Fall Further - The Original Thread

[GhostQ]

I have try this feature and it's good for your new city. It doesn't give much effect in early game when you don't have much trade. But in mid game, your new city will have immediate 3 +1food +1 hammer +2com. And I can manage to get my new city 5 +3food +3hammer +6com. Is it overpower ?

I believe it is "ok" with all the drawbacks Lost Lands presents. High Upkeep, Maintenance increased on both aspects, and no Foreign Trade Routes. Getting a trade route with 6 yield isn't very easy nor very early, that should balance it up. The really broken feature were the swamps, and I believe they got fixed. The swamp yields were better than resource yields even with the proper buildings on them.

 

[Demus]

carefull with the swamps though, the cualli use them aswell as the mazatl! nerfing the swamps all-together would make the evil lizards quite an underpowered civ.

 

[Vehem]

carefull with the swamps though, the cualli use them aswell as the mazatl! nerfing the swamps all-together would make the evil lizards quite an underpowered civ.

Aye - most of the extra benefit the Mazatl gain from it is through the Financial trait and the Lost Lands civic. Lost Lands has been moved back a little and doesn't grant the extra commerce to swamps now (it's actually been changed quite a bit - but the other changes don't impact swamps).

For the Mazatl to get the Financial trait to kick in on swamps now, they have to be (a) next to a river and (b) have a trail. 3 commerce max for those swamps instead of 4 as well.

The only nerf that will impact the Cualli is that the second +1 Food at Feral Bond was removed. Don't think it needed it and it still has +1 at Tracking.

 

[Demus]

For the Mazatl to get the Financial trait to kick in on swamps now, they have to be (a) next to a river and (b) have a trail. 3 commerce max for those swamps instead of 4 as well.

which basically is never. Swamps only give commerce next to a river when there isn't a jungle growing on top. Because those jungles grow quite fast, you'll soon find there isn't a reason for them to have financial at all anymore. Maibe switch it to something else? (spiritual for example would work)

 

[Vehem]

which basically is never. Swamps only give commerce next to a river when there isn't a jungle growing on top. Because those jungles grow quite fast, you'll soon find there isn't a reason for them to have financial at all anymore. Maibe switch it to something else? (spiritual for example would work)

That one is covered too. Deep Jungle allows the commerce granted when next to a river, same method as flood plains (both are Features).

 

[Vehem]

New Features


Explorable Lairs (original by Marnok)

Marnok has produced an excellent mod-component that means that monster lairs (Barrows, Ruins etc) are no longer so easily defeated. A unit must stand upon
the lair and "Assault the Dungeon". This can be a risky business, with all manner of dangers awaiting the unit and no guarantee of success. However - it can also be
very rewarding - experience, gold, magic items, unique promotions and unimaginable fame all await intrepid adventurers in the darkness. They need only be bold
enough to enter...

Mechanic
When a unit stands upon a tile with a "Lair" improvement, it no longer vanishes. You must use the "Explore Dungeon" ability in order to attempt to destroy the lair.
When you do so, a great many results are possible - but the process occurs automatically and you are informed of what happens during the adventure. The results vary
from valuable to outright deadly. You can improve your chances however with the "Adventurer" promotion - which helps your unit to avoid the worst of what the dungeon
can throw at them.


Broader Alignment (original by Grey Fox)

Evil? You call yourself evil? I'm more evil than you could ever be and I can prove it... Grey Fox produced a very impressive interface allowing a much greater
variety of factors to influence your alignment.


Mechanic
Alignment is no longer purely tied to religion - each leader has an initial alignment score (ranging from very good to very evil) and this can be influenced by religion, civics, units created, buildings built,
event results, cities razed - pretty much anything you can think of. Most influencing factors are commented on in their 'pedia entries or the help text for the option
though some are not immediately obvious (event results and such). Whilst Grey Fox did a *lot* of work on this, I do plan to extend that further in later versions
and to tweak the existing factors to make things a little easier to follow. The coloured bar in the top left of the interface displays your current alignment status.


Worker Promotions (original by Xienwolf)

Feel like a faceless labourer? Tired of working all day with no recognition of your skill? Then you need "Worker Promotions", new from Xienwolf.

Mechanic
Workers gain experience over time, allowing them to acquire promotions. These promotions can influence work rate, experience gain rate, defensive strength,
movement rate and visibility range. Skilled V, Mobility I workers make an excellent workfore - it just takes a little effort and a lot of worker protection to
get there.

Also included in this mod-comp was a number of addiitonal XML tags on promotions - some of which are used to implement other features below.


Diverse Citysets

Rather than using Era/Religion-based city art, Fall Further now uses Civ-specific city art. The buildings in your city will reflect the nature of the civ
you're playing. Orcs live in dirty camps, whilst elves construct elegant homes. This is purely a cosmetic change, but hopefully a worthwhile one. Some of the
religion specific improvements have been altered as well such that they don't stand out against the new city art as much.

Artwork by:
Woodelf, Winddelay and Darque (Dragonia II mod)
GeoModder, asioasioasio, Chamaedrys, C.Roland, Ganart, Sevo, White Rabbit, Woodelf and "the FfH art team" (Ethnic Citystyles Mod)
Vehem (DIY-Balseraph Tents Mod - and a number of other tweaks)


Kahdi

A new civ with an identity crisis - the Kahdi are ambitious, power hungry and utterly convinced that they're actually "nice guys". Believing that they serve Oghma
in pursuit of knowledge, their path has been twisted by Mammon and they truly covet power instead. Granted a direct link to Oghma's vault through "Vault Gates",
will Kahd eventually discover the truth and if so - with which god will he side?

Credits:
Initial civ concept, concept artwork and unit textures for several units: Slyvnn
Modelling work for Advisors/Followers: NikNaks
Music: Louis Foxfire (louisfoxfire.com) - Used without permission (I sent an e-mail, but no reply as yet).


Changes


Mazatl
1, Lost Lands moved to Currency
2. Barterhouse replaces Money Changer (available at currency, +50% Trade Route Yield)
3. Mazatl Capital provides +50% trade route yield.
4. Lost Lands no longer provides +1 Commerce with Swamp.
5. Lost Lands now provides +75% Hammer/Food yield to Trade Routes and -25% commerce.
6. Lost Lands provides additional trade routes in every city.

Other
7. Raider promotion added - automatically pillages improvements once when you enter a tile if at war with the owner .
8. Raiders trait now grants Raider Promotion instead of Commando.
9. New magic items added, mostly available through the Dungeon Exploration mechanic.
10. Existing magic items renamed with a {Item} prefix so that all appear together in Civilopedia.
11. Pirate Coves made unpillagable.
12. Growth Rate of Pirate Coves/Ports slowed.
13. Hyborem and Basium granted experience upon spawning
14. Hyborem spawns with an Attack AI rather than City Defense.
15. Hyborem switches to City Defense AI after losing his Immortal Promotion.
16. Teleporting units enabled through Paradrop interface (used by Thades)
17. Recon/Rebase Hawk command icons replaced with pre-Shadow artwork (BtS used an Atlas for the icons, I just put the original FfH art back)
18. No addition food from swamps with Feral Bond.
19. Citybar size increased (Modcomp by asioasioasio here)
20. Some event options related to the new civs added - more to come.

 

[woodelf]

Looks like a great update Vehem. Super work.

 

[mahazel]

Explorable Lairs

OK, but Marnok has some problem with this modmod, especialy with the Adventurer promotion which occasionaly cause the game lock up. Do you include this part into your modmod?

EDIT: like just said MaxAstro "I can't get a unit to be able to cast Explore the Dungeon", so now we have indestructible barbarians factories

 

[MaxAstro]

Explorable Lairs seems to be broken; I can't get a unit to be able to cast Explore the Dungeon. Basically means Lairs can't be destroyed, which is admittedly an interesting gameplay mechanic. XD

 

[xienwolf]

Just fired it up. Love the Leaderhead for the Khadi Minor Observations from 15 turns or so of playing:

Didn't notice any Explore the Dungeon button when I stood my scout on a Barrow

Would be nice if you could figure out a way to get a tooltip for the Alignment Bar that stated what it was.

I rather liked having Settlers also be UnitCombat_Worker. Grabbing the extra movement or Sight Range on them sometimes made the difference (with 1 extra move point they can move onto a hill and settle on the same turn). Kinda miss being able to upgrade Workers to Settlers as well. It was a good use of them in the late-game when you have too many workers and start razing lots of cities.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I'm tempted to just base my modmod off of this. I don't really like the idea of adding the non-cannonical civs (although Khadi is starting to grow on me) and I'm indifferent about city sets, but I was planning to include all he other mods you included. I already have Broader Alignments and xienwolf's xml modcomp (SDK and Schema, but only a few promotions, and not the newest version.) in along with UnitStats, an abandon/raze city/building modmod (this works with unmodded FfH, but I won't seem to work with the changes required for UnitStats), and some of my own changes.


How exactly does teleporting work for Thades (and what are they)? Are they just units with the innate ability identical to in vanilla BtS, or did you extend it to promotions or something? Does it still require it be in a city? (I had my tesseract summon working just the way I wanted a few versions back, but I forget what exactly I had to change in the SDK to get it right, and I think I deleted the source code of that version. I'm starting to think that creating a temporary Obsidian gate may be too strong for a mage spell, so I'm wondering if could handle teleporting differently for a level 2 spell and move the gate to level 3. Of course, I don't let anyone build a dimensional node until Arcane Lore so it really only makes the Sheaim and Infernals (I replaced Iron with Dimensional mana) overpowered. The fact that I let these 2 civs (and the amurites) start with 2 of each mana source is probably the real problem. Either that, or the amount of cheating I've done in testing. )



You know, as much as I like Broader Alignments I've never liked the alignment bar. I'd much prefer a mouseover showing the exact numerical alignment value whenever you put the mouse over any leader's alignment. I'd like to know just who is the most evil civ around so I can wipe them out first. I'm not sure, but it seems like the bar display might slow the game down by constantly refreshing, while the alignment mouseover would only need the information when you move the mouse there.

If you give settlers a unitcombat it should be called unitcombat_civilian rather than unitcombat_worker. I call it that in my version (it includes great people, excluding adventurers and great commanders, too). I also made the base work rate of (non-golem) workers slower and reduced the movement of workers and settlers to 1 since they can get promotions. I then made Expansive grant Civilians Mobility 1 and Sprawling give Navigation 1 (so Cardith's settlers start with 3 movement and can get even faster). I let workers upgrade to settlers, but I'm hesitant to actually do so with experienced settlers because is is a waste of XP. I gave settlers some build orders (letting them build Castles and Towns directly, albeit slowly) but I think that contributed to the frequent WoC errors so I removed it. I had to remove the build orders from great engineers too or every game would go WoC by turn 100 (usually around turn 70). Why can't the AI understand it when other units have worker abilities?

If workers can upgrade to settlers I think that the new cities need to start with higher population and maybe also buildings based on the settler's level and/or promotions. I also think that if a settler has a religion the city should start out with said religion.

While we are on the topic of settlers, is there some way we can stop the AI from building cities 1 tile away from a coast or river (unless also touching another coast or river, of course)? Capturing these cities is really annoying.

 

[GhostQ]

Great release, and on time, thank you Vehem.

P.S.: I believe you forgot to change the short message at the download screen, it says FF adds 5 civs to FfH. When I saw that, I thought, damn no Kadhi in the patch.

 

[Perkin Warbeck]

Vehem, Xienwolf et all you and the other modders are fast becoming my favourite people in the world!! Thank you all so much for your hard and excellent quality of work!

 

[Vehem]

Explorable Lairs seems to be broken; I can't get a unit to be able to cast Explore the Dungeon. Basically means Lairs can't be destroyed, which is admittedly an interesting gameplay mechanic. XD

Heh - sounds like lots of fun I think I know what is causing it.

Was this a clean install, or an "over-the-top" of the old version?

In the previous release, the "CvSpellInterface.py" which should be in Assets\Python\Entrypoints was duplicated into Assets\Python\Screens. It shouldn't be there - but it was being used by Civ instead of the original file (probably due to it being loaded later, or possibly found first).

In this version, I've deleted the duplicate and am using the correct file again (in Entrypoints). If you've done an "over-the-top", it won't have deleted the duplicate file, and it'll still be using that one. I'd forgotten all about the issue until it was mentioned here - but I can't actually delete an existing file using a patch so it'll have to be a manual fix/delete or a fresh install. Apologies for that - I originally made the mistake when updating for 031e.

The Fix
Anycase - the fix should be as simple as;

1. Go to Assets\Python\Screens\
2. Delete "CvSpellInterface.py"
3. Go to Assets\Python\entrypoints\
4. Check that you have a CvSpellInterface.py there - don't delete this one, you kinda need it

If you're really not comfortable with doing the above (and it really should be that easy), a clean install of FfH + FF should also solve the problem.

Apologies again - if it's any consolation I confused myself for over an hour whilst actually creating the mod before I realized there was a duplicate of that file (so I already hate that file ). Didn't show up in testing as I tested on a clean-install.

 

[Vehem]

I'm tempted to just base my modmod off of this. I don't really like the idea of adding the non-cannonical civs (although Khadi is starting to grow on me) and I'm indifferent about city sets, but I was planning to include all he other mods you included. I already have Broader Alignments and xienwolf's xml modcomp (SDK and Schema, but only a few promotions, and not the newest version.) in along with UnitStats, an abandon/raze city/building modmod (this works with unmodded FfH, but I won't seem to work with the changes required for UnitStats), and some of my own changes.

Feel free to use what you like - though as a disclaimer, I'm rubbish at remembering to comment changes so you'll definitely need WinMerge.

How exactly does teleporting work for Thades (and what are they)? Are they just units with the innate ability identical to in vanilla BtS, or did you extend it to promotions or something? Does it still require it be in a city?

They're beings that reside in Oghma's vault, composed of the "prime-material" of that vault. The part of them that can be perceived in Creation could be called a "knowledge elemental" - a fleeting idea and consciousness.

Teleporting is very similar to vanilla (innate ability) but I removed the city requirement and added a python check to allow me to block units such as Mages/Archmages who didn't have the appropriate promotions from being able to teleport. I also reworked the 'pedia entry to hide the fact the unit can teleport being shown by default and then added the description manually for Thades (as they can always teleport). You could give an Archmage a teleport range and then use Python to check if he can actually teleport (has Dimensional 2 etc). In the 'pedia, it wouldn't mention that the Archmage can teleport however - you could add the information about teleporting to the Dimensional promotion (fakes the way it really works - but makes no difference at all from a player's perspective - it just works).

I'm starting to think that creating a temporary Obsidian gate may be too strong for a mage spell, so I'm wondering if could handle teleporting differently for a level 2 spell and move the gate to level 3.

I think that was pretty much what I came up with last time the topic was discussed - still sounds good.

You know, as much as I like Broader Alignments I've never liked the alignment bar. I'd much prefer a mouseover showing the exact numerical alignment value whenever you put the mouse over any leader's alignment. I'd like to know just who is the most evil civ around so I can wipe them out first. I'm not sure, but it seems like the bar display might slow the game down by constantly refreshing, while the alignment mouseover would only need the information when you move the mouse there.

Nice idea - I'm planning on shifting the scale from between -511 and +511 (which is a result of 1024 being cut in half and then allowing space for +/- 0) to just be 500 points either way - easier on the brain. Likewise - all the 24's and 16's can be rounded to "5-values". I also want certain modifiers to apply a "shift-per-turn", so that if you're using Sacrifice the Weak or Slavery over a long period, you continually deteriorate. Likewise for Public Healers and Liberty in reverse - you effectively get a "net alignment change" per turn.

Adding the numerical displays will definitely be needed at that point.

Something like;

Current Alignment: -20 (Neutral)

• Slavery -2 per turn
• Ashen Veil State Religion -3 per turn
• Public Healers +2 per turn
  • Net effect -3 Alignment per turn

If you give settlers a unitcombat it should be called unitcombat_civilian rather than unitcombat_worker. I call it that in my version (it includes great people, excluding adventurers and great commanders, too). I also made the base work rate of (non-golem) workers slower and reduced the movement of workers and settlers to 1 since they can get promotions. I then made Expansive grant Civilians Mobility 1 and Sprawling give Navigation 1 (so Cardith's settlers start with 3 movement and can get even faster). I let workers upgrade to settlers, but I'm hesitant to actually do so with experienced settlers because is is a waste of XP. I gave settlers some build orders (letting them build Castles and Towns directly, albeit slowly) but I think that contributed to the frequent WoC errors so I removed it. I had to remove the build orders from great engineers too or every game would go WoC by turn 100 (usually around turn 70). Why can't the AI understand it when other units have worker abilities?

Settlers don't have a combat type or gain promotions - so a non-issue here. Only the workers become more skiled at their jobs - Settlers sit around until it's time to build a city and after that they become farmers or similar.

While we are on the topic of settlers, is there some way we can stop the AI from building cities 1 tile away from a coast or river (unless also touching another coast or river, of course)? Capturing these cities is really annoying.

Core AI issue, possible to fix, but not necessarily easily.

 

[grumpylad]

Downloaded and did clean install, no issues with exploring barrows etc (although to date I've only had negatives, spider, orcs & wizard casting wither.

Great fun really like it

 

[Good Sauce]

Love the Leaderhead for the Khadi

Toshiro Mifune FTW (For anyone who doesn't know who this is, go rent Yojimbo and Sanjuro, thank me later)

Also: About the Hippus palace I mentioned awhile back: swap with the Dural, their palace doesn't seem as big as they would like.

 

[Demus]

Nice idea - I'm planning on shifting the scale from between -511 and +511 (which is a result of 1024 being cut in half and then allowing space for +/- 0) to just be 500 points either way - easier on the brain. Likewise - all the 24's and 16's can be rounded to "5-values". I also want certain modifiers to apply a "shift-per-turn", so that if you're using Sacrifice the Weak or Slavery over a long period, you continually deteriorate. Likewise for Public Healers and Liberty in reverse - you effectively get a "net alignment change" per turn.

Adding the numerical displays will definitely be needed at that point.

Something like;

Current Alignment: -20 (Neutral)

• Slavery -2 per turn
• Ashen Veil State Religion -3 per turn
• Public Healers +2 per turn
  • Net effect -3 Alignment per turn

they should have a cap though, as it is now using slavery for prolonged periods of time can get you up to -500 (if i read this correctly), which imho is wrong. Only using StW + slavery + veil should push you that far.

 

[GhostQ]

Vehem, I started a game with the new civ. (as expected ) Upgrading Adepts to Followers costs 185 gold. That's almost triple the normal cost, am I doing something wrong, or is this intended? If it is, I'd like to say that's quite harsh. One more thing, Kadhi doesn't state that they are Agnostic. I went for RoK and pwnd myself.

Edit: When a Gnosling dies (at least I believe that's when I get the message) the following message pops up TXT_KEY_KNOWLEDGE_GAIN.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

UNITCOMBAT_CIVILIAN was more in response to xienwolf than you. I do like having them in a unitcombat though because making the settlers of Expansive and Sprawling-trait leaders faster seems especially appropriate to me.


Hmm...now I'm wondering if moving the obsidian gate spell is too much of a nerf, since it would limit it to just 4 cities. That probably wouldn't be as much of a problem if I hadn't removed the actual Obsidian Gate building, Nexus wonder, and Pass through the ether tech in my version. You don't suppose that a city with 2 airport-type buildings in it would be allowed to transport 2 units per turn (with out without minor SDK changes), do you?

How would having to sacrifice a dimensional 2/3 mage/archmage for a permanent obsidian gate building in the city work? I'm not sure if that would make it weaker or stronger.


Hmm...I could handle teleport like you did, but that could cause some problems. I'm my modmod the students of Govannon will eventually be able to learn Mage (maybe even archmage) spells too. I could just give the ability to every unit, but if it has to call a python function that often it could slow things down. I was worried that drop range used the same tag as ranged attacks (I'm letting archers attack from 1 tile away), which would cause more problems (I'd either have to make archers only teleport 1 tile, which is useless, or give them a huge range, which is overpowered), but I just looked over the xml and they don't.

It might just be easier to weaken the tesseract summon and switch my level 2 and 3 spells.

Oh, did you make units unload their cargo before they die from duration running out? This is a change I got Grey Fox to include in Broader Alignments when I was thinking I'd release a modmod using his DLL instead of making my own. Without this, it isn't smart to use my tesseract and water elemental summons' transport abilities.