Mod Test IV: Fall From Heaven. Powerful Computer Version!

Right... I think I have postponed this just about long enough, and I will return to completing the Mod Test right now.

But I have missed *2* updates, and thus my previous game seems surprisingly ... out of date.

So what I will do, is give a link to the OLD mod test ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=285892 ), and make a new game. This time with a random civ, and I might possibly release the GOOD person (whose name I forgot ... Mercurians?), and see how powerful the powers of the good side are...

I will miss my manes But the important thing is that this will be the most up to date version of mod test.

I will play 100 turn turn-sets, about once a day (I have study leave ) meaning this will be finished about twice as fast. I will also play on Noble difficulty.

Now, just a quick reminder about the first post in the old mod test version:


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 ), meaning experiance is being thrown around like candy. It explains why 1 wonder seems insane... it gives 10 free EXP to mounted units

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
* Longshoremen: +1 :movement:, -1 Cargo Capacity
* Buccaneer Crew: +1 , -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 :

WARNING: This is for 0.32, and I am playing at 0.34. Thus, these effects might not be accurate any more

The Armageddon Effects are:

· AC=10: Warning, but no effect.
· AC=30: Blight: Causes Temporary large Disease Penalties in every city in the world and does 25% Death Based Damage to all Living Units.
· AC=40: 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=50: 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=60: 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=70: 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=80: 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 game is a big download. I expect it to be finished in ~4 hours. In the meantime, I shall play some OLD FFH

And this time, with the Family computer (read: A computer WITH A GRAPHICS CARD THIS TIME), I shouldn't have any problems. The CPU leaves alot to be desired, so the time between turns is a pain in the butt... but at least it won't crash on me this time.

Armageddon changed quite a bit if you are using the latest version of FfH (0.34, with any patch). So you might get a bit of a shocker when you start climbing the scale I have updated the manual to include most of the changes in 34, Armageddon events among them.

I have only just found the Changelog... and I disappeared to correct my mistakes

But Armageddon has changed for the better Its good bad things happen faster...

Just want to say when I was still considering downloading FFH (two months ago) your old thread was very useful giving me an overview of what the mod was about. Good idea

Humorous... But what was the point of this thread? I can't exactly figure that one out.

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

Click to expand...

Basically, it describes all the features of FfH to those people who haven't looked at the mod before, and haven't even downloaded it yet.

As a result, instead of looking for "Strategy", like most games do, this thread looks at as many game-play elements as possible, and explains them in detail.

Its not designed at people who know the game (there are many other threads for that purpose), but instead it is designed to focus on how FfH differs from Civ IV, and what the general overview, look and feel, and possible flaws (if any exist) in this game.

Trust me... very soon there will be a game being played... as soon as I get XP to work out that I just downloaded an executable, and thus, I don't NEED a program to open it (-.-)

Rename the file and add a .exe at the end, then XP suddenly understands!

Thanks for that.

I think that this game would be very... interesting if we play on my favourite map... Earth 2 I could also do the "Age of Winter" option, just to have a 'getting out of the ice age' thing going. That way, this game would be Mythology meets reality

Question: Is the Earth2 map script fully supported by this mod? IE. Do all the resources / improvements / etc. work on Earth 2? From what I can seein world builder, everything seems to be there... but I want to know if there are any known problems with running this 'non-standard' map script...

Otherwise, I will just run a Terra map, and not accept the Lanun civilisation (as that would make it much too easy ) But Earth2 would be much more fun (I can imagine Hyborem emerging near the USA, or Brazil )

[Edit]Played a quick game. Defeated on turn 273 (Epic speed). I was on the boundary between Europe and Asia, and in this particular map there were no less than 6 major (>10 tile) continents which were entirely cut off from each other via water. In order of size: Spain, Australia, South America, Africa, North America, Europe/Asia. As a result, the empire was REALLY squished. The civ with those annoying Pyre Zombies ended up getting annoyed at my 'lack of grace' (Whatever that means...), and declared war after I refused to give her sheep. She was stuck in Europe, and only had 2 cities. But she was shielded from the waves of Lizardmen I kept on having... so she declared war, and may army of ~15 warriors was slaughtered by her ~15 Pyre Zombies + Scouts. But at least the Earth 2 map seems to work perfectly.

1 LOL moment, was when I got the "Farmer has improved irrigation techniques and pest control" option... TWICE on the same tile. My non-irrigated corn, grassland tile was yielding 7

Enough about complex, albiet fun games. The next game will be SERIOUS, and fully documented. I think I have a grasp on the game... even if I did get slaughtered. Alas, "Arid" maps are no fun to play on

I have looked in WB in a grand total of 3 games, and although there seems to be a regular amount of food / commerce / production resources, there seems to be a rather significant metal shortage. For 10 players, there is often about 7.5 copper, 5 iron, and 2.5 mithril ... thats just 1.5 metals per civilisation

A little hard if I get stuck without metals... but that is where archers come in Not entirely unworkable. I think, if no-one says anything, I will play Earth 2, with the Frozen World, and Temperate Maps, Large size, as a random (Non-Lanun, Non-Clan) civ. The Lanun are just insanely powerful on Terra maps, and the same goes for the Clan (if you postpone your world spell

I PROMISE from now on, the rest of everything I write will assume you have no previous FFH experiance.[/Edit]

I am of the opinion that in ALL maps, the amount of metals has been reduced from 0.62 to 0.64. I think... oh well.

I am using a different format too...

In game information (Such as strategy)
Game Mechanics
Promotions, Racial Promotions and Spells
Units and Heroes
Religion and Civilisations
Items, and other miscellanious stuff



This is the opening screen... normally there is a demon that is screaming or something... but this is (apparently) the new backdrop Nice...

I played 2 or 3 games on Earth2, and decided that that map was just to ... unbalanced. It squished all the civs so close together that they could only have 2 or 3 cities at a time. I just couldn't get Africa connected to the mainland Europe / Asia. But this is the game I am going to continue, even if I die horribly. It will be fun to watch

I am playing a Terra map, and hoping that I get a half-decent start. I seem to have... except for 2 problems



The RNG gave me Flauros. He is a vampire. I also will probably just make this post a big post about this one picture. All in bold, too

Starting from the top right, there is gold. This is just as normal for Civ IV... it is used for upgrading units, maintaining units, and cities, and paying upkeep on civics.

Directly below that is two buttons. The top - left button is the button that has all the logs. This is just the same as Civ IV, except that the combat log doesn't work, and the Quest log isn't needed. But everything else is there.

To the right of the logs, is the Trophy room. There are many, many, MANY trophies to collect, and I know several people who will just play game after game to get all the trophies. Like me Here is my current trophy room:

In the top, there are all the trophies I have collected (At the moment, I have only killed Ortheus. And even that wasn't particularly impressive... he popped, in a previous game, about 2 tiles from my expedition party ). In the bottom there are tons that I haven't collected. You get a trophy for each victory condition you win, and each civilisation you win as. You get a trophy for killing most of the non-apopolytic heroes, for killing Aurin Ulvin with the Godslayer, for making him ascend, for completing each of the 3 challange games (one which I am very interested is the one where you have to get to the top ranking scoring civ, and as soon as you hit #1, you take over the bottom ranking civ. As soon as you make THEM hit #1 ... you take over the bottom ranking civ AGAIN. The THIRD civilisation is the one that you need to make win the game >.< Sounds difficult!!). My favorite one, and the one that I will move heaven and earth to try and get, is the trophy for turning one of your units into a baboon (Oh, the wonders of Fall From Heaven, and the funny things you can do)

Below that, there is a big list of all the mana I have. Mana is a resource, and you get it by improving mana nodes (they are blue pointy things... I will show you what they are when they happen to appear in a screen shot). Most palaces start with 3 mana sources, but some (like the Hippus, and the Infernal), start with 2 mana sources, and a regular resource (Hippus: Horse, Infernal: Iron). Mana is used to train your spellcasters to learn spells, and some give small bonuses (for example, Law Mana gives a -5% maintanance in all your cities, and Body Mana gives +5% heal rate in all your territory). These are cumulative (2 Body Mana resources give +10% heal rate, for example).

Directly below that, is the unit info. The unit info looks 100% better than the civ 4 version, as the unit symbol is NOT inside the box, but instead is placed on top of the box (you will see what I mean shortly). This gives more room for promotions, which are used for effects of spells, for pieces of equipment, and for ... combat experiance. Obviously.

Moving to the right, you can see the unit buttons. This is perfectly normal. If a unit can cast a spell, then that spell is shown here, as a button. ATM, there is only one spell, the world spell... I will come to that soon. It is the one with the girl with a blood mouth, and a small star, at the far far right. Its a useful spell, if you are running slavery .

To the right of that, is the mini-map, and display buttons, as per BtS. However, there is a small addition. Instead of the green/red button that ends your turn, there is, instead, a number. This is the ARMAGEDDON COUNTER (From now on, since I can't spell Armageddon very well, I shall use the common abbreviation: AC). This number increases when bad things happen (Cities are razed, people worship Demons, powerful Demons, and friends of Demons appear, and some bad events), and decreases when good things happen (People worshiping Demons are killed, Good Heroes are born, and some good events). As the number goes higher, more and more bad things happen (Plagues, the 4 horsemen of the apocolype, 60% of all units dying... and thats just a few things that happen ). Normally, you don't want to have the AC high, but some civilisations are more resiliant to a high AC value (for example, the Infernal, the Orcs, or those Golem dudes).

Then we go up. There is the score, as you remember it. It is exactly like BtS, except for a new tag on the end... I have (EVIL) in red letters by my name. This means that my alignment (which is used for diplomacy purposes) is EVIL. It also allows me to do some pretty sadistic, albiet awesome stuff in events, but some other stuff I can't do, because I don't like doing good stuff on occasion. Even IF it would net me a golden age...

And we go up to the big line of options available for me to do, as well as the well known advisors. From left to right, there is (if there is no additional info, it is just like BtS)

Domestic Advisor
Financial Advisor
Civics (Note: There are about 48 or something civics available >.<)
Foriegn Advisor
Military Advisor
Science Advisor
Religious Advisor
Solemium (This is a card game, which I can't spell either. I am sure 1000 people will correct me on the spelling, but anyway, this is a card game that, if you win, you get a diplo bonus against an opponent, and if you lose, you get a diplo penalty. The rules are simple, as long as there is a screenshot to help. Unfortunatly, for brevity reasons, and the fact that I have been kicked off the family computer before I could take a screenshot, we will have to leave that for another time)
Victory Screen (There are multiple new types of victory. I won't go into that until we get someone near-ish to a type of victory. I am not aiming for victory, but if I do, it will be a time victory )
Score / Top Cities.

I don't know what the last button does. I haven't touched it. I haven't even noticed it. I will tell you what it does, in two days time.

Above all those buttons, there is a clock (which I had to enable), and a date (I think it is measured in years, but it can also be measured in months / decades, whatever. The actual measurement is just a number, with no measurement value. Kiel would fail a physics test, obviously )

*Gasp* That was alot of bold. Now to discuss about the civilisation I got stuck with

This civilisation is a civilisation ruled by vampires (although some other units, strong ones, can also become vampires). They have several vampire-esque unique units, as well as the Bloodpet (A replacement for the warrior, that is only special in that it doesn't obsolete, and that it is used for food (!) for my vampire armies. If my vampire hoards feed on my warriors, then they die, and my vampires get fully healed, and get +1 movement until the end of turn, and gain the ability to attack multiple times... so it means my warriors get to help my powerful vampires to attack several times in a turn!!)

His traits are Financial/Organised, which are so similar to BtS, it is not worth mentioning

Well... that is that. I have finally described the screen, and a basic overview of FfH. Note: I haven't even clicked "Continue" yet!! However, this information is rather useful to describe now, as it is used everywhere else. And now we can go, almost 100%, into pure gameplay stuff, rather than GUI stuff.

I WILL announce different promotions, unlike the first try. It became very confusing, and redundant to announce. It is important to memorise Racial Promotions as I will only announce them ONCE. However, all civilisations (for example, all elves) start with that racial promotion (in that example, all elves start with the Elvish racial promotion). Other racial promotions are intuitive on when they should appear.

The settings. Espionage is disabled ALWAYS for Fall From Heaven, and unlike older versions of FFH, the power graph is now always visible to all civilisations that you have met. No tech brokering is my favorite new option, as, even though it makes the game easier, it makes the game less "AI vs. Human", and makes diplomacy much more deep and fun. "End of Winter" means that almost all the map starts off as tundra, but gradually warms up.



The starting terrain. Note that all Settlers start with the Unique promotion:
Starting settler bonus
+2 movement
+3 visibility range (or something big like that)

This is to ensure that your settler finds a good city.

Year 4: Pop a hut, and grab Mystisism. This enables Obelisks (+2 culture), and leads to Education (Cottages). It is a very nice tech to get early on.
Meanwhile, you can see I am researching Agriculture. This enables farms, and leads to Animal Husbandry that both enables Pastures, and the promotion Subdue Animal, giving +25% vs. Animals, and allowing you to capture all defeated animals killed by that unit. It is only available to recon units, however Recon units, in general, are much stronger than BtS, however. I was almost killed by an army of 5/4 Recon Hunters (and yes, some units have reverted to the Civ III Attack / Defence stats, instead of the Civ IV raw strength. Most units, however, have the same attack as defence)

I have 2 units, ATM.
Bloodpet: 3 strength, 1 movement. +25% city defence
Scout: 2 strength, 2 movement. +50% vs. Animals



Underneath the bear (5 strength unit), is a Bear Den. These occasionally spawn Bears, but are instantly razed as soon as a unit at war with the barbarians enters the tile (Yes, there ARE civs that are at peace with the barbarians... we may run into 1 later...)

Year 17: Meet the Neighbours I:

Auric Ulvin (Of the Illians)
He is Charismatic (like BtS)
He is also Agnostic. This means he cannot adopt a religion, and he can't research any religious technologies, and as a result, he cannot build religious buildings. This is a PENALTY, and has no good side (which I can see)
He is also Defender. This gives double production of Walls, Palisades, and archery ranges. It also gives the Homeland promotion (+10% strength when within borders, +10% withdrawl chance)) to all Recon / Melee / Mounted / Archery, and Disciple units.

The Illians are very interesting, in that they don't have many Unique Units, or Unique Buildings. They have the strongest unit in the game (in raw strength): Auric Ascended (30 strength, and 30 cold strength. 1 First strike, and can cast Snowfall, turning nearby tiles into snow, and heavily damaging all nearby units)

Cold strength acts like regular strength for almost every purpose (for example, against my Bloodpet, Auric Ascended would be a 60 strength unit). But with immunity to cold, resistance to cold (+50% resistance to cold, reduces the cold strength by 50%. In this case, Auric Ascended would 'only' be 45 strength), and vulnerability to cold (-50% to cold increases the cold strength by 50%, making a 75 strength Auric), these 'cold' strengths are very important. There are other types of strength too. For example, Fire strength, Death strength, and Poison Strength. Poison strength is unique, as if a unit is damaged by a unit with poison strength, then it is poisoned giving a massive healing penalty, -10% strength, but it disappears after the unit is fully healed

The main thing about the Illians is that they have many risky Rituals. For example, in order to bring Auric Ascended into play, they must pay a BIG hammer cost, and declare war on every other civ. They also are very strong in snow/tundra (and they can spread snow tundra with thier rituals as well!) That, and all snow and tundra tiles give +2 . Since the Illians are also the only civilisations that can build improvements on snow, that means that Snow becomes "A white grassland tile that no one else can use." Thats nice. Except for me

But the Illians can spread snow EVERYWHERE (using rituals, and buildings), and are the only civilisation to easily get a source of ice mana (Another source is from the Leptus Frigus Unique Improvement). These unique things make the Illians a very unique civilisation.[/COLOR]

Year 24: My scouting party runs into one of the many beasts and animals that roam the world. In this case, it is my arch nemesis... The Giant Spider (4 strength, 1 Poison Strength, 1 First Strike, Invisible to everything but scouts, -25% city attack, 5% chance of spawning Baby Spiders, which are half as strong, but grow into Giant Spiders after combat) Don't forget the poison strength, that poisons my units. After my Bloodpet is killed by the spider, my scout attacks... and wins! Unfortunatly, the very next turn, it is killed by a bear, hiding, 1 tile north of the spider And so ends the first expedition



Year 31: A Great Adventurer is born Great Adventurers are really strong units, and are born at the same manner as other Great People are born (The Grigori palace gives 1 GPP (Great Explorer), and 2 Grigori UB's both give Great Explorer points). They have no strength, but can be upgraded into any unit. They also start with the Hero Promotion (+1 XP per turn, until 100 XP). Not surprisingly, the Hero promotion is ... rare

Year 32: The next turn, I have researched Agriculture, and start on Animal Husbandry.

Year 42: Build a worker in the capital. This allows me to build farms, pastures... just like in BtS! Not EVERYTHING is different. But no doubt, one day, someone is going to suggest a change for workers

Year 48: The AC jumps to 2%. Nothing bad happens... yet...

Year 51: I am the third most advanced civ, and the Illians are 6th. This is partially because of the large number of goody huts / dungeons / lairs (which we haven't seen yet!! But we will see tons of in the new world), yielding tons of free techs.

I think 50 turns is enough for now... Even though I have played 150 turns, or so.

I expect posts to rapidly get MUCH shorter after these initial ones explaining things as Strength, Races, Promotions, etc. Now all we need is lairs, and Affinity, and all the basic information has been explained!!

Hey, good to see another mod-test, it was quite interesting to watch the last one
ah well, to start the comments:
it's Somnium
The calabim worldspell is imo one of the more powerful ones in the game, if used correctly. Mid-late game, it can provide some additional whipping power or vampire food. Early game, however, it can be used to push your starting city to the happiness cap a lot faster, while throwing the rest of the civs back to 1-2 population, giving you a pretty decent advantage.
You may write another section on vampires: they can feed of the population of a city (reducing the size with 1) to gain experience. It's quite easy to reach a couple of 200 exp vampires this way, if you set up 1 or 2 feeding cities (nothing but farms, growth and happiness buildings, designed to get the best pop/exp value for your vampires).
There are 2 main research tracks for vampires (although usually, you'll end up with both):
1. After the worker techs, beeline feudalism for vampires. These units have 1 less base strenght than normal champions, but can cast body and death magic spells, and start with vampirism (strenght and healing bonusses, can feed (on bloodpets), feast (on cities) and gift (give vampirism to another unit, must be lvl 6+, lvl 4+ for moroi)).
The other path to vampirism is in the religious techs, to get your hero, Losha Valas (sp). Not only is she VERY powerful thanks to her immortalisation feature (gains the immortal promotion after she kills 1 living unit, in other words throwing stacks against her doesn't work), and can provide for a couple of very strong vampires thanks to gifting (go for religious hero's and/or priests, which automatically gain experience over time, so you don't need combat to get to lvl 6 with them).
The illians can build improvements on snow (like farms and cottages). They've also got means to turn the tiles surrounding their cities to snow (using their unique version of the pagan temple), providing snow hills (1 food, 1 hammer) and snow forests (2 food, 1 hammer). Basically, snow = grassland for them, with 1 exeption: they don't get the commerce bonus from rivers. Jungle also gets transformed to forest when "snowed", making the illians great at settling in terrain inhospitable to almost all other civs.

Even though espionage is disabled, you should still have power graphs, those were un-hooked from espionage. And the illian bonus food means they can place farms on the snow tiles, or cottages, so they still do a lot more than just increase maintenance, it is basically a white grassland tile (except no bonus to commerce on riverbanks)

xienwolf said:

Even though espionage is disabled, you should still have power graphs, those were un-hooked from espionage. And the illian bonus food means they can place farms on the snow tiles, or cottages, so they still do a lot more than just increase maintenance, it is basically a white grassland tile (except no bonus to commerce on riverbanks)

Click to expand...

A white grassland tile that no one else can use.

I've never got a power graph, however... how do you pull that off??

Thanks for the comments. I need them to make an accurate representation of the mod, and don't think that I EVER don't appreciate the feed-back, fully.

@Demus: Thankyou, but that information falls under "Strategy", rather than "Gameplay". When I get a couple of vampires, I will tell the people what to do, but this early on in the game, it is likely to already have overwhelmed them.

@Demus and xienwolf: WOW!! I didn't know they can build improvements on snow... thats impressive!! I already knew that no-one else can build on them, but I never knew how much more powerful they were!!

@orange: I like that comment. *steals*

Just hit F9 and you should see the power graphs for everyone you have met and yourself.

Too sick to go to work, so off I go making another update!!


Year 52: The End of Winter setting makes the world slowly melt. At the moment, only a few tiles have melted from tundra. However, on this turn, the same turn as I irrigate the rice, the tundra on the rice melts, and becomes grassland

This feature, transforming terrain types, appears frequently in FFH

Year 76: Research Animal Husbandry. Now I start on Education, for Cottages
Early game, in FFH, there is a very parallel tech tree. Each improvement is on a different branch of the tree, and the tech tree in general has a few branches, with very little overlap. Each branch gets MUCH more powerful, so it is best to follow down one path, after getting most of the improvements unlocked, and become the strongest in your chosen field of excellence
In this case, I will probably nip down to Fuedalism (for vampires) and since vampires are melee, I might go down the melee / metal-working path. Alternatively, I could make lots of mounted horses...

Animal Husbandry unlocks Horses, which will allow me to use an army of Horsemen to overwhelm the Illians early, and scout as well
Mobile Mounted units (Horsemen / Chariots etc.) have a massive speed bonus... 3 movement. Although weaker than Axemen, generally, and unable to use metallic weapons, their insane speed means that they can charge into a city in the first turn!!
Also, most melee units (and some other units) can use weapons. These weapons give strength bonuses.
Bronze Weapons (available to every unit that can use bronze weapons, and has a source of bronze), gives +1/+1
Iron Weapons give +2/+2, and +10% vs. Bronze Weapons
Mithril Weapons, give +4/+4, and +210% vs. Iron Weapons (but no bonus vs. Bronze Weapons)

My Bloodpets can only use Bronze Weapons, and my Scouts can't use any metallic weapons.

The metallic weapons are mutually exclusive. You cannot have Iron weapons and Bronze Weapons, at the same time, for example. Holding a metallic weapon gives you -25% resistance to lightning damage.

Year 81: Auric Ulven finishes the first of his rituals. For 300 hammers, he has unleashed a hoard of Frostlings.
Frostling is a racial promotion, and appears to all frostlings. Although Frostlings have +1 ice strength, all frostling units are 1 strength weaker than regular units, so a Frostling warrior is a 2 strength, 1 ice strength unit (instead of a 3 strength unit)
All the effects of frostlings are these:
Is not living (This effects the effects of many spells)
Immune to cold damage
-50% resistance to fire damage
+1 cold strength
+25% Snow strength
+10% tundra strength
-25% desert strength

I know have to deal with a Frostling Wolf Rider (3 movement, and 3 strength and frostling (remember the +1 cold strength)). I do, and I kill it.

However, this ritual creates a new unit, a Hero (without the Hero promotion)

Mokka
6 strength +1 Cold, and Frostling (for +2 cold total >.<), 1 movement
Starts with Channelling I and II (Enabling him to gain XP slowly, without doing anything, and also allowing him to cast low-to-mid level spells, if the Barbarians ever get any mana sources)


Thankfully, Mokka is a while away.

Year 91: My warrior, attempting to hunt down a Frostling warrior (2 strength, +1 cold), found difficulty. Even with Combat I, the odds of success were far too low. So I attacked with my unpromoted warrior, to try and weaken it. It won, with 25.1% odds!! Surprised, I named the spot where the battle took place, and named the warrior (as I do with all my > lvl 4 units). I called him "Master of Luck" (Not as good as "Divine Luck" from the first try, which netted something like 48 experience, from 11.1% odds!

Combat in FFH is very interesting. Most promotions have been doubled (Shock gives +40% vs melee, Combat gives +20% strength, and Guerrila gives +40% defence on hills. However, some promotions have been increased in strength, but not in all aspects, for example woodsman I gives +30% Forest/Jungle/Ancient Forest Strength)
Experience is gathered about twice as fast (That 25.1% odd combat got me 10 XP alone). As a result, level 10 units aren't unheard of. The hard part is keeping them alive!!
It does require that you play rather aggressively, however, to get this experiance

Year 96: Hook up some horses. Unfortunatly, Horseback riding is some distance away, so I need to REX first

Year 106: Get this event

The second option (which I chose) has no effect, but requires Body Mana. Which I have from the Palace. This is another reason to get Mana, it helps with events!

Year 113: Ortheus is born

Ortheus is a powerful unit, but easy to kill if you have 2 or 3 units nearby when he spawns. But if he lives, then he both gathers a huge army of warriors that he happens to run across, and his Hero promotion gives him free experiance.
Ortheus is a 5 Strength Unit, 1 movement, that appears automatically. He can use all metallic weapons (Bronze, Iron, and Mithril)
He starts with the racial promotion Orc (+10% Jungle Strength, +25% resistance to Fire Damage, -10% workrate (for workers)), Hero, Loyalty (Immune to Capture, +25% chance to resist the Charm Person spell, that stops units from attacking) and Ortheus' Axe
Ortheus' Axe is a powerful weapon, that gives +1 Fire Strength to whoever holds it, and gives the ability to attack multiple times. If the unit holding Ortheus' Axe is killed, then the Axe is 'dropped', and whoever is on that tile, gains control of the Axe (and then can equip it to any unit they like. Like, for example, one of my horsemen hoards!!)

Year 122: Finish Education. Now I start on Crafting. This gives the Brewary (+1 for Corn, Rice and Wheat, but needs to be riverside, and has a heavy hammer cost), but more importantly leads to Mining (Enables Mines, and reveals copper), and Bronze Working (Enables cutting down of forests, and enables the Bronze Weapons promotion (For my melee units), and enables a training yard (for my Axemen UU), and my Axeman UU (Which is a unit that can quickly become a vampire, and can use a spell that, even though it gives a 75% chance of killing the unit, and a further 50% chance of turning it into a barbarian (over several turns), it gives +1 strength, and +1 movement. THAT is why I am trying to get Bronze Working ASAP.

Year 128: Get this event:

This is one of many events that randomly gives a Golden Age, if you are a specific civilisation / if you are running a specific state religion. Unfortunately, I am not the Illians, so I can't get a Golden age this time.

Year 130: Make my feeder city. This is a big food city (with Sugar, Cattle, Banana, and Rice, and lots of river-side grassland), which will be nice for my vampire hoards. Vampires get XP for eating population (Specifically, 1 XP for each population above 3, but it eats 1 population), for the price of a VERY SMALL period of unhappyness (3 turns, on standard speed). Unfortunatly, it needs Sanitation (enables cutting of Jungles) before it becomes totally useful. But I got it to prevent the Illians from getting it


As you can see, I am on a peninsula, blocked off by the Illians. Who have to go...

Year 139: The Lanun (powerful, seafaring pirates), are defeated. Probably by Ortheus. Their leader gives me a nice message (All leaders in FFH do this):


Year 140: Research Crafting. Onwards... to Mining!!

Year 149: Spot Auric's empire, expanding towards me.

And that is that. I have played to 169, so I need to play some more FFH before my next update. Which might be a while...

Game has been paused indefinitely, probably for 2 or 3 days

Summary of what has happened:

My brother has been downloading maps, mods, programs, etc. etc. etc. for several hours a day on the family computer at the same time.

I have downloaded 2 mods, one of which contains no XML/ registry changes (I know that for a fact... it is an extractable file only), and this mod.

OBVIOUSLY FFH is the culprit, and the reason why the family computer has been crashing OBVIOUSLY isn't because my brother has been downloading files en masse, and it OBVIOUSLY isn't because the computer was turned off suddenly while installing more games, its OBVIOUSLY because the #1 mod in Beyond the Sword is a VIRUS, and / or doesn't work on XP.

So until my parents / my brother see sense, Civ IV, and FFH, has been uninstalled from my computer. And my laptop is in no state to play FFH... so it might take a while -.-

Just letting you know why there is not going to be any updates for a while.

[Edit]You don't install NVIDIA Drivers with your mod? Or does Civ IV, or BTS? We found a bunch of them, which apparently came from either Civ IV, or FFH... because they OBVIOUSLY didn't come with the plethora of mods my brother is downloading[/Edit]

I found a (older) copy of the save game, and after I re-install Civ IV, and FFH, everything should be fine... -.-

This is a post to ask if there is still any interest for this game...

If not, then that is OK, I don't mind either way. I just don't want to abandon it, if people still want it, and I don't want to do it again, if people don't want it.

Basically, I have my own computer, and about 1 hour a day booked for my own entertainment each day (Sanity time ) This will be my FFH time.

There is nothing stopping me now. If I start this game, I will finish it. I am not dependant on ANYONE any more, so I doubt there are any problems that will pop up...

I will have to restart the game however. It will be the last restart

PM me, or post here, if you are interested. I will need 3 PMs, or posts, before I will start again (for the last time ). Don't bother posting / PMing to say that you don't want me to start... I will ignore you

Have fun guys! And hopefully my internet stays open for a while (I am having quite a bit of difficulty with my line...)

i for one really enjoyed reading your mod tests, and would welcome another one .

Demus said:

i for one really enjoyed reading your mod tests, and would welcome another one .

Click to expand...

interested also !