Fall Under: A Module for Rise From Erebus 2016-10-05

Current Version: 1.71 (2/12/11)

Hey, all,
In case anyone's been wondering why I haven't been posting lately (besides college), I've been working on a modmodmod... mod for RiFE (1.23 and possibly newer since it's modular), with a few of my own tweaks. For the last few months I've been putting the finishing touches on it, and now I think it's time for a public release.

DISCLAIMER: I've yet to test any of these changes very thoroughly for balance purposes, so I'm open to feedback as to whether some of them are overpowered or not. There may also be some changes that I made that aren't documented. Use at your own risk.

In particular, the Amurites got a major shot in the arm in both flavor and capabilities. They are now a mana-hogging civ, capable of developing mana nodes in far-off corners of the world though Mage Towers and Enclaves, and acquiring multiple mana sources from a singe node via Academies.

Amurite Changes:

• Mage Towers: Added a series of new improvement types which double as both a mana node and a fort. The Amurites can build these with either arcane or recon units, or they can get them from upgrading existing mana nodes. You can now convert and control mana nodes without having to spam cities nearby. Mage Towers will upgrade into Mage Enclaves, which have an additional ring of cultural control and can be used to train old units to use magic.
• Mage Academies: I borrowed the original idea from Jojomo and made my own version of it. Rather than being unique wonders that grant specific bonuses, these academies act as secondary sources of mana, allowing the Amurites to build a stockpile of up to 4 sources of mana from only one node on the map. They each also grant a small bonuses to research and production which can stack if you build a bunch of them in one city. Each academy requires a Great Sage to build it, so the benefits are directly tied to how many you can pump out. I did it this way so that Amurite GS's could provide a direct benefit to the Amurite war effort, rather than just building normal academies or settling down for pure research. Religion spam is no longer necessary for the Amurites to pick up every mana type; Great Sages and Dispel Magic are all they need now.
• Melee Line: Bladedancers can pick up “Silver Weapons” instead of bronze, iron, or mithril, giving them a small strength boost similar to Bronze Weapons. With Arcane Lore, units with Silver Weapons get an additional strength point, making them on-par with Iron Weapons. Spellswords still don't have swords (working on that), but they can trade the strength boost from Silver Weapons for Fire, Earth, Air, or Ice affinity, each of which has its own additional advantages. Berserkers and Battlemages also get unique weapon types (Body and Metamagic, respectively), as well.
• Recon Line: Added a couple of recon UU's. Hunters are now replaced by Warders, which have Channeling 1, Nature 1, and Guardsman, in addition to the ability to build mana nodes and mage towers. They're meant to put up a quick defense against assassins and other threats to your arcane units. Planeswalkers are essentially the same for Rangers, only they have Channeling 2 and Dimension magic as well, allowing them to warp back to your capital like Chanters do, as well as teleport short distances. Anima Mages now replace Druids, with full spell access, an affinity towards Life magic, and the ability to summon Griffons.
• Arcane Lines: All Amurite mage units can now build Mage Towers, and Apprentices can upgrade to Siege Mages.
• Other Lines: Replaced Catapults with Siege Mages (basically an Adept who starts with Fire 2 and bombard ability), and Horse Archers with Arcane Riders. They start with Body 1 and Channeling 2 access, which makes them ideal for casting Haste or Regeneration across multiple stacks. Also added a unique Great Commander called the Mage General, who acts as an arcane unit but can also gain limited Commander promotions as well as increased free XP from minions.
• Did some tweaking to the way non-arcane Amurite units get Channeling II and III. This ability is now explicitly marked by a “Channeling II (Latent)” promotion, which grants the unit Channeling II once Sorcery has been researched and the unit reaches level 5 (3 for arcane units; this is how I put a limit on Tower Mages and Mage Generals). A similar promotion exists for Channeling III, which I gave to Mage Generals, Tower Mages, and Gaelan (who can reach Channeling III regardless of which civ creates him).

Other Civ Improvements:

• The Grigori, Dural, and Mechanos now get Great Philosophers instead of Prophets. Right now, they're functionally identical to Great Sages, but later I plan on doing something different with them.
• Likewise, the Illians get Prophets of Winter instead of the usual Great Prophets. Currently this is just a cosmetic change, but I plan on allowing them to hurry production of rituals like how engineers can hurry wonders.
• Luchuirp warriors are now called Tinkerers. They start with Enchantment 1 and can upgrade to adepts instead of axemen, giving them an alternate upgrade route that seems more thematic for them.

Building and Wonder Changes:

• Catacomb Libralus is now much cheaper than before, and it grants a training bonus to adept units, making it slightly more useful for civs who don't get mage guilds anyway.
• Aquae Sucellus now removes any unhealthiness from population. I might change it so that it grants an Aqueduct in every city if the the healthy-cap removal proves too powerful, though.
• Malakim Palace now grants Fire mana instead of Mind (lessens the Malakim's early monopoly on divination spells and feels a lot more thematic).
• Empyrean temples now grant +20% GPP instead of +10% science. They also allow 1 additional sage and priest (like Overlords and Veil temples) instead of 2 priests like before.

Tech Changes:

• Since Fall Further (and RiFE, by extension) already includes xienwolf's Tech Cost Mod, I decided to use it to streamline the tech tree a bit.
• Bowyers is now the same price as Iron Working and only requires Archery, making it much easier to obtain overall. However, you can also get further discounts by picking up Bronze Working and/or Tracking.
• The magic techs have been streamlined quite a bit. Each magic school becomes cheaper if you already have one or more of its mana types (e.g. you get a discount on Elementalism if you have fire mana), and all of them contribute to lowering the cost of Sorcery. The higher-level magic techs receive a small discount for every unique mana type you have. To compensate, Arcane Lore is now twice as expensive as it was, while Pass Through the Ether is now the same cost as Strength of Will (though it only gets a research bonus from Dimensional Mana).
• Philosophy now gives a Great Prophet to the first civ to research it. In exchange, it is now the same cost as the religion-founding techs such as Way of the Forests or Message from the Deep. Mainly this was to make it more appealing to religion-centric civs and less of a speed-bump tech. Now if you beeline to the late-game religions, you'll have the help of a Prophet to get there.
• The first civ to pick up Knowledge of the Ether gets a free adept.
• Each religious tech makes the others more expensive, by a percentage between %20-%200, depending on their corresponding alignments. For example, going from Order to Ashen Veil has a 200% research penalty; going from Runes to Order only has a %20 penalty. This is mostly to discourage religion spam and drastic shifts in alignment.
• Hunting gives a 40% discount to Archery and Animal Husbandry.
• Warfare now requires either Bronze Working OR Hunting in addition to Education. Both techs provide a discount.
• Education now costs 150% as much, but can be accessed from either Agriculture OR Crafting in addition to Ancient Chants, and both techs provide a discount. Writing now requires both Agriculture AND Crafting.
• Sanitation is slightly more expensive, but gets a discount with Construction (so its harder to research if you only have Bronze Working).
• Trade gets a discount with Sailing and/or Horseback Riding.

Miscellaneous Changes:

• Barbarian animals now get a promotion called “Animal Limiter” which reduces their City Attack by 120% and prevents them from going beyond Combat 3. I did this in response to the (still very much broken) animal upgrading system after getting steamrolled by those gorram griffon packs one-too-many times. Animals are still just as dangerous in the field as before (as they should be), but this way they're less likely to go on a civ-destroying rampage like before.
• Kraken now need to reach Combat 2 before they can use Tsunami. Hopefully this will cut down on all the spamming.
• Scorpion Clan Archers can no longer pillage improvements. They're already a pain to dislodge even with advanced units, so letting them pillage seemed like overkill.
• Some promotions have had their requirements changed. Mobility, for instance, now requires at least a level 3 unit. This was to keep players from spamming Mobility on all their units through free XP, making innately mobile units like Horsemen more valuable.
  Shock/Cover/Formation 2 now require Millitary Tactics in addition to the usual reqs, and Blitz has been moved over to Armored Cavalry (so no more quad-killing Alazkan without a hefty investment. Sorry!)
• The Bannor command promotions now have a reduced defend-the-stack chance, like the channeling promotions. This will keep high-rank units out of the firing line when units are moving, attacking, or defending in a stack, hopefully reducing the number of times your generals decide to go Leeroy Jenkins on you.
• Most units have had their costs adjusted so that early game units are slightly more expensive while late game units are much cheaper. This was intended to reduce warrior-spam. Religious units and heroes have not been changed (yet).
• The Amurites in general have higher unit costs to compensate for their ability to use magic.
• Some promotions and units have gotten some snazzy new graphics, most of them taken from the Kohan conversions by Deliverator with minor texture edits by me.
  These include drakes (which now use the Kohan models), and the Avatar of Wrath (retextured Abaddon).
• Kelp Forests also have a new, brown-green texture.
• Added a few unique civics from Orbis for Octopus Overlords and Council of Esus.
• Empyrean also got a nice overhaul. The Pilgrimage unique civic (graphics from Orbis) gives each city a free specialist and increases the GPP rate of every Empyrean city by 100%(!). The Tower of Prisms wonder grants additional free specialists and makes it so that priests grant an additional gold. Combined with the Altar of the Luonnotar this can make an all-priest economy quite useful.

Changelog:

• v1.71
• Minor compatibility update. Removed an empty XML entry in the CostChanges module and added compatibility tags for GIR's Elohim Events mod.
• v1.7
• Art of Bows now correctly gives Fletchers instead of Archery Ranges.
• The Dural have buildable versions of the first four Arts of War. I figured they needed a boost and if anyone should be able to build up their military by "turtling wonders away in their capital," it should be them. They still need a Great General to build the true Art of War wonder, though.
• Mage Generals are now officially double-classed as Commanders, so they get ALL the promotions a normal Great Commander would, rather than a few of them. They can build the Arts of War now, as well.
• Tower of Prisms has a new texture and description.
• Amurite magic weapons no longer have a strength penalty.
• Blitz has been moved back to Military Strategy. As others had pointed out, making it require Mobility 2 (and therefore Warhorses) is enough of a cost.
• Mana Weapons (Battlemage Metamagic Affinity) can sometimes restore the user's ability to cast, depending on who they fight (high-level arcane units are more likely to trigger the effect than non-arcane units, for example).
• Twincast (Temporary) now has a 33% miscast chance and is blocked by the real Twincast promotion.
• Master of Creation now permanently grants the Twincast (Temporary) promotion rather than being a Twincast promotion by itself. That way the miscast chance can be removed by getting the real Twincast promotion.
• Added a new spell for Council of Esus players. It allows non-Esus recon units to change religions to Esus for a cost of 40 gold. Helpful if you really need to convert a recon hero like Alazkan to Esus and don't want to save scum.
• Added another option to Amathaon's sign event. It shows how even the Balseraphs worship him, in their own fashion.
• v1.6
• Fixed another possible reason for the weird barbarian spawns. Haven't had a chance to test this yet, but it can't hurt.
• Added training bonuses to each of the Arts of War. Should make them a bit more useful.
• Art of Siege now requires Engineering instead of Mathematics. Makes it so that you can't get it without first getting Construction.
• Cleanse now restricted to the Arcane line (so Warders and other units with Nature 1 can't use it). Priest of Leaves get a unique version that doesn't require Nature 1.
• Wild Strength promotions have had their City Attack malus reduced to 15% each; may help solve a CTD when a unit attacks with 0 city strength.
• Fixed an issue that allowed animal units to pick up all the Wild Strength promotions without XP.
• Kraken Tsunami now has a level requirement instead of a promotion requirement (so now it works whether you have Neuter Animals enabled or not).
• All Amurite units with Chanelling 1 can build Mana Nodes and Mage Towers, instead of just Adepts and Recon units.
• v1.5
• Moved the Unit Cost changes into a separate file, mostly for barb-spawn-related bugs and for easy removal.
• Added a couple of "Art of War" national wonders for Great Commanders to build, mostly because I got fed up with building barracks in every city and wanted an easy but fair way to get them all at once.
• Aquae Sucellus no longer gives "No Unhealth from Population". Instead it grants Aqueducts in every city.
• Writing no longer requires both Agriculture and Crafting.
• Sucellus' Monument back up to +3 health (I think. I couldn't replicate the "+3 happy instead" bug, so I set it back to +3 for now).
• Barb players will get a grace period before the barbs attack them if they switch to a non-barb-friendly alignment. The grace period is random and based on how far you stray from your original alignment (so becoming Neutral/Neutral will give you about 20 turns before being attacked, while being Lawful/Good will only give you about 3).
• v1.4
• Fixed the empty Civilopedia unit entries.
• Cleanse and Defile can now be autocasted and have new button art.
• Defile no longer creates hell terrain out of nowhere. Instead, it expands existing hell terrain into neighboring tiles.
• Sucellus' monument event now grants 1 health (reportedly becomes 1 happy thanks to Modular XML weirdness).
• Great Philosophers can build the Altar of the Luonnotar (no holy cities, however).
• Luonnotar units can now build the first 3 levels of the Altar. The rest have to be built by Philosophers.
• v1.3
• Now guaranteed fully compatible with RiFE 1.3.
• Mage Enclaves now grant a free sage. (Same way Homesteads work.)
• Slumbering Coven no longer benefits Whaling Boats (they don't exist anymore).
• Dedicating a monument to Sucellus now grants +3 health instead of +1. Amathaon's blessing is back up to +2 food from +1 which I had it at before.
• Moved the Animal-nerfing promotions into their own file so they can be deleted easily if you're feeling brave.
• Got rid of the nerfs for specific animals like Griffon Packs (especially helpful since some of them were removed).
• Added a Cleanse spell for removing Fallout (caused by the Goblin Waste event).
• Added a Defile spell for Entropy I Adepts and Veil Disciples (adepts require the Ashen Veil as your state religion). Spreads hell terrain across a 3x3 radius.
• The Ordine Medicos building and guild now actually works.
• Barbarian leaders who aren't either Chaotic Evil, Chaotic Neutral, or Neutral Evil will get attacked by the barbs. (Made as a drawback for Runes/Clan or Order/Clan strategies.)
• v1.2
• Fixed an issue with Mage Towers not counting as forts. (Hopefully)
• Fixed an error with Anima Mages requiring the Mage Guild building instead of the building class.
• Gave Pirate Coves back their minimum range, but allowed them to count as forts. (For some reason, I can't get this to work on my computer. The claim fort button is there but it's grayed out. It may have something to do with being on water.)
• Added Pirate Lord unit for the Lanun. Replaces Fort Commander. Has an additional strength/defense point plus a 120% bonus against Naval units instead of Mounted.
• Animals no longer get the regular combat promotions. Instead, they get their own set of Wild Strength promotions which grant the same bonus, but with a corresponding decrease in city attack and defense (another attempt to make animals more reasonable to deal with).
• v1.1
• All units can now claim Mage Towers (previously restricted to adepts).
• Bumped the cost of Catacomb Libralus up to 500 (halfway between vanilla RiFE's cost and Fall Under 1.0's), but added an 80% production bonus for Arcane Leaders, to compensate for the bonus that individual Mage Guilds get.
• Changed the name of the Elohim Berserker-replacement from Sentinel to Vanguard. (conflicted with... let's just say something. )

Installation:

• About 98% of the mod is purely modular; just dump it in your RiFE/Assets/Modules/NormalModules/ folder and go.
• The 2% of the mod that isn't entirely modular is a replacement python file for the Great Person progress bar, to allow it to support unique Great People. There have been issues reported with RiFE 1.23 where the GPUtil.py file is out of date. In that case, the mod includes a GPUtil.py file which you can overwrite the one in python/Utils/ with.

Credits:
Thanks to the RiFE, FF, Orbis, and FFH teams for creating an awesome series of mods and giving me the framework to add my own little contribution. Thanks also to Jojomo for the academy idea, and to Deliverator for the Kohan conversions than I somewhat liberally "borrowed" from.