Having recently watched several "angel vs. fallen angel" movies, like "Constantine" and "The Prophesy", I starting thinking about a "Heaven and Hell" mod, that pits the forces of good and evil against each other, and mankind is stuck in the middle.

Here's the deal. The map is flat, with 3 sections. The top section is "Heaven" (obviously). The bottom section is "Hell." In between is "Earth" or "Realm of Men." Separating Heaven and Earth is the "sky", with the same effects as oceans. Separating Earth and Hell could be a dozen rows of mountains (earth’s mantle), with 1 single passageway.

Here's the deal. You could be Good or Evil, and the only way to win is by cultural victory. But it's not called culture points, but "souls." And the only way to gain these souls is by harvesting them on Earth, in the form of resources. So Heaven and Hell each get 5 cities, and each city has a corporation that generates culture, named "Good" and "Evil". On Earth are scattered resources called "Souls," and the Good/Evil corporations can get access to these resources by either trading with humans (like Religion and the Occult), or by conquering the humans.

On Earth are scattered human races. Most should be neutral, while a few "societies" (I'd rather stay away from "good" or "evil" races...) are aligned with Heaven or Hell. Like "Land of the Faithful" is aligned with good, and "Land of Sin" is aligned with evil, and both societies are teamed with their respective sides. The rest are neutral, and must be fought over by the two forces, either by force or diplomacy.

And to differentiate the two sides, they get unique bonuses and handicaps. Good units will have a major handicap if fighting against human units, because angels shouldn't be killing men, whether good or bad. But they can travel freely from heaven and earth, and even enter hell via that one pathway. Hell's forces don't have the handicap while fighting humans, but their movement is restricted, because God had cast them out and locked them in hell in the first place. They could only access Mankind by that one path (so Angels could stand guard to stop them), plus they could never enter Heaven. Both forces travel freely among mankind, and are unseen by most of man’s units, though they can easily see each other.

So to gain power on Earth, Heaven would have to use diplomacy, or enlist the aid of the humans aligned with Good (crusades, anybody?). Hell, on the other hand, could just crush the humans with their demonic forces, unless challenged by the Angels. Since angels are invisible to all humans (except allies of either side), they could reside in neutral land and combat Hell's attempts at subjugating neutral humans.

Technology unlocks certain specific abilities. For example, "Gateway to Hell" allows Hell to build a single national wonder that can transport 1 demonic unit per turn to any friendly city (like the airlift ability). This is useful because angels and demons can only be born in Heaven and Hell, and this allows the Devil to bring his forces to earth easier. Heaven's techs could be more along the lines of discovering holy relics, say "Arc of the Covenant," which allows Heaven to build non-angel forces on Earth (clerics and paladins).

The timeframe could be either middle ages or modern. Angels/Demons strength would be adjusted to compensate. Say 3 or 4 times the strength of the typical human unit, so Heaven has to protect both the good and neutral humans, often without man’s knowledge. Example: “Ahh, that winged beast with strength of 30 is about to kill our knights! Wait, what happened? Something came out of nowhere and banished that demon!” Meanwhile, if that Str36 arch-angel decided to fight the sinful humans, he’d be reduced to, say, 25% strength, so he’d be weaker than his human counterpart. This gives the "Good" player the challange of having to rely on an AI playing as human. Just like how God has to deal with us annoying humans and our free will.

What do you think?

Interesting concept. Can you mod at all? I cannot.

It sounds interesting. if i could mod i would but i can't, so i won't. But i really like the concept. However, the whole "creating" angels and demons should be more clearly explained. does it work like regular production? or not?

I can't mod on Civ4 either. I did some modding with gameplay for Civ3, but only using the utilities that came with the game. Going from Civ3 to Civ4 is like QBasic to Java...I can't make the transition.


It sounds interesting. if i could mod i would but i can't, so i won't. But i really like the concept. However, the whole "creating" angels and demons should be more clearly explained. does it work like regular production? or not?

The angels and Demons are regular units, with a few types of archangels or archdemons as "National Units" so they would be in limited supply. Generally, we could follow the heiarchy of angels (Cherubs, Seraphens, etc.), with the higher levels in limited quantities. You can't have a army full of Michaels and Gabriels tossing pillers of fires all day long. Those would be Great Generals, since Michael more or less single handedly pwn'd Lucifer's forces with the flaming sword.

I just like the idea of fighting in neutral lands, and having to utilize the neutral forces for more then just fodder. Even in BtS, when you're fighting on your teammate's or your vassal's land, you're still fighting independently, rarely paying heed to what your teammate or vassal is doing.

The execution itself wouldn't that complicated, I don't see many real coding changes you'd have to make, more of just the regular making new technologies and civilizations, and also some new art for skies and units. I can do the coding part if I wanted, but there's no way I could do art.