Fall Further - The Original Thread

ive just been playing a game as the neutral team, and i think ive found my new favourite race. all i can say is OMG, uber recon AND uber mages!? i absolutely love the rock ravens, they are THE best thing for keeping barbarian hordes at bay, and then you cna just mop them up with a coupel of nicely leveled hunters. i have yet to use the world spell, but im waiting for another council of the warchief (currently only have 3).

Um, why don't Archos get any T4 archery? And by the way, vampires can upgrade to paladins, so apparently corruption isn't an issue.

Seventh Star said:

Um, why don't Archos get any T4 archery? And by the way, vampires can upgrade to paladins, so apparently corruption isn't an issue.

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The Archos should only be lacking the Arquebus and Marksmen from the Archery line - crossbows should still be available, as are the other archery units. Marksmen were removed for similar reasons to the Phalanx - it's a sophisticated approach to warfare that they don't embrace. The Doviello have the same restriction for a similar reason. The highest techs often don't really pay off for the Archos - they're better with overwhelming numbers of lower-tech units.

They sound like the kind of race that dominates in the early game but then begins to lose out later on. Seriously looking forward to playing this modmod.

Kol.7 said:

They sound like the kind of race that dominates in the early game but then begins to lose out later on. Seriously looking forward to playing this modmod.

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Depends on the way you play them. I mentioned the Doviello before and they have the same kind of "up and down" tech-strengths as the Archos do. For instance, the Doviello lack some of the top-end units, but their late game grants them the War Machine and that can do some serious damage.

The Archos have a similar power-peak a little earlier than that, when Mother is released, followed by the Haruspex to back up your armies (with both Nature and Chaos affinities, these can be very potent if you conquered well in the early game)

The main difficulty for the Archos is keeping up progress along the tech-line at a decent speed. Their play style encourages you to expand and conquer, but at the same time you need to keep your economy viable. The problem is compounded by a lack of libraries and alchemy labs.

Vehem said:

The Archos should only be lacking the Arquebus and Marksmen from the Archery line - crossbows should still be available, as are the other archery units. Marksmen were removed for similar reasons to the Phalanx - it's a sophisticated approach to warfare that they don't embrace. The Doviello have the same restriction for a similar reason. The highest techs often don't really pay off for the Archos - they're better with overwhelming numbers of lower-tech units.

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Wait, marksmen are are more sophisiticated than crossbows?

Idea for an Archos unique T4, since their down 3 (arbeques, marksmen, phalanx): Take a few of the guys with 2 pairs of extra limbs like the immortal graphic. Put longbow in each pair Add poison arrows. Stir. Hello collateral damage archery unit. Probably would be hell to do graphics for.

Maybe pull eidolons and paladins completely and give them some sort of spider-warrior to go with the Haruspex?
Oh, spiderkin need subdue beasts. Having this emphasis on insects and the like and then not having something that every beastmaster gets is wierd.

Vehem - the statues are done and found here.

Played around with the neutral race a bit; I like their style (I also got the luckiest start I think I've ever seen: 3 clams, a whale, a silk, and the Dragon Bones in my fat cross). However, I have one minor complaint about their unique buildings: Their unique versions of the Elder Council and Pagan Temple don't provide the specialists that the originals do. This might be intentional for balance, but I am really missing that early game Sage...

woodelf said:

Vehem - the statues are done and found here.

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They look great - thanks a lot

MaxAstro said:

This might be intentional for balance, but I am really missing that early game Sage...

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It was originally for balance aye, as they are supposed to have a slightly slower start to the game (counter balanced by the fact that they don't have to worry so much about maintenance later) - though I may be tempted to give the Elder council its other beaker back as reducing its beakers *and* stealing its Sage does seem a little mean.
==

As there will be a new patch up soon to include Woodelf's new buildings I'm going to make a few balance switches at the same time. Most of these have been mentioned in this thread already, but I'll list them here so anyone can comment on them.

• Meskwaki - Tech Prereq moved to Arcane Lore. 2nd Tech Prereq at Warfare.
  Strength of Will is an expensive tech (though with good reason) and no other Mage-hero is so far down the line (Hemah and Gibbon most notably come earlier). Warfare should be key-tech for the Chislev anyway, so it serves only to slow Meskwaki-rushing a little.
  
• Archos Immortals - Made unique, combat strength partially poison damage, first strikes added for additional limbs.
  Mostly a flavour change, but it does suit the Immortal model.
  
• Dural Statues - costs rebalanced to better reflect their usefulness and level (Loyalty will probably be the cheapest, Glory the most expensive).
  I agree with the comments that some of them will never really justify the hammer-cost. It'd be nice to have them all in-game occasionally - especially with the new buildings
  
• Archos Spiderkin - Get their "Subdue Beasts" back.
  To be honest, I'm not sure why they lost it in the first place. Over zealous editing on my part I think
  
• Chislev Early Game - Ancient chants as a starting tech and the Tribal Council receives it's missing beaker. No sages for the moment though.
  Had a few ideas in mind for how to slow them down, but the combination seems to have overdone it slightly. As Sarisin mentioned earlier - Ancient Chants is very appropriate, and also helps move toward the Tribal Council anyway.
  

If anyone else has found any major balance issues - let me know, and I'll see what can be done. If you disagree with any of the points above - same thing, let me know. The feedback so far has been pretty positive, but the comments making suggestions/asking questions have helped to refine it.

I'm hoping to only really have one more version (barring updates to the main mod) before I complete the other 3 races (Mazatl/Cualli - both lizardmen civs and the Villalsfar - Wild Elves).

perhaps the Dural could have another specail wonder that requires all seven statues of virtue with some big effect? this would mean that the dural civ will really want all the statues for the big thing. Perhaps a Hall of Virtues? enhances the effects of the seven virtue statues? or adds happyness to all cities in the continent and no unhappyness in the city in which it is built?

OK, Vehem, you did it again!

Honestly, after a few hundred turns playing the Dural, I thought, what a lousy civ. It doesn't fit my style at all. I like to found a lot of religions, build the special holy wonders, and send out the disciples, etc.

Well, I was pissed that I couldn't even build temples. Not even a Pagan Temple! I had Gems and Incense and I founded every religion but AV.

I even had problems spreading the religion I adopted - ROK. I had 3 cities. I got it in 2 as I got a free Thane (?). But, I couldn't figure out a way to spread the religion using the Students of Kilmorph.

In fact, the first Student of OO (Zealot equivalent, I guess) got the Enraged promotion and went barbarian the next turn. I still can't figure than one out as I didn't have Chaos mana.

I couldn't generate any Great Prophet pts and those GPs are mostly necessary to get those holy wonders. Also, you can forget about an Altar Victory with this civ! I did get quite a few Sages though - love the Adaptive trait which I used for Philosophical.

Anyway, I was doing OK and ahead, but, what a blah civ.

Then, around turn 400 (I play on Epic speed) the various statues started becoming available. These are one of the coolest features in FFH2 that I have seen! It really made my game interesting and, naturally, the Dural are doing a lot better now - I think I built 5 of the 7 so far. The units I am building with a free promotion, Loyalty, and Courage are great.

So, I'm glad I stayed with it as the Dural civ certainly doesn't disappoint.

Hopefully, no new patches that will break save games. I think I could run the table with this civ as the ai, including the hopeless Archos, are weak, but I want to play it out the full 991 turns and see what happens. AV has been founded and I would expect to see Hyborem soon. The counter is only around 25, though now. My next big decision might be whether or not to try and build the Mercurian gate and see how the Dural do with Basium as an ally.

Thanks for 2 great civs to play with...can't wait to try the Archos next game.

Hannah the Irin created Karllsson in my last game, didn't seem right...

Oh, and minor nitpick, when starting a Custom Game, the Chislev leader and Dural leader are in each other's place. What I mean is that the menu where you pick leaders has them sorted Good -> Neutral -> Evil but Absaroke appears in the Good section.

Sarisin said:

I even had problems spreading the religion I adopted - ROK. I had 3 cities. I got it in 2 as I got a free Thane (?). But, I couldn't figure out a way to spread the religion using the Students of Kilmorph.

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Not sure what the problem is there - I've just tried it and each of the Students is able to spread in the same way as a Disciple/Thane/Acolyte etc. The "Spread Automatically" option also works. Can you try it again and let me know if there's a problem, preferably with a savegame?

Sarisin said:

In fact, the first Student of OO (Zealot equivalent, I guess) got the Enraged promotion and went barbarian the next turn. I still can't figure than one out as I didn't have Chaos mana.

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They're crazed - studying the Overlords is not good for your sanity. The Crazed promotion is used on Lunatics and grants Enraged periodically. The Students of the Overlords have the same problem - though turning Barbarian straight away is just really unlucky - there's only something like a 3% chance. In anycase - if you want to spread Overlords - do it quickly, before the students go completely raving mad.

Falc said:

Hannah the Irin created Karllsson in my last game, didn't seem right...

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Does seem a little off, aye I probably know what caused it though, and will fix it now.

EDIT: I take it back. It wasn't what I thought (suspected that I hadn't blocked the Lanun from creating UNITCLASS_KARRLSON, but I had) I've just tried to build him myself in-game and it does seem to be blocked properly from there. Do you have a save game that I can check out? Also, did you patch during the game at all - sometimes that can shift the internal numbering around a little such that Guybrush may have ended up being Karrlson as far as the game knows (though it normally breaks savegames these days).

Falc said:

Oh, and minor nitpick, when starting a Custom Game, the Chislev leader and Dural leader are in each other's place. What I mean is that the menu where you pick leaders has them sorted Good -> Neutral -> Evil but Absaroke appears in the Good section.

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Must admit, I'd never noticed that was the ordering before. I'd seen that leaders of the same civ were together, but it didn't occur to me that it was alignment sorted.

I finally got a chance to play and must say I'm impressed Vehem with how much work you did. The custom dialogue alone is an undertaking.

I do have to stop playing with the No AI building option clicked since I got hammered by those spider/hunter things the Archos have way before I could build anything more than warriors.

woodelf said:

I finally got a chance to play and must say I'm impressed Vehem with how much work you did. The custom dialogue alone is an undertaking.

I do have to stop playing with the No AI building option clicked since I got hammered by those spider/hunter things the Archos have way before I could build anything more than warriors.

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People seem to be having a mixed time against the Archos - sometimes they seem to cause real problems, other times they fall over quite quickly. The Hunter thing is always fun - I had similar issues starting next to the Svaltafar once with No AI Building Requirements. The only real advantage the Huntsmen have over Hunters though is additonal defence strength. They're actually slightly worse than Hunters on the offensive as (a) part of their strength may be ignored by some units (though not sure who has Poison resistance these days) (b) They have -30% City Attack instead of -20% on normal hunters.

Good to see the Archos showing their teeth in anycase

They scare me!

new, original leaderhead art for Daracaat archos is in cooker officially, spicing it now, just bought Corel Painter X via card, waiting for delivery to finish
On Plan: 2nd, Harsupex Archos leader. (Spiritual, Ingenuinity)
Leaderheads for both Dural and Chislev (they are only portraits now , in difference from FfH full body illustrations.

Slvynn said:

Leaderheads for both Dural and Chislev (they are only portraits now , in difference from FfH full body illustrations.

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Hmm - I quite like the Dural and Chislev ones at the moment, I'd probably have trouble picturing them a different way. I didn't grow as attached to Daracaat's leaderhead as I knew you were working on an alternative one.

The second Archos leader definitely sounds a good choice. I'd quite like to add an alternative leader to some of the new guys and a Haruspex would be perfect for the Archos.

At the moment I'm really struggling for the Lizardmen civs though. The current ideas are;

Dragonia Lizard Leader


Shadowy-Priest Lizard


The Cualli one (Shadowy-Priest) *really* needs a replacement or a rework quite desperately - mostly because of the way I edited it already to remove part of the image.

Please get some patience, and wait till you see my illustration ready.
I need some new program to finish (i payed few hundreds bucks for it in order to illustrate more professionally and alot)
I will do Archos 2 , and then chislev and dural. MAximum you can add other leaders or just replace in case you will like them more than ones you used.

The point is to make Fall Further Leaderheads somewhat like to FfH vanilla ones, i mean also technique and pic layout (not portrait, but full body picture with paints-like illustration)
I will stick to it, and if you like it - you wellcome.
Again you did great job implementing Archos ideas, much more cool than i supposed when we started to PM.
I have already some nice b/w sketches for archos leaders, as soon i have my PainterX at home and installed i will sit and finish them both.

If you like i can add some b/w planning brainstorm-concept-artworks for leaderheads for Lizzies, as i see it.