Latest Version:
Download here.
Note: This installer installs both the v12 file (named appropriately) and a "dummy" EitB file containing the content necessary to allow the other files to work. No renaming will be necessary, however, if this is your first time downloading, then make sure you don't select the "Erebus in the Balance" option as a mod, as it will not have the necessary files to download effectively. (Instead, you should select "Erebus in the Balance v12".)
The changelog broken down by versions can be found here. I am currently working on a "true" Cumulative Changelog.
Version 12 Changelog:
Please use this thread to report any bugs or issues you come across. I have implemented every change planned for this version, although once again (
) I shied away from altering the dll to roll in the Adventurer Counter, Khazad Vault UI, Non-Core Game Events Option and Team Tower changes.
Have fun!
Current Known Issues:
The original post follows:
Foreword:
This was originally posted in the Erebus in the Balance Forum at Realms Beyond, and thus I assumed a decent level of knowledge about EitB in it. While this can be mostly copied over, a short background.
Realms Beyond Forums is a place which is perhaps primarily recognized for its active Multiplayer community which runs well documented and competitive PBEM and Pitboss games based off Civilization 4. In 2010, Fall From Heaven touched RB for the first time, with an incredibly interesting and amusing game, FFHPBEM1. Largely because of this incredible start, a large portion of the MP community of RB took to FFH, and PBEMs took off left, right and centre.
However, over time a level of dissatisfaction with the game grew. Whilst FFH remained the entrancing and beautiful game it always has, the in-depth analysis and immersion that competitive MP offers brought its flaws into sharp relief. Flaws like the dominance of Aristograrianism, the overbearing beaker costs of most T4 units and pre-eminence of Financial, to name but a few.
This was brought to a head in 2011, when Sareln asked the board a simple question - what element of FFH would you cut?
And from that simple question was born Erebus in the Balance. Where most mods of the game focus on new and interesting mechanics and features, Erebus in the Balance has always striven for balance and polish. Under Sareln's development, EitB grew, and so did the community, revamping the balance and increasing the strategic viability of many units and technologies.
Version 9 is the most recent, but it was released in late 2012. What happened? Life, as it so often does, interrupted. Sareln simultaneously began working on his masters thesis and hit a dead end in coding for Version 10, and his interest in developing the mod waned. As the modding community dropped off, the playing community at RB dwindled as well.
However it is still going strong, and talking to a number of players convinced me that interest remained in developing EitB further, with issues still clearly present in it. Thus, I started a thread at Realms Beyond to identify the problems people have with the balance of the mod as it stands and work for solutions.
Whilst the design of this mod is obviously more focused towards the balance for MP purposes, I for one have a great love of the flavor and lore which makes FFH what it is, and every change made will attempt to remain in the spirit of the lore. Indeed, this is also an oppurtunity for anyone who wishes to flex their creative muscle, as I would love to see the 'Pedia updated once more. Here is a list of empty or broken entries if anyone wants a go (or knows the location of something from the fora or another mod which is already written and could fill it in).
Whilst the main discussion and development will, of course, occur on the Realms Beyond Board, I am nonetheless interested in the feedback and opinions of those here. (And, of course, it would be awesome if we got some new blood interested in MP! ) So without further ado:
Erebus in the Balance is a major improvement over the original Fall from Heaven mod, and offers a significant improvement over the original in terms of balance and gameplay, and is more conducive to the multiplayer style we practice here. Unfortunately, the mod has been in hiatus for a significant amount of time, largely because of Sareln's real life circumstances. Thus I find it reasonable to work off the assumption that we will not see Erebus in the Balance v10 in, at the very least the near future. And while I think Erebus in the Balance is probably the best multiplayer version of FFH out there, there remain significant balance issues.
For instance, Vollanna's overpoweredness had never come up as an issue before EitB23 and other more indepth issues have surfaced in recent times, such as the overall weakness of Sheaim as a civ, the remaining dominance of the Tower of Mastery as the easiest victory condition by far and the rising power of Basium, to name but a few. The strength and balance of the civilisations in a general sense needs work. Specifically, there are a number of civs that are notably below average in the mod, personally I consider the Sheaim, Khazad, Infernal, Grigori, Sidar and the Elohim amongst this number. This is probably the greatest weakness of the mod as it stands, although I don’t doubt there will be some controversy to this.
From what I have established whilst chatting with fellow members, and seeing the banlists that come game after game, these issues are real and apparent, and the enthusiasm for FFH in our community does not seem to have reduced drastically, with a new PBEM every 2 months or so.
I would like to see a greater effort on working on ironing out balancing issues within the mod as it stands, and to reestablish a ongoing evaluation of the balance of the mod, with discussions cropping up as issues are uncovered and exploited from game to game. A good model for this can be seen in the recent success of RBmod, with updates being released after (or just before) each game based off discussion emerging from the post-game discussions. I intend to preserve the vision of EitB as a mod for balance and limited change
On my own place in the mod; while I have some skill at coding, I am by no means a coding expert, and am not confident that I will be able to handle the python and deeper alterations of the mod. Thus, a lot of the alterations we can see here will be those low-hanging fruit, especially of the XML which I am confident I can execute. Hopefully, if more is required then those with the skill to do so will be able to come forward, if not then I will look into simpler alternatives.
For changes then, there is obviously one simple place to start - Sareln's current work on EitB v10. Below is his list of proposed and completed changes for EitB v10.
If possible, I will look at incorporating most, if not all of his intended changes into this update, and have already contacted him as to this. Obviously, those options that served as a roadblock to v10 being released – most notably, the optional activation of BUG – will have to be put aside for now.
Here are some specific areas that I feel need work:
Khazad:
The issue currently is that their vault mechanic means that they start with a straight -1 happiness, and the trade-off of hoarding the necessary gold is not enough to compensate for this - most will choose to simply eat the nerf whilst behaving normally because of the economic cost of filling the vaults. The other advantages of the civ are decent, but have other trade-offs (no mages).
My proposed solution is to do away with the first vault entirely, but fiddling with the other thresholds to normalize it. This means that the default is -1 happiness (which balances to normal with the free gold resource), leaving them at no disadvantage from the mechanic, but the possibility of getting an advantage.
Thus instead of the current:
We would have the following:
I have recently received another suggestion from Bobchillingworth and Ellimist on how to improve the Khazad:
Varn Gosam:
In the original FFH, Varn is SPI/CRE (ADA), which was changed to SPI/CHA (ADA) in EitB. Given the weakening of Adaptive leaders in general in the mod (the nerfing of Financial) and the fact that the strength of the Malakim in general largely lies in the power of their leader, I think that this change is unnecessary and should be reverted.
Proposal: Varn Gosam traits changed from SPI/CHA (ADA) -> SPI/CRE (ADA)
Summoner:
I believe Mardoc summarized the problem with SUM best here:
Simply put, Summoner is an inferior trait to Arcane for fielding a summoning army in most circumstances, and also has no economic boon, whereas at least ARC gives faster Mage Guilds.
How to fix this?
Unfortunately, I'm not sure how best to approach this. I could increase its military viability with a movement or combat boost to summons, or make summons hang around longer and so on. Or I could give it something economic, like +3bpt or +5% research. What does everyone think is the best approach here?
Undercouncil and Overcouncil:
As it currently stands, the Councils are available at Deception and Honour respectively. Unfortunately, this means that the Agnostic leaders, Auric Ulvin and Cassiel, can’t ever join, which is a big nerf with the much more improved Councils.
Proposal: move both councils to Trade. Makes them appear a bit earlier in the game but worth it and not much of a change.
Infernal:
Infernal actually exists in two, almost completely different iterations, depending on how/why he is summoned. He can be summoned as a “Hyborem rush” where he is summoned by a fast teching civ, normally the Lanun, as fast as possible, with the intention to switch to Hyborem as soon as feasibly possible, to the detriment of even basic worker techs, and then just eating whoever you spawn next to with iron champions and Hyborem. See FFH5.
Alternatively, he can appear much later in the game, when one of the players decides to go for the Pact and summons Hyborem in the process. In this scenario, Hyborem is normally so weak compared to the developed empires around him as to die swiftly at the whim of his neighbours. See FFH8.
This exists because of the lack of granularity to Hyborems summoning, despite the wide variety of the period in which he can be summoned – Hyborem always appears with his Hero, two Champions, two longbowmen, three manes, two settlers, one worker and an imp. I intend to change this so that Hyborem gets extra units at the start depending on the average number of cities his opponents have at the time he is summoned.
(Just based off a random check at a middling civ in a game when Hyborem wasn’t rushed gives us Illios who had 10 cities at roughly the time he was summoned in FFH14. This change seems, if anything, too small and certainly not overpowering.)
Hyborem also has a problem in that it is almost impossible to grow his cities, and as a result, succeed economically, especially in multiplayer where humans do not throw away large stacks. I am looking into the possibility of allowing him to build manes for himself, but working out a balanced price is difficult. For now, I am going to increase the size of his cities on founding to Size 6, so that he won’t be stuck at low sizes for the rest of the game.
Proposal: As well as his current starting units, Hyborem receives a number of axes, manes and settlers (sans promotions) equal to half the average number of cities minus two (the amount he starts with normally) in the game. Infernal cities now start out with 6 population, not 3.
Fawns:
One of the biggest issues with Vollanna and the Svartalfar in general is the power of fawns in the mod currently. For the same price as hunters, they lose the city malus, gain a big combat boost in forest and don’t require any buildings.
Proposal: Increase the cost to 75h (from 60h).
Sheaim:
Currently the Sheaim suffer from significant issues. They have no particular mechanic to pursue that works well – their only option is Pyre Zombies, despite the obvious intention of focusing on the Arcane line. This is because their central feature, Planar gates are a flawed mechanic and almost always an inefficient way of getting units. This has been discussed to death, so I will not elaborate further, but suffice to say that the Gates are unreliable, inefficient and badly in need of buffing, especially as the units within are so interesting.
My proposal is a slew of changes; firstly, the Planar Gates cost is reduced to 250h, doubled with Summoner. This is to make it cheaper, especially for the currently weaker Tebryn/Os Gabella. Secondly, all units that can spawn are now buildable, with the appropriate buildings and at a reasonable price. This is to make it so that the player has much more control over what units they build and can really get the benefit from them. Of especial note is the ability to build Mobius Witches, which are mages with some extra spells. This should make the Gates a genuine advantage as they can build their special units, especially the mass produced mages. Finally, the spawn rate is increased to a third of the AC and the limits on number of units per Planar Gate removed.
Proposal: Planar gates are changed as follows:
There is a possibility that this is overkill, however, I think it's worth trying.
None of these changes have been implemented yet, although I have a pretty good idea how to do so. Any and all changes planned so far are up for discussion. If anyone has any other suggestions, especially on how to fix those issues that I don't have a plan for (such as Summoner, Esus, or any of the other weak civilizations), please tell!
Current Changelog:
Erebus in the Balance: Version 12
Download here.
Note: This installer installs both the v12 file (named appropriately) and a "dummy" EitB file containing the content necessary to allow the other files to work. No renaming will be necessary, however, if this is your first time downloading, then make sure you don't select the "Erebus in the Balance" option as a mod, as it will not have the necessary files to download effectively. (Instead, you should select "Erebus in the Balance v12".)
The changelog broken down by versions can be found here. I am currently working on a "true" Cumulative Changelog.
Version 12 Changelog:
Spoiler :
Please use this thread to report any bugs or issues you come across. I have implemented every change planned for this version, although once again (
) I shied away from altering the dll to roll in the Adventurer Counter, Khazad Vault UI, Non-Core Game Events Option and Team Tower changes. Have fun!
Current Known Issues:
- The UI for the turn number is annoyingly set up so it displays twice at the top of the screen (and in some other places). This is annoying, but necessary to fix some of the bugs that cropped up in previous versions
- The Khazad Vaults display a different number in the main screen
The original post follows:
Foreword:
This was originally posted in the Erebus in the Balance Forum at Realms Beyond, and thus I assumed a decent level of knowledge about EitB in it. While this can be mostly copied over, a short background.
Realms Beyond Forums is a place which is perhaps primarily recognized for its active Multiplayer community which runs well documented and competitive PBEM and Pitboss games based off Civilization 4. In 2010, Fall From Heaven touched RB for the first time, with an incredibly interesting and amusing game, FFHPBEM1. Largely because of this incredible start, a large portion of the MP community of RB took to FFH, and PBEMs took off left, right and centre.
However, over time a level of dissatisfaction with the game grew. Whilst FFH remained the entrancing and beautiful game it always has, the in-depth analysis and immersion that competitive MP offers brought its flaws into sharp relief. Flaws like the dominance of Aristograrianism, the overbearing beaker costs of most T4 units and pre-eminence of Financial, to name but a few.
This was brought to a head in 2011, when Sareln asked the board a simple question - what element of FFH would you cut?
And from that simple question was born Erebus in the Balance. Where most mods of the game focus on new and interesting mechanics and features, Erebus in the Balance has always striven for balance and polish. Under Sareln's development, EitB grew, and so did the community, revamping the balance and increasing the strategic viability of many units and technologies.
Version 9 is the most recent, but it was released in late 2012. What happened? Life, as it so often does, interrupted. Sareln simultaneously began working on his masters thesis and hit a dead end in coding for Version 10, and his interest in developing the mod waned. As the modding community dropped off, the playing community at RB dwindled as well.
However it is still going strong, and talking to a number of players convinced me that interest remained in developing EitB further, with issues still clearly present in it. Thus, I started a thread at Realms Beyond to identify the problems people have with the balance of the mod as it stands and work for solutions.
Whilst the design of this mod is obviously more focused towards the balance for MP purposes, I for one have a great love of the flavor and lore which makes FFH what it is, and every change made will attempt to remain in the spirit of the lore. Indeed, this is also an oppurtunity for anyone who wishes to flex their creative muscle, as I would love to see the 'Pedia updated once more. Here is a list of empty or broken entries if anyone wants a go (or knows the location of something from the fora or another mod which is already written and could fill it in).
Whilst the main discussion and development will, of course, occur on the Realms Beyond Board, I am nonetheless interested in the feedback and opinions of those here. (And, of course, it would be awesome if we got some new blood interested in MP!
) So without further ado:Erebus in the Balance Update
Erebus in the Balance is a major improvement over the original Fall from Heaven mod, and offers a significant improvement over the original in terms of balance and gameplay, and is more conducive to the multiplayer style we practice here. Unfortunately, the mod has been in hiatus for a significant amount of time, largely because of Sareln's real life circumstances. Thus I find it reasonable to work off the assumption that we will not see Erebus in the Balance v10 in, at the very least the near future. And while I think Erebus in the Balance is probably the best multiplayer version of FFH out there, there remain significant balance issues.
For instance, Vollanna's overpoweredness had never come up as an issue before EitB23 and other more indepth issues have surfaced in recent times, such as the overall weakness of Sheaim as a civ, the remaining dominance of the Tower of Mastery as the easiest victory condition by far and the rising power of Basium, to name but a few. The strength and balance of the civilisations in a general sense needs work. Specifically, there are a number of civs that are notably below average in the mod, personally I consider the Sheaim, Khazad, Infernal, Grigori, Sidar and the Elohim amongst this number. This is probably the greatest weakness of the mod as it stands, although I don’t doubt there will be some controversy to this.
From what I have established whilst chatting with fellow members, and seeing the banlists that come game after game, these issues are real and apparent, and the enthusiasm for FFH in our community does not seem to have reduced drastically, with a new PBEM every 2 months or so.
I would like to see a greater effort on working on ironing out balancing issues within the mod as it stands, and to reestablish a ongoing evaluation of the balance of the mod, with discussions cropping up as issues are uncovered and exploited from game to game. A good model for this can be seen in the recent success of RBmod, with updates being released after (or just before) each game based off discussion emerging from the post-game discussions. I intend to preserve the vision of EitB as a mod for balance and limited change
On my own place in the mod; while I have some skill at coding, I am by no means a coding expert, and am not confident that I will be able to handle the python and deeper alterations of the mod. Thus, a lot of the alterations we can see here will be those low-hanging fruit, especially of the XML which I am confident I can execute. Hopefully, if more is required then those with the skill to do so will be able to come forward, if not then I will look into simpler alternatives.
For changes then, there is obviously one simple place to start - Sareln's current work on EitB v10. Below is his list of proposed and completed changes for EitB v10.
Spoiler :
If possible, I will look at incorporating most, if not all of his intended changes into this update, and have already contacted him as to this. Obviously, those options that served as a roadblock to v10 being released – most notably, the optional activation of BUG – will have to be put aside for now.
Here are some specific areas that I feel need work:
- The Esus religion continues to feel significantly weaker then others, and I don’t believe it has seen any use in a MP game.
- The Summoner trait in general works out to be generally quite a bit worse than ARC for the arcane war route, while providing no economic advantages. I feel this is also a significant factor in the weakness of the Sheaim.
Khazad:
The issue currently is that their vault mechanic means that they start with a straight -1 happiness, and the trade-off of hoarding the necessary gold is not enough to compensate for this - most will choose to simply eat the nerf whilst behaving normally because of the economic cost of filling the vaults. The other advantages of the civ are decent, but have other trade-offs (no mages).
My proposed solution is to do away with the first vault entirely, but fiddling with the other thresholds to normalize it. This means that the default is -1 happiness (which balances to normal with the free gold resource), leaving them at no disadvantage from the mechanic, but the possibility of getting an advantage.
Thus instead of the current:
Spoiler :
We would have the following:
Spoiler :
I have recently received another suggestion from Bobchillingworth and Ellimist on how to improve the Khazad:
I think this is something we should consider along with losing the “Empty” vault if we don’t think it will be enough on its own.Bobchillingworth said:
Varn Gosam:
In the original FFH, Varn is SPI/CRE (ADA), which was changed to SPI/CHA (ADA) in EitB. Given the weakening of Adaptive leaders in general in the mod (the nerfing of Financial) and the fact that the strength of the Malakim in general largely lies in the power of their leader, I think that this change is unnecessary and should be reverted.
Proposal: Varn Gosam traits changed from SPI/CHA (ADA) -> SPI/CRE (ADA)
Summoner:
I believe Mardoc summarized the problem with SUM best here:
Mardoc said:
Simply put, Summoner is an inferior trait to Arcane for fielding a summoning army in most circumstances, and also has no economic boon, whereas at least ARC gives faster Mage Guilds.
How to fix this?
Unfortunately, I'm not sure how best to approach this. I could increase its military viability with a movement or combat boost to summons, or make summons hang around longer and so on. Or I could give it something economic, like +3bpt or +5% research. What does everyone think is the best approach here?
Undercouncil and Overcouncil:
As it currently stands, the Councils are available at Deception and Honour respectively. Unfortunately, this means that the Agnostic leaders, Auric Ulvin and Cassiel, can’t ever join, which is a big nerf with the much more improved Councils.
Proposal: move both councils to Trade. Makes them appear a bit earlier in the game but worth it and not much of a change.
Infernal:
Infernal actually exists in two, almost completely different iterations, depending on how/why he is summoned. He can be summoned as a “Hyborem rush” where he is summoned by a fast teching civ, normally the Lanun, as fast as possible, with the intention to switch to Hyborem as soon as feasibly possible, to the detriment of even basic worker techs, and then just eating whoever you spawn next to with iron champions and Hyborem. See FFH5.
Alternatively, he can appear much later in the game, when one of the players decides to go for the Pact and summons Hyborem in the process. In this scenario, Hyborem is normally so weak compared to the developed empires around him as to die swiftly at the whim of his neighbours. See FFH8.
This exists because of the lack of granularity to Hyborems summoning, despite the wide variety of the period in which he can be summoned – Hyborem always appears with his Hero, two Champions, two longbowmen, three manes, two settlers, one worker and an imp. I intend to change this so that Hyborem gets extra units at the start depending on the average number of cities his opponents have at the time he is summoned.
(Just based off a random check at a middling civ in a game when Hyborem wasn’t rushed gives us Illios who had 10 cities at roughly the time he was summoned in FFH14. This change seems, if anything, too small and certainly not overpowering.)
Hyborem also has a problem in that it is almost impossible to grow his cities, and as a result, succeed economically, especially in multiplayer where humans do not throw away large stacks. I am looking into the possibility of allowing him to build manes for himself, but working out a balanced price is difficult. For now, I am going to increase the size of his cities on founding to Size 6, so that he won’t be stuck at low sizes for the rest of the game.
Proposal: As well as his current starting units, Hyborem receives a number of axes, manes and settlers (sans promotions) equal to half the average number of cities minus two (the amount he starts with normally) in the game. Infernal cities now start out with 6 population, not 3.
Fawns:
One of the biggest issues with Vollanna and the Svartalfar in general is the power of fawns in the mod currently. For the same price as hunters, they lose the city malus, gain a big combat boost in forest and don’t require any buildings.
Proposal: Increase the cost to 75h (from 60h).
Sheaim:
Currently the Sheaim suffer from significant issues. They have no particular mechanic to pursue that works well – their only option is Pyre Zombies, despite the obvious intention of focusing on the Arcane line. This is because their central feature, Planar gates are a flawed mechanic and almost always an inefficient way of getting units. This has been discussed to death, so I will not elaborate further, but suffice to say that the Gates are unreliable, inefficient and badly in need of buffing, especially as the units within are so interesting.
My proposal is a slew of changes; firstly, the Planar Gates cost is reduced to 250h, doubled with Summoner. This is to make it cheaper, especially for the currently weaker Tebryn/Os Gabella. Secondly, all units that can spawn are now buildable, with the appropriate buildings and at a reasonable price. This is to make it so that the player has much more control over what units they build and can really get the benefit from them. Of especial note is the ability to build Mobius Witches, which are mages with some extra spells. This should make the Gates a genuine advantage as they can build their special units, especially the mass produced mages. Finally, the spawn rate is increased to a third of the AC and the limits on number of units per Planar Gate removed.
Proposal: Planar gates are changed as follows:
- Planar Gate Doubled by Summoner.
- Planar Gate’s cost reduced from 300h -> 250h.
- Planar Gate’s spawn rate increased to roughly a third of the AC (5% 0->9, 10% 10->29, 13% 30->39, 17% 40->49, 20% 50->59, 23% 60->69, 27% 70->79, 30% 80->89, 33% 90-99, 40% 100)
- The following units are now buildable, at the bracketed costs and building: Revelers (Gambling House, 150h), Mobius Witch (Mage Guild, 150h), Chaos Marauder (Carnival, 50h), Manticore (Grove, 240h), Minotaur (Obsidian Gate, 240h), Tar Demon (Temple of Veil, 75h), Succubus (Public Baths, 150h)
There is a possibility that this is overkill, however, I think it's worth trying.
None of these changes have been implemented yet, although I have a pretty good idea how to do so. Any and all changes planned so far are up for discussion. If anyone has any other suggestions, especially on how to fix those issues that I don't have a plan for (such as Summoner, Esus, or any of the other weak civilizations), please tell!
Current Changelog:
Spoiler :
If you're curious, it's posted ![[to_xp]Gekko](https://civfanatics-data.community.forum/avatars/m/74/74677.jpg?1475248346){kind=avatar}
)
per kill
But it's your project, so I wont say anything further.
