Orbis - the original thread

Ahwaric

Shrubbery-hugger
Joined
Nov 12, 2005
Messages
1,217
Location
Kraków, Poland


The purpose of this mod is to add more flavor to economy, combat and civilizations in Fall from Heaven 2. Some mechanics from warlords & BtS that are not used in FfH were added.

Download here: 0.22 (changelog in the next post)
Patch: 0.22 b (breaks saves)
Quickfix (requires full patch): None ATM
Detalied documentation (outdated...): Orbis documentation 0.14 c.pdf (Pdf reader required)

Installation: Just download and follow the instructions. It does not overwrite FfH directory, but you have to install FfH 2 (040) and patch it to y first.
Note: Be sure to check if the right folder is chosen ("Orbis"). The default one might be Fall Further or an earlier version of Orbis.
Also, RUN ONE GAME IN PLAY NOW MODE TO CLEAR GAME OPTIONS (you do not have to play it, just start one). If your units can't heal, you can't build anything or research is disabled you did not do it and some options from other mods are messing with Orbi options. More info here.

Up to date source included in the main downloads, can be found in mod folder
The most heavily changed xml files are in Orbi.xlsm, a modified FfH editor. Look for red (changed) & green (added) parts.
You can get it here: Orbis.xlsm 0.22 b (office 2007 required)

Main Features
  • New civilizations:
    Mechanos (steampunk civ)
    Scions of Patria by Tarqueline (from Fall Further)
    Mazatl - jungle lizards (from Fall Further)
  • Flavoured Doviello - totems, werewolves & shapechanging mages
  • More magic for Amurites
  • 11 Guilds – 9 BtS-style (corporations), 2 "flavor" ones. Guildmasters have unique abilities.
    Spoiler :
    Three-field order – food stock, farmer can discover new farm/plantation resources
    Bank of Vivaldi – bank network, banker can improve economy of the city
    Hansa – merchant company, trader is a combat unit, can conduct trade missions
    Prospector’s Guild – dwarven miner’s guild, prospector is dwarven combat unit, can discover mine/quarry resources
    Globe troupe – wandering artists, thespian can add culture to a city
    Circle of transmuters – alchemists, provides reagents, alchemist can add research
    Order of Arches – architects and cathedral builders, archtect can hurry building
    Intricate Weavers – cloth makers, weaver can establish a temporary tapestry workshop
    Circle of Eight - mages, magister can cast metamagic I & II spells

    Guild of the Nine - expanded mercenaries
    Ratcatchers Guild - thieves, espionage
  • Cult of the dragon as unadoptable religion
  • Civ-specific pagan temples for all civilizations
  • Added many and changed even more buildings
  • Reworked units – no more melee domination. Ranged attack for archers & siege engines
    Spoiler :
    Melee – city attackers and mounted counter (polearm line is back)
    Archery – city defenders, ranged attackers
    Mounted – field domination, hit & run tactics (increased withdrawal rate, both attack & defensive - be careful with these wolf riders...), siege engines counter (flanking)
    Siege – no more direct attacks; have weak strength and powerful ranged attack; need to be guarded all the time, unless you want enemy to capture them; get some free xp to compensate for not being able to fight
    Naval – deep changes, some ships removed, some added; have ranged attack, do collateral damage
  • Great generals generated form combat experience
  • Explorable animal dens
  • More diverse terrain
    Spoiler :
    New feature – swamp
    Forest & jungle gives normal commerce bonus at the river bank, jungle +1 hammer
    Added several new resources, one removed (gunpowder)
    Trolls and their ruins in the swamps – only removable with swamp draining
  • Tech tree and technological requirements changed, rebalanced civics
  • Spell changes - no more priest/mages, each priest has set number of spells.
  • Other flavor additions: more unit graphics, more civ-specific art styles .
  • Tweaked Lairs

    And much more...

Credits:
Fall from Heaven Team - the greatest of all mods
Fall Further Team - I am stealing a lot ;)
Main Menu theme: image Dana Daukshta, music Host of Seraphim by Dead Can Dance
Mechanos theme - Ben Houge (the wheel clan theme from Arcanum), leader art by Justin Sweet
Spoiler :
Ideas stolen: Fall Further, Apepis, , sputnik 323, Marnok, Tarqueline, MagisterCultuum, Jabie, MaxAstro
Graphics:seZereth, Woodelf, Danrell, Hrochland, C.Roland, Master Lexx (GreenMod), Psychic_Llamas and whole Warhammer Mod, Vehem and Fall Further modmod, Refar, Chamaedrys, Chuggi, GarretSidzaka, Rishardas
Code help: Xienwolf, Sto!

Also: my girlfriend for suggesting troll lairs. If you do not like trolls and swamp ruins, I will let her know ;)

Included mods:
Expanded mercenaries by westamastaflash
FlavourMod 2 by Jean Elcard
 
Changelog moved to separate thread

CotD & guilds in 0.14 and beyond
In addition to old Orbi guilds I have kept some 0.33 ones.

Cult of the dragon
Unadoptable religion, founded by event only possible for dragon owning civilizations: Kuriotate, Sheaim and Mazatl.
Spreads just like other religions, but no disciples (high autospread).
Retained all 0.33 unrest events (above mentioned civs and Illians do not get them)
Cult of the dragon promotion is granted to 20% units build in the city (actually 20% of the ones that did not get other religion). Roar makes them to convert, but also scares other units

Circle of Eight
Founded by great sage, requires sorcery. Uses metamagic, mind & enchantment mana plus reagents, produces science. Arcane units build in cities with CoEi get some XP and potency promotion for free (might change it to let amurite get bonus too)
Spread by acolytes (arcane unit, starts with Metamagic I & II, but without free promotion, can build mind, metamagic & enchantment nodes, upgrades to mage)

Ratcatchers Guild
Spy Guild. Requires poisons, ratcatcher (guildmaster) can conduct espionage missions

Guild of the nine
Works as in 0.13, with expanded mercenaries and standard mercenaries as separate spells (because of the OOS caused by expanded mercs)
 
I quite like the look of some of these. I'll have a play and then give some proper feedback.
 
Looks interesting. I was planning on making the same basic changes to the units as you did, and might even decide to go ahead and include this whole modmod in my modmod.


Just to be clear, these 8 guilds are in addition to the normal FFH ones, not replacing them, right? I don't want to get rid of any of the current ones, but adding new ones could be nice.
 
Looks interesting. I was planning on making the same basic changes to the units as you did, and might even decide to go ahead and include this whole modmod in my modmod.

You are welcome. It probabably needs a lot of playtesting to balance, but so far works fine.

Just to be clear, these 8 guilds are in addition to the normal FFH ones, not replacing them, right? I don't want to get rid of any of the current ones, but adding new ones could be nice.

I have not touched any of the normal guilds (well, I included the fix for circle of gaelan by Xienwolf). That are the addition, that is why I need another row. Now the line is very long and I had to resize the icons down to make them all display in the city screen.

In general, I tried not to remove more than a few units or buildings if I decided they are not needed (siege workshop for example - I merged it with mechanists shop).
 
So far I'm loving the modmod. It feels a lot more like FfH did back in 0.16 (when I first started playing FfH, before Kael tried streamlining everything), plus most of what I liked about BtS. I do think I'll probably simplify the tech tree a little though, and rename/rebalanced a few things when I include in in MagisterModmod.

I like the new features and resources. Could you see about adding a Coral Reef feature? I've added one in my version (which adds a hammer but is more noteworthy for being impassible to ships), but the xenofungus graphics I borrowed from Planentfall really don't look right. You seem better with graphics than I am. (I tend to avoid them entirely, and usually not even borrowing from other mods.)

Edit: I just noticed that it is now impossible to use Inquisition, as Inquisitor requires channeling 2 and no disciple has this promotion.
 
So far I'm loving the modmod. It feels a lot more like FfH did back in 0.16 (when I first started playing FfH, before Kael tried streamlining everything), plus most of what I liked about BtS. I do think I'll probably simplify the tech tree a little though, and rename/rebalanced a few things when I include in in MagisterModmod.

Thanks :) I like diversity, especially if it serves something and there was too much streamlining in FfH for my taste recently.
As for the tech tree, what would you cut? I think I added 4 techs total. Also, what do you think need rebalancing?

I like the new features and resources. Could you see about adding a Coral Reef feature? I've added one in my version, but the xenofungus graphics I borrowed from Planentfall really don't look right. You see better with graphics than I am. (I tend to avoid them entirely.)

Well, I am not so good at making graphics either. Most of them I got from this site or from other mods. I just could not stand 5 buildings in the city looking like barracks.
As for the coral reef, I will think about it, but I do not recall anything that would look good as it. I also think about adding kelp as a coast feature - adding some food and possibly slowing down ships. I loved planting it everywhere in alpha centauri...

Edit: I just noticed that it is now impossible to use Inquisition, as Inquisitor requires channeling 2 and no disciple has this promotion.

Yeah, it is been a while since I used it so I forgot to change it when I moved from direct xml editing to using Kael's editor. Quick fix below - requirement moved to divine.
Edit: no longer needed - fix included in the patch
 
I've been pleasantly surprised that Naval battles have been rather important so far. It could always be improved though. Some suggestions:

Let Naval units get Blitz (Firaxis did this in BtS anyway)

Add Fireships, which are weak but (like Pyre Zombies, and probably using the same python code) explode when defeated.

(If this were FF, I'd probably suggest adding this ability though a promotion, but the python post combat tags don't exist in the vanilla schema.)

Let the Strongest Naval and Siege units using Bombing instead of (or in addition to) Bombarding.

Give the Amurites some magic-based naval UUs, which should at least have access to air magic.

Make most ships (but not Ironclads) weak to fire.


Make Boarding available to Melee units, requiring something like Military Strategy and the Amphibious and Combat V promotions. (Amphibious is weaker in FfH, because Water Walking performs the same function and more. This woud make the promotion more valuble)

Make the Lanun Harbor UB grant Boarding. Also, it might be a good idea to remove the Boarding Part UU and allow the Lanun build their Champions (and Pikemen) without needing a harbor (since that weakens them on maps with little water).

I'm thinking it could be good for (most) ships to gain the ability to move in oceans at Astronomy.



I'm thinking that I don't really like the Guild Executives having a unitcombat or strength. I was thinking it could be cool of Miners could build Mines (maybe even on peaks? I'll probably edit the SDK to make this possible, and to make things like mithril more common there.) and Architects could build Forts faster than workers can. It might be nice for all the executives to have some other abilities. Maybe architects could rush (a little, not as much as Soldiers of Kilmorph), traders could perform trade missions (like great merchants, but less gold), Actors (which should be renamed Thespians) could give a little culture, etc. It might be good for some executives to be able to upgrade to appropriate units.

I'm not a fan of the name Intricate Weavers. I'm thinking "Lords of the Loom" could be nice.

"Hansa" doesn't seem descriptive enough, imho. I'm not sure what I'd like to call it though.

I was just thinking that it could be nice to implement the Balseraph religion, The Stewards of Inequity, as a guild. Most of those who follow Mammon don't realize they are participating in a religion anyway, viewing it instead as a guild to serve to keep themselves rich and the poor poor. What would be a good implementation for that? Creating crime/corruption, using up luxury resources, creating happiness in the headquarters and unhappiness elsewhere? I think it has been said that Mammon's followers have very important positions in every guild, so maybe this guild could synergize with others instead of competing? Or steal their profits? It should probably also be tied to the Undercouncil somehow.

It seems odd to me that Alchemy Labs have no real connection to the Circle of Transmuters. I'd probably try streamlining a lot of things to make guilds more integrated in the main game instead of simply being additional features.




Edit: I don't like how the barbarian warriors look.

Did you mean to allow mines to be built without clearing forests?
 
Thanks for all the good words people. Especially for suggestions and checking the mod, Magister :)
I like many of them. Not all though. But keep them coming :D
Let Naval units get Blitz (Firaxis did this in BtS anyway)
Add Fireships, which are weak but (like Pyre Zombies, and probably using the same python code) explode when defeated.
I did not even noticed that they can not get blitz. Fixed it.
As for the fireships, not a bad idea. I am thinking on the kamikaze ship that explodes when reaching target. But will it be really useful?
Let the Strongest Naval and Siege units using Bombing instead of (or in addition to) Bombarding.
Give the Amurites some magic-based naval UUs, which should at least have access to air magic.
Make most ships (but not Ironclads) weak to fire.
I am not sure if it is possible to enable bombing for non-air units. Also, they already have strong ranged attack. Will it change that much, except the ability to destroy improvements?
The amurite wind ship is a great idea, frigate or clipper replacement UU? I think rather frigate, as it would come earlier and clipper is not a real combat ship.
The fire weakness makes sense, but don't you think it will make arcane barges too strong? And make fire sphere even more powerful than it is?
Make Boarding available to Melee units, requiring something like Military Strategy and the Amphibious and Combat V promotions. [...] it might be a good idea to remove the Boarding Part UU and allow the Lanun build their Champions (and Pikemen) without needing a harbor
Well, in my mod neither lanun champions or boarding party need harbor. I also prefer to keep boarding a lanun-only. Also, imagine water walking boarding phalaxes... I will give boarding parties 50% bonus against mounted - less than other pikeman, but still something.
As for the amphibius, I will give it bonuses to fight in the swamps. Not much bonus, but always something.
I'm thinking it could be good for (most) ships to gain the ability to move in oceans at Astronomy.
I do not want ocean-travelling galleys. Most of the other ships already can cross ocean squares, so only the cog remains. And when you have astronomy, you should already upgrade everything to ocean travelling vessels anyway, as they come with optics.
I'm thinking that I don't really like the Guild Executives having a unitcombat or strength. It might be nice for all the executives to have some other abilities.
Great ideas :) The only thing I am worried about is if it will cause any problems - that is why it was removed from hunters etc.
Any suggestions for the upgrading paths?
Actors renamed, your name is much better :)
I have removed unitcombat. They do not already have strength,but I am thinking of introducing it for a trader.
I'm not a fan of the name Intricate Weavers. I'm thinking "Lords of the Loom" could be nice.
"Hansa" doesn't seem descriptive enough, imho. I'm not sure what I'd like to call it though.
Well weavers come from intricate webweaver, a trait from crusader kings ;). But I will not stick to it. Well, but I do not like "Lords of the loom" either...
And Hansa is named after the first european trading organization and a great naval power. It was main trading power in the northern Europe and a reason for a few wars... I really like the name, and I do not think all names should be descriptive. It might be even better if they do not.
I was just thinking that it could be nice to implement the Balseraph religion, The Stewards of Inequity, as a guild.
Good idea, something in line with cult of the dragon - foundable only by Balseraph?
Synergy with other guilds and esus is a must in my opinion. But then we would really need a second row of guild icons, as it would be the 16 ;)
I need to read more about it before I will try to implement it. Any place I should check?
It seems odd to me that Alchemy Labs have no real connection to the Circle of Transmuters. I'd probably try streamlining a lot of things to make guilds more integrated in the main game instead of simply being additional features.
Well, I am not sure if alchemists should have another bonus - they already provide reagents. But if you think so...
As for the streamlining, it is a good idea. I would also like some guilds to come earlier, as now a few are at the end of the tech tree.
Edit: I don't like how the barbarian warriors look.
Did you mean to allow mines to be built without clearing forests?
Barbarian warriors are warhammer orcs - do not fit as good as I would like them to but I quite like them anyway. What is more important, I have nothing to replace them if I want to have all melee orc have unique look. The old warriors are pikman now ;)
And mines under forests is intetional - mine was also reduced by 1 hammer (but it gets other bonuses with techs). You need to decide if to cut down this hill forest for immediate hammer gain or keep it for later and health bonus.

Edit: this is a looong post ;)
 
Thanks for all the suggestions and checking the mod :) I like many of them. Not all though. But keep them coming :D

I did not even noticed that they can not get blitz. Fixed it.
As for the fireships, not a bad idea. I am thinking on the kamikaze ship that explodes when reaching target. But will it be really useful?
I think so. I was thinking it would be a cheap, very weak unit, which poorer civs would use to defend against stronger navies. You could also make it an upgrade for the early ships, so you could get some use out of these obsolete vessels for a nominal upgrade cost (every upgrade costs at least 5 gold). (Or you could implement it via a promotion in FF.)

I am not sure if it is possible to enable bombing for non-air units. Also, they already have strong ranged attack. Will it change that much, except the ability to destroy improvements?
I thought it would work fine, but I just checked and it doesn't seem possible. I glanced at the SDK and I think that commenting out a single if statement would allow it. I'll be using a custom DLL (mostly the Fall Further DLL, but with a few minor changes) anyway, but I don't think it is worth it for this modmod.
The amurite wind ship is a great idea, frigate or clipper replacement UU? I think rather frigate, as it would come earlier and clipper is not a real combat ship.
The fire weakness makes sense, but don't you think it will make arcane barges too strong? And make fire sphere even more powerful than it is?

I hadn't really decided which unit it should be. Just for testing, I gave them a Man O War UU with arcane, channeling 1-2, fire 2, air 1, and meta magic 1. Having more than one arcane ship UU would be fine by me.

I don't think it would be too strong if the other ships had more greater base strength. I also don't consider Fire all that powerful--that is, compared with the other spell spheres in my version.
Well, in my mod neither lanun champions or boarding party need harbor. I also prefer to keep boarding a lanun-only. Also, imagine water walking boarding phalaxes... I will give boarding parties 50% bonus against mounted - less than other pikeman, but still something.
As for the amphibius, I will give it bonuses to fight in the swamps. Not much bonus, but always something.

How exactly would the Phalanx become Water Walking? (It might be possible in my version, but not without some downsides.)

I was saying it should have very high requirements (although you modmod would let it come sooner, and so it should probably be moved.)

Yeah, a bonus in swamps would be nice. Maybe a bonus in Jungles too? Real life jungles tend to be flooded much of the year Oh, and Flood Planes to.

Great ideas :) The only thing I am worried about is if it will cause any problems - that is why it was removed from hunters etc.
Any suggestions for the upgrading paths?
Actors renamed, your name is much better :)
I have removed unitcombat. They do not already have strength,but I am thinking of introducing it for a trader.

I'm not really sure what caused the problems before. I think it may have had to do with them having both combat and worker AIs. Hopefully a non-combat unit wouldn't cause such problems. Unfortunately, I suspect it probably will; letting Great Engineers build things caused WoC errors last time I tried it. I'll test it, but may have to remove it. If it does cause problems, you could give the builds to seperate units that also rely on the guild, or make the guild be spread though a spell instead of the normal mechanism.


Good idea, something in line with cult of the dragon - foundable only by Balseraph?
Synergy with other guilds and esus is a must in my opinion. But then we would really need a second row of guild icons, as it would be the 16 ;)
I need to read more about it before I will try to implement it. Any place I should check?

Maybe, but on the other hand more people in more empires (unknowingly) worship Mammon than any other god. (His hell gets perhaps more souls than all the other evil gods' combined.) As such, it might be appropriate for it to be availible even when the Balseraphs are not there.


I thought I remembered reading more about the Stewards, but this is the only post I could find where Kael explained them. (Most of what I found in my search had been written by me.)

Well, I am not sure if alchemists should have another bonus - they already provide reagents. But if you think so...
As for the streamlining, it is a good idea. I would also like some guilds to come earlier, as now a few are at the end of the tech tree.

Barbarian warriors are warhammer orcs - do not fit as good as I would like them to but I quite like them anyway. What is more important, I have nothing to replace them if I want to have all melee orc have unique look. The old warriors are pikman now ;)
And mines under forests is intetional - mine was also reduced by 1 hammer (but it gets other bonuses with techs). You need to decide if to cut down this hill forest for immediate hammer gain or keep it for later and health bonus.

Edit: this is a looong post ;)
 
Many thanks for sharing this Ahwaric. In my opinion you've made a great mod push towards perfect. :goodjob:

I've barely been able to finish one game but so far I've encountered no serious bugs. Just a few entries in the Civilopedia that seem to have been displaced.

I too was pleasantly suprised to see the difference in naval warfare, and if this is something you have time to improve further then that's excellent news. Fits perfectly with the "Hansa" as well. ;)

I'm not too sure about the fireships idea. Sounds like something that the AI could handle a bit too well, so to speak.

Love the facelift you did on the barbarians. Less spiky, more thuggy.
 
Many thanks for sharing this Ahwaric. In my opinion you've made a great mod push towards perfect. :goodjob:
Thanks a lot! :blush: And at last I am sure Magister is not the only one that tried my modmod ;)

I fixed some problems and added some features. The patch a is in the first post, I have added changelog to the second one. I have also listed what I am trying to do now.

I too was pleasantly suprised to see the difference in naval warfare, and if this is something you have time to improve further then that's excellent news.
I'm not too sure about the fireships idea. Sounds like something that the AI could handle a bit too well, so to speak.

Yeah, suicide attacks are part of AI's personality. I am not sure about fireships either. Have to think about it and probably do some tests.
I definitely want to further improve naval combat (and land one, too). If you have any ideas, I will be happy to hear them. Right now I am out of mine...
I thought about ships and fire weaknes - it would require adding a promotion for all the ships. So the ironclads upgraded from earliel ships would inherit it too. I am not so sure they should have it - if ships do, why not catapults or almost every unit that is in the city (flame inside the city walls, in partially wooden city, is disastrous...)

Apart from the things listed in "working on", I am thinking if to make every guild present in a city provide a low (5%) bonus to city defences.
In the city I live, towers of the city walls were named after different guilds responsible for defending/guarding them in case of a siege. I think it was quite common in medieval/renaissance period. So, stronger merchants in the city & better guild organization - better city defence :)
That would mean improving the brotherhood of wardens bonus, too - currently it is just 10%
 
I still like the idea. They should probably be limited to coasts (these are either very old or very cheaply made ships, so they aren't very seaworthy), be slow, have basically no defensive strength, and maybe have a national limit.
 
Just wanted to drop in and show my appreciation. I really enjoy the tweaks & additions that you're making. Glad I stumbled across your modmod. I haven't had a chance to get far into the game as yet but I'll let you know if I have any insights or requests.

The only thing I've seen that I miss somewhat are palisades. Granted, I'm no great strategist when it comes to this game but I simply liked the idea of an early, cheap, defensive wall that can be improved.

Keep up the good work. :goodjob:
 
I have removed palisades because I have already added 10% defense bonus for every city - so let's say palisade is included in the settler starting package.
I just want every city to be a better place for defending than open field. I was thinking of making palisade really cheap. But as there is no way to remove building after building another one (is there ?), I decided that I prefer this way than having both palisade and walls in one city...
I have also reintroduced citadel, so the city defences can be upgraded :)
 
Ah I see. Sounds good. :D

Next thing I noticed so far is that you can't delete battering rams. I'm gathering quite the collection heh. I'd like to be able to dismantle those guys if possible.

Thanks Ahwaric.
 
After a day of hard work I have finally finished making more or less detailed documentation of this modmod. It is linked in the first post. I hope it helps :)

I have found some minor (?) bugs on the way and fixed them. Also, I did some minor rebalancing on pagan temples. I will include all this stuff in the next patch.

As for the battering rams, this is probably a result of treating them as equipment which allows them to be carried as a promotion. I will try to find a way to destroy them. If the normal way will not be possible, I will do it the spell way.

Will try to post a fixed version tomorrow.
 
But as there is no way to remove building after building another one (is there ?)

There is, but it's not that "tidy".

(a) Hook the cannotConstruct function in Python to check that the city doesn't already have walls when it tries to build a Palisade (block the Palisade if it does).
(b) Hook onBuildingBuilt such that when Walls are created, Palisades are removed.

The combination of the two means that you can't rebuild Palisades after walls are constructed.
 
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