by who previously in habited that area (those groups who survive in areas where there where previously great forests would be mainly elves).

Yeah, the big history doc thats in the mod makes a point of specifiying that the labels of good/neutral/evil are applied by men. In general the gods to fall into some camps (Nantosuelta and Sucellus are very close) and there is definitly a set of gods that agree with Agares that creation is a prison and they should retake (by force if nessesary) heaven to pursue their agenda. Now what that agenda would be differs from god to god.

Mulcarn was said to have the highest hell, meaning he is the least evil of the evil gods and his hell the most hospitalable (assuming you packed your thermal underwear) and his purpose is largely unchanged from what it was. He gets hates humanity because they are such a powerful agent of change and chaos. So in mens eyes he is evil, and he does side with Agares. But he would be as likely to fight Bhall and Camulos as he would be to fight some of the non-evil gods.

But the labeling of the gods of neutrality and good is a completly man made function. All of those gods would think that they are pursueing their divine purpose and wouldn't see any difference in the labels. the only real difference is some deal more directly with benifiting mankind and the others tasks really don't have much to do with humanity (Arawn being the best example). So from a divine perspective its better to say that their are only 2 groups of gods, those that have fallen and those that haven't.



Kael has confirmed that Mulcarn was the least evil of the evil gods, and that he is opposed to some of the other evil gods as much as to some of the good ones. He was allied with Agares, but it seems like he would really dislike Bhall, Camulos, and Mammon (it is mostly mind that makes men change the world so much), and I don't see him having a particularly strong affinity for Ceridwen, Aeron, or Esus either. He probably gets along better with Junil, because of his unyielding, unchanging traditions and rituals.

Although Hyborem himself is an angel of Agares (whom Mulcarn likes), I see Bhall and Camulos as being very important in the age of despair and creation as having become very chaotic. He would definitely oppose this, and so might even be seen as a Good god in this age (deities alignments are given to them by men after all), as he would give them rest from the tortures of hell (although he might then permanently freeze them).

So yeah, like I said earlier Mulcarn would be the most likely savior of this age, like Kyorlin was when he was the bad guy. Oh, he should definitely not follow the Overlords, as they are really the most chaotic of all the religions. Bringing back the White hand would be better. He should oppose both AV and OO strongly (although he like Agares, he hates Bhall, and while he probably doesn't have a problem with Danalin he would have no love for Hastur, or for the ever changing creations of Hemah's mind)

Good idea. Have Illians "Good"

So religions:

ROK: no, dwarves are gone, and other would loose faith when she didn't protect the dwarves.
FOL: no, almost no trees
OO: As evil as Viel
Veil: Yes, a major Part
Empyrum: no, I just can't see it survivng as a faith
Order: maybe in some small enclaves
Esus: see below

New Religions:
White Hand: devoted to mulcarn
Eternal flame: Devoted to Bhall
Luonnatare: (or something similar): beleive that if they get enough, they can call the One to help them survive, or restart creation.

Cults
Esus: i see esus as becoming more of a corporation, kind of like CotD. units built in cities with CoE would have a small chance of having a CoE promtion (hidden, or theivery, or something similar)
CotD: gotten much bigger (mabe deseverves to become religion?) people are turning to dragons to help protect them fromthe gods. (yes dragons were created by the angels, but would your average Erebusian know that? they'de worship it if it was big and fire breathing...)

Hmm..I just thought it might be interesting of them to be "good" but them change to Evil as soon as the Infernals are defeated. Men would appreciate his help in fighting off the forces of Chaos, but once the age is ending I doubt they'll want things to stay the same. Sucellus will look pretty good again, as once more the world be be in desperate need of growth and resurrection.

Having civs' (and even relgions') alignments changing mid-game (probably through "quests," where the outcome is more of a punishment for doing well than a reward) could be pretty cool for a lot of scenarios. Different civs, gods, etc, get along quite well when they have similar goals, but once these goals diverge thing change pretty quickly.

I guess the alignment woudl depend on who your playing as...

Moon Hunter, are you alive?

Not all of the elves die out, right? The ones left would still cling fiercely to their culture, including the FoL. Though there are few trees to protect, that makes them all the more worth protecting; and there's plenty of opportunity to try to regrow the forests and turn back the spread of Hell.

that's what i assume. the major centers are gone for most civilizations, but some would stick on the outsides, making what living they can.

Playable and unplayable civs as I see them:

Canon civ will all be unplayable, I will just alter their settings in AoD. In the backstory I wrote that many civs got killed, however that doesn’t mean any of them was exterminated. As for the Khazad/Luchuirp, yeah, their central government got destroyed, but that doesn’t mean that various other groups didn’t survive. Gameplaywise, I imagine giving them new leaders to signify this radical change. All of the “defeated” races will have their civs in the scenario, but they will be strongly limited, with new leaders, overall not destroyed, but facing genocide. Will either give each surviving civ some units and set “require complete kills” on, or will try make the unique features, the ruins of their capitals or other cities to produce their culture.

A little info about each of the canon civs:
Good:
Bannor: Due to their experience from their Helltrip, they were prime targets. Sided with Elohim, who had experience with holy rituals. Surviving units try to organize counterattacks from well defended monasteries, possibly enclaves in Infernal territory. Leader remains Sabathiel, since he cannot truly die, and the corrupt Bannor leadership died with the majority of their race (and now represent large portion of the fresh Ruhin archers:sad: ) Basicly leadership was purified of the taint, but race as whole has strongly suffered.
Elohim: See Bannor. They try their best at keeping hell from spreading. Leader would be Ethne the White. One of the benefits of contacting/aiding this civ would probably allow you to sanctify the hell lands sooner. You could get a technology from them that would be higher in the tech tree, or a civ-specific tradeable technology with similar functioning.
Kuriotates: Eurabatres never managed to get back into creation, and the Kuriotates as a civilization have been destroyed. The kuriotate units (especially the magical ones) now form independent groups, trying to survive and help other groups they find.
Mercurians: Defeated. Basium back at Arawn. Gyra telling Basium: “Ha! I told you so!”Very few angels remain. Most have hidden themselves and try to gather strength. And do other stuff, as there will be a new minor race, the half-angels. Another leader. Maybe even Gyra wanting to avenge her brothers death. Maybe Basiums trusted lieutenant who was sent to gather reinforcements, but came too late to save him.
Malakim: After the skies went dark from the infernal fires, they lost their divine sun guidance. Very few remain. The one closest to extinction, due to sands catching fire from hell terrain. Most joined the Hippus as the other very nomad civilization.
Khazad: Dwarves are a hardy folk. Sturdy and enduring. Great builders: therefore they have some hill fortresses together with the Luchuirp. Leadership got sort-of-changed. One of the offspring of either Kandros Fir or Garrim Gyr.

Neutral:
Amurite: Only the most skilled mages remain. Led either by Dain or by Govannon himself, after the Valledia didn’t survive the demonic soul-hunters and got consumed by the fire she attempted to use against the demons. Probably same Mechanic like Basium. Govannon unit dies and the traits go with him.
Grigori: Surprisingly, the Luonnotars form the majority of the surviving nation, due to immunity to magic. Cassiel has been defeated and remains in some torture chamber for Hyborems personal enjoyment (might include quest to free him). Other surviving units are mainly adventurer heroes.
Hippus: The mercenary mounted nation. On one side they miss the great plains for their horses to feed on, on the other side, they have the most experience with such living conditions. Their services are highly sought after and represent the most experienced fast units. Tasunke remains leader.
Lanun: Sad story. In an act of uncontrollable female jealousy /I don’t hate women:D / Hannah the Irin killed Falamar. However, she fell depressed after that and was haunted by regrets. Soon became a prime target for the Overlords and the Lanun eventually turned to the evil side due to Hannah becoming insane (I loooove that trait).
Ljosalfar: The woodelves, once masters of the forest found it hard to survive after their forest were ignited. They struggled hard and eventually adapted to the conditions of the haunted forests. They turned a bit more militaristic, due to the leadership of Amelanchiers twin children, who now consider their survival personal, as Amelanchier died from battle wound when defending their now-home-forest. The princess of rangers (daughter) has trains her people how to hunt the prey that came from hell with the Infernals. (that means more barbarian animals, both new ones and old ones mutated and tainted by evil). The sorceror prince is looking for ways how to subdue these strange beasts and how to use their power against the Infernal hordes.
Luchuirp: See Khazad. Turned neutral. Are trying to salvage what they can from their dwarven empires and are experimenting with new golems, that would be immune against fear from fire and demons.
Sidar: The shades focus even more on staying out of the conflicts way and their sages are trying to discover magical barriers against demons, so that they can build their cities and help fight any undead creatures they may find. Sandalphon remains as leader.

Evil:
Balseraph: The mad clowns have found their souls reanimated into mad demons. Especially Perpentach, who managed to outwit an demon and take control of his body. Remain in the game as Hyborems vassal.
Calabim: Turned neutral from necessity and lack of nutrition. A new freshling vampire leader who isn’t so hated by Lugus, because she didn’t wish for becoming a vampire, but was forced to become one. Flauros toyed with her and the hate that she showed to him, and made her into a vampire for his personal enjoyment, so that she would hate herself, else he would kill a whole city.
Clan of Embers: Barbarians as always, however as Brigid the Shining escaped her imprisonment, a portion of the orcs, lead mostly by their shamans along with Rantine, has decided to use Brigid as her patron Angel and they have so redeemed themselves of the demonic taint. They have returned to their neutral alignment as the once-friends of the elves, but are very distrusted by the ljosalfar and most of the other races. Still they remain quite strong in battle and pose worthy opponents to the infernal legions. More focus on wilderness tactics. Respected by dwarves as skilled and enduring warriors.
Doviello: Due to the fact, that the tundras have started to melt down due to hellfire, and due to their nature as pack creatures, the Charadon has been bested by Auric Ulvin, and as such they have sworn to become the puppets they were for Mulcarn in the Age of Ice once again. Gameplaywise vassal of Auric
Illians: As said before, the illians will be the biggest obstacle in front of Hyborem, due to their opposite alignment towards cold instead of hellfire. Mulcarn is close to be reborn into creation. Auric is trying hard to get the Letum Frigus out of Infernal hands and begin the ritual of reincarnation.
Infernals: Your nemesis. Overpowered, you try to bring them down. Down to hell, that is.
Sheaim: Led by Os-Gabella, vassal/ally of Infernals. Possibly have both leaders in the game. (as 2 sheaim empires)
Svartalfar: Faeryl underestimated the betrayal skills of the infernals, and got poisoned when one of her 12 loyal assassins turned out to be a double agent. Illusionists, as a heavy branch of the Svartalfar arcanists were absolutely useless against demons. Due to the form of government (matriarchal dictatorship), after Faeryls death many groups emerged who tried to usurp power. All of them died due to lack of coordinated defence. Faeryls daughter led a group of svartalfar loyal to her to a deserted forest fortress and has survived due to lack of importance considered by the Infernal. She is less evil, strongly bent on isolationism, focuses on stealth and keeps recon units well trained, but mostly for hit-and-run tactics. (gameplaywise, hide for everyone)


New playable civilizations: - always keep in mind, that the mentioned FFH civs are only there to signify the dominant races of the survivor civilizations, and the dominant mana they will use
Forest dwellers: spinoff of Ljosalfar and Kuriotate civilizations, Calabim
Nature and Spirit mana
Light seekers: Malakim, Mercurians, Bannor, Elohim,
Law and Sun mana
Mountain folk: majority of Khazad and Luchuirp units, Clan of Embers
Earth and Enchantment mana
Shadow lurkers: Sidar, Svartalfar, Calabim,
Shadow and Chaos mana
Ether weavers: Amurites, Luchuirp
Mind and Body mana

Religions:
All the regular FFH religions will be present in this scenario. Considering the topic of religions being abandoned due to lack of worshippers, no race was specific to have adopted any religion as a sole one. Hence, the religions were widely spread, and none was eradicated, although some were more targeted than others. Order was a prime target, and now only few strong fortresses remain, where religion and devotion plays an even more important role. Even in our world, we can see that in times of need, people desperately sought help, and the bigger the danger was, the more devoted the people were.
I completely agree with thomas, The White Hand needs a comeback. The problem is that I don’t know if its possible to introduce an 8th religion. Even the current 7 ones are just alterations of the regular ones from vanilla civ. If it wouldn’t be possible, I would make Octopus Overlords a-sort-of guild and implement the white hand to the free spot.

As for the guilds and cults, right now I am not that far in my brainstorming, but I guess the Cult of the dragon will remain, the sheaim have it, they have Abashi with them, and it perfectly fits the theme of rogue survivors, traitors and opportunists. Would probably have a mechanic, that wouldn’t use the riots in cities, but the betrayal of units only. Also if you would disband the units, they wouldn’t die, but would turn barbarian/sheaim using the enrage mechanic.

As for the guild/corporations system as a whole, I don’t think it’s a vital feature for FFH, and I certainly wont be making too much with this, if it remains as a scenario only. In vanilla civ, corporations have considerable functionality, in FFH, they only serve as flavour, since we have the Armageddon to take care of the late game.

Great people mechanic:
I love what Kael and co did with Children of Kyrolin in Age of Ice.
Would certainly love to add something similar, maybe incorporating Great general creation from BTS to add basic or adventurer type units (as volunteers who want to help seeing the defeats of the demons). As for the great people themselves, I am considering 2 mechanics:

Other great people emergence:
a) all the defensive structures, temples, archery ranges, etc. create a small amount of great people points for regular, but empowered units in their respective line. E.g. a stable would provide +1 great horseman point. a Hippus stable (gainable via event), would provide +2 great horseman points. The overall curve of GPP needed would be slowed down a lot, in order to allow more great people, who wouldn’t be so unbalancing and all the cities would have independent GPP. So even a city with only 1 archery range would eventually produce a great archer. Heroes would also increase great people emergence (via virtual building), kind of like the female mage hero in Age of Ice.

b) Great warriors would be produced by BTS great general emergence, who would then have a spell to turn/upgrade them into specific great warriors the player would like. Buildings and wonders would produce the great people we know from FFH and they would have same effects and same GPP growth. Heroes would provide flavourless GPP.


So much for the ideas I came up for now. Sorry for not being all that active (great to see how many people like it here :)) but I too have some real life things to take care of, and enjoy some free weekends without access to the computer :)

If Armageddon has happened the Sheaim either need a new leader or possibly tebryn can be their leader. Os-gabella was bringing armageddon to end her immortal life (so is dead). Tebryn was doing it to escape hell although TBH I think Ceridwen was having it on and so Tebryn has been flung back to Agares' vault. I'm not sure about that one though.

Also, for the now insane Hannah, you could maybe use the pic in this thread as a new LH?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=6447837

What about if we get rid of Empyrum and Esus? that frees up to slots? (or at least empyrum? then we can reimplement the White Hand)

Esus could be a guild instead? I agree that Empy would be dead though.

I don't know if this fits in FfH history at all, since Kael hasn't released much info, but...


I want to know hat happened to Nemed, the original God of Life and the father of humanity. It is known that he was immortal (perhaps even more so than Os-Gabella, as he was once a God) and I don't think that marrying a second, mortal wife would make him lose his immortality even if his children do. I suspect he is still around somewhere.

I was thinking it would be quite interesting if he were a Luonnatar. I think this would make sense, and would explain how they know about The One to begin with. He would be an awesome choice for the new leader of the Grigori now that Cassiel has perished. Cassiel was an archangel who fell out of disdain of power and refuses to use his power for fear of acting like a god. Nemed takes this further, as he actually is a god but also chose up to willingly give up all his power to bring humanity into existence. The new FfH history in the civilopedia seems to say that the Archangels weren't created by The One, or even until he had thrown them out of heaven. Cassiel's knowledge of the One then must be indirect, but Nemed know him personally. He truly is the opposite of Agares, as he chose to not even keep what power The One would let him keep. Could there be anyone whom Cassiel would have trusted or respected more? What better leader could there be to lead the forces of good?


Like Mulcarn, he is a real god/angel, not merely one of their creations like Hyborem or any other leader. Mulcarn would probably respect him as an equal, which cannot be said of anyone else. Although he gave up his precept, I suspect that he retains much of him divinity and is truly immortal. Actually, since he was not present at and did not agree to the Compact, he is probably even immune to the power of the Godslayer, making him the only invincible being in existence (apart from the One). On the other hand, he has no sphere to control, so he may have no more magical abilities than a mortal.

I think the diplomacy between him and Os-Gabella could be great. She was his wife, and he may still be in love with her. She would probably still refuse to submit to him of course, but it could be interesting to see him try to win her back. If there is any chance of her redeeming herself and turning good, it would have to be through Nemed.


(By the way, this should be moved to the maps/scenarios/modmods sub-forum. I had a really hard time finding it.)

I think the diplomacy between him and Os-Gabella could be great. She was his wife, and he may still be in love with her. She would probably still refuse to submit to him of course, but it could be interesting to see him try to win her back. If there is any chance of her redeeming herself and turning good, it would have to be through Nemed.

Almost like trying to get Faeryl to become your permanent ally as Amelanchier. Only even more twisted. :p

Hrm... I don't know if Mulcarn would care for Nemed. Nemed is pretty much directly to "Blame" for Humanity existing, and Humanity is one of the greatest agents of chaos/change, and thus Mulcarns biggest enemy.

I'm also not certain that Nemed EVER loved Os-Gabella. Love is quite a big concept for a God to suddenly understand as it is, and to love something which was made for you is never too easy.

Perhaps.

I didn't say Mulcarn liked Nemed though, just that he would have to respect him more than he would anyone not made by The One. He may hate him, but he also knows they were created as equals. He may not consider any lesser being worthy of being a real adversary. Also, they are the only two being who know what it is like to be both a god and a man. This similarity could end up emphasizing their differences though, and make their rivalry even more intense.


True, we don't know that he loved Gabella, but he might have. He might also feel quite guilty for trying to make her submit in the first place. He has had quite some time to think about his mistakes. Since she caused the Age of Despair, he probably feels that he is responsible for this too.

The relationships between these leaders aren't simple, but that is what makes it so interesting. It kinda reminds me of the relationship between Kyorlin and Eve/Epona, but with even greater consequences.

He might also be confused by Os Gabella's behavior since he did his job without question, but she didn't.

That sounds really interesting.

Nemed would be A great Grigori leader...

I know this will potentially be problematic or a ton of work but I think the joy of something as revolutionary as this - where the world as we know it has ended and been laid under the iron fist of diabolical rule is that we can really create change with a broad brush. What do I mean by that?

I think, in general, you want to keep a minimal number of old civs, if any. And I think you want to change the good/neutral/evil axis. Well, rename it, anyway. I mean, G/N/E doesn't necessarily have much meaning when you're facing the greatest evil of all and he wants to kill all of you.

So, for alignment, maybe group the civs into 'Conflict', 'Obfuscation' and 'Appeasement'. That is, civs that want to fight Hyborem, Civs that think the only chance for survival is in hiding from him and civs that want to keep him happy while they figure out how to stay alive. It more or less matches G/N/E but is a bit more setting-specific.

Also, I think you want to break apart all the existing civs and recombine them or replace them as is appropriate. And you can take a bunch of the old leaders and turn them into heroes. And hell, take some of the old heroes and turn them in to leaders! I'd love to see Bannor gone, but for Sabathiel to replace Sphener, for instance. I'd love for Losha to be a leader, now, as well as Rantine. Govannon is a good leader pick as well.

Actually. You know what would be awesome? A ton of little versions of Mercurian Gate and Infernal pact. Each civ starts out as a small, rebel group with few unique units or neat stuff. They're all desperately trying to stay alive in a world that is hell bent on killing them, after all. But have a BUNCH of wonders that each create a vassal/team/whatever micro-civ to join you. Build the Call to Battle and get the Hippus remnants to join you. Hell, let's make Cult of the Dragon a positive thing this time around! Bake some of the memories and landmark bits of older civs into these wonders and recruitables and then make a whole new set of civ mash-ups as the starting civilizations. I'll think of more specific stuff later as my thinking is clearly meandering right now. But I think this is the way to go.

That does make sense...

conbined with my unique resource idea, this would make a great system...

Shadow is nearly done, according to kael... just a few thing left in the design docs. then we can start on this.

Also, I think you want to break apart all the existing civs and recombine them or replace them as is appropriate. And you can take a bunch of the old leaders and turn them into heroes. And hell, take some of the old heroes and turn them in to leaders! I'd love to see Bannor gone, but for Sabathiel to replace Sphener, for instance. I'd love for Losha to be a leader, now, as well as Rantine. Govannon is a good leader pick as well.

Actually. You know what would be awesome? A ton of little versions of Mercurian Gate and Infernal pact. Each civ starts out as a small, rebel group with few unique units or neat stuff. They're all desperately trying to stay alive in a world that is hell bent on killing them, after all. But have a BUNCH of wonders that each create a vassal/team/whatever micro-civ to join you. Build the Call to Battle and get the Hippus remnants to join you. Hell, let's make Cult of the Dragon a positive thing this time around! Bake some of the memories and landmark bits of older civs into these wonders and recruitables and then make a whole new set of civ mash-ups as the starting civilizations. I'll think of more specific stuff later as my thinking is clearly meandering right now. But I think this is the way to go.

Good ideas, and the last part is just excellent. Calling in hippus as an ally instead of having them as a playable civ is a neat concept. They might not be the hippus anymore but like Tasunke's band of brothers or something. :P

I can't say I like your names of the new alignments. They are too complex and don't sound good. A better system imo would be to make the alignment system into a value between -255 to +255 or something, where 0 is absolute neutrality, -255 is as evil as you get, +255 is maximum goodness. And having events and actions modify your alignment by +- X. Requirements can be for example that you have to be >128 good for this hero unit, who will leave you if you get too corrupt, etc.

Could also bring in the Lawful/Chaotic system.

Then, Grey Fox, one could base that number on one's action and respons to events, and could be used to determine what wonders and civs you can call in to help...

For example, say, the "Guardians of the Pool of tears" (elohim) will not join you unless you are above 0...

and, say, the Svatalfar archer will not join you fi you are below zero...

So, I thought of an interesting way to handle the recruiting of the remnants of old/fallen civs. I don't think we want anything quite as huge as the Mercurian Gate effect (though perhaps for one or two specific civs this would work - civs that are fallen but on the verge of return).

Instead, how about we create a new line of 'mana' types for these fallen nations. There would be a Hippus mana type and a Bannor mana type and a Svartalfar mana type and so on. And just like there are special random terrain improvements like Pyre of the Seraphic and Tomb of Sucellus and so on, there would be randomly generated unique terrain improvements that provided the civ mana. So, in your exploration you might find the Tent City which, when attached via road, provides Hippus mana. Or you find the Last Stand of Donal Lugh, which provides Bannor mana. And so on and so forth.

This allows a lot of flexibility in how we handle these lost civilizations. You can create a few summons to represent the fact that you can bring in some of their simpler units. You an also make World Projects to handle bringing in their bigger and cooler elements. For instance, once you've researched the Warhorses tech and if you have Hippus mana, you could build 'Riders of the Storm'. Once that was built, you could maybe build Hippus stables, and you could recruit Tasunke as a hero.

The advantage of this system (and I am in no way a mod coder so I could be dead wrong) is that it utilizes systems that are already in place. But in a pretty radical way that is very much in keeping with the theme of this mod idea. It creates a sort of 'Avengers assemble' dynamic where you start off as the beleaguered refugees and survivors of apocalypse but you start bringing the old heroes and lost armies back together as you build towards regaining former glory!

Great People will all be unique for each civilization. Great People can be captured during a war. Different Gp are spawned in different ways, events, unquie specailists, buildings, etc.

Bannor:
1 kind of GP
Great General: Can recruit units that start with demon slaying. Can join units as in BtS. Spawns from normal BtS mechanics.

Elohim:
2 kinds of GP
Great Hallower: Can create a large area of grassland/plains. Also kills any demons in vicinity. Created by ritual chamber, church, other bldg.
Great Monk: Has a range of antidemon spells, as well as combat boni against them and undead. Created from monarstary bldg.

Kuriorates:
3 kinds of GP
Great Centaur: Spawns from an event, but can be influenced by certain buildings. High combat/movement stats.
Great Lamia: Spawns from an event, but can be influenced by certain buildings. Has access to a large portion of life, creation, and nature spells.
Dragonkin Created from an events when Eubrates is in a city (small chance). Decent fighting skills, can breathe fire.

Amurites:
2 types of GP
Great Mage: Spawns from mage specailst. Huge range of spells, sucky combat.
Lich: Spawns from event. Basically a good mage but better fighter.

Ljosalfar:
3 types of GP
Great Archer: A unit that can use archer mechanics from AoI. Spawns from archer specailist.
Great Druid: An event creates this unit in a forest ile. It has a large amount of nature spells, allowing lush lands.
Great Dimensionist: Can teleport units around. (In the Age of Despair the elves are trying to escape Erebus to Cerunneous' plane, using dimensional magic) Created by event involving magic users.

Lanun:
1 type of GP
Great Speaker: Speakers have a number of 1 time spells, or dreams that have great effects, from mass conversions to tsunamis and mass mutations.

Illians:
1 type of GP
Great Disciple: When a certain number of these are available they can be sacrificed to bring Mulcarn back to Erebus.

[party]:band::rockon:1000th post!:rockon::band:[party]

So, I thought of an interesting way to handle the recruiting of the remnants of old/fallen civs. I don't think we want anything quite as huge as the Mercurian Gate effect (though perhaps for one or two specific civs this would work - civs that are fallen but on the verge of return).

Instead, how about we create a new line of 'mana' types for these fallen nations. There would be a Hippus mana type and a Bannor mana type and a Svartalfar mana type and so on. And just like there are special random terrain improvements like Pyre of the Seraphic and Tomb of Sucellus and so on, there would be randomly generated unique terrain improvements that provided the civ mana. So, in your exploration you might find the Tent City which, when attached via road, provides Hippus mana. Or you find the Last Stand of Donal Lugh, which provides Bannor mana. And so on and so forth.

This allows a lot of flexibility in how we handle these lost civilizations. You can create a few summons to represent the fact that you can bring in some of their simpler units. You an also make World Projects to handle bringing in their bigger and cooler elements. For instance, once you've researched the Warhorses tech and if you have Hippus mana, you could build 'Riders of the Storm'. Once that was built, you could maybe build Hippus stables, and you could recruit Tasunke as a hero.

The advantage of this system (and I am in no way a mod coder so I could be dead wrong) is that it utilizes systems that are already in place. But in a pretty radical way that is very much in keeping with the theme of this mod idea. It creates a sort of 'Avengers assemble' dynamic where you start off as the beleaguered refugees and survivors of apocalypse but you start bringing the old heroes and lost armies back together as you build towards regaining former glory!

At first i was rolling my eyes at having hippus mana, but now i actualyl think that is an awsome idea, but call it 'Hippus remnants' instead:p

and instead of spells, make the 'remnants' resources a strategic resource that is required to build certain old civ units, like the old hippus UUs and tasunke. i really think that has heaps of potential.

At first i was rolling my eyes at having hippus mana, but now i actualyl think that is an awsome idea, but call it 'Hippus remnants' instead:p

and instead of spells, make the 'remnants' resources a strategic resource that is required to build certain old civ units, like the old hippus UUs and tasunke. i really think that has heaps of potential.

Right, I was just using mana as a shorthand for 'mod-specific weird resource'. The great thing here is that each game ends up different because these strategic resources/mana/whatever are randomly placed, right! So it's not like you get Tasunke every game. Maybe you get him one game, but the next you find the Mushroom Ring and get Svartalfar units.

I like that idea...

actually the best so far, i think...

It would really only make sense with good dead civs giving their units to other good civs, evil dead civs giving their units to other evil civs, and neutral civs giving their units to one or the other, or both. That is, if one of the surviving civs which is evil finds the remnants of a good civ, they won't be able to use it. Also provides another incentive for war. :D

Not necessarily...

I think that most civs will recognize that they wil not be able to get on with thier lives if the infernal stay on erebus. they will lend assistance to anyone able to get rid of the common enemy.

Once they are gone, then the old fighting can resume.

For example, the seelie and unseelie courts, (are those terms still cannon? they were back in the day... i mean ljosalfar and svartalfar) who admitedly hate each other to the death, might put off the fighting to destroy the infernal.

likewise, the malakim (worshipers of Lugus, and needful of the sun and it's rays) would most likely accept help from the Calabim (who will not be able to survive in the new, demonic world: nothing to eat and consume) should it be offered... once the infernal have been banished, they will return to fighting, but until then...

Yeah, my thinking behind the recruitment/resource mechanic was that in this time of universal doom, you're putting the work (ie. building the world project, etc) into convincing these fractured elements of past civs (whether good, neutral or evil) that no one benefits while the infernals rule the world. It's a temporary peace/alliance in order to rid the world of the Infernals.

Once the Infernals are gone, one imagines those evil elements would quite happily stab their good buddies in the back and make their own play for power.

I saw something interesting in another thread... a civilization with a corrupted barnaxus as leader, having thrown off the shackles of the dwarven rulers, composed entirely of Golems...

As for the Balseraph in this Age of Despair: Would it not be more fun for Keelyn to play an important role in this new demon hegemony? Those demons she has been summoning for decades are totally bent to her will and she was finally able to stage a successful coup when Perpentach decided he was bored of kingdom and vanished without a trace. He could then show up from time to time via events. He and a small band of gypsies wander what is left of Erebus seemingly haphazardly but truly with an ulterior motive.

Anyway, long story short Keelyn should be a demon princess and a female leader choice for the demons.

Edit: Actually, now that I think about it, she might make an awesome hero unit for the demons.

she would...

I like it :mwahaha:

Well then I would want to have Barbatos as the Leader of a Playable Civilization.

Then we can complain that Barbatos spawned too close to Keelyn and SHE wiped HIM out on turn 5 ;)