Crazy Crazy Game -- (Testing Fall Further)

[Calbrenar]

So I'm playing a single player game to test out the Fall Further modmod. I was origionally planning on doing my standard 2 human + AI game but my friend (who works in the tech industry like me) could not get Fall Further installed for some reason. i walked him through the entire processess we both use Vista (me 64 him 32) yet the civs never showed up for him.

So anyway I'm playing single player to check it out.

I pick Archos because I like spiders. They are creepy. Plus I wanted to see if their hero Mother looks like Shelob.

I do an advanced start with 13 AI on Creation Huge. I get tons of plains for city loc. Nice. I'm doing my thing expanding out pretty soon have 5 cities. I manage to hit writing first (only playing noble) and start going for FoL. Even with the free Sage my research is horrible (being barbarian) Plus I wasted a lot of resources putting warriors in different areas forgetting the barbs are at peace with me. I know they can break it (or I assume they can) but I didn't have any problems with them.

No Acheron no Orthus. Svaltafar and Doviello are right by me. However due to some weird quirk of the creation map I'm actually cut off from both of them by mountains. So I'm merrily buiding and teching. I have like 11 adepts but haven't built any nodes. I have Baron + Kithra. I have a bunch of Priests of Leaves I can't send anywhere.

I found a city on a bunch of hills by the sea so I can start getting out there. I meet Sheim. I meet the evil Lizard Civ. Cassiel is killed. Svaltafar and Doviello go to war. I have a recluse near the barbarian city by me. (Str 8 basically a ranger) I drop nature's revolt. Createts so many lions that I actually go to -25 maintenance from my recluse killing them all. Literally like 6-15 lions a turn. Nothing but lions. I literally spent 15 min deleting lions over the next 10 turns. I'm trying to get Feral Bond for Mother but my tech is slow. Even better I can't get my city to size 15. its size 14 and I have a bunch of Dark Wealds which count towards giant spiders but I can't get to size 20 and no mother. I start building 1K Slums in my cap so I can get it to size 15. I'm trying to get commune with nature but its freaking 32 turns on normal. I want my Haruspexes (channelling 3 sorcery chaos/nature) Since I can't get priests w/o incense I figure i can terraform some plains so i can grow my cap. 10 turns to 1K slums. Hypoborem is founded directly north of me. Hell terrain starts spreading. Literally every civ in the world is evil. I've never seen anything like it. I desperately wish I had founded Hypoborem since its perhaps the greatest game ever to play them since there'd be millions of manes. I decide to raze the city because the AC is going up fast. The entire city is surrounded by burning plains. Baron, Kithya and like 8 Giant Spiders (all promoted from feasting on my barb "allies" since they are HN) just sitting around waiting for my addept with Sanctuary to clear a path.

Right as they get there and hell terrain is contained -- Blight. I was too late. AC went from 3 to like 41 in aobut 20 turns. Sheim = dedicated + I guess the massive war with Svaltafar and Doviello but I didn't see any notifications about razed cities.

Personally I think Barbarians are too hard to play. How do you compensate for having no libraries or any of that stuff? I had like 131 Beakers at turn 250. My Sheim had 490. Pretty big difference.

Have to say though thanks Xien for putting that mod link in your sig and of course to Vehem for making it. its a very good addition to FFH imo at least what I've seen so far. Looking foward to trying out some of the others.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=264496

I didnt' even get to try mother since the blight demolished my food. I'll prolly try to eke out and survive long enough to get mother out and use her + baron + kithy + haruspex + Yvain against hypoborem hah

 

[daladinn]

after reading this i decided to go ahead and try the mod also ..

sadly so far my review is not a good one.

i played a game as the lizardman. let me list a lot of what i found.

1- the lizardman worker can NOT build in jungles as i expected (not a big deal though , kinda). he has the ability to both scorch and spring right out of the gate. this does not allow him to create the swampland that you desire (you can however use both spells on swampland to destroy it.)
2- land turning to swamp seems completely random inside your cultural border. it seems to be able to effect any terrain , i had some swampland on a peak.
3- from your "civic" you gain a bonus of 40% to both food and hammers that are gained from your trade routes (however there is no base amount to be modified by this 40% bonus, trade routes only produce trade currency which can be split into research , gold , or culture).
4- both of the "priests" that you can build have their initial spell selection completely wrong. i am not sure the total number of errors with these units , but they really are not working right.

i ended up quiting the game around turn 200 because i just got frustrated at the amount of bugs scattered in the mod.

i plan on trying some of the other civs later, hopefully they will go better then this one.

 

[Calbrenar]

I think the 2 lizard civs were only added very recently. The other 3 have been around for a while. From what I saw of the Archos everything seemed ok. I didn't get a chance to summon their world hero yet and it seems like they are geared towards FoL but without the ability to build in forest. Possibly spider nature people would have the ability like elves? Make their worker a modified elven worker? They seem gimped enough by the 2 starting mana and barbarian traits.

I haven't tried the other 2 starting civs yet to see if there are any isues with them I want to check out their hero. So far their units seem pretty good and balanced but I obviously don't know the game to the depth you do. I haven't tried their Druids yet but it seems fair with how powerful they are (and getting them as evil) since they are so far down the tree and you're unable to build any research buildings other then elder council.

 

[Demus]

as the good lizardman, i actually could build in jungles, just not on top of swamps (which are an improvement, like farms or an oasis). However, i was able to build plantations and the likes in jungles. The spreading of farms on peaks was fixed in a later patch, even though the spread itself is still a pain. This is offset by the huge advantage of the deep jungle+swamp tiles (running lost lands, you can get 5 food, 1 production and 3 commerce per tile, aswell as 0.5 health and 1 happiness. this practically beats elven ancient forest cottages). As far as i've heard, the bonus does apply, just rounded down. So when you get 2 commerce for a trade route, they add 1 food and 1 hammer (not sure if properly working, but that's the way it's intended).
My advise: try another game with a civ like the archos, then come back for your 2nd review. The lizards probably need another patch or 3 to get close to balancing out.

 

[Calbrenar]

Try Demos or Chislev I already tried Archos. Tell you what if you test out Chislev I'll do the Demos or Duros or what not ;>

 

[Ringtailed]

Swamps are an improvement that can only appear on Wetlands. Casting Spring on Wetlands creates a Swamp. Casting Scorch on a Swamp removes it, allowing you to build other improvements in that tile. I'm not sure about Cualli since I haven't played them yet, but Mazatl can build in jungles (but not on top of swamps since they're an improvement).

The spread of wetlands seems to happen randomly, but from what I've seen only grasslands change into Wetlands. Inside Mazatl (and maybe Cualli) lands, plains also randomly become grasslands. And, I think Jungles randomly grow on Wetlands. So, Deep Jungle+Wetland+Swamp tiles are very powerful but you get basically no control over their spread... so if you don't start around a lot of jungle you're probably in trouble :>

 

[Vehem]

after reading this i decided to go ahead and try the mod also ..

sadly so far my review is not a good one.

i played a game as the lizardman. let me list a lot of what i found.

1- the lizardman worker can NOT build in jungles as i expected (not a big deal though , kinda). he has the ability to both scorch and spring right out of the gate. this does not allow him to create the swampland that you desire (you can however use both spells on swampland to destroy it.)
2- land turning to swamp seems completely random inside your cultural border. it seems to be able to effect any terrain , i had some swampland on a peak.
3- from your "civic" you gain a bonus of 40% to both food and hammers that are gained from your trade routes (however there is no base amount to be modified by this 40% bonus, trade routes only produce trade currency which can be split into research , gold , or culture).
4- both of the "priests" that you can build have their initial spell selection completely wrong. i am not sure the total number of errors with these units , but they really are not working right.

i ended up quiting the game around turn 200 because i just got frustrated at the amount of bugs scattered in the mod.

i plan on trying some of the other civs later, hopefully they will go better then this one.

Make sure you've also got the patches installed - at least one of the issues you've reported was fixed in a previous patch.

If you read through the mod-thread, the way the +% hammers/food from Trade routes works is explained. The short version is that if you increase the value of a trade route to "2 commerce" or greater, you will start to see additional food and hammers being produced by them. It does work correctly, though I admit the way it is described is unusual and it's never used in Vanilla civ to my knowledge so no-one is used to seeing it.

Swampland on peaks is impossible with the patch, spread within your lands is random, but much more likely adjacent to rivers. Spring can be used on Wetland tiles, in which case it *does* produce a swamp. You do have to wait for Wetland to develop naturally however - it would be too powerful if you could spread that at will to produce swamps.

Not sure which spells the priests have "wrong" - but the initial selection should be Spiritual Hammer and Transmute for Kalshekk, and Sanctify, Cure Disease, Floating Eye and Spirit Guide for Omorr. These aren't typical for any other priest unit, but these are not typical priests. Are they what you have seen?

Both types of Lizard workers (Shapers for Mazatl, Labourers for Cualli) are able to build within jungle terrain in their own territories. Please check that the jungle is named "Deep Jungle" in the pop-up - all jungle within Lizard Terrain should be "Deep" (following the end of turn) - and they can build in this type.

 

[daladinn]

ok that makes a little bit more sense.

sorry about not seeing the patch info , i think keal has me lulled into complacency. i expected the DL to come with the latest patch.lol.

kalshek had spiritual hammer but not transmute , omorr ad spirit guide and floating eye , but not sanctify or cure disease. iirc one was missing the channelling promotion so that i wold not gain xp over time also.

pulling off decent trade values is going to be tough with no foreign trade, but i like the bonuses. sadly i am not really sure that this group needs more food (lol)

as for the workers. please put some more information in the pedia often that can prevent alot of "bug" reports or misunderstandings.

if you can , i would think that the chance of converting to marsh should factor the 4 temples into it.

 

[Vehem]

kalshek had spiritual hammer but not transmute , omorr ad spirit guide and floating eye , but not sanctify or cure disease. iirc one was missing the channelling promotion so that i wold not gain xp over time also.

Transmute, Sanctify and Cure Disease are all only available under certain circumstances. Transmute requires that you be standing on top of either a copper or gold resource (and allows you to toggle between the two types). Sanctify requires either a city ruins or adjacent hell terrain (as these are the only times the spell is useful) and Cure Disease requires a diseased unit in the stack.

At all other times, they will be greyed out - this is normal FFH2 behaviour. I've just checked and the spells are all present, with the relevant ones greyed out when unavailable.

Regarding the XP over time - initially neither of the Mazatl "priests" had the channelling promotion, as they were not designed as front line, high experience units. They were given a few useful spells and their role would be to use them - with little need to "level up". Later, the Priest of Omorr received Channeling 1 to allow him to cast Sanctify, with the XP being a side-effect which I decided to allow as the Omorr priests had a more limited usefulness and needed a small boost. As it turns out, I've since learnt how the tags SpellCasterXP and FreeXP interact and could remove the XP gain if it turns out to be necessary. For the moment though, I am happy to justify it as "experience gained from study" - fitting for a Priest of a Knowledge-deity.

 

[frenzyslave]

The lizzies arent balanced yet (being VERY new, like 4 days?), the other three civs (chislev, dural, archos) have been balanced quite a bit. Hey, i just found out how to scorch my way to my now previously unbuildable node just by reading this topic! (I dont use scorch... well ever, except with the mazatl now...)

I actually find that the Fall Further modmod increases FFH flavour. I was getting a bit "blah blah" and wahoo, out comes the modmod. More uniqueness and flavour. All good...

Oh, and i think you need to get to city size 15 for mother. Adopt sacrifice the weak, get mother, then readopt the FoL...

 

[daladinn]

vehem,

the spells were not greyed out, however i patched last night and will be retrying again today. will give more feedback after that.

 

[Vehem]

vehem,

the spells were not greyed out, however i patched last night and will be retrying again today. will give more feedback after that.

Hmm - in that case it's odd. The patch shouldn't make any difference as I haven't altered the spells for the priests since release. If the problem is still there - can you throw me a SaveGame and I'll take a look? I haven't been able to reproduce the problem on any of the machines I have it installed to, patched or otherwise.