[MOD] Fall from Heaven II

I really liked this mod as it adds a fantasy element to the game without overloading the player with a totally new way of doing things.

There are a couple of areas I would say need touching up:
1) Clarification on the use of spells, and the number of times a certain spell can be cast by a unit (I found each unit could only cast a spell once). No-where in the civopedia or the forums could I find info on this.

2) Make the good versus bad versus neutral element play out more. A things stood either there were too many good or too many bad civs in the random games I played, plus the alignment didn't really play out during the games.

3) Make more cultural buildings available. I love to build up culture for my civ, and found a distinct lack of oppotunity through the buildings - the minor hero units that did allow extra culture were a nice touch though.

4) Religion in general played little part in the actual game. I managed to get four of the religions, and there was no real effect on the game. Maybe this is what you had in mind, but reading the way the religions were in the background maybe you need to stop the founding of more than one religion per civ. This way it would also balance out the effects of the religions across the board. Usually in any game of CIV 4 I get at least 5 of the major religions, with the effect of having a major cultural bonus. In this mod the effect was lessened by the fact there are no cathedrals or monesteries to take advantage of.

5) Finally the fact that I don't usually worry about my army till late in the game means I have little or no ranking on the power board. During my entire game as the Elohim I was 3rd or 4th throughout - I thing the AI must be concentrating on other things because usually it rushes millitary out like there is no tommorow. I don't mind this effect at all because I benefit from not being mauled by the AI, but it might be worthwhile looking into it.

Thanks for creating a great mod,

Rachel
-X-

guspav well done, very well done!

I would not have thought to check for a second copy, but... there it was hidden inside the original folder. I have no idea how it got there.

So having done a complete uninstall and reinstall... it works perfectly!!!

Thanks guspav I really thought this was going to elude me.

Thanks everyone. Your help again has proven invaluable!

Hully.

REJS7 said:

I really liked this mod as it adds a fantasy element to the game without overloading the player with a totally new way of doing things.

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Assuming that you're new to the FFH fold, let me be the first to welcome you to our wonderful little world. *droning Cult-recruiter kind of voice* We're all very happy to bring you true happiness here..
No, but seriously. Welcome aboard.

REJS7 said:

There are a couple of areas I would say need touching up:
1) Clarification on the use of spells, and the number of times a certain spell can be cast by a unit (I found each unit could only cast a spell once). No-where in the civopedia or the forums could I find info on this.

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Any spellcasting unit will only be able to cast one spell per turn, that's a pretty universal thing. Once they've cast a spell the unit temporarily gets the "Casted" promotion which prohibits them from casting any more spells that turn, or attacking. Non-spell abilities however are a different matter and don't generally keep the unit from casting spells or attacking.

REJS7 said:

2) Make the good versus bad versus neutral element play out more. A things stood either there were too many good or too many bad civs in the random games I played, plus the alignment didn't really play out during the games.

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Who says there has to be a fair balance? Maybe there just happens to be a lot of evil in the world. Or the flip side. Insofar as how the alignment plays out, it all depends on of course. But I find that it often works reasonably 'well', you can always rely on your neighbors of the "wrong" alignment to be the most ornery lot and the ones with compatible alignments to be fairly good neighbors. Not that they won't screw you over of course, but not as often nor as rabidly at least.

REJS7 said:

3) Make more cultural buildings available. I love to build up culture for my civ, and found a distinct lack of oppotunity through the buildings - the minor hero units that did allow extra culture were a nice touch though.

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You can always use a Mage with Spirit II to give an extra little culture boost to those important cities. Aside from that, I'm personally pretty satisfied with the culture level. I tend to enjoy creating culture-heavy civilizations too, but if there were more culture buildings, especially heavier ones like Civ IV vanilla's Cathedrals, it would just be too easy to acquire a cultural victory and thus shorten the average gamelength, in my not always so humble opinion.

REJS7 said:

4) Religion in general played little part in the actual game. I managed to get four of the religions, and there was no real effect on the game. Maybe this is what you had in mind, but reading the way the religions were in the background maybe you need to stop the founding of more than one religion per civ. This way it would also balance out the effects of the religions across the board. Usually in any game of CIV 4 I get at least 5 of the major religions, with the effect of having a major cultural bonus. In this mod the effect was lessened by the fact there are no cathedrals or monesteries to take advantage of.

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Hear hear. I've been saying that a while too. It would make me very happy if it was made so that any one Civ can only found one religion (possibly not counting the dragon cult type people since that's kind of a "special ability" for their Civ's). Granted, I've never managed to get more than two religions founded for a single Civ myself, but even so I always end up wishing it wasn't possible. That said, I don't feel that religions 'play little part', they affect things hugely.

REJS7 said:

5) Finally the fact that I don't usually worry about my army till late in the game means I have little or no ranking on the power board. During my entire game as the Elohim I was 3rd or 4th throughout - I thing the AI must be concentrating on other things because usually it rushes millitary out like there is no tommorow. I don't mind this effect at all because I benefit from not being mauled by the AI, but it might be worthwhile looking into it.

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And of course the AI is a filthy little whore about trading tech too which tends to keep it ahead of me in score. But then I'm no stellar player either, I suppose. ^^

REJS7 said:

Thanks for creating a great mod,

Rachel
-X-

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That's pretty much what we all feel here. Hat's off to Kael and everyone on the development team. We owe you folks thanks for many hours of fun!

Cheers!

Is there something in 0.15j that is not allowing me to cast regeneration on my elves?

PapaMonkey said:

Is there something in 0.15j that is not allowing me to cast regeneration on my elves?

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You can only cast regeneration on damaged units (it is useless on fully healed units).

Hi!

1) Clarification on the use of spells, and the number of times a certain spell can be cast by a unit (I found each unit could only cast a spell once). No-where in the civopedia or the forums could I find info on this.

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As was said, each caster can only cast one spell per turn. Also, certain summons (any that stick around indefinately) can only be cast once per caster with that spell until one dies. version 15 got a bit more user friendly about spells, what with the pop-ups detailing what a given promotion will allow.

2) Make the good versus bad versus neutral element play out more. A things stood either there were too many good or too many bad civs in the random games I played, plus the alignment didn't really play out during the games.

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As is, it simply affects diplomacy, iirc, but more consequences are likely to occur in Fire, (not due out for a good while honestly)

5) Finally the fact that I don't usually worry about my army till late in the game means I have little or no ranking on the power board. During my entire game as the Elohim I was 3rd or 4th throughout - I thing the AI must be concentrating on other things because usually it rushes millitary out like there is no tommorow. I don't mind this effect at all because I benefit from not being mauled by the AI, but it might be worthwhile looking into it.

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This will also be changed in the next design phase, but also consider kicking up the difficulty a notch or play with raging barbarians or aggressive AI.

REJS7 said:

4) Religion in general played little part in the actual game. I managed to get four of the religions, and there was no real effect on the game. Maybe this is what you had in mind, but reading the way the religions were in the background maybe you need to stop the founding of more than one religion per civ. This way it would also balance out the effects of the religions across the board. Usually in any game of CIV 4 I get at least 5 of the major religions, with the effect of having a major cultural bonus. In this mod the effect was lessened by the fact there are no cathedrals or monesteries to take advantage of.

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Collecting religons is much harder in FFH than vanilla i feel. if you're collecting 3+ i dare say you need to kick the difficulty level up a notch or two. runes, leaves and OO are all pretty much mutually exclusive if you're a playing at a level with competeitive AIs. However it's also dependant on the AIs in the game, some of them just don't care about religons that much, like Cassiel for obvious reasons, and some others. here's a test: put the elves and dwarves in a game, go for OO first, if you can still get both leaves and runes, you NEED to up that difficulty.

Thanks guys - I play tested it again last night (much to my partners chargrin) and I managed to get all the religions (bar dragon cult) and most of the wonders hehe.
If it is a case of notching up the difficulty then I will do it, but I usually play noble on the vanilla version and that is uaually fun enough to have a challange. Maybe the AI needs tweaking slightly to make it more dynamic, as I was never challanged once by the AI. This despite virtually all the evil guys hating me, and my utter reluctance to declare war or stop trading with anyone. I never stop trading or declare war in a game of CIV - unless there is a damn good strategic reason.
Thanks for the clarification on the magic spells, but in the games I play I still couldn't use the desert to plains spell more than once a game per unit - which was an utter pain.

Thanks,
Rachel

REJS7 said:

Thanks for the clarification on the magic spells, but in the games I play I still couldn't use the desert to plains spell more than once a game per unit - which was an utter pain.

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Are you sure you were standing on a simple desert-tile? Flood-plains in deserts are not supposed to be changable into plains (for balancing reasons).

any summon that doesn't dissapear, such as skeletons and tigers, are limited to one pure mage able to cast it. if you could cast a new skeleton every turn, and still have the old skeleton, you could have a huge army in no time. BAH-roken.

If it is a case of notching up the difficulty then I will do it, but I usually play noble on the vanilla version

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rachel
in my experience noble even in the vanilla version is pretty winnable everytime (for me and i dont think im that great) my theory is that because they are still developing the game the ai still isnt great about using magic and priests and making intelligent choices like having specialty cities - for example wait until a 'bully' civ demands 300 gp (or whatevery) from you, then sell him one of your techs for ALL his money (sometimes more than 1000 gp) - you've both clicked up a point in his attitude toward you and youve made a profit - its a kind of exploit thing - these 'cracks' in the ai strategy make it easy to exploit and therefore beat them - try 'raging barbarians' on prince level (or higher) and ill bet you dont build half the wonders ... though getting all the religions still is pretty easy and you do garner an advantage in that it keeps the advantages out of the ai's hands ...

@REJS7 I really think you need to understand that this Mod is less than 25% finished, and it is difficult to program the AI very well, while you are constantly changing existing things, and adding new ideas. I am sure that once FfH is finished the AI will be ALOT better, but I still will have my doubts if they will put up much of a fight on Noble.

As for now, I am definately not a very good FfH player, but I have fun playing on Mobarch with Agressive AI. I'm sure that if I can do it you will be able to.

Thanks for the tips guys - I think the barbarians definately add an edge to this mod. Having played with and without I def think that with barbarians it makes for a more level playing field. That said getting the giants early in the game sure helps in thwarting any hord tactics.

I don't think the AI is any better or worse than in the vanilla version, rather that the way it plays takes a little getting used to. I didn't realise it was only 25% finished as it does feel very polished.

A little bit of an exploit that I found (I think it's an exploit). I was playing as Hippus and used Magnadine to attack Orthus. After an easy victory, Magnadine had an Orthus Axe and Orthus also still had his axe. Is this supposed to happen?

BiffQJ said:

A little bit of an exploit that I found (I think it's an exploit). I was playing as Hippus and used Magnadine to attack Orthus. After an easy victory, Magnadine had an Orthus Axe and Orthus also still had his axe. Is this supposed to happen?

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No, that will be fixed in 0.16.

I love this mod; it has revitalized my interest in Civ 4. That being said I have a few ideas:

1. In addition to the mana nodes of the various spheres, workers should be able to build the "Arcane Tower" improvement. This would increase the rate of XP gain for any magic units fortified upon it. Something similar could be done for disciple units.

2. Jungles should randomly spawn panthers and tigers even if they are within the cultural borders of a civilization. This would provide an added incentive to clear jungles as well as entertainment at the local carnivals.

3. Whenever workers clear an ancient forest, there should be a small chance that a barbarian Treant spawns in retaliation. Perhaps enraged earth elementals coming out of newly dug mines?

4. "Fallout" should be renamed "the Plague," and have a small chance of spreading to adjacent tiles each turn. The Plague could either begin as a random world event or the negative effect of a malevolent city improvement or world wonder (similar to fallout from a meltdown). Any unit that enters a Plagued tile would stand of chance of getting the Diseased promotion.

These are just suggestions; you already have an excellent mod here, and everyone who contributed should be proud.

Hi. I've been playing the mod since about .13 and like faeryl said it's revitalized Civ 4 for me too.

Just a thought I had while playing.

If playing Doviello etc. and you are at peace with the barbarians, would it be possible to still be at war with animals but not necessarily more sentient barbarians? Just feels wrong to be at peace with bears and wolves. Possibly as soon as orcs and goblins spawn the barbarians could go to peace.

Any, just a minor thought to throw out.

Like the plague idea Faeryl, but not sure about the treeants and earth elemenatls, though I suppose elves do get a lot of bonuses through ancient forests so it might not hurt too much.

bigtrac said:

Hi. I've been playing the mod since about .13 and like faeryl said it's revitalized Civ 4 for me too.

Just a thought I had while playing.

If playing Doviello etc. and you are at peace with the barbarians, would it be possible to still be at war with animals but not necessarily more sentient barbarians? Just feels wrong to be at peace with bears and wolves. Possibly as soon as orcs and goblins spawn the barbarians could go to peace.

Any, just a minor thought to throw out.

Like the plague idea Faeryl, but not sure about the treeants and earth elemenatls, though I suppose elves do get a lot of bonuses through ancient forests so it might not hurt too much.

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Yes, in 0.16 (the next version) the barbarian trait doesn't keep you from being able to attack animals.

FaerylViconia said:

I love this mod; it has revitalized my interest in Civ 4. That being said I have a few ideas:

1. In addition to the mana nodes of the various spheres, workers should be able to build the "Arcane Tower" improvement. This would increase the rate of XP gain for any magic units fortified upon it. Something similar could be done for disciple units.

2. Jungles should randomly spawn panthers and tigers even if they are within the cultural borders of a civilization. This would provide an added incentive to clear jungles as well as entertainment at the local carnivals.

3. Whenever workers clear an ancient forest, there should be a small chance that a barbarian Treant spawns in retaliation. Perhaps enraged earth elementals coming out of newly dug mines?

4. "Fallout" should be renamed "the Plague," and have a small chance of spreading to adjacent tiles each turn. The Plague could either begin as a random world event or the negative effect of a malevolent city improvement or world wonder (similar to fallout from a meltdown). Any unit that enters a Plagued tile would stand of chance of getting the Diseased promotion.

These are just suggestions; you already have an excellent mod here, and everyone who contributed should be proud.

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Nice name

We may be including some sort of "the land rebels" kind of mechanics in the "Fire" phase. One of the main themes of that phase is the ability to drive the world into a more fully realized armageddon situations. Some of those may cause the generation of elementals/treants/etc that attack players.

Fallout will also be reviewed. Im not sure what we are going to end up doing with it, it may become a taint on evil lands that players with demonic ties can mitigate the effect of. Im not sure what the exact mchanic will be yet, but we do want to use it as a dynamic negative mechanism (negative for most players, there will probably be some situations where you will want to spread fallout in your lands).

Has anyone seen the AI use the WoW The Nexus or Obsidian Gates? I haven't playing from Settler to Prince. They certianly gives a human player a big advantage.