Mod Test IV: Fall From Heaven II

digitCruncher

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OK, I am going to break from tradition here, by NOT posting my start :p

Anyway, for those who don't know, Fall From Heaven II (FFH II from now on) is a extremely different mod from Civ IV. In fact, very few of the original features are left unchanged.

The Mod Test series takes a critical eye at some of the more popular mods for those who haven't dabbled in many mods.

So... I will start of by my first thoughts, and open the door to discussions!!

First Thoughts

The first thing I thought when I got FFH II was... "6 hours, you gotta be joking!!". It was. The download for the main program and patch took 8 hours. That said, I am on NZ broadband (IE. Dial-up speeds FTW), and its no surprise on how huge this mod is. Also, there is an optional movies section to download, which gives movies for the (MANY) new wonders in the game. I chose not to download it, as it is almost as large as the regular game. If you want to play along, leave your computer on overnight (remembering to reduce power consumption to a minimum, don't want any fires ;) ), and download it. From my first impressions is a GREAT mod.

There are a few problems with it, which I will brush over quickly, as to not make too much of a fuss. Firstly, the graphics. I don't know whether its my graphics card, or the fact I haven't downloaded the main mod, or if I run on low settings, but the icons for the creatures / units revert to thier Civ IV regular units (so, for example, a Phalanx will wait around for approximatly 5 seconds, and then appear to be a Civ IV Pikeman). Thankfully, the new unit-pictures are simaler looking to the real units.

Next, the civilopedia. As there are often triplicate names for one thing (EG. One unit who's name I have forgotten starts of with a promotion by the same name as the unit, which enables a spell of the same name), errors when the wrong hyperlinks are used are relatively common. The more important thing is the total lack of information (For example, I didn't know what the March of the Trees world-spell was, until I was the target of it. Thankfully, some quick rings of fires, fire-balls, and a Maelstrom injured enough of them so that the counter attack wasn't deadly. Oh, and that spell... it destroys all forests in the civ, and replaces them with Treants... 10 :strength: units, with Woodsman II, and vulnerability to Fire, amongst other things.)

Finally, the AI. Its a known fact that it is dumb, and as a result I will be playing at PRINCE difficulty, instead of my regular NOBLE difficulty.

Now, since it is WAYYY past the time I should be asleep, and I am starting to spam caps all the time, I shall disappear. I will leave with a few comments about the game, and my formatting.

If text is in bold, it is talking about gameplay features
If text is in italics, it is talking about the abilities of a unit/civic/promotion/spell etc.
Spell
Unit
Civic
Wonder
Tech
Other

Also, as there are tons of promotions, I won't bother listing them, just adding them to the units stats.

A quick note about general gameplay: FFH II has parallel tech trees, instead of the linear one in Civ IV. This means that you can be seriously behind in warfare techs, but ahead in spells, or strong in economy, but weak in religions and civics! Also, its is advisable to stick to one of the paths, as they get exponentally better. Ironically, all the main improvements are on different paths, so its plausable to run half the game without ever building a cottage (but not advisable)

Also, it has World Units, Rituals (which replace projects), Spells (which each unit can cast one of once a turn), World Spells (special spells that a civ can cast once a game), and LOTS of World Wonders. Both my games ended with over half the wonders never being built!!

Some units retain the attack/defence stats of Civ III and prior. This means that 7/9 could mean 7 strength out of 9, or 7 attack strength, and 9 defence strength. Its easy to find out, however, so its not a problem. I will use the convention that all units are always healed (so 7/9 means 7 attack, 9 defence).

Finally, this game relies on the philosophy that "If everything is overpowered, nothing is". As a result, there are small balance issues (Sacrifice the weak, anyone??), but mostly these don't enter into it. Thankfully, the most insanely overpowered things are mutually exclusive (IE. You can't get ALL of them)


So... remembering that I don't want a ridiculously overpowered civ (like those Water guys that can build Pirate Ports), nor a ridiculously weak one, what civ and leader do people who have played this game before, recommend for a deep game, which explores all paths (or at least most of them).

I was thinking of that Raider guy from the Hippus civ... and then spamming Adepts ;) Hows that for counter-intuitive (The Hippus only start with 2 mana, instead of 3 that most civs have. Thus, there adepts, and other magic-based units start off with very few spells available, unless other sources of mana are ... 'aquired')

And for all those who DON'T know anything about FFH II... I will give a quick crash course after I wake up. It should cover most, and the rest will be given in the game I demo :D

Its a great mod, with a few teething problems and ugly spots. But what mod doesn't?? Its deep, and thats what I like in a mod. And it has TONS of replayability, as long as you don't play in the high-end of difficulty (like Diety etc.)

I was also thinking Huge map, with 3 (or 4) continents... that should also get us an idea of other civs, and have some deep wars. Also, that would stop me from getting a religious victory ridiculously early.
 
You realize there is a separate forum for this mod as well as a strategy and tips under forum for that forum right?
 
Ah... look at that...

Thats wierd... I never saw that (in fact... I never saw that entire section before... I didn't know there were sub-sub-sub-sub-SUB boards...)

I guess I never bothered to look, as no other mod has a section like that...

Oh well...

:shifty:

I guess I will ask someone to move this... even though the target audience is people who HAVEN'T got FFH yet ... I will let the mod decide whether it would be better in the FFH specific Strategy and Tips section, or whether it would be better in the Strategy and Tips section where the people who don't play it would look...

(Will edit to post the summary of generic game-play of FFH II later...)
 
I have the FFH II v032 (3.17 compatible), and I enjoy it very much. However, there are 2 huge curves for this game. First, a learning curve, there is so much new stuff to digest its insane. Secondly, there is a pretty big UN-learning curve. So much of what I take for granted in Civ IV has to be totally re-thought in this mod. Some of the things that have actually made me a better player in Civ IV, like a better understanding of whipping, chopping, etc, are not even factors in FFH II. The game is so different that its almost harder to learn if you are an advanced BTS player (Emp+ in skill).
 
mod board has almost no traffic
 
The problem of your units reverting to their original civ4 graphics, is most likely cause your playing with single unit graphics on. Turning that off again should fix it.
 
Its not a popularity thing which I am thinking of staying in Strategy and Tips here... if there was only 1 person in this forum regularly, I wouldn't mind staying here.

Its the fact that, if you are looking in the FFH Strategy and Tips section of the forums, then you either have FFH already, or you are currently downloading it... Whereas this thread is to make people understand what FFH is, not how to play it better.

Anyway... I will eat lunch, post a post explaining the real basics of how to play, and then start my game as the Hippus civ! (Unless someone else has a good idea on how to cover most bases), and then play the first 25~50 turns (depending on how much extra stuff appears...)

And yes, I am using single-unit graphics. I might revert to multi-unit graphics, but that is going to kill my Laptop (I use my Laptop for gaming... it lags. ALOT. Thus I usually jam everything to low, and hope that my integrated graphics don't blow something up in the game :p)

FFH II in 2 minutes ... or maybe a bit more :p

Firstly, FFH is much more war-oriented than the regular game of Civ IV. The reason behind this is that, if you don't fight wars, your units would be so weak that they wouldn't be able to put up any resistance against the attacking empire. The promotion system is so biased in the attackers favor, that if you slow down attacking, you are risking alot.

There are three reasons that cause this: Firstly, defencive bonuses are reduced. You know how you get 20% defencive bonuses at 75 culture, and then 40% at 750 culture, etc. etc. etc.? In FFH, the defencive bonuses from cities are halved (to 10/20/30). That said, palisades, walls and walls of stone (along with other defencive buildings, such as Archery Ranges, and bowyers), increase the defence in ADDITION to the culture (I think... I am reasonably sure that is the case, as I can't see how you can get 70% defence easily...)

Next, the experiance gained from combat is increased by a large amount. A standard combat with 90%-ish odds can net you 5-10 EXP. This means that quite quickly, there are lvl 8~10 units running around. Without combat that makes you at a serious disadvantage. Also, Hero units get 1 EXP each turn they are alive (up to a max of 100), Magic units get a slower trickle of EXP, and civs with the Raiders promotion get 1 extra EXP for each battle they fight in, and both barbarians and animals have their max EXP cap raised from 10, to 100 (I think... I haven't fought any barbs with over 100 EXP :p), meaning experiance is being thrown around like candy. It explains why 1 wonder seems insane... it gives 10 free EXP to mounted units :p

Finally... fireballs. These things start of with 2 range, are flying, and can bombard defences REALLY early. The only problem is that they require Mages to use... which take some time to create. But have a few Mages with spell extenstion, and you can be marching (oh yes, March only requires Combat III, but Medic is unavailable to almost every unit) and bombarding the next target constantly.

Spell Extention: Its a promotion, which gives the mobility I promotion to all summoned units (eg. Fireballs, Water elementals etc.), increasing thier speed by 1. Spell Extention II gives the mobility II promotion, increasing thier speed to a total of 2 (so 2 :movement: fireballs become 4 :movement: ones... which can bombard quite a distance away!!)

Next: The tech tree is parallel, which has been discussed before. Read the first post to get an idea.

Next: Naval units can change crews, for free.
* Crew Normally: No effect
* Skeleton Crew: +1 Cargo Capacity, -1 :strength:
* Longshoremen: +1 :movement:, -1 Cargo Capacity
* Buccaneer Crew: +1 :strength:, -1 :movement:

This allows some units, which normally couldn't carry anyone, to crew with the Skeleton Crew, and fit someone in as well!

Mana is an important part of any civilisation. Controlling mana sometimes gives bonuses, changes diplomacy with other civs, and unlocks spells for your adepts, mages and archmages! Most palaces start with 3 sources of mana (except the Hippus, which start off with 2, and horses), and other sources can be found by building wonders (EG. The soul forge provides 1 death mana), and 'mining' it, by building mana nodes above raw mana (which are blue, and pointy. I will show you what I mean later). The raw mana is a resource that doesn't effect the output of the tile, until you harvest it, after which you lose 2 commerce on that tile.

Diplomacy has a new friend: Alignment. Alignment can be either Good, Evil, or Neutral. Alignment is set at the beginning of the game, and then changes when that civ adopts a religion (sometimes). Normally, not having the same alignment gives a -2 relations, while having the same alignment doesn't. Neutral throws a spanner in the works, as SOMETIMES they get hit with the -2 relations, and other times, they don't. But they also don't get the +2 for sharing Neutral with other neutral civs. (Or at least, I haven't seen it yet). As the Armageddon counter increases, the bonuses (and penalties) of not having the same alignment increase.

Armageddon Counter (sp.?, AC from now on) is a feature that effects lots of things. Some events change it, spreading the Ashen Viel religion increases it, building some units change it (generally increasing it), razing cities increases it (and HUGE cities increase it by a HUGE amount!), unless it was an Ashen Viel city in the first place, which reduces it. And it is required for lots of things... some events require a certain AC level to trigger (and others increase / decrease in occurance as the AC increases), some units require a certain AC level to build, and some major events occur at major locations in the AC level (Blight, a big one, which massively increases sickness in an empire, strikes at AC 40. The four horsemen (which preclude the AC) strike at AC 60-70. There are others, but I won the last game with AC 65... so I don't know what happens later. I know at AC 70 some insanely strong units can be built, and at AC 100 something called "Armaggedon" occurs... it doesn't sound so bad ;)

There is a manual out there, including other info as need be, but I will add the armageddon info for those who are too lazy to cause 100 AC themselves ;)

Spoiler :
The Armageddon Effects are:
· AC=10: Warning, but no effect.
· AC=40: Blight: Causes Temporary large Disease Penalties in every city in the world and does 25% Death Based Damage to all Living Units.
· AC=60: Stephanos appears in the world. (The first of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, a powerful demonic flying mounted barbarian Hero. He causes fear,and is immune to magic)
· AC=63: Buboes appears in the world. (The second of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, a powerful demonic flying mounted barbarian Hero. He causes fear, is immune to magic, and can cast Rage)
· AC=66: Yersinia appears in the world.(The Third of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, a powerful demonic flying mounted barbarian Hero. He causes fear, is immune to magic, and spreads the Plague)
· AC=69: Ars Moriendi appears in the world.(The fourth of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, a powerful demonic flying mounted barbarian Hero. He causes fear, is immune to magic, and all units he defeats are turned to barbarian Wraiths)
· AC=70: Hellfire Spawns: This creates the Hellfire improvement on random tiles in the world, and creates a Sect of the Flies (a demonic melee unit) (belonging to the Infernals if they are in the game, and to the barbarian state
otherwise) on these tiles to defend them. More such units (and even stronger demons) will continue to spawn here if the AC remains high enough.
· AC=90: Wrath: The Avatar of Wrath appears in the world. He is a powerful Barbarian Hero that can walk on water and can cast fireball, and units he defeats join the barbarian state. This event has a 60% chance of giving each
unit in the game (except world units, so you won't lose Heroes) the Enraged promotion. This promotion gives them a 5% chance to turn barbarian each turn (note that whenever you disband a unit with a chance to turn
barbarian, it will instantly turn barbarian instead of being deleted).
· AC=100: Apocalypse: kills 60% of the living units in the world, and halves the populations of all cities of leader without the Fallow trait (anyone but Hyborem)


Finally, there are some world improvements... improvements that appear at the start of the game, which give massive bonuses... hopefully we will see some in the game ;)
 
This is great, im interested to hear your opinions both good and bad.

The unit problems are caused by frozen animations. When frozen animations are on the game switches to a stationary model of the unit when it isnt being used, we dont model all the stationary units so they revert to base civ4 units. You will want to turn frozen animations off.
 
Interesting. I think that this thread will be very useful in this forum, but in the opposite way that you intend. Rather than informing those unaware of the mod, you'll be useful to give us a fresh perspective. Probably not what you were going for, but always appreciated.
 
Thanks!!

@Kael: Done, and done. Thanks for that. Hopefully that fixes everything. And I am sure you guys don't mind if I play at 4 FPS for the entire game (I have learned to live with it), and it isn't a FPS game... so I think I will be sweet :p And its gonna be hard to find bad things with this mod, so don't you sweat. But I do have to say all the things I find... I have a reputation to uphold. Or want a reputation to uphold. Or something. Oh, I am so lonely :( :p

@Nikis: My sig still links here, so its not like its going to be hard to find... and I am glad that I will give a fresh view to this mod :D Onwards... to victory!! (Or at least, maybe I should start the game first :p)
 
Looks like you weren't lead in quite the right direction. Single Unit graphics isn't the problem with Graphic-Reversion, it is "Frozen Animations" which causes that problem.

EDIT: And I seriously need to update my Armageddon effects in the manual if you clipped that from mine... Yikes, outdated.
 
Did you patch the game? because quite a bit of info that is outdated. Examples:

after which you lose 2 commerce on that tile
no you don't

Wrath: The Avatar of Wrath... and can cast fireball
this has been changed to "summon ira" (which permanently summons a 12 strength (right?) 2 movement (right?) flying monster)

and units he defeats join the barbarian state
I'm not sure if this is still in the game or not.

This promotion gives them a 5% chance to turn barbarian each

actually, the promotion gives +1 movement, +20% strength, and 3% and to turn barbarian per turn, and it is also removed after combat.



and I didn't even read the first few posts...
 
Abuculatter: Civilopedia. Often your friend. In this mod... obviously you take that with a pinch of salt.

I have ONLY played the latest mod... anything that seems outdated is because of the civiliopedia. Simply because I don't know anything about the previous versions, and I haven't had time to try EVERYTHING out. That said, thats quite sad, as I actually have taken to AVOIDING having mana nodes in my BFC, unless the terrain is already pathetic.

The only exception is the stuff in the spoiler, which, as xienwolf has stated, is quite outdated as well.

@Xienwolf: Yip... its your manual, sorry.

So, with that in mind, lets see what we have...


Year 0: Game settings. Nothing unusual, just 4 continents, and 10 civs. It is possible (but unlikely) that we will have an isolated civ!! Of course, the most likely outcome is 2 3-player continents, and 2 2-player continents.

On the Right-hand-side of the screen, you can see each of the 6 victory conditions. Time, Conquest, Domination, and Cultural are the same as regular Civ IV BTS. The new ones are:

Religious: Found a religion (or capture the holy city), and spread it to over 80% of the populace. An easy way to do this is to capture nearly 80% of the populace, and then create the Purge the Unfaithful Ritual, which destroys all non-state religions, and all non-state religious buildings, at the expense of causing city revolts in some of the effected cities. Boom, almost everyone is your religion (for faster effects, run the Theocracy civic (no non-state religion, amongst other things. Its a government civic)

Tower of Mastery: Build all 5 towers, or capture them. Each one requires many different types of mana, and building them all shows that you control almost all kinds of mana. Clever usage of the 'Rites of Ograma' ritual will help. According to the Manual, all civs will declare war on any civ trying to build the Tower of Mastery... this may have changed. I doubt it. But if you have 20 raw mana nodes in your territory... you have effectively won the game :p

Alter of the Luonattor: This victory condition is only available to Good Leaders (With Alignment = Good). Basically, grab 6 Great Prophets, research the last tech, and build the wonder Altar of the Luonattor (Final). Ironically, the final building still has an effect (if the victory condition is not enabled). I don't know if they stack, but it is either very large, or absurdly large, depending on whether it stacks or not. As I plan to adopt the Ashen Viel religion, in order to increase the AC so we can see what it does, this won't matter, as the Ashen Viel makes me evil, but this victory condition requires that I be neutral, or good.


Gosh... that was long. I guess it was because the first 130-ish turns was really boring...


Year 0: Our great leader. He probably has the least number of UU's and UB's... His mounted mercanary unit is a fast unit which uses Guild of the Nine (Thus, its best for me to grab this). Its very useful, as it increases the speed that this guild can spread (although, that is dubious, as it doesn't provide anything, except the ability to make MORE mounted mercenaries). His palace provides Air and Nature mana, as well as a horse resource. His stable provides a promotion that gives +1 :move: and 10% withdrawl.
His World spell (which can be cast only once a game), gives all units +1 movement, +1/+1 strength, and can attack multiple times in a turn. But its a promotion, and that promotion has a 5% chance of disappearing each turn.

What about his promotions, rather than his civs?

Well... they are very nice abilities, giving strong traits, and everything else is weak.

Agg/Raider

Free Combat I promotion for Melee and Mounted units
Free Commando promotion for Recon, Melee, Archery, Mounted, and Diciple units ( :O )
+100% gold from pillaging
+1 XP gain from battles.
Double Production Shipyard and Stable.

The Commando promotion is VERY nice... very over powered (as is every civ :p)


Year 0: Scout a bit, and find some raw mana!! See what I mean? Pointy!

Year 1: Settle 2S from the starting location. This will allow better cities later on. City name: Altheroil-ta-Mealthiel. Thats a mouthful. You will be called "Capital" in this thread from now on.

Set the techs.

See? Parallel techs. Very little cross-referencing (but there is a bit...). My goal is this: Education (for the City States civic: -80% Maintanance from distance to palace, -25% Maintanance from Number of cities, +25% WW, -20% Culture, and cottages)) -> Bronze Working (For the Bronze weapons promotion (+1/+1 strength), and the ability to cut down forests) -> Exploration (Roads... I often forget this for some reason) -> Animal Husbandry (To grab the sheep and the cattle) -> Construction (I need chain irrigation here... normally I avoid it, but this map has very few rivers, and all the lakes are next to desert) -> Ashen Viel Religion. I haven't typed it in, but I have a queue of 15 techs already, so I won't bother. The next idea for techs is "Sailing" (to spread the religion, and meet new friends), and Trade (to trade techs with the AI, something that I am REALLY good at)


Year 4: I get this event. Its a wasteful event, that does nothing, except change a few tiles temporarily around. It is designed to prevent tons of other events happening (apparently there were double mushroom events... which sound delicious!!)

Year 11: A player casts For The Horde. This is shocking news, I wonder who? Oh... wait... For the Horde is the World Spell of the Clan of Embers civilisation. Thus, it can only be the leader of the Clan of Embers civilisation.

In addition, my scout pops a hut, and grabs 5 EXP from it. Promoted to combat II (NOTE: In FFH the Combat line of promotions does more damage... +20% strength to be exact. Woodsman increases both forest defence AND attack by 30%, City raider does its thing by 40 (or is it 30?)%, and Guerrila gives +40% hills defence. As a result, promotions do even more damage than usual. Drill is the same, thus it is a 'weak' line of promotions, but Blitz, a insanely powerful promotion (when your units have 6 movement, you will see why), requires Drill IV... which is sad.. My scout is now a 2.8 strength unit, with +50% vs. Animals

Year 14: Find a lion, and kill it with my uber-scout. It had 86%-ish odds, but I got 6 EXP from it. I kept that promotion for a rainy day (if I didn't need it before Animal Husbandry, I would get subdue animal (+25% vs. animals, can capture animals for carnivals later on), but if I did, I would use it on Combat 3, for another 20% bonus)


Year 20: Meet the neighbours 1: Auric Ulvin of the Illians. These guys are evil, and start of with increased tundra attack and defence. Thats just great... half our island is tundra!! Thankfully its only a 10% bonus.

Auric is Spi/Cha/Agnostic. This means that he:
Has no anarchy
Gains Mobility I on all his Disciple Units (making them go faster)
+1 Happy per city
-25% EXP required for unit promotions
Cannot adopt a state religion, nor can he found them, nor can he build any temples (as he cannot research the techs for them)
Double production speed of Temples (!?)



From memory, this guy still needs features added for the next version of this game... making him a nice neighbour to push over!

Year 34: Lots happens for my scouting party. Firstly, my scout pops a hut on Year 33, and grabs a scout. This scout is right next to a Lion, and attacks with 55% odds. The attack fails. Then the next year, my awesome scout attacks, kills it, and grabs 3 EXP. However, now he is next to a Polar Bear (5 Strength Animal), on FLOODPLAINS. He quickly gets promoted to Combat III, and the next turn, fights the polar bear, grabbing ANOTHER 4 EXP.

Year 52: The wilderness is a dangerous place... I now find myself next to a Giant Spider.
Giant spiders are insane. They are 4 strength, but also have +1 Poison. What this means is, normally, they have 5 strength, unless the unit has a resistance to poison damage. In addition, they are invisible to all units except scouts, and give the Poisoned promotion (which dramatically cuts healing time, until the unit is fully healed) to all units that survive combat with it. They also have a first strike.

I lose the combat, and I can't attack back, as my scout was the one that died, so I can no longer see the spider (but it can see me!!)

Year 60: Meet Jonas Endain, of the Clan of Embers. These are Orcs, and are right at home. They (rather stupidly) ALWAYS use thier World spell as soon as possible (Which has a chance of converting some barbarian units to thier cause). If they wait for a little longer (say... till turn 150), they would have many more units, and then automatically gain knowledge of every civ in the game! And if economy is a problem, then they can disband the surplus units. Of course... its the AI. So I guess it will never learn :p

Oh, Jonas is Spi/Exp/Barbarian. This means:

+3 health in all cities
No upkeep costs for Compassion civics (IE. It can get Public healers for no upkeep, instead of High Upkeep, for a massive health bonus)
Free Mobility I to diciple units
-10% Science Rate
Starts at peace with the barbarians
Remains at peace, until thier score is 50% higher than second-place.
Double production for Temples, Granaries, and Harbors

Apparently, they can't build Libraries, either...


Year 68: Wahoo!! A world improvement! Unfortunatly, it is already hooked up to the Illians. Also, it provides 1 free Fire Mana. Which the AI is at least partially prolifant at... which sucks.
So the Illians already have 4 sources of Mana? Great.

Year 70: Remember those events about constillations coming into prominance (see Year 4 for more info). This time I get a choice. Start a golden age (if I am running the Fellowship of the Leaves Religion), or do nothing. I choose the latter...


Year 72: Finish researching Education. Yes... that was the SECOND tech I have ever researched. Early game in this mod is SO SLOW! Also, I am spamming warriors, as there is no point in doing anything. However, check out the civics I have adopted... I have Agriculture for my grassland tiles (there is no - production penalty on those tiles), and City states for my (future) rapid expansion of the world. I don't want to waste time in anarchy while expanding, so I do it early.

But cottages will REALLY help me expand!

Also, the Armaggedon Counter has increased to +2... which is OK. Nothing bad yet...


Year 76: Torturing Prisoners in War Games... tut tut tut. The for options are:
* Lose the unit, -2 to the AC
* Unit loses 1 XP (it doesn't have any ATM, BTW)
* Do nothing (Requires me being evil)
* Unit gains 2 XP (Requires me running the Ashen Veil religion)


Year 82: My warrior gets ambushed by a polar bear, and lives to tell the tale. He gets 5 XP for his efforts, promoting him to Combat III. With this promotion, he can travel north to the Bear Den (which is spawning the Polar Bears), and kill it (with 75.2% odds), and when he does, the Den is destroyed, and the warrior gains an additional 6 XP (meaning he can get March!!)

Year 97: Find a source of mana, just 4 tiles away from my borders!!

Unfortunatly, it is surrounded by tundra and ice. GETTING to it will be the problem, I fear. But the Mana is very useful (Fire mana + Life mana are both very nice in the early game... as these give access to Fireballs and Regeneration (sort of like "Healing for the masses") with mages. There was another strong mana source that I would like ASAP, but whatever it was, it requires 2 raw mana nodes... and I have found them!

Year 103: My warrior with March dies to a polar bear. A few turns later, the only survivors of the expeditionary forces that left 103 years ago, return, weak, and few on numbers. They never make another expedition (not for the next 50 turns anyway :p)


Year 106: This is a castle. As I work it, it grows. It provides defencive bonuses. It doesn't provide any resources...

WHY IS MY CITY WORKING IT!? (Actually, I have only just realised this... so its been working a sub-optimal tile for some 50 turns now... dang)

Its gonna be destroyed soon, anyway.

But that is how forts / citidals work in FFH.

Year 113: Ortheus is created... on another continent.

Ortheus is a 5 strength, 1 movement unit, with the following starting abilities:
+1 XP each turn, until he gets 100 XP
+25% City Defence
Immune to Capture
+10% Jungle Strength
+25% resistance to fire damage

He also carries an axe, which the person who kills Ortheus gets to keep!
The axe allows the unit that carries it to attack multiple times, and gives +1 Fire combat (This is from the manual. Are you sure? I was under the impression it gave +1 Affinity for Fire Mana, which is totally different. Affinity means that for each fire mana you control, you get +1 strength. The +1 fire combat means that regardless of how much fire mana you have, you get +1 strength). Killer on those horsemen units!



Year 122: The state of the worlds resources, after getting Mining (which reveals copper, but doesn't allow access to it). Note: Incence is a strategic resource (which just happens to provide +1 happy with most temples), and there are 4 sources of mana.

Year 133: Our settler (the first one) is born.

The 133 save is provided... And there are several potential city locations. The tech rate is FINALLY picking up a bit, and I will build a granary just so that I can increase the size of my city to size 5, before spamming 2 more settlers (and then more workers!!) I plan to build each city from I to XI, and then invade the Illian.

 
Good stuff.

I'm glad that spider got you! :evil:

It wouldn't be dark fantasy if things didn't go bump in the night (and eat you). Just wait till it's a giant ape, a fire elemental or a lich you encounter. They have a tendency to crunch-up multiple units.
 
i must admit, that's the most unusual hippus tactic i've seen in quite a while... I'd recommend going for an all-mounted approach instead (with a few axemen for city defence).

for some general information:
orthus axe really gives +1 strenght, not affinity. The weapon with fire affinity can be picked in an event involving a meteorite.
"regeneration" is a body 2 spell (increasing heal rates, aswell as giving healing while moving).
Be careful with that world improvement (the pyre). Civs can get events asking them to destroy (raze) the pyre in order to get a golden age. The tough part: doing this invokes the wrath of the local fire diety, who spawns a couple of fire elementals on the tile. These guys are 9 strenght, with 2 movement (i think).

Other than that, i can't wait for the next few parts of this story, should be interesting.
 
I havn't read this yet, but I am about to, just posting to say that I am interested in how new players view FfH 2. Me myself, I have actually played more BtS games lately. You have to admire the simplicity and the streamlined design of the regular game. And the fact that I can and will finish a game in one long sitting (with pauses). Something which I rarely do with FfH 2.

Don't get me wrong however, I do enjoy Fall from Heaven 2 more than I do BtS, I think I just over saturated myself with its sometimes overwhelming gameplay.
 
Wierd... in my Cheiftain game, I had a chariot with two weapons, and it had affinity for Fire AND Death mana...

And I am trying to spell the names correctly... I am copying them from screenshots, and the manual.

All mounted? I generally have lots of mounted units anyway, the mages are only for support. I might pillage more, however.

And thanks for the heads-up on the pyre... it will be fun to be fighting against fire elementals!!

[Edit]Oh!! My spell-checker is disabled!! Thats why my spelling is so terrible... I will try and find a way to re-enable it... as I cannot live without it![/Edit]
 
Wierd... in my Cheiftain game, I had a chariot with two weapons, and it had affinity for Fire AND Death mana...

That can happen, by using the fire affinity weapon from an event and Barbatos' staff of souls, for the death affinity...


And your game so far is a good read, its intresting to be reminded how different this is from vanilla bts.
 
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