Links to Modules by other Users are on Post #2 of this thread.

This Mod-Mod requires a little bit of explaining to use properly I believe. So bear with it please.

The most important thing is that the ONLY thing which is changed in FfH itself, is to change the first setting in the .ini:


; Modular XML Loading
ModularLoading = 0

Changes to


; Modular XML Loading
ModularLoading = 1

This is the ONLY change that will be required to update this Mod-Mod when a new patch comes out. Everything else is in the folder Assets/Modules which is not a part of the standard mod. Upon first installing the mod, this change will be done for you.

Now, the other big thing about how this mod works is that it could actually be much smaller than it is. There are many files in here which are completely redundant (Schema Files). This is done for your convenience: Any change which you do not want to use, you simply delete the folder which it is in. (The changelog is sorted and named by folders for easy selection of what to delete. Every sub-bullet is a sub-folder)

That brings me to the biggest part of this Mod-mod: I am willing to entertain requests for essentially any Mod that you desire. It has to be something which can be implemented through XML alone, and ideally is something which has not been modded yet so that new people can play with all of them activated should they desire.


Cumulative Changelog

Event Fixes


173560
Increased event Frequency by a factor of 2. (Primary reason for change is to make it easier to modify your own event speed if you want it much more often or much less often)

173559
Created new Buildings as Rewards for First & Second Events.
Unlinked the Event Chain and made the new Buildings the Pre-Req instead
Event chain now works if proper choices are made. However, improper choices do not remove the buildings as the Tooltip states they should.



AI Tweaks

174003 (Requires patch to work with Fall Further: 174004)
Removed the Building Requirements for AI by default and hid the Option
Granted AI the ability to directly build upgraded Arcane Units (requires the No Building Requirements to work, which is why it is hidden now)
Minor Sideeffect is that if the AI actually manages to get some Mages upgraded on their own then they can bypass the 3 unit restriction
Changed the AI weighting to ensure that the AI does indeed build some of these units.



173561

Body
Rank 2: Second Skin
4 Strength
1 Move
Permanent Summon
Can see Invisible
Cannot Attack
Immune to First Strikes
Always selected as first Defender
Rank 3: Restrainer
8 Strength +1 Body Affinity, Can use Weapons
1 Move
Can only deal 99% Damage to any unit (Cannot kill)

Mind
Rank 2: Dominator
4 Strength
1 Move
50% Chance to create a slave from combat
Rank 3: Empathic Entity
0 Strength
7 Move
Can Explore Rival Territory & Reveal Rival City Details
Cannot Reveal New Map
Ignores Terrain Costs, Can Move Through All Tiles
Invisible
Starts with: Commando

Spirit
Rank 2: Insidious Thoughts
2 Strength
2 Move
Starts with: Flying, Dominate
Dominate: Can Capture all Combat Unit Types
Rank 3: Tormenting Visions
3 Strength
1 Move
Starts with: Tormenting Visage
Unit Causes Fear
Unit selected as first target for all combat

Enchantment
Rank 2: Midas Flies
2 Strength +1 Enchantment Affinity
1 Move
Starts with: Flying
Produces 10 Gold from Combat Victory
Rank 3: Dust Swarm
4 Strength
1 Move
Starts with: Angel, Flying
Immune to First Strikes
15 First Strikes

Metamagic
Rank 2: Dimensional Rift
0 Strength
7 Move
3 Cargo Space
Starts with: Flying, Elemental
Rank 3: Space Fold
7 Strength +2 Dimensional Affinity
0 Move
Permanent Summon
Starts with: Flying
Explodes on Death
Kills self after successful combat
Deals full strength Collateral to 1 Unit
Invisible & HN


173893

Added a Stronger version of: Tiger, Gorilla
Added a Weaker version of: Bears
Enabled the Stronger versions of: Lions
New Lairs will automatically spawn on the map at random
Stronger versions spawn weaker versions and weaker versions upgrade to the stronger (Like the Wolves do)







Newest Version Changelog


Revisions to Previous Release:
Revised the extra Animals to work the same as the Wolf/Wolf Pack does in Main Mod


New Additions:





Download the Modules you wish to use and unpack them in the folder Assets/Modules, which you will have to create for yourself if you have not used any Modules before. Then remember to turn on the Modular Loading in your .ini file and you should be able to play with the changes in effect.

WARNING FOR VISTA USERS: From reports thus far, Modular XML doesn't work for vista users. So if you want to use any of these changes you will have to load it into the mod manually. If you desire to do that but do not understand XML very well then you can ask for assistance in this thread with the process. Basically you just have to ignore any file that ends with Schema, and cut/paste parts from the other files to the end of the similarly named XML of the main mod (it doesn't matter if it is changing something which was already in the XML, so long as it is at the end of the file it will simply overwrite it).

Modules by other Members

westamastaflash (http://forums.civfanatics.com/member.php?u=130406):
Module to add 3 new options for your gamespeed, you can download it here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=6634383#post6634383).


Tarquelne (http://forums.civfanatics.com/member.php?u=7062):
New Units for the Elohim, foundhere (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=6636373).
Paladins, Druids & Eidolons tied to specific religions, as well as new counterparts for the other religions to utilize, download here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=6651083).
The Amurite Siege Mage is a single unit (and unique spell) module. Download it here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=6678556#post6678556). Alternative to this is a Module with 2 more units as well found here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=6695418#post6695418)
New Wonder which can provide Reagents found here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=271888)
UU versions of the Shadow & Assassin for the Calabim found here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=6750720#post6750720)
UU for the Luchuirp, the Salt Golem (Naval Unit). Available Here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=6758001)
Undead Civilization, the Scions of Patria. Available here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=6839439#post6839439)


Mailbox (http://forums.civfanatics.com/member.php?u=128520):
Module to tweak Improvements (can build them without a resource present and have a chance to discover resources with them). You can download it here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=267641).
The Legion of D'Tesh, an Undead/Necromantic Civilization. Available here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=6863545#post6863545)


Farmer Bobathan (http://forums.civfanatics.com/member.php?u=128553):
Airships for Fall from Heaven! Found here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=6761770).


pimparel (http://forums.civfanatics.com/member.php?u=7057):
Personal Mod. A general sweep through quite a few files to rebalance the game. Found here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=277388).
Improved Buildings: Seeks to balance the value of working on a building with working on another unit. Found here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=277623)


Apepis (http://forums.civfanatics.com/member.php?u=131308):
Alternate Civic Options. Found here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=282239).

Future Changes

Already Coded
Removed the Improvements Module
Made the Metmagic 2 Summon Permanent

Pending Code
New graphics for all new units
Ensure that anything buildable in a forest is also buildable in an Ancient Forest

Future Additions

Already Coded

Pending Code
More types of Animals
More Barbarian Hero units
Allow Racial Workers to have unique Build Orders (Elves that don't remove forests, Dwarves who can Mine flatlands, Goblins who can be sacraficed for instant building of improvements)
Add new road types (Mystical Highways, buildable by Mages/Conjurers. Treeway Paths buildable by Elven Recon. Tunnels buildable by Dwarven Melee --- Special units being able to build them might not QUITE be possible. If so will link it to racial workers and technologies)
Add new class of Super Resources which provide a standard resource for trade, but better tile yields for BFC.
Add new "___ Ball" Spells for the other Elements.
Fire changed to apply On Fire promotion, which causes -25% healing rate and has 50% chance to wear off per turn
Water will apply Waterlogged promotion, which causes -1 Strength and has 50% chance to wear off per turn
Air will cause collateral Damage
Earth will be able to Bombard

By the way: This Mod-Mod should be 100% compatible with all other Mod-mods. And if there are any overlaps in XML changes, you can just delete the offending folder and keep the rest ;)

(ie - You can use this with Magi-Mod if you wanna)


And for those of you who do not play in English: I have documented EVERYTHING that I changed in the Civlopedia, and in all 5 languages. Please inform me if Babelfish gave me a horrible translation and it says something quite far from what I wanted it to say :) I don't happen to speak all 5 languages personally so cannot verify that it translated all of the 1 or 2 word entries the way I wanted it to...

How nice! Would you consider incorporating features from other modmods? There were some things in the .25 vintage modmods by Maniac and Sureshot that I would like to have in .30. For starters, there were the Mines that were upgraded over time (like cottages are now). And there are many nice additions in the .30 modmods by Magister and Sureshot that are not yet implemented at the current patch level. If you are game, I'll draw up a wishlist.

Very, very interesting! I love that you can pick the modules you want and your summon ideas are great, too!

Draw up a wishlist, and if you are having me copy other people's ideas give me a link to the source so I can see how they did it. But be warned, many other mods use Python and other hooks to accomplish the "fun" features, so I won't be able to make most of them into Modules.

For example, I am not entirely sure how to accomplish the mines upgrading, but I have a good feeling it would be possible in XML since there are now multiple improvements which upgrade over time.

Yeah, it isn't hard to do with just xml. I haven't tried myself (yet) but I'm sure you could jst copy preexisting code.

<iUpgradeTime>20</iUpgradeTime>

and

<ImprovementPillage>IMPROVEMENT_COTTAGE</ImprovementPillage>
<ImprovementUpgrade>IMPROVEMENT_VILLAGE</ImprovementUpgrade>

are the important parts.

I believe that the upgrade time is the total number of turns in the improvement has <bOutsideBorders>1</bOutsideBorders> and only turn that it is worked otherwise.



You are free to borrow stuff from my modmod for your modular mods, but most of the cool stuff relies on python.

Yeah, I just looked at it after I posted and it is cakewalk to do. So I intend on making just about every possible improvement upgrade (including mana nodes).

Quite a bit you can do with improvements that I hadn't thought about. And the Lion's Den is still in there, so I'll see what I can do to make that actually start happening, or just make a module which allows lions to build the things. Might create such a feature for every animal....

Awesome, I'm very glad you seperated the modular pieces. I want to play around with the AI magic use. :)

Awesome, I'm very glad you seperated the modular pieces. I want to play around with the AI magic use. :)

Ditto!

And when I did so I found the AI making lots of Adepts.

I set up a little test - half a dozen capital-connected Amurite cities, all with M. Guilds, an Oblisk, and a Warrior or two. I gave 'em all the techs up to and including Sorcery. Every city started making Adepts, but not Wizards.

Looking in the FFH editor I saw that Adepts have an AI Weight of.... 300!
Okay... looking at the modmod I thought changing that AI Weight to 4 might be reasonable. Result: Some Wizards! (Yay!)

So I suggest including a change to the Adept iAIWeight in the mod, xeinwolf.

And thanks very much!

Oh! the AI thinks that Adepts are better than their upgrades? They have a value of 300, while Mages/Wizards/Conjurers have a value of 8 and Archmages/Summoners/Eaters of Dreams have a value of 16. I think this mean that the AI is programmed to think that adepts are more valuable units that their upgrades, so they won't upgrade them.

This should really be addressed in the balance thread (I'll do that now). I'll also include a change in my modmod (probably increasing the weights of the upgrades more than decreasing the adepts)

Cool, I'll upgrade the weighting factor of the cheater units and see if they start to build them as they should. I also changed the fix to Circle of Gaelan a little bit now so that it can still be spread apart, but the events WILL all happen now.

Uploaded a new version. Changes/Additions are noted in the first page. Forgot to check if it breaks savegames from previous release, but I would assume for now that it will always break them (new units/graphic defines do it easily).


2 Major modules in this release: Animal Lairs & Unique Feature Danger. Each one COULD be more modular so you can pick and choose which ones will be in the game, but do to how complex the animal changes were I did not feel it appropriate to chunk them down (would nearly double the size of the entire install file I think). And I don't think that anyone should be allowed to pick and choose which features are safe and which are dangerous :p (Don't worry, none of the units should be able to kill a warrior fortified in a city, and spawns tend to be infrequent).


That said: If there is sufficient feedback requesting that the animal module be seperated into a couple of parts I will consider doing so.

Just added an installer in Post #2 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6521512&postcount=2) which will make the Dimensional spells work properly. This is a non-modular change, so is only going to work for Patch J.

Follow instructions in the post if you wish to use it.

Ran a test game with all of the changes to test that you have to delete the extra folder for the Dimensional Patch J fix to work (you do), and found that cottages no longer grow into Hamlets!

This is due to the Dangerous Unique features, so until I get around to re-writing the upgradable improvements I guess you have to choose between that module and cottages that can actually upgrade (gee... I wonder which will win...)

And for those of you who do not play in English: I have documented EVERYTHING that I changed in the Civlopedia, and in all 5 languages. Please inform me if Babelfish gave me a horrible translation and it says something quite far from what I wanted it to say :) I don't happen to speak all 5 languages personally so cannot verify that it translated all of the 1 or 2 word entries the way I wanted it to...

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=237449

I don't know if Babelfish is very reliable...:p

Oh! the AI thinks that Adepts are better than their upgrades? They have a value of 300, while Mages/Wizards/Conjurers have a value of 8 and Archmages/Summoners/Eaters of Dreams have a value of 16. I think this mean that the AI is programmed to think that adepts are more valuable units that their upgrades, so they won't upgrade them.Huh... Are you sure weights effect upgrade decsions? If so, good catch; I'd guess Kael assumed not.

I don't personally believe that it does. But it COULD, and since they cannot build those units normally in the main game, might as well bump them WAY up just in case. Medicine_Man_55 is doing a test on a normal game with the weighting adjusted to see if the AI does upgrade their Adepts properly (long game, so feedback won't be for a while.


Posting .902 shortly, the bug with Cottages is the same as the bug with the Dimensional Promotions. Linking things together through Modular XML just doesn't seem to work at all (tried to let workers build hamlets instead of cottages, that broke hamlets from upgrading. Tried to make an upgradable mine, that broke Hamlets too...). Also included Sureshot's Improvement changes from his Mini-mod (with some alterations). I ditched the idea to make all improvements able to upgrade because when I tried to make a mine upgrade in 100 turns to a non-pillageable mine it caused Hamlets to ALSO stop upgrading.... :( :shrug:

Also, I have tried feeding some of my translations back through Babelfish to get english because I have played with that same feature of translation programs before. The main thing that makes that link so funny is that they are going to Japanese, which is VASTLY different than our language (they have many words which are pronounced the same and mean different things. Homonym if I remember correctly.), and since you are converting it twice you wind up complicating any small error which cropped up initially. For the "big 5" the translation program is pretty decent actually.

I agree... I doubt it _should_. The weighting would be most useful judging what units to upgrade. That the upgrade is better than the previous unit should be taken by the AI as a given.

Hmm... OTOH, the difference between upgraded and non-upgraded Weight might be useful prioritize upgrades. In which case too high a weight for the lower-teir unit could mess up the upgrade process.

Anyway, I _hope_ the Adept weighting does explain a lot of the AI's problems since it should be easy to fix.

And that the test could be interesting. Heroes only get about a 200 AIWeight. :)

Here are some things I would like to have:

1. ANIMALS: I suspect this depends on availability of artwork, but there are a few “vanilla” mods that provide new animal types. The Panther should still be available from earlier versions of FFH. And perhaps some of the current art could be recolored. Anyway, I’d like to see more kinds of animals and some variations on the ones we have not. There is a BTS mod in Mod Components called Modular ExoticAnimals, which provides:
Lioness 3/2
Cave Lion 5/1
Cave Lioness 6/1
Bengal Tiger 2/2
Siberian Tiger 4/2
Polar Bear 4/1
Cave Bear 6/1
Cheetah 1/3
Dire Wolf 2/2
Camel 5/3
Stag 3/3
Drifa Dragon 10/4
Penguin 2/1
As to Zoos, there’s no reason that that a Cave Lion could not go into a Lion Cage and so on. Finally, it would be fun to have some one-of-a-kind legendary animals (again using common art) that would have superior abilities and offer superior rewards when defeated.

2. ORTHUS’ KIN: The giant ape in .30 is ludicrous looking and ridiculously overpowered, but I like the idea of more great beasts and barbarian heroes like Orthus. Especially nice would be for them to have unique weapons to drop. It would not be necessary to make new promotions for these. In fact it would be fun to have objects that granted otherwise inaccessible promotions to the units that carry them.

3. MAGISTER’S FOREST PRESERVE AND SMUGGLER’S COVE: These go along with my previous request for the DWARVEN MINES. All seem to be XML implementations based on Cottages.

4. WORKERS: Go back to .25 where captured Elven Workers and Slaves would build Elven Farms, Pastures, etc. (Same for Dwarven Workers, and maybe give Orcish Workers some bonuses for building Roads, Forts, etc.)

5. RESOURCES: There are several BTS mods that add resources, so art should be available. The rest is fairly simple XML – I’ve done it myself. Again, it would be fun to have some one-of-a-kind resources like a “Motherload” of Gold that provides extra commerce. You might even add special improvements for them, making these available to certain units.

1. Actually I already placed in some more animals, mostly stronger. I just realized after doing that a way that I can do new artwork Modular style (didn't think I could initially). So I will soon have graphics stolen from around the forums for everything new I added. For now, make sure NOT to use single unit graphics and all the new animals will look different (new tiger group is pretty cool looking). But I'll definitely add even MORE animals if you want it :)

2. Awesome idea. I can put in a ton of fun Barbarian hero units pretty easily. Most of the "rewards" for each will have to be equipment so I can do it through XML alone. I am lumping your legendary animals idea in with this of course ;)

3. I might be able to make improvements that upgrade, but so far the Cottage glitch has shown me that it is probably NOT going to be possible. The tag for upgrading isn't linked to the TYPE declaration, but to the numerical Index. That means I would have to make the module include all of the current improvements, which defeats the purpose of being modular. As it is, the fix to the cottage glitch won't work anymore if anybody changes the order of the first couple improvements (by adding or removing one) in their mod.

4. Actually, this one I can do pretty easily if I am thinking about it correctly.

5. Sounds fairly fun. Sort of a halfway point between a resource and a unique improvement :) Will have to provide the same resources to the city though since I cannot change the Font file for that. And may conflict with the Better Improvements, so will probably become a part of it.


Mostly: Thanks for some requests :) I've been hoping people will actually make a few. Now if only I could get someone to give some feedback :p

While you're looking for resources, I'd like you to find camels and goats for my modmod. These would mostly just be so that there are more desert improvements for the Malakim, but eventually I'd like to make camel mounted units availible to everyone requiring the camel resource. Most of my other new resources (silver, lead, ice mana) could just reuse existing graphics.


Actually, the panther graphics were from vanilla, so you don't have to add any graphics files to get them back. (I plan to add them back in my modmod, but I want them to have Forest Stealth. I actually added them back that way when they were first removed, and quite liked it. I'm waiting for this promotion to be reimplemented, and don't think it can work the old way without making some major SDK changes. If it isn't added soon, I may make it use a pyperturn call to grant either the invisibility or hidden promotion to units in forests/ancient forests/jungles and remove it when they are not in jungles.)

Forest preserve is just borrowed directly from BtS (except for different tech requirements, allowing FoL units to build them, and the synergy with Guardian of Nature). It doesn't rely on Cottage mechanics at all. What do you mean by "smugglers cove"? Does that mean the spell I added to get smugglers ports in cities once the resolution passes (which didn't work and is unnecessary now), or do you mean my pirate cove/harbor/port fix (a minor python change to make sure coves aren't built too close to their upgraded forms)?

Ah, forest preserve is just an improvement buildable in forests then? I think I prefer the camps for now, they are pretty nice and will not remove a forest, while being allowed to be built in any forest. But I'll look at the forest preserves sometime when I get a chance to see if I like em. IIRC they also spread forests, which may be worth setting up again.


One promotion I have fallen in love with the idea of is "Blind," This would cause all units to be invisible to that unit, thereby allowing it to travel onto tiles that are blocked by HN or enemy units. Might have to partner it with invisible of course so that they are not killed too easily by people you just didn't notice were standing there :)


As for resources: No luck getting your camels and goats from me :) If I do put those in as the graphics on the worldmap, I will have to make them provide Cows as a resource or something. In order to add a new resource that shows up in the city AS a new resource you have to change the font files, which is a non-modular adjustment. Unless I just use Kermit the Frog for all of them, but that just leaves a bad taste in my mouth :)

Yeah, Forests Preserves are just improvements in forests/ancient forests/jungles that cause the feature on the tile to spread. I also made temples of the leaves and the new leaves wonder provide 1 free specialist from them. They also grant +1 :) if in a city radius with guardian of nature (like with environmentalism in BtS), and I gave them yield boost with commune with nature. (They are allowed by Hidden Paths in my version, instead of Biology)

Of course, if you wanted to then you could make them upgrade to a "Sacred Grove" or something like that after a long time, and make this improvement change the feature to an ancient forest. You could also make it so that resources are created when they are formed, or that resources like nature mana are likely to be found there. You could allow it to harness resources, add defensive boni, etc.


Blind looks pretty cool, if it is doable. Preferably it would also have 0 line of sight, so it cannot reveal more of the map. (There is a no reveal map tag for units, but not promotions). It might also be a more reasonable implementation of the the Sun II Sorcery spell than immobilization.


When talking about game fonts, you are just talking about the way in looks in the city view right? I think that making them look like sheep or horses there would probably be fine, sine the icons are pretty small. I wouldn't want them to look like that on the map though (for much longer)

Yes, I am talking about the Assets\res\Fonts\GameFont_75.tga file. That is where the icons are grabbed for what it appears as in the city screen on the bar to the right. Not sure if it is used anywhere else or not.

Appearance on the map is set seperately from that, so should be doable. In fact, I don't even know where the .tga is referenced from, so I assume it is a python thing. If that is the case it might be difficult for me to add new resources.

Wow! Anything you can do would be most welcome. And I'm really glad to see you and Magister are cooperating.

As to the Mines, I would be just as happy with upgrades tied to the tech tree (like Magister has done Forest Preserves). This would dodge the timer problem. The fun part is being able to see the Improvements, um, improve as the game goes along, giving you ways to sustain city growth. If you don't want to meddle with standard Improvements this way, make them special Improvements (like Elven Farms or Preserves) that can be built by selected units. It's kinda cool when something besides a Worker can build the improvement, like Hunters building Camps. I'd like to see the Camp give an extra bonus when built in an Ancient Forest.

As to feedback, I need to play a bit more and then I'll give you my thoughts. But so far, it's been great.

Well, I've already made all of the improvements a bit better EXCEPT for farms, mines and cottages. I honestly don't ever build the other things unless on a resource which FORCES me to build them. Of course, for some that was because that is the only place you CAN build them...

My ideal is that once you know how to make workshops, Windmills and all the other late game improvements you have a reason to swap to those. Hence I made them a bit more attractive yeild-wise. Any boosts I give to the standard improvements I'll try to make sure is such that unless you are running civics to improve them (or REALLY want to specialize), the late-game improvements are better.

This mod crashes FfH during load on my computer. I get the standard Vista program has stopped responding message a couple seconds after the load screen comes up.

Wierdness. You do have FfH installed, and then had this install in the same location, right? (this is just a mod-mod, not a standalone mod)

And are you able to run FfH without the same crash happening? If this Mod-Mod gives any error it should be XML only. I don't do anything that can crash a full program :(

Made some Ninja-Patch action since I am about to start my test and no more updates will come for about a week. I thought the fix for the Cottage glitch important enough to include right away.

Also raised the yields from Unique Improvements since they are dangerous now, and made animal lairs auto-seed on map generation

It seems to be related to the Modular XML. I turned that off, didn't remove the modules, and it works fine. And yes, I do have everything installed.

Well crap. I hope someone else who uses Vista can let me know if it works for them or not. Could be some strange issue with that. I'll look around the main BtS forums real quick and see if anyone mentions it there. I know that lots of Mods use Modular setups for that.


Try deleting all the modules and turning Modular Loading back on in the .ini and see if it loads fine. Then maybe put the modules back in 1 by 1 to find what specific one might be breaking you. But I suspect just having it turned on is the problem.

Is there a way to make unique improvements stop spawning units after a while, perhaps once the tile is owned (making the spawns belong to whomever owns it would be cool too). I'll assume it is not, without changing the SDK or making the spawns happen through python. (I may make some spawn units through python in a future version of my modmod.)

(I actually make a few of the unique features spawn barbarian units about a week after they were first implemented, and it got annoying after a while. The most annoying ones were the lightning elementals from the Maelstrom. Since I had given them flying and units spawned this way have unlimited duration, they usually managed to wipe out a few civs on each continent)

There is no way to do it. I had hoped that the units would spawn under the control of whoever owned the feature. And I think Kael plans to make that possible someday. For now it just makes things.... more fun ;)

I have not been in the habit of building Workshops etc. later in the game, so I'll have to try that.

Agree with Magister that the spawn rate on the Dangerous Special Features might be nerfed a bit. I was "lucky" enough to settle near the Remnants of Patria and by turn 40 I'd already fought off 3 Wraiths. It would also be nice if there were some way to stop the spawning altogether. You can kill Barbatos, but the Remnants just keep spawning, even when inside my city radius or with a unit sitting on top. Maybe casting Sanctify?

Station a unit on top of the improvement. I have NO idea what will happen, but it'll either auto-kill the unit, move the unit, or stop the spawning.

EDIT: helps if I finish reading your post before I answer :p There is NO way to stop the spawning then :) (But that means more XP for later, right? :P

Patch K is out now, and contains Kael's attempt at the fix for the modular promotions.

He also went ahead and improved a couple of elementals. Water Elementals have water affinity now, and Air Elementals spawn Lighting Elementals in combat. Combined with the chain-lighting promotion (which I'll probably steal for the next version of my modmod), I think I have a new favorite sphere (well, I might if I hadn't added Ice and Dimensional...)

Yeah, I would advise people to go ahead and delete my change to water elementals and try his. Future versions won't include that guy anymore (so if you like him my way instead of Kael's, make a copy).

I think I'll leave the Lightning Elemental as I changed him though.

Sadly the changes he made for promotions didn't work for Dimensional, so that still needs to be adjusted with a deep fix if you want it to work, I'll re-post the files for that to work with K, but the rest of the modules all work fine without any tweaking :)

Updated the Deep Fix for Dimensional Promotions to work with Patch K, link in the same place as before, same instructions need following :) No worries if you don't care about the Dimensional Summons I added though.

EDIT: Also made another Ninja-Update to the mod. Removed the Water Elemental and re-organized how I was adding the Dimensional Promotions now that I know what is causing them not to work. This is probably the last release till next weekend.

BTW, is anyone interested in a Module to customize your game options? Things like Living World, Raging Barbarians, Aggressive AI....

You can change what the default settings are and which ones are visible really easily, but if you do it the normal way you have to adjust it with each patch. Set up a module and you can set it once and never have to do so again.


Instructions as follow:


Turn on Modular Loading in the .ini if not already enabled for my mod-mod (See first post for instructions)
Open the Assets Folder
Create a new folder called Modules
Open the Modules Folder
Create a new folder called Game Settings
Copy Assets\XML\Gameinfo\CIV4GameOptionInfos.xml & Assets\XML\Gameinfo\CIV4GameInfoSchema.xml into this folder
Rename these two files to Assets\XML\Gameinfo\Opt_CIV4GameOptionInfos.xml & Assets\XML\Gameinfo\Opt_CIV4GameInfoSchema.xml
Open Opt_CIV4GameOptionInfos.xml with Notepad
Find the line which reads: <Civ4GameOptionInfos xmlns="x-schema:CIV4GameInfoSchema.xml">

Edit it to read: <Civ4GameOptionInfos xmlns="x-schema:Opt_CIV4GameInfoSchema.xml">


Now you can edit this file further as you desire to customize your settings for future games as follows:


<bDefault>0</bDefault> means the option will be disabled by default. Change it to <bDefault>1</bDefault> to enable the option
<bVisible>1</bVisible> means that the option will show up in the Custom Game screen so that you can change on a case-by-case basis. Change it to <bVisible>0</bVisible> to hide an option.
If you ALWAYS play your game with an option either ON or OFF, set the default to what you desire, then hide it by setting this option to 1. Now your list of options available will be much smaller and easier to browse for those options which you like to use only in some games.

Set up a module and you can set it once and never have to do so again.

Have you ever known the FFH team to include a change that doesn't get mentioned in the changelog? They seem very conscientious about that, but I've been thinking about moving my modmod - mostly tweaks - into modular format and wouldn't want to unknowingly overwrite an official change.

It isn't that they don't announce changes or anything, it is just that the patches include more than just the files which they made changes to (it would be a pain to track EVERY file that gets updated). Also, even if they did only include the modified files, since the patches are inclusive that means any modification since initial big release, which right now DOES include the gameoptions file.

Hence, any change you make will always be overwritten by a new patch (placing default values back in) unless you make it modular.

Hence, any change you make will always be overwritten by a new patch (placing default values back in) unless you make it modular.

What I'm worried about is the reverse, and the mod as a whole - not just GameOptions: A modular mod's changes overwriting changes introduced by a patch.

For example, I changed the OO Temple to reduce hurry unhappiness. Since it's currently not modular I have to re-do it with each patch. Or, at least each patch that includes the buildinginfos file. (Thank goodness for the FFH Editor!)

As you point out, if my modded OO Temple were modular that wouldn't be a worry. My Temple overwrites the old version. However, if a patch every introduces a _new_ version of the Temple - a change to cost or boni or something - my modular Temple would still overwrite it.

If I want to include official changes I'll have to change the modular file myself. So long as changes are included in the changelog that's easy. Any unlisted changes would most likely get left out, though.

Ok, I thought at first you were arguing against Modular Loading, but it sounds now more like yor are asking about complications and format.

What you bring up about them changing something which is in a module is part of why I made so many folders. Like patch K just now and the Water Elemental: All you must do to undo my change is delete 1 folder.

So if you make modules small enough, they are really nice. But if you make one Big module, then it may as well just be a full Mod-mod really.

Thinking of that, I might start placing links for individual modules in addition to a full installer of every module at once.

So if you make modules small enough, they are really nice. But if you make one Big module, then it may as well just be a full Mod-mod really.

Thinking of that, I might start placing links for individual modules in addition to a full installer of every module at once.

Yeah... and thinking about it I doubt any changes missed from the changelog would be, well, really "missed." Noticed. I might do a full update of my modmod for every numbered release to make sure nothing has slipped past me, and otherwise just not worry about it.

Hmm... I wonder if the FFH editor would make it easier to generate the files: Delete the unneeded columns in the editor then Export. Or even delete all but one column for each module. Then take the resulting individual files, rename them and make the necessary minor alterations before putting them in a modular-mod folder. Might be easier/quicker than some of the cutting and pasting that'd otherwise be required.

Do you use an XML editor, xienwolf? (How about you, MagisterC?) I haven't found one I find more convenient than the FFH Editor + a simple text editor.

On installing your mod: Unless one or more of the components gets pretty large I suggest making it a simple zip file rather than an installer. I'd rather download the whole thing and then copy all or part, depending on what I want.

That's just me, though. There's certainly a disadvantage to doing it that way, and advantages to doing it other ways.

By using the installer I can guarantee that they at least START with everything in the right spot, and the Modules turned on. Plus this way you are forced to start with all of them and then delete what you don't want. If it was just a zip more people would just start with what they think they want and never try the rest ;) And it was also in part just to see what it was like using it kcwong's installer since it was right there and available for use.

I don't use an editor, I do all of my work directly in the XML using Notepad. Using the FfH editor should be fine, as long as you remember to redirect where it is writing to, and then change the filenames and the Schema reference (or figure out a way to make the editor ask you for those I suppose). Unless you built the Schema into the editor or made it run a batch file to copy them over and rename appropriately you would still have to do that part by hand too.

But overall, I just haven't TRIED using an editor yet :)

If you do go modular, be careful about breaking it up TOO small. You have no guarantee of the order in which things load. So for instance I used to have all 3 Dimensional Promotions in seperate modules so I could isolate the glitch, but that caused an error if the computer tried to load Dimensional 3 before Dimensional 2, because there wasn't any PROMOTION_DIMENSIONAL2 in the loaded XML yet to be a pre-req. Putting them all in one file fixes that problem.

So the easy rule of thumb is that if a Module references another Module, they need to be combined. If it only references the main mod, then it is fine to leave it as a seperate entity.

Also, always check the civlopedia to ensure that the first couple of entries that you did NOT change are still unchanged if anything goes wrong. Seems that lots of the FfH specific tags reference the index instead of the Type :( So you can't use those in modules (promotion Pre-reqs, Improvement Upgrades...)

The crashing in Vista occurs when you have any one or more of the folders Animals Build Lairs, Changed Summons, and New Summons in the Modulars folder. All other run fine together, so far. Civ IV will crash to desktop if even just one of these is in the Module folder.

I use Notepad2 for editing both XML and Python.

I used to use JCreator (a Java editor I already had on my computer) for the xml (since it let me conveniently collapse tags), but it tended to freeze up and crash a lot. I switched to mostly notepad2 and didn't reinstall it when my hardrive broke. Oh, WinMerge is useful to when updating a mod, but lss so when first writing it.


I always use notepad2 and IDLE for python. I really don't like the way IDLE works in general (no way to distinguish between spaces and tabs? how is that appropriate for a python editor?! Oddly limited scrolling and the fact that the programs recommended fix for a confusion between tabs and spaces is to turn all tabs to spaces really bug me too.) but it is useful for finding errors. (I know you didn't ask about python. I don't think I can limit myself to xml only modding, which is why I'm not making my modmod modular.)

So it looks like the UnitInfos file then. That is the only common thread I can think of between each of those that isn't in any of the others.

Do you understand XML enough to try and add those to the main FfH and see if they still cause crashes? All you'd have to do is copy/paste the correct chunks from the modules into the XML for normal FfH. I can't imagine that it is the code though, so it must be a problem with Vista loading up that particular file modularly.

I guess it could be some special character in the TEXT file for one of the entries in each Civlopedia too. To test that you would just delete all of the TEXT folders.

By using the installer I can guarantee ... Plus this way you are forced to start with all of them ...

Err... yes, unless someone points the installer to a bogus directory and then lifts what they want from there.

But I don't know anyone who'd do that. :eek:


I don't use an editor, I do all of my work directly in the XML using Notepad.

Ok, thanks for the info, xienwolf and MagisterC.

So the easy rule of thumb is that if a Module references another Module, they need to be combined. If it only references the main mod, then it is fine to leave it as a seperate entity.

I hadn't known that, thanks.

Seems that lots of the FfH specific tags reference the index instead of the Type :( So you can't use those in modules (promotion Pre-reqs, Improvement Upgrades...)

Ah, I just hit the "modular promotions don't work bug" with my own modmod.

At least it's easy to just drop the needed text into the XML file.

Though so far my _big_ problem has been remembering to rename the files properly. ;)

I can recommend a very good Notepad replacement (of course open source and free): Notepad++ http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net
It has syntax highlighting and you can collapse tags, and of course record macros very simply and quickly, use many enhanced text editing features etc. You should really take a look at it, it's a real time saver, starts up very fast and looks better. :)

Well, no need for bogus directories now, every module is individually uploaded and linked in the first post :)

EDIT: JDexter, I think you have made a convert of me :) Notepad2 did the coloration bit, which was nifty, and handled indentations fairly well. But with the plugins I am seeing available on Notepad++ I can see it helping quite a bit more. But even without plugins, the ability to collapse sections of indentation is PHENOMENALLY useful for me (since I have to count the number of entries quite often to find these damn indexing conflicts)

How does Notepad++ compare to Notepad2? It looks very similar, except for the syntax folding and the mention of bugs (I've yet to come across any in Notepad2)

Well, with one of the add-ons you can get the same utility as WinMerge. You get tabbed opening of XML (great for me), it can auto-close your tags (I occasionally accidentally delete some, so nice to back me up with).

I haven't played with it much, but so far the Macro is pretty sweet (Can do Find/Replace of multi-valued fields with it if you are tricky, so makes setting all events to 100 or 0 percent chance of being in game easier)

And that syntax folding alone makes me like it more than Notepad2.

EDIT: MC, you will want it for the "Search in File" plugin if nothing else :) You can search all the files in a directory for a set term. Great for finding obscure references to characters for the Quiz game :P

Yeah it does seem better (it also looks very similar to Code::Blocks, and I just realized it can be used for C++ too, so the same program can be used for modding xml, python, and the SDK), but it did freeze up for a while.

It still can't debug with it though, right? (Meaning I shouldn't delete IDLE just yet)

It still can't debug with it though, right? (Meaning I shouldn't delete IDLE just yet)

I used to debug a bit with IDLE, but it seems with BtS you can reload python modules "on the fly". If you start a single player game and Alt-Tab out to change the Python file, it reloads it when you Alt-Tab back into Civ. If I need to check what variables contain, I tend to get it to print them to a file to read whilst I'm Alt-Tabbed out.

The IDLE interface just got to be a bit of a pain in the backside.

I'm also having an play around at producing a GUI app using Python (and the wxPython libraries) - the first experiment with which is actually a text-editor for Civ with the BtS Python API built in (select a class from the list, select a function from it and it'll insert the function/arguments to the cursor). Mostly doing it for the Python practice - but if it turns out half-way useful I'll post it over here too.

Anycase - thread hijack in progress - I'll be quiet again now :)

I'll try adding them into the main XML. Thanks

Hey, great mod so far. Played my first game last night, and got steamrolled by Auric. No building requirements makes the AI seem a lot smarter...

Speaking of which, I looked in the WB and the Amurites were building Wizards. Is this an intended consequence of the no building req. option? If it gets the AI to use magic, then I'm all for it, but it might be overpowered.

Also, any chance you could include fireballs/meteors with 0 sight for next release? They're powerful enough, and the idea of a fireball scout never sat well with me.

It isn't normally like that in FfH, but xienwolf made it that way if you select the "Cheater AI" option. (I haven't actually downloaded the mod so I don't know if that is the same option as "no AI building requirements" or not.)


Personally I still don't like the idea of making the AI cheat so much to get ahead. I think that all buildings in the game should have bonuses (and maybe penalties) of their own, so the AI would build them for their own sake and so that the players can get more satisfaction out of building them too.

I was just wondering...I believe that the fact that Barbatos is a world unit it why it spawns only one of him. Could you make the other units spawned on unique features be world units too (possibly with limits higher than 1) and still be able to create more of them through summoning spells? I think you could. Assuming that none of these spawns are buildable or are spawned by multiple improvements this could be a good way to make the improvements dangerous, but not too dangerous. I think I may make Air Elementals world units and let the Maelstrom spawn a couple of them, but leave them as Air III summons too.

There isn't an option to allow the AI to cheat, I use the "No Building Requirements Option" and hide it so you cannot turn it off (if you want to disable this aspect you delete the Cheater Module). It is actually done by allowing you to build units which are exact duplicates of the higher Tier Magic users by using a building that requires the NEVER technology. Since nobody can ever get this technology, but the AI don't actually need the building, it allows them to directly build units that the player can never access :)


Glad to hear they were building Wizards, so far most people see them focusing pretty heavy on Summoning.

I'll be changing Fireballs & Meteors eventually I am pretty sure. But I wanted to see what other abilities I handed out before I did so. I am not sure if I will go with 0 visibility or with "cannot explore map" tag like I placed on some of my own summons.

You are correct, Barbatos is a world unit, thus only 1 ever spawns. I am contemplating making the other Unique Improvements spawn Unique Units as well, but I haven't decided on having a World Limit, or a Player Limit yet (one limits how many can EVER spawn, meaning it runs out eventually. The other limits how many can be spawned at a time. Meaning if you keep it alive then no more spawn, but the moment it dies more are available).

If I go with World Unit, then I really ought to make them immobile so that they guard their feature. And I don't like the idea of doing that too excessively, so I am thinking that I might make them a 1 or 2 unit Player limit so that they are out there somewhere, and can pop up and harrass you at any time through the entire game (but you will never suffer waves of them at a time).

If I stick with summoned units and assign a limit, then I am pretty sure it will interfere with summoning them, but possibly not, haven't tested that one yet.

Personally, I love making the Maelstrom spawn Sea Serpents. It puts some danger back into the waters :) I ought to make it spawn the Black Wind though, and change it from World Unit to Player Limit (thus making it essentially an Immortal)

I don't think that Maelstrom should spawn sea serpents or ships, but lighting and air elementals make sense since it is a big storm

I wouldn't be opposed to adding more aquatic unique features though, which could spawn dangerous creatures. It might also be good to have a new unique improvement (similar to a pirates cove) spawn the Sailors Dirge.




I just tested and having units be world units does not limit the number you can summon; it does however mean that everyone will be notified whenever you summon one.

Wonder if that same notice applies to World Units from features. I would imagine so...

Also, if they summon before the feature hits the limit you set then they will be taking up some of the limited slots.

I'm pretty sure you already get notices about the creation of Barbatos, so, yes, it does.

Yeah, but features tend to spawn their units very early, probably way too soon to get a summoner, much less one able to summon top tier summons (although that migth be easier with your cheater module)

Aye, so far the rate does seem to be pretty steep overall. But I was picturing setting both a Player Limit and a World Limit. Set something like a Player Limit = 5, World Limit = 100. Then you can have 5 out at a time, but once you have killed 100 they stop spawning completely.

I don't think that Maelstrom should spawn sea serpents or ships, but lighting and air elementals make sense since it is a big storm

I wouldn't be opposed to adding more aquatic unique features though, which could spawn dangerous creatures. It might also be good to have a new unique improvement (similar to a pirates cove) spawn the Sailors Dirge.




I just tested and having units be world units does not limit the number you can summon; it does however mean that everyone will be notified whenever you summon one.

Is there any way to make the spawned units have the summoned promotion? If the barbarians have the summoner trait, this could let the general area around the feature be dangerous, but you wouldn't have the problem of hordes of elementals conquering many civilizations.

Sadly no, you can only limit the duration of the unit if it actually goes through the process of BEING summoned. So I would have to station an immobile summoner on the tile (Barbatos all over again) to accomplish that.

There is no summoned promotion, duration is handled directly now. You could give the units limited duration, but that would require significant python or SDK changes; you can't do it in a modular modmod.

Sorry to disturb all that technical stuff I don't understand, just wanted to report that you can build lumbermills in Forest, but can't build those in Ancient forests.
Normally that would be okay, but Forests actually upgrade in time to Ancient Forest w/o losing the lumbermills improvement, thus it seems inconsistant.


On another note:
Does Earth mana improve the chance to get all those other resources that farms, pastures etc, can discover, too ?
Or does it still just work for copper, iron etc. ?


Thanks for providing this modular stuff, especially the summons :D
(and showing a non-computergeek a way to keep any personal gameplaychanges even when another patch comes out :D)

I'll fix the lumbermills (and probably some others that I missed) to work in AFs.

Unfortunately Earth Mana increases the chances for all of them (I was kinda hoping nobody would think to ask that again).

And thanks for calling me a computergeek ;) :P (Seriously though, thanks for feedback for the summons, I've been wondering if anyone is using them at all)

Anything to be wary of when doing modular loading? I turned it on, created a module for options, and one for making Freaks and Drowns never expire, and used a few of your modules (not the *new* magic one or the changed improvement ones) and started a game as the Sidar. The game crashes every so often immediately after clicking the turn button. I always play with the New seed option, since that usually helps with crashes recurring.

At first I thought it might be a problem with spawning things on features, since one of the spawns is the Drown, and I had redefined that in a module, but that feature is not on the map I am using.

I didn't have the patience to remove modules one by one, recreate maps, and see if the problem went away (since it is random anyway). It is also my first time with patch "k" as well.

Anyway, any things to watch for with modular loading in general?

The game crashes every so often immediately after clicking the turn button. I always play with the New seed option, since that usually helps with crashes recurring.

I was having the same problems last night.

I didn't have the patience to remove modules one by one

I removed a few at once (I think it was dimensional summons, new summons, cheater AI and dangerous features, sorry I can't remember exactly) and I still got crashes. Again, not repeatable, not tied to research or production.

Also, the features spawning creatures - the fruit of Yggdrasil got a little ridiculous. 10+ str 9 guardian vines by turn 150!?! Thank god they're immobile...

Yeah, I was willing to go with strong ones on Yggdrassil because they can't move. But I think that this weekend I will be completely overhauling that particular module. If not with completely new units then at the least I will limit it to 2 units out at a time per feature.

Unfortunately I do not know what might be causing crashes :( Upset to hear that any are happening as half the joy of this mod was that it is supposed to be bullet-proof and never really need de-bugging ;)

If I ever get a crash myself I'll let you know what I learn from logs and the like (you might want to turn yours on as well just in case you can catch something).

I didn't have the patience to remove modules one by one, recreate maps, and see if the problem went away (since it is random anyway).

There's a faster way. Divide your mods in half, test one half. It's either good or bad, and the other half is the opposite. Split the bad half in half again, test one of those sets. Repeat until you're done.

Alternatively, you may use this installer (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/128268/FallFromHeaven2_030K_Dimensional_Promotion_Deep_Fi x.zip) to get the Promotion & Spells working properly. Since this makes a change to the MAIN FfH XML, it is only compatible with 2.30 Patch K.

Please note that this installer overwrites a file that may already be modified by the Fall Further mod, namely Assets/XML/Units/CIV4PromotionInfos.xml

This results in the Orc Slaying and Furious promotions no longer being available to Fall Further. Merging the two files is pretty easy though.

Oh, maybe my problem is that I used the installer, then installed patch "k" on top of it (i wasn't interested in the new spells, at least not at the moment). I removed all modules except for:

Event Fixes
Changed Summons
Animals Build Lairs
Dangerous Special Features

I was under the impression that only the CIV4PromotionInfos.xml file was only needed for the New Summons module. Is this correct?

If I have a chance, I will remove all modules and just run with ModularLoading = 1 to see if I still have occasional crashes.

Yes, the only point of changing the base FfH CIV4PromotionInfos.xml file is to enable the Dimensional summons.

@falc: Yes, as I had pointed out, that deep fix is only able to work with Raw FfH 2 030 patch K. Any other mods and you will have to do it by hand. And since you have to actually change the XML from the module itself ot include the pre-reqs it can be a bit clunky of a solution for anyone who isn't already digging into the XML sadly.

@Elm: If you are just using the Modules, and not the Deep Fix, you should be fine no matter the order of installing this and installing patches for FfH (as long as you turn modules back on).

Actually though, quite a few of the modules make small changes to the PromotionInfos file within their modules. It is just that in the case of the Dimensional Summons I NEED to set pre-reqs, and you cannot do that in a module :(

Another thing you can test is if the animal lairs are causing the problem. If you go into worldbuilder and give yourself a couple of animals, then grant yourself the Tech "NEVER" you can build lairs yourself to see if building one of them causes a crash.

Nice modmod. I played my first game today, and I was slightly shocked to see on the second round a notice saying Hannah had been defeated on turn two. I opened World Builder, and there was a Djinn there glowing promotion-blue. I assume that was the reason?

Most likely :) The world is FAR less forgiving with the Animal Lairs & Dangerous Improvements Modules :) Eventually I will be adding more unique Barbarian & Animal units, so it will become even more dangerous.

I gave myself None, and a few animals and made the dens I could figure out how to make. Nothing happened.

But this time I enabled logging. The last lines of the xml log are:

[49836.406] Loading XML file xml\Interface/CIV4CameraInfos.xml
[49836.406] Load XML file xml\Interface/CIV4CameraInfos.xml SUCCEEDED
[49836.406] SetGlobalClassInfo (Civ4CameraInfos/CameraInfos/CameraInfo)
[49836.500] Loading XML file xml\Interface/CIV4InterfaceModeInfos.xml
[49836.516] Load XML file xml\Interface/CIV4InterfaceModeInfos.xml SUCCEEDED
[49836.516] SetGlobalClassInfo (Civ4InterfaceModeInfos/InterfaceModeInfos/InterfaceModeInfo)
[49836.516] info type NONE not found, Current XML file is: xml\Interface/CIV4InterfaceModeInfos.xml
[49836.516] info type NONE not found, Current XML file is: xml\Interface/CIV4InterfaceModeInfos.xml
[49836.516] info type NONE not found, Current XML file is: xml\Interface/CIV4InterfaceModeInfos.xml
[49836.516] info type NONE not found, Current XML file is: xml\Interface/CIV4InterfaceModeInfos.xml
[49836.516] info type NONE not found, Current XML file is: xml\Interface/CIV4InterfaceModeInfos.xml
[49836.531] info type NONE not found, Current XML file is: xml\Interface/CIV4InterfaceModeInfos.xml
[49836.531] info type NONE not found, Current XML file is: xml\Interface/CIV4InterfaceModeInfos.xml
[49836.625] SetGlobalActionInfo
[49836.625] Loading XML file xml\Units/CIV4FormationInfos.xml
[49836.641] Load XML file xml\Units/CIV4FormationInfos.xml SUCCEEDED
[49836.641] SetGlobalClassInfo (UnitFormations/UnitFormation)
[49836.797] Loading XML file xml\Misc/CIV4AttachableInfos.xml
[49836.797] Load XML file xml\Misc/CIV4AttachableInfos.xml SUCCEEDED
[49836.797] SetGlobalClassInfo (Civ4AttachableInfos/AttachableInfos/AttachableInfo)
[49836.906] Loading XML file xml\GameInfo/CIV4DiplomacyInfos.xml
[49836.984] Load XML file xml\GameInfo/CIV4DiplomacyInfos.xml SUCCEEDED
[49836.984] SetDiplomacyInfo (Civ4DiplomacyInfos/DiplomacyInfos/DiplomacyInfo)
[49837.219] Wrote GameInfo to cache
[49837.219] Loading XML file xml\Misc/Civ4QuestInfos.xml
[49837.234] Load XML file xml\Misc/Civ4QuestInfos.xml SUCCEEDED
[49837.234] SetGlobalClassInfo (Civ4QuestInfos/QuestInfo)
[49837.344] Loading XML file xml\Misc/Civ4TutorialInfos.xml
[49837.359] Load XML file xml\Misc/Civ4TutorialInfos.xml SUCCEEDED
[49837.359] SetGlobalClassInfo (Civ4TutorialInfos/TutorialInfo)
[49837.469] Loading XML file xml\GameInfo/CIV4EspionageMissionInfo.xml
[49837.469] Load XML file xml\GameInfo/CIV4EspionageMissionInfo.xml SUCCEEDED
[49837.469] SetGlobalClassInfo (Civ4EspionageMissionInfo/EspionageMissionInfos/EspionageMissionInfo)
[49837.469] info type NONE not found, Current XML file is: xml\GameInfo/CIV4EspionageMissionInfo.xml

Did you manage to get it to crash at all? I don't see anything in the log that you posted which jumps out at me as a problem specifically (NONE is just a tag placed on many things when you don't want it to actually do anything. And all of that is in the XML folder, so isn't a modular issue anyhow. Hence ought not to have crashed you).


And I forgot to mention, but it can be a bit tricky building those animal lairs. Each is pretty limited for where you can do it. Jungles for Tiger and Gorilla, FLAT tundra for Bears, Tundra in general for wolves, ocean for sea serpent, coast for Giant Tortoise, and I believe it was plains for lions.

I guess if you wind up getting another crash and you can upload a savegame I might be able to play with that some as well, see if the same happens for me as well (you'll have to let me know precisely which modules you had and which patch you were running FfH under of course)

I gave myself None, and a few animals and made the dens I could figure out how to make. Nothing happened.

But this time I enabled logging. The last lines of the xml log are:
<snip>

That XML log can get BIG, trust me. Just starting a game can generate hundreds of lines, so don't look at just the last bits.

I don't know exactly what option I turned on somewhere but I got popups from XML errors, which helped a lot. I'll check tonight.

I usually avoid mod mods (at least until FFH is finished), but the temptation of having the Circle of Gaelan and wizard/summoner mechanics working was to much to resist. So, I installed this the other day. I have been getting crashes and infinite turns on occasion since then, although that could be from the most recent patch as much from this mod, since I installed both at the same time. It is not so bad that I will be getting rid of the mod, though.

I also liked the idea of unique features spawning monsters... in theory. I eventually got rid of that module, as having an entire civilization's worth of water elementals running around was a little much. Also, more frustrating, I kept getting kicked off and denied access to the unique feature right next to my city. I think it would be nice if they stopped spawning units if they were within a civilizations cultural borders, or if a unit was fortified on top of the feature (or both). Otherwise it was just frustrating having my civilization's production and happiness suffer every few turns because I was suddenly denied access to the Dragon's Hoard or something.

My favorite unique feature spawning by far was the Yggdrasil. The unit on it didn't move, which was a plus, but the Tree itself looked corrupted and polluted when I first came across it. The idea that it became overgrown and evil during the age of Ice was a nice little flavor touch that I would love to see in the main game for more of the features (for example, a barbarian city of top of the Ruins of Patria, or a witch doctor on the fire temple). Nothing as major as Barbatos, but enough of an inconvenience early game to have the player take notice.

All in all, good work. I look forward to future changes. :goodjob:

Double post. Sorry about that.

After that last crash, I have not had another. I have played some 70 or more turns since then. I am playing on a standard sized map in window mode. Lots of lions, skeletons and with the Dragon Bones and Tomb of Sucellus. Of course, now that I have posted, a crash is probably imminent. :D

I started over and played with WorldBuilder again. I created some Lion Prides, and tried to establish dens with them. The dens never get created, and a mouse-over says that it will take some millions of turns to establish the den.

Also, we does the "Never" tech allow so many spell upgrades and cult of the dragons?

Oh, one more oddity. Sometimes after creating Dens, animals teleport across the map. I am assuming that is because the are "escaping" from a barbarian animal that spawns on the den. (since I owned the bear that created the den, for example).

WQell Verdian, you (and quite a few others) should love the next update. My main change is going to be to the dangerous features. Primarily they will have a limit to how many creatures they can spawn at once, and how many they can spawn throughout the game.

My ideal is to create unique units for almost every feature, but till then I am looking to stick with summoned units as much as possible (so Letum Frigus and the Maelstrom will change).

Looks like I may have forgotten to give the lions a workrate :) I tried to make sure to set it to 1 turn for building the dens on each beast, so I'll get that fixed probably (wierd thing is that lions can cast a spell to create a den, "Release to the Wild" which I don't remember ever seeing before. Maybe that was lion prides...)

Never is used in general to forbid access to various things which are used to make the game work. Promotions are linked to it so you cannot buy them via level-ups. I THINK that the same would be accomplished by just leaving the available unitcombats blank, but this way is one which works for certain :)

Yes, most likely the animals jumping across the map was due to a barbarian version trying to spawn instantly. Fortunately only Barbarian can normally build dens so it isn't an actual issue (I hope).


By way of Preview, the future plans for the Unique Features:

Maelstrom: Spawns The Sailor's Dirge. Will continue to spawn him anytime that he dies, so he will terrorize the waters all game.

Pool of Tears: Spawns Echoes of Sorrow, which will sap the will out of anyone who comes too close.

Letum Frigus: Spawns up to 4 Frozen Souls at a time.

Tomb of Sucellus: Spawns 1 Wandering Alchemist at a time

Dragon Bones: Spawns 3 Desert Cobra at a time.

And the rest will have various limits placed on the current spawns for how many they can have at once and over the course of the game. So you will still have to clean them off occasionally through the early game, but by endgame they stop spawning eventually.

Update on the vista issue. I've removed all of the components with unitcombats and integrated the ones I wanted into the XML and it still gives me the crash.

Maelstrom: Spawns The Black Wind. Will continue to spawn him anytime that he dies, so he will terrorize the waters all game.

o.O I hope you mean the Sailor's Dirge? Otherwise that's just mean to the Lanun...

I dure did mean that one :) Oopsies :)

Wouldn't the sailors dirge be sucked into the malestrom right away though?

Nope, it seems that the actual act of moving into the maelstrom is what triggers it. If you just spawn on the thing you are fine. And even if it did, there is only a CHANCE you are destroyed, it is more likely that you are moved a fair distance away at random. So he'd just spawn again if he does get destroyed.

I made the changes to the Dangerous Special Features to limit how many can spawn at a time, as well as placing the Sailor's Dirge from the Maelstrom. No change at all to the Pool of Tears or the Letum Frigus yet since they both spawn units which are buildable. I am working on some unique units for those two at the moment.

Also loaded up a new graphic for the Midas Flies. I really like how it turned out (accidentally).

Both are linked in the comprehensive changelog. Just delete the old folders and put these in their place (overwrite should be fine, I don't think I removed any files, just added).


EDIT: Playtested the Dangerous Features a bit differently this second time around and found that I didn't manage to limit how many can be out at once, just how many can be out total. So it is still a VERY dangerous world in the beginning, but it is less annoying at the end at least.

The download link in the first post does not appear to work for me. I get a 404.

I have re-uploaded the file through CFC's main downloads database instead of the Easy Upload system which I had been using before. So it is available again now.

The individual modules will remain hosted via the Easy Upload system however, so will not be available until that is repaired and made available for public use once more.

I dont know if Kael kept what i informed him about what i did, but i did the modular thing around three months and gave him quite a few items that need to be changed if anyone ever did do some modular stuff. If not sorry, i didnt keep the info either.

I've run into a couple of them. For now I am just flagging things which I cannot change so that I am aware of it and attempting to work around the issue (like for the enchantment summons). He tried to fix promotions to work, but whatever he did failed to fix it, so for now it is just a gimped tool.

Still a lot which can be done fortunately.

Two issues:

1. Having modular content enabled, even if I don't put any mods into the folder, causes a crash in vista.

2. I still have the problem with dimensional promos if I put everything into the main XMLs.

Well if you are cutting and pasting from my module to get the dimensional promotions that is because I simply don't have that data entered. If I enter the pre-reqs at all in a module they show up for Accuracy and Aeron's Bounty, so I have to leave the fields blank.

I would normally say to download the "Deep Fix" to get it right, but that sorta isn't an option right now with the upload system fried :( So you have to look at the other spells to see what to add. Basically if you copy EARTH2 and EARTH3, then just change any place that says EARTH to DIMENSIONAL you should be fine (Except for the buttons). Also if you are putting things directly into the main mod XML then you will need to change the requirements for the Dimensional 3 Summon (Space Fold) to not limit itself to Summoners only.

I'll make a note in the first post to indicate that Modular XML doesn't seem to work with Vista :( Sorry to hear that.

OK, I want to strangle the Vista dev team. I downloaded your mod again, reinstalled FfH, Fall Further v12 and your stuff, leaving the Modular loading turned off in the config. It now works, even though the load flag in the config file is set to zero. Some of the new lairs and animals aren't in the game even though they are in the folder. Oh, and the ones that are in have their build orders referenced in the pedia, but cannot use it.

For instance, sea serpents have 'Can call to the deeps' in their entry but it isn't hypertexted and the relevant order and improvement don't exist on the game.

That... is strange. So somehow with Vista it is trying to load the modules, and doing it halfway, with the flag off. And just crashing with it on?

Does deleting my modules clear the reference to calling to the depths from the Sea Serpent when you reload?

Actually I just loaded up my stuff and it doesn't hyperlink when working properly, nor show up in the improvements section evidently. So go into worldbuilder and give yourself a Sea Serpent (in the ocean) and the Tech Never, see if you can build a lair (button is the Nuke button, big red button, and lair should be a miniature maelstrom).

I just want ask if your going to change the name for the spirit spells. Spirit falls under the god of wisdom, Sirona, who is considered to be a 'good' god. Shouldn't her spells sound less wicked? Like Shining Soul or Spirit of Truth or Aura of Glory or Righteous Cause.

It could be that the spirit/aura/entity shows the error of their ways to convert, or show the shining aura of the entity is too blinding/shows them how tiny they are and causes fear.

Well my take on it is that with Divine you are following the God of the Sphere. With the Sorcery & Summoning, you are just accessing the raw element directly. And who is to say that man cannot fall on his own and access the corrupt version of a Good God? Or rise above and access the Good verion of a Corrupt god?

Mostly though it will probably wind up changing when I get done with the manual and sit down to tie graphics to each of the summons. Whatever I can find that seems somewhat fitting will wind up setting the flavor of what the spell is. But for the moment I just have the raw idea of scaring people away or essentially Mind Control, neither of which is completely what I would call "Good"

And honestly, I somewhat agree with prior criticism that they are more Mind than Spirit. But I already had 2 for Mind, and I really wanted these 2 units SOMEWHERE so I could play with the ability :) (Bloody hard to think of something that is Spirit, but not Mind for me though....)

Well, there were certainly evil spirit spells (think: every spell ever used by Laroth), but I agree that those don't seem appropriate for spirit. I honestly don't think I could think of a decent summon for spirit (not that I think all the spheres need summons), but more sorcery spells could be cool. In general I think that adding more spells with the same promotion requirements but also alignment restrictions could be really cool. Or, some could be cross-sphere spells. (I think a spirit spell that causes unhappiness or even revolt in rival cities would be good, as would one that lets you sacrifice population and/or living units in order to summon powerful pieces of equipment would be great)

Well, to me I think that the abilities match, one could think of old Kung Fu movies. A person fights another person to gain understanding or convert someone to his cause. Or the old master who just stands there and no one dares to attack them because they are too frighten by his mere presence.

If you do want to change spirit later on the ony thing that comes to mind is a summon that can cast a random (good) spells on the units to make them stronger. Like Courage, Sirona's Touch, Moral, Bless, shield of faith. It could also act like the flagbearers of Bannor, that gives strenght to units around it.

Yeah, I had thought of a couple like that, but since I am limiting myself to XML and trying to keep each Module contained so that it won't mess with other ones it gets tricky adding nifty things :)

I could go with something like "Impressive Tutor" and "Intimidating Presence" for names. The second one does work fairly well, but then it sounds more like a promotion for a unit than a seperate entity, though in the minor description of the summon I basically say that is what it is. And the first one just doesn't fit for me (plus I love the word Insidious. Flows nicely)

:eek:

Maybe U already know Xien but every time I play a different civ

I 've always the avatar of talli (airlike) not the others.

When I use dimensional mana with an adept I can directly use the 2nd and 3rd level of dimensional spell.

PS : I like your mod :goodjob:

I don't quite follow you on the Avatar bit, but as for the Dimensional it is an unfortunate issue I can't quite get around yet. I cannot assign Pre-requisites to any promotions in a Module, the game doesn't associate them properly. So an adept can get those promotions, but fortunately cannot use the summons until he has summoning, and I blocked the rank 3 so that only conjurers can use the spell (So hero units should avoid getting Dimensional).

Glad you like em :)

Just occured to me that there is one small incompatability with my Modules and other Mods:

In the AI Cheater Module I had to re-define the allowable units for each civ that has a UU in the arcane branch, and the Khazad & Barbarians since they have no Arcane Units. This means that if you use it (just the one module) with Fall Further you will not have the new blocks to keep you from building any UU's which Vehem has added (mostly that means Hero units).

So if you use this with Fall Further, you'll have to modify or delete the "Allow AI to directly build Top Level Magic Users" module.

Vehem was nice enough to provide me the relevant information, so attached is a new version of the CivilizationInfos.xml for using the AI Cheater Module with Fall Further. Just open the Zip file and overwrite the folder by the same name, nesting from that point in is handled for you in the file structure.

I created some altered game speeds that would work well as a modular mods, do you think they could possibly be included (I'm assuming that you don't change CIV4GameSpeedInfo.xml and CIV4CultureLevelInfo.xml in your other modular mods).

Speed:
- Luddite
Marathon tech/inflation/Research GP Pop, everything else set to quick mode speeds. Really forces you to specialize, though everyone will probably want mysticism and writing!

- Army Heavy
Epic Tech/Marathon Inflation, Normal Buildings / Growth, Quick Units

- Cheap Buildings
As Normal Speed, except buildings cost the same as on Quick Speed.

See attached for the minimod folder structure. If you like it, feel free to add it. It doesn't change any of the current speeds, just adds these three.

171324

I could definitely see the Cheap Buildings speed being quite popular for many people :) I'll set up a link to your post here in the first post to direct people's attention to it.

Glad to see other people making modules :) I've been wrapped up in the manual lately so haven't had a chance to see what else I can do.

Hmm I forgot to include cheap buildings in the culture file. I'll upload a new one shortly.

Do you have something against having every city go to legendary in one turn, with no culture requirements? ;)

I made this mistake myself when I added a custom speed to my modmod. I only added one, which was basically Epic as far as research/culture/inflation/etc go, but between normal and quick for buildings and units

I wonder about GPP points... Perhaps another speed that doubles or triples GPP points, with tech rate reduced... Or perhaps just a change to the GPP mechanism to increase the # of great people spawned... I've always liked great people :-)

I got distracted by a movie for a bit there, but I just got back on and I was about to link your post but found that it was an invalid link. I sorta wondered about the whole .rar thing since that isn't typically an allowed attachment type.

I'd say be careful to keep the Grigori in mind if you alter GPP too heavily. Might make them unstoppable.

I'm sorry would it be better if I put up a zip?

I got distracted by a movie for a bit there, but I just got back on and I was about to link your post but found that it was an invalid link. I sorta wondered about the whole .rar thing since that isn't typically an allowed attachment type.

I'd say be careful to keep the Grigori in mind if you alter GPP too heavily. Might make them unstoppable.

True... heh. Just thinking out loud. Perhaps instead of altering the GPP levels, just give all specialists x2 GPP points. Should keep grigori from getting too many additional adventurers (though it would help all other civs more than them)...

Oh additionally - As the Amurites, I can't seem to get my Conjurers to take Body II for the "second skin" summon....

Actually that way would HURT the grigori as then adding in 1 specialist is less of an option for speeding up your GP generation at a small risk of getting a non-adventurer. Though with some micro-management you can still manage to swap the extra specialist out halfway through for the same effect as running a single specialist had before.

Not sure what the issue was earlier, but it was claiming that the file didn't exist and wouldn't open anything. It works for me now though.

Wow... NONE of the new summons will work. I just looked it over and you need sorcery or Divine in order to get Body, Spirit & Enchantment to go to rank 2 or 3.

I guess it is pretty safe to say that nobody else has really tried those summons out then :) (and I've only tested them by cheating through Worldbuilder. The one real game I played I just used the Dimensional Summons.)

Pity too, I really liked how the Midas Flies unit tured out :(

What was the point of the Midas Flies anyway? Are they also a summoned creature? I was never able to capture one and with only 2 offense, it doesn't look as though they will be collecting many bounties.

Yes, they are a summoned creature, and were made weak because they have Affinity for Enchantment Mana. So at the worst they would be 3 :strength: because you have to have 1 source of Dimensional mana to have gotten the summon in the first place. But toss in a couple more sources of Enchantment and you wind up with a very powerful unit which rakes in the cash (and as many of them as you want since there is no limit on production of Conjurers)

M. dumb reporting in!

So... I install your ... installer 0.902 in the folder specified (whhich is the main FFH folder).
I check Fall from Heaven 2 030.ini and see that Modular modding is already at 1. good.
I launch the game. No new options to be seen.

Care to enlighten me? What is wrong?

Ok. I think I get it, after reading several time your first post:

Any change which you do not want to use, you simply delete the folder which it is in.

so this imply that by default all changes are active. Perhaps it would be clearer if you explained how it works explicitely. I was searching for options to check etc. :)


questions: How can I change the number and spawn frequency of Hellfire hole?
Are changes to event frequency dynamic or do they require a new game to be started with?

If you modify the event frequency it will take effect next time you load the game. That small modification shouldn't break savegames either.

I haven't done anything to modify the spawning of Hellfire, not entirely certain I can modify that one with pure XML actually.

And I'll make note somewhere of the fact that there is no new options screen :)


Also, I am going to attach a file which can be used to fix up all of the promotions so that the summons can be used once again (or for the first time as the case may be).

Also, I am going to attach a file which can be used to fix up all of the promotions so that the summons can be used once again (or for the first time as the case may be).

What was the problem?

Summoning wasn't a PreReqOr for Body, Mind, Spirit & Enchantment, so nobody capable of summoning could actually learn how to summon the new spells.

Summoning wasn't a PreReqOr for Body, Mind, Spirit & Enchantment, so nobody capable of summoning could actually learn how to summon the new spells.

Ah. Thanks.

Midas flies sounded fun - Gibbon with combat 5, twincast, and a couple sources of enchantment, I can see a lot of gold being raked in :-).

Plus they just look cool ;)

My favorite of all of them is still the Space Fold though.

Xien-

I've been using the Event increasing mod from your Modules, and I have a couple of questions:

1) Does using enabling "Living World" still double the amount of events set in your modular file?

2) I've set the integer in your module to 12, and I'm still not seeing many events fire off, whether I use Living World or not....I have modular loading enabled, so I'm pretty sure it's being used, it just doesn't seem to have the impact I was expecting for so great a change. Any suggestions?

Either way, thanks for the hard work...Modmods don't get enough credit for how much love and attention goes into them:goodjob:

Well, that particular module is a really simple one designed for those folks who don't want to muss about with XML much. You can totally skip it and just go to Beyond the Sword\Assets\XML\GlobalDefines.xml, set the same value in there to make it effective for BtS and all mods that don't personally change it as well.

At 12 you really ought to be seeing some serious increase in events occuring, but there is always the possibility that you simple don't have any available for a long period of time. Calabim Refugees is the one I generally used to test things out since it is repeatable and has essentially no requirements. So if you set that to a 100% chance to be included in your game you can get a better feel for how frequently events are really triggering for you.

Can the available event percentages be altered mid-game, or are they allocated and fixed at the beginning of a new game? I'll update the events XML to put all the events in, all the time (except Blight, which I have disabled, it's just not fair to the AI and annoying to me), but I'd like to have it effect my current game....will it?

Thanks for all the great feedback, btw!:)

No, the check to see if each event will be included in the game will only happen when you start the game (generate the map). You can change the event frequency mid-game though, as long as you re-load the entire game.

I updated Modular FfH to work under 2.031.

Having placed new lines in the XML actually managed to break the modules, as well as removing huge chunks of the magic system :)

Initially I was going to remove the new Summon Spells, but I decided I may as well leave them in the game for people who enjoy them to have more variety from the current spell selection. I might add in more spells at a later date, but for now I really need to finish work on the manual :)

Circle of Gaelan fix is working for 2.031a, but I would ask that people give it a chance for a little bit without this fix to see if Kael has it working proper yet and provide feedback if it is not. This workaround is still pretty imperfect :)


I removed the Dangerous Special Features for now, I may revisit the idea some later day, but my initial design for it was that the spawned creatures ought to belong to the player if inside his cultural borders, so since it doesn't do that I ditched it.

I also realized that the method I was using to let all the new animals build lairs could also be making the Barbarian player buy pointless promotions or otherwise mess up the already floundering AI, so I removed that bit. Lairs still spawn at map creation though.

I updated Modular FfH to work under 2.031

Yay! It's very nice to actually see the AI with those units.


Initially I was going to remove the new Summon Spells, but I decided I may as well leave them in the game...

Good!

Also:
I posted a modular mod to "spice up" the Elohim as discussed in another thread.

It includes a large Civilizationsinfos.xml file containing an entry for every civ. I thought it was necessary to restrict the UU to one civ, but it makes the mod it incompatible with any mod altering that file. (If I understand things correctly.) Was it necessary?

Heh heh. I read your thread before I read this post. It IS neccessary if you leave them without any other Pre-reqs unfortunately. I posted some thoughts on it in your thread. Also I am linking the first post to your thread as well for people wanting this module.

At 12 you really ought to be seeing some serious increase in events occuring, but there is always the possibility that you simple don't have any available for a long period of time. Calabim Refugees is the one I generally used to test things out since it is repeatable and has essentially no requirements. So if you set that to a 100% chance to be included in your game you can get a better feel for how frequently events are really triggering for you.

True that, Xien....I tweaked the percentages for the individual events (set a bunch of them to 100% availability in game) and the 12 really started to matter. Seeing alot more events, now...it's quite entertaining, really, and seems to select from the AI's and human players pretty evenly.

Thanks again for the tips!:goodjob:

Very minor nitpick: Your copy of Fall from Heaven 2 031.ini still refers to version 030 (as name of mod, etc).

Yeah I caught that one after releasing it and figured it wasn't QUITE enough to bother re-packing and uploading everything ;) But nice catch.

I have a question.

I was trying to add a building to a module. But the BuildingInfos file kept failing to load. The problem turned out to be the schema file.

I was using the BuildingsSchema file I'd copied from the FFH2 0.31d buildings folder.

I couldn't get my building to load until I replaced that schema file with the BuildingsSchema file from your AI cheat module.

I was using as a template a building definition from 0.31d, btw.

I saw only 1 difference between the two schema files: Your file has a creation time 3 hours earlier than the other file. And if there were any differences I'd expect the 0.31d file to be the only one that'd work...

So my question is: Why does setting the file's creation to 3 hours earlier help?

Or is there something else I'm missing? I'm hoping it's that.

Well, I don't see any differences in the two files either using a comparison program. Unless you are using an older version of my Modules from before I updated it for .31. Though I cannot recall any fields being added to .31's Building Schema...

Did you maybe do something different with naming the files? I don't know if that particular aspect of the XML is case sensitive, but something like that could be involved.

Thanks very much for checking.

The problem finally stopped. I started getting the same error even with the second file... but not always. Oh, how I hunted for typos! But I shut down my computer over supper and when I booted up again the errors were gone. I guess I was getting some intermittent error that just happened to stop for a bit when I used your file.

Updated the first post to have each Module as an individual .zip file. Also the second post will be used to track other modules posted on the forums.

Since I do not use the installer anymore, that means that people need to remember to set up the Modular Loading for themselves. If there are too many questions about how to do it I may go back to using the installer setup and just make a seperate one for each module or something.

School should finish in about a month. Hopefully I can complete the manual within a week or 2 of that, then I plan to sit down and create more summons to give some love to each sphere, and then I should start working on new Barbarian Hero units and associated Equipment. Though that might have to be a seperate mod if I decide to use some Python. I do prefer to remain as modular as possible though.

Speaking of barbarians, have you seen the Barbarians Scenario from Warlords? If you have the time and interest do you think you could make a modmod based on that? :D What I know about programming you can put on the head of a pin.

If you are not familar with it, the barbs are a playable civ in their own right. There objective is to pillage and raze cities as they move across the map. They receive gold from such actions with which new and and improved units can be bought. No territory is ever held. Pretty cool I think.

Speaking of barbarians, have you seen the Barbarians Scenario from Warlords? If you have the time and interest do you think you could make a modmod based on that? :D What I know about programming you can put on the head of a pin.

If you are not familar with it, the barbs are a playable civ in their own right. There objective is to pillage and raze cities as they move across the map. They receive gold from such actions with which new and and improved units can be bought. No territory is ever held. Pretty cool I think.

It isn't hard to play as the barbs (just change bPlayable from a 0 to a 1 in CIV4CivilizationInfos.xml), but there is a problem; you won't be the only barbarian state in the game. The Barbs are hardcoded in the game engine to some degree, so a human lead barb state isn't the same one as the normal barbs. You will still be able to conduct diplomacy, make peace treaties, etc, and you will be permanently at war with the other barbarian state. It is also really annoying because it is really hard to tell you territory/cities/units apart.

The Barbarian Scenario worked like this, except it playing with the NO BARBS option. The way of purchasing units was basically the same type of code used in Rhye's or in several other mercenaries mods.

Thanks, I take a look at it and see if it is similar to what I have in mind.

What he said I guess :) I haven't seen the mod myself.

I looked at what MC suggested and it's not what I really had in mind. My idea would involve replacing the AI barbs with a human player. The barbs would have no use for the trappings of civilization or religion as it exists on Erebus and, therefore, no territory to worry about. They would attempt to destroy cities, improvements and even resources (Roasted/raw pig or horse would feed the warriors. Incense, reagents, copper, etc. can only be used against them) in the pursuit of gold. Their god would be Mammon. The barbs would use that gold to purchase more units so they can destroy more of civilization. Besides the usual suspects, Men, Elves, Dwarves, etc. (every civ has malcontents) would be available to join them. The rising AC would have no or little impact on them. While the Sheiam are planning the Apocalypse. The barbs would be bringing about the Apocalypse. If the human player got things going, it would be like a horde of locust swarming across the map. I know the concept needs more fleshing out but that's what I'm generally thinking about. Sorry for hijacking your thread but I could not resist when you mentioned new barb heroes. You and, for that matter, MC know your stuff when it comes to tinkering with FfH. Thanks for listening. :)

Well, I haven't played around with changing Civs too much, but I would imagine you could create a new Civilization to perform this mechanic. Have them possess the Barbarian Trait so that you are at peace with the Barbarian Civilization, and force them to raze all cities so that they cannot keep any. Also deny them the settler unitclass (so that they cannot even get them from the random goody hut).

If you never settle a city to begin with, I think that the game keeps you in a condition where loss is determined by having no more units remaining, so the only way you will ever lose is if someone completely wipes you out.

Also give them the raider trait (for more gold from pillaging), and possible a UU version of everything so that you can have each unit provide extra gold from combat. Or at least plenty of units with this functionality. Each of the UU should be assigned bAlwaysHostile so that you can properly rampage with them without bothering about war declarations. Though in reality you are essentially always at war with everyone.

Not having any cities already solves the dilema of religions and trade not being an issue.