readercolin
King
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- May 7, 2009
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Note, I'm not referring to the mapscript. This is a general thread designed to coordinate with JonathanStrange's thread Top Ten tips for your Favorite Civ, and help new people enter Erebus and learn how to play in it as opposed to Civ 4.
First things first, Erebus is a magical world that has no basis in regular Civ 4. It is constrained basically to the pre-gunpowder era of Civ 4, with gunpowder essentially being the last tech you would get before regular Civ advances beyond the scope of this mod. While this is not a very long time in regular Civ 4, Fall From Heaven GREATLY expands upon this era, with nearly as many techs in its tree as Civ 4 has in its. Also in this thread, I'm going to assume that you know most of the basic mechanics of civ 4, and aren't brand new to playing civ in general.
And now, on to the first step of playing Fall From Heaven. I am going to assume that you are playing base Fall From Heaven, and not one of the modmods. Once you get an idea of how to play Fall From Heaven, you can fairly easily jump into most of the modmods with little trouble - the base mechanics are mostly the same. So, first step is to choose a Civ. I highly recommend checking the thread posted at the top of this post to figure out which one you want to use, but if you want to grab one that isn't much different from regular Civ 4 to hop into, I recommend choosing the Bannor or the Grigori. I also HIGHLY recommend doing custom games, as it allows much greater control over the different options available to choose from.
So, You have entered the world of Erebus, leading the civ of your choice. The first big difference to notice is the graphics - the graphics are much darker, and have much more presence than regular Civ 4 - none of that washed out, semi-animated feel that you get in Civ 4. Second thing to note is your settler - he starts out with 4 movement instead of 2, and a much larger field of vision. This is because you are going to want to move a little with him so that you can get the best starting position, rather than just plopping him down in the first spot that you find. Once you find your spot, settle down - cities work pretty much the exact same way as in Civ 4 (note, there are a few exceptions, the Kurotaes being a major one, working 3 rings of tiles around their cities instead of 2).
Now that you have settled, there are two things that you want to look at. The first thing is the civics window. There are 5 catagories of civics. The first 4 will determine various aspects of your governance, look through them at your convenience, as they all state exactly what they do. The 5th however is membership - overcouncil and undercouncil. Each of these are similar to the united nations, with various resolutions that they can pass. The big thing to note here is that the overcouncil is only available to good and neutral leaders, and the undercouncil only available to evil and neutral leaders.
The second thing to look at is the tech tree. The tech tree is vastly different from regular Civ 4's. The first thing to note is that it scrolls both horizontally and vertically, with many different branches. Also, each branch doesn't preclude other branches of research, so you could get all the way up the metal line and using phalanxes without being able to use hunters. There is some interdependance - for example, the knowledge of bowyers requires that you have researched bronze working. It is here that you see how the units are divided up, which I will go into in a moment. Feel free to look through it, and check the thread Top Ten tips for your Favorite Civ to help get an idea of what line you want to be going down - it is different for every civ.
Onto units. Units are divided in two ways, teir, and branch. Teirs are the approximate equivalent of other units in other branches - so a swordsman/axman is a teir 2 unit, as are hunters, archers, and horsemen. Generally, units of a higher teir are stronger than units of a lower teir, even if its from a different branch. Branches divide units up into particular types, so a swordsman/axman is a metal line unit, as is a champion, as are Phalanxes and Immortals. The metal line is all in one branch, with the player being required to research the lower level techs before they can get to the higher levels. Similarly, the recon line requires that you have hunters before you can get rangers/assasins, and rangers before you can get beastmasters.
Back to the tech tree. On the upper half of the tech tree are the metal lines, the recon lines, the archery lines, and some government stuff. On the lower half are the magic line and the religious line. For your first few games, you may want to focus solely on the upper half of the tech tree and ignore the magic line and the religious line, though both hold great power. I would also recommend playing with the religious line before playing with the magic line, simply because it is less complicated (note, when playing with the religious line, do not use the grigori as they are agnostic, and you will also get little out of it when playing as the illians. Similarly, do not play with the magic line as the khazid, as they cannot get mages or archmages).
Now that you have looked at everything, back to the map. You start with one city, and either 1 warrior and 1 scout, or two warriors, or two scouts - what you start with depends upon which civ you choose. There are two big things to note here. First, scouts can actually attack, instead of being defensive only. Second, warriors are actually useful instead of being a waste of space. With this being said, generally the first thing that you'll want to build in your city is a warrior. Why?
Barbarians. Unlike in regular civ, barbarians are actually a threat. If you leave your city undefended, a single enemy barbarian can end your game before it really even starts. The barbarians also enjoy pillaging civs back to the stone age, and are fully capable of taking cities. This is especially apt with the latest AI changes. The next important thing to note about them is that around turn 75 (normal speed) a barbarian hero appears, who WILL spell the doom of any civ that is too lightly defended. This hero is named Orthus, and he is a strength 5 +1 fire combat killing machine who likes munching on warriors. As he usually appears before most civs get archery or bronze working (you might have it, but you generally won't have lots of the units it unlocks), he is a dangerous threat, especially if you leave him alone. The reason for this is he is a hero - and that means that every turn he gains 1 xp, until he reaches 100 xp. If you can catch him with no xp, you can take him down with 2-4 warriors depending upon how lucky you are. If he is allowed to wander around for a while though he will probably end up with combat 1-5, shock, cover, etc, making it require significantly more in the way of units to wear him down and kill him.
This brings up hero's. Every civ has a hero that only they can build. Each religion has 2 hero's that anyone following that religion can build, with the exception of Empyrian and Council of Esus, who each have only 1 hero. The only exception to this is the Grigori, who get adventurers - hero units who can upgrade to any other unit the grigori are capable of building. Generally, hero's are a very good thing to get, as though they may have low strength compared to units that come later, they have great power because of their experience.
This of course brings up experience. Experience unlocks promotions, just as in regular civ 4. However, promotions have a MUCH greater impact in Fall From Heaven. For example, combat 1 provides a 20% strength bonus instead of a 10%, shock provides a 40% bonus instead of a 25% one, etc. In addition, units don't loose xp by upgrading, meaning that you will want to nuture your high xp units and make them the core of your army. Lastly, barbarians are capped at providing 100 xp instead of 10, making it a very good idea to find barbarians and help level your units up on them. Because of this, it is not only possible, but probable that high xp units of a lower teir can beat low xp units of a higher teir. This doesn't mean that you can have a warrior beat a champion. But it isn't uncommon for warriors to defeat axmen, or axmen to defeat champions. What does this all mean? Nurture your high xp units, because they can make your game.
So now that you have all of this, how do you use it. The first thing that you want to do in ANY game, is to grab the techs that allow you to work your nearby tiles. If you have lots of ocean, research fishing. If you have dye/silk/incense/cotton, research calendar. If you have gold, gems, or forests needing chopping, research mining, etc. etc. Once you have your nearby resources unlocked, you will probably want education, so that you can build cottages, agriculture, so you can build farms, and mining, so you can build mines. Another good tech is Mysticism, which unlocks a powerful early game civic, and a pair of useful buildings. One last good economic tech is festivals, for the markets, and the gold boost that provides.
Now that you have the basics, you need to decide how you are going to win your game, and how well your civ synergizes with that victory. Remember, deciding a victory condition isn't set in stone as the only way you can then win. Deciding a victory condition is just stating what kind of victory you want to aim for. For instance, if you are aiming to win a religious victory, your goal is to grab the religion of your choice, then start spamming disciples of that religion while researching priesthood to unlock inquisition. If you are going for an Altar victory, you want to build a pagan temple quickly and start working priest specialists, and start researching down the religious line. If you go for a conquest/domination victory, then you'll want to research down one of the military lines, as well as grabbing code of laws for courthouses and such. Also remember that some civs synergize better with some victory conditions then others. A few examples - The Amurites synergize better with Tower of Mastery victory condition, the Kurotaes with cultural, the Bannor, Clan of embers, and Dovollio with conquest/domination, etc.
Lastly, remember that you still need to defend your empire even as you attempt victory. You will not be able to completely ignore the military lines if you're going for a cultural victory. Similarly, you won't be able to ignore the government lines if you are attempting a domination victory. Focusing down one particular branch could mean that you get a military unit before anyone else, like grabbing champions to mow down your opponents axmen/archers. However, you will probably pay the price for focusing because while you have champions, you opponent might have other units/buildings that you won't have.
So go have fun, and bring your Civilization to Victory. If you have any questions, please ask, I and others will answer to the best of our abilities, and I will update this post if there are any points that were missed that need to be said. Remember though that your best friend is the Civilopedia, you can find the answers to most of your questions there.
Hope this helps.
-Colin
First things first, Erebus is a magical world that has no basis in regular Civ 4. It is constrained basically to the pre-gunpowder era of Civ 4, with gunpowder essentially being the last tech you would get before regular Civ advances beyond the scope of this mod. While this is not a very long time in regular Civ 4, Fall From Heaven GREATLY expands upon this era, with nearly as many techs in its tree as Civ 4 has in its. Also in this thread, I'm going to assume that you know most of the basic mechanics of civ 4, and aren't brand new to playing civ in general.
And now, on to the first step of playing Fall From Heaven. I am going to assume that you are playing base Fall From Heaven, and not one of the modmods. Once you get an idea of how to play Fall From Heaven, you can fairly easily jump into most of the modmods with little trouble - the base mechanics are mostly the same. So, first step is to choose a Civ. I highly recommend checking the thread posted at the top of this post to figure out which one you want to use, but if you want to grab one that isn't much different from regular Civ 4 to hop into, I recommend choosing the Bannor or the Grigori. I also HIGHLY recommend doing custom games, as it allows much greater control over the different options available to choose from.
So, You have entered the world of Erebus, leading the civ of your choice. The first big difference to notice is the graphics - the graphics are much darker, and have much more presence than regular Civ 4 - none of that washed out, semi-animated feel that you get in Civ 4. Second thing to note is your settler - he starts out with 4 movement instead of 2, and a much larger field of vision. This is because you are going to want to move a little with him so that you can get the best starting position, rather than just plopping him down in the first spot that you find. Once you find your spot, settle down - cities work pretty much the exact same way as in Civ 4 (note, there are a few exceptions, the Kurotaes being a major one, working 3 rings of tiles around their cities instead of 2).
Now that you have settled, there are two things that you want to look at. The first thing is the civics window. There are 5 catagories of civics. The first 4 will determine various aspects of your governance, look through them at your convenience, as they all state exactly what they do. The 5th however is membership - overcouncil and undercouncil. Each of these are similar to the united nations, with various resolutions that they can pass. The big thing to note here is that the overcouncil is only available to good and neutral leaders, and the undercouncil only available to evil and neutral leaders.
The second thing to look at is the tech tree. The tech tree is vastly different from regular Civ 4's. The first thing to note is that it scrolls both horizontally and vertically, with many different branches. Also, each branch doesn't preclude other branches of research, so you could get all the way up the metal line and using phalanxes without being able to use hunters. There is some interdependance - for example, the knowledge of bowyers requires that you have researched bronze working. It is here that you see how the units are divided up, which I will go into in a moment. Feel free to look through it, and check the thread Top Ten tips for your Favorite Civ to help get an idea of what line you want to be going down - it is different for every civ.
Onto units. Units are divided in two ways, teir, and branch. Teirs are the approximate equivalent of other units in other branches - so a swordsman/axman is a teir 2 unit, as are hunters, archers, and horsemen. Generally, units of a higher teir are stronger than units of a lower teir, even if its from a different branch. Branches divide units up into particular types, so a swordsman/axman is a metal line unit, as is a champion, as are Phalanxes and Immortals. The metal line is all in one branch, with the player being required to research the lower level techs before they can get to the higher levels. Similarly, the recon line requires that you have hunters before you can get rangers/assasins, and rangers before you can get beastmasters.
Back to the tech tree. On the upper half of the tech tree are the metal lines, the recon lines, the archery lines, and some government stuff. On the lower half are the magic line and the religious line. For your first few games, you may want to focus solely on the upper half of the tech tree and ignore the magic line and the religious line, though both hold great power. I would also recommend playing with the religious line before playing with the magic line, simply because it is less complicated (note, when playing with the religious line, do not use the grigori as they are agnostic, and you will also get little out of it when playing as the illians. Similarly, do not play with the magic line as the khazid, as they cannot get mages or archmages).
Now that you have looked at everything, back to the map. You start with one city, and either 1 warrior and 1 scout, or two warriors, or two scouts - what you start with depends upon which civ you choose. There are two big things to note here. First, scouts can actually attack, instead of being defensive only. Second, warriors are actually useful instead of being a waste of space. With this being said, generally the first thing that you'll want to build in your city is a warrior. Why?
Barbarians. Unlike in regular civ, barbarians are actually a threat. If you leave your city undefended, a single enemy barbarian can end your game before it really even starts. The barbarians also enjoy pillaging civs back to the stone age, and are fully capable of taking cities. This is especially apt with the latest AI changes. The next important thing to note about them is that around turn 75 (normal speed) a barbarian hero appears, who WILL spell the doom of any civ that is too lightly defended. This hero is named Orthus, and he is a strength 5 +1 fire combat killing machine who likes munching on warriors. As he usually appears before most civs get archery or bronze working (you might have it, but you generally won't have lots of the units it unlocks), he is a dangerous threat, especially if you leave him alone. The reason for this is he is a hero - and that means that every turn he gains 1 xp, until he reaches 100 xp. If you can catch him with no xp, you can take him down with 2-4 warriors depending upon how lucky you are. If he is allowed to wander around for a while though he will probably end up with combat 1-5, shock, cover, etc, making it require significantly more in the way of units to wear him down and kill him.
This brings up hero's. Every civ has a hero that only they can build. Each religion has 2 hero's that anyone following that religion can build, with the exception of Empyrian and Council of Esus, who each have only 1 hero. The only exception to this is the Grigori, who get adventurers - hero units who can upgrade to any other unit the grigori are capable of building. Generally, hero's are a very good thing to get, as though they may have low strength compared to units that come later, they have great power because of their experience.
This of course brings up experience. Experience unlocks promotions, just as in regular civ 4. However, promotions have a MUCH greater impact in Fall From Heaven. For example, combat 1 provides a 20% strength bonus instead of a 10%, shock provides a 40% bonus instead of a 25% one, etc. In addition, units don't loose xp by upgrading, meaning that you will want to nuture your high xp units and make them the core of your army. Lastly, barbarians are capped at providing 100 xp instead of 10, making it a very good idea to find barbarians and help level your units up on them. Because of this, it is not only possible, but probable that high xp units of a lower teir can beat low xp units of a higher teir. This doesn't mean that you can have a warrior beat a champion. But it isn't uncommon for warriors to defeat axmen, or axmen to defeat champions. What does this all mean? Nurture your high xp units, because they can make your game.
So now that you have all of this, how do you use it. The first thing that you want to do in ANY game, is to grab the techs that allow you to work your nearby tiles. If you have lots of ocean, research fishing. If you have dye/silk/incense/cotton, research calendar. If you have gold, gems, or forests needing chopping, research mining, etc. etc. Once you have your nearby resources unlocked, you will probably want education, so that you can build cottages, agriculture, so you can build farms, and mining, so you can build mines. Another good tech is Mysticism, which unlocks a powerful early game civic, and a pair of useful buildings. One last good economic tech is festivals, for the markets, and the gold boost that provides.
Now that you have the basics, you need to decide how you are going to win your game, and how well your civ synergizes with that victory. Remember, deciding a victory condition isn't set in stone as the only way you can then win. Deciding a victory condition is just stating what kind of victory you want to aim for. For instance, if you are aiming to win a religious victory, your goal is to grab the religion of your choice, then start spamming disciples of that religion while researching priesthood to unlock inquisition. If you are going for an Altar victory, you want to build a pagan temple quickly and start working priest specialists, and start researching down the religious line. If you go for a conquest/domination victory, then you'll want to research down one of the military lines, as well as grabbing code of laws for courthouses and such. Also remember that some civs synergize better with some victory conditions then others. A few examples - The Amurites synergize better with Tower of Mastery victory condition, the Kurotaes with cultural, the Bannor, Clan of embers, and Dovollio with conquest/domination, etc.
Lastly, remember that you still need to defend your empire even as you attempt victory. You will not be able to completely ignore the military lines if you're going for a cultural victory. Similarly, you won't be able to ignore the government lines if you are attempting a domination victory. Focusing down one particular branch could mean that you get a military unit before anyone else, like grabbing champions to mow down your opponents axmen/archers. However, you will probably pay the price for focusing because while you have champions, you opponent might have other units/buildings that you won't have.
So go have fun, and bring your Civilization to Victory. If you have any questions, please ask, I and others will answer to the best of our abilities, and I will update this post if there are any points that were missed that need to be said. Remember though that your best friend is the Civilopedia, you can find the answers to most of your questions there.
Hope this helps.
-Colin
