Fall From Heaven II Erebus pbem

[ReallyEvilMuff]

Just managed to get the download to work - for some reason I needed to manually change the name of the mod folder to remove the v11.1 to get it to work. No idea why. I'll have a mess around with it tonight and see who I want to be

 

[Eclipse4449]

Just managed to get the download to work - for some reason I needed to manually change the name of the mod folder to remove the v11.1 to get it to work. No idea why. I'll have a mess around with it tonight and see who I want to be

That's great news!

I'm leaning toward "Evil" barbarian or summoner this game, I am a "Neutral" in my other game and like that a lot, it's a shame that is only a 2 player

 

[ReallyEvilMuff]

I'm leaning towards that one that is insane with the randomly changing traits. Seems like a bit of fun!

 

[Eclipse4449]

I'm leaning towards that one that is insane with the randomly changing traits. Seems like a bit of fun!

Yikes that sounds hard to handle

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

I had the same problem as ReallyEvilMuffin and solved it in the same way.

Btw ReallyEvilMuffin, in every game I am next to the Balseraphs (because the RNG hates me that would be every single one of them so far, go figure) I make it a point to declare war on them the second their Hero Loki is born in order to hunt him down and put him to the sword. You wouldn't believe how annoying that douchebag is. However since this time they are controlled by a human I am willing to make an exception as long as you behave yourself.

Since all the civs are awesome I'll just let the RNG decide whom I'm gonna control, my one and only request being that I do not get Decius, which is statistically the most probable event as he is the leader of not one, not two, but three different civs. Nevertheless I do not like him.

I for one still insist that we use the Erebus map script, albeit with some changes by our dear mapmaker to ensure at least a semblance of balance. He may make our map as flavorful as possible and I would furthermore appreciate it if he stuck to the lore as closely as possible, that is for example Letum Frigus should be placed somewhere between the Amurites, Illians and maybe Doviello. I'm sure you know more about the lore than I do, so I won't go into more details.

Now then to the settings! I thought I was being brilliant when I opted to just copy and paste all entries from FFH_Game_Options.txt instead of manually typing off of the setup screen, but as is often the case I was proven wrong. Nevertheless, here is a complete list of all the options we have available and what I think of them:

ADVANCED_START nah
RAGING_BARBARIANS nah
AGGRESSIVE_AI nah
ONE_CITY_CHALLENGE nah
BARBARIAN_WORLD nah
NO_SETTLERS nah
SLOWER_XP nah
LEAD_ANY_CIV nah
THAW (End of Winter) Yup
CHALLENGE_CUT_LOSERS nah
CHALLENGE_HIGH_TO_LOW nah
CHALLENGE_INCREASING_DIFFICULTY nah
AI_NO_BUILDING_PREREQS maybe
AI_NO_MINIMUM_LEVEL maybe
NO_CITY_RAZING nah
NO_CITY_FLIPPING nah
FLIPPING_AFTER_CONQUEST maybe
NO_BARBARIANS nah
RANDOM_PERSONALITIES nah
PICK_RELIGION nah
NO_TECH_TRADING maybe
NO_TECH_BROKERING maybe
PERMANENT_ALLIANCES maybe
ALWAYS_WAR nah
ALWAYS_PEACE nah
NO_CHANGING_WAR_PEACE nah
NEW_RANDOM_SEED nah
LOCK_MODS nah
COMPLETE_KILLS nah
NO_VASSAL_STATES nah
NO_GOODY_HUTS nah
NO_EVENTS nah
DOUBLE_ANIMALS (Wildlands) Yup
DOUBLE_BONUSES (Blessing of Amathaon) Yup
DOUBLE_EVENTS (Living World) Yup
DOUBLE_GLOBAL_COUNTER nah
NO_GLOBAL_COUNTER nah
NO_HYBOREM_OR_BASIUM nah
HUMAN_HYBOREM maybe
HUMAN_BASIUM maybe
NO_LAIRS nah
NO_PLOT_COUNTER nah
FLEXIBLE_DIFFICULTY nah
ALL_UNIQUE_IMPROVEMENTS (All Unique Features) Yup
NO_UNIQUE_IMPROVEMENTS nah
7 different options to remove specific religions from the game nah
NO_WORLD_SPELLS nah
NO_ACHERON nah
NO_DUIN nah
Tower of Mastery Requires Omnescience (not working yet) nah, seems to be buggy anyway
NO_ORTHUS nah

Hm, maybe it would have been easier to just name the options I want enabled rather than listing every single one of them. Oh well, nothing to be done about that now. Don't care either way about time, but all the other victories should be enabled. I'd like a large or huge map with all civs present and normal speed.



Hmmmmmmm, there was one last thing left, what was it again... ah yes, apologies!

BobCW and John de Lancie Discord Q, you two have been very nice and helpful throughout this whole ordeal while I have treated you with nothing but mistrust and condescension. Granted, part of it may have been in jest, but it is not hard to see that text isn't the best of mediums for my kind of subtle humor and that someone who doesn't know me too well could easily be offended by my faux arrogance and sarcasm. I do hope you can forgive me for my past rudeness and will accept my apology. I may be a little rough around the edges, but the regulars here can confirm that I usually mean well. Usually.

 

[Qgqqqqq]

Huh. Could I ask whether you each use steam or no?

Thanks.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

I use Steam, but have the non Steam version of Civ4.

 

[Eclipse4449]

Huh. Could I ask whether you each use steam or no?

Thanks.

Both but use non-steam because Steam doesn't allow load game From the save file (grumble)

 

[Eclipse4449]

I had the same problem as ReallyEvilMuffin and solved it in the same way.

Btw ReallyEvilMuffin, in every game I am next to the Balseraphs (because the RNG hates me that would be every single one of them so far, go figure) I make it a point to declare war on them the second their Hero Loki is born in order to hunt him down and put him to the sword. You wouldn't believe how annoying that douchebag is. However since this time they are controlled by a human I am willing to make an exception as long as you behave yourself.

Since all the civs are awesome I'll just let the RNG decide whom I'm gonna control, my one and only request being that I do not get Decius, which is statistically the most probable event as he is the leader of not one, not two, but three different civs. Nevertheless I do not like him.

I for one still insist that we use the Erebus map script, albeit with some changes by our dear mapmaker to ensure at least a semblance of balance. He may make our map as flavorful as possible and I would furthermore appreciate it if he stuck to the lore as closely as possible, that is for example Letum Frigus should be placed somewhere between the Amurites, Illians and maybe Doviello. I'm sure you know more about the lore than I do, so I won't go into more details.

Now then to the settings! I thought I was being brilliant when I opted to just copy and paste all entries from FFH_Game_Options.txt instead of manually typing off of the setup screen, but as is often the case I was proven wrong. Nevertheless, here is a complete list of all the options we have available and what I think of them:

ADVANCED_START nah
RAGING_BARBARIANS nah;
AGGRESSIVE_AI nah
ONE_CITY_CHALLENGE nah
BARBARIAN_WORLD nah
NO_SETTLERS nah
SLOWER_XP nah
LEAD_ANY_CIV nah
THAW (End of Winter) Yup
CHALLENGE_CUT_LOSERS nah
CHALLENGE_HIGH_TO_LOW nah
CHALLENGE_INCREASING_DIFFICULTY nah
AI_NO_BUILDING_PREREQS maybe
AI_NO_MINIMUM_LEVEL maybe
NO_CITY_RAZING nah
NO_CITY_FLIPPING nah
FLIPPING_AFTER_CONQUEST maybe
NO_BARBARIANS nah
RANDOM_PERSONALITIES nah
PICK_RELIGION nah
NO_TECH_TRADING maybe
NO_TECH_BROKERING maybe
PERMANENT_ALLIANCES maybe
ALWAYS_WAR nah
ALWAYS_PEACE nah
NO_CHANGING_WAR_PEACE nah
NEW_RANDOM_SEED nah
LOCK_MODS nah
COMPLETE_KILLS nah
NO_VASSAL_STATES nah
NO_GOODY_HUTS nah
NO_EVENTS nah
DOUBLE_ANIMALS (Wildlands) Yup
DOUBLE_BONUSES (Blessing of Amathaon) Yup
DOUBLE_EVENTS (Living World) Yup
DOUBLE_GLOBAL_COUNTER nah
NO_GLOBAL_COUNTER nah
NO_HYBOREM_OR_BASIUM nah
HUMAN_HYBOREM maybe
HUMAN_BASIUM maybe
NO_LAIRS nah
NO_PLOT_COUNTER nah
FLEXIBLE_DIFFICULTY nah
ALL_UNIQUE_IMPROVEMENTS (All Unique Features) Yup
NO_UNIQUE_IMPROVEMENTS nah
7 different options to remove specific religions from the game nah
NO_WORLD_SPELLS nah
NO_ACHERON nah
NO_DUIN nah
Tower of Mastery Requires Omnescience (not working yet) nah, seems to be buggy anyway
NO_ORTHUS nah

Hm, maybe it would have been easier to just name the options I want enabled rather than listing every single one of them. Oh well, nothing to be done about that now. Don't care either way about time, but all the other victories should be enabled. I'd like a large or huge map with all civs present and normal speed.



Hmmmmmmm, there was one last thing left, what was it again... ah yes, apologies!

BobCW and John de Lancie Discord Q, you two have been very nice and helpful throughout this whole ordeal while I have treated you with nothing but mistrust and condescension. Granted, part of it may have been in jest, but it is not hard to see that text isn't the best of mediums for my kind of subtle humor and that someone who doesn't know me too well could easily be offended by my faux arrogance and sarcasm. I do hope you can forgive me for my past rudeness and will accept my apology. I may be a little rough around the edges, but the regulars here can confirm that I usually mean well. Usually.

Again a very good job Knoedel

I am very glad you listed "all" of the options and I'm glad you voted on them.

Scanning them quickly I just see a few things just now is the

1 Raging Barbarians and here is why; If we select "Normal" speed we are somewhat forced to train just Warriors for the most part even if this option is disable, we will find ourselves fortifying 3 or 4 Warriors in each city to protect our cities because this world is much tougher. It is about this time when we'll finally train a worker, this might be 40+ turns and have very little scouting accomplished.
With Raging Barbarians enabled you would play mostly the same way but have a greater sense of surviving each turn. If standard Barbarians are enable and you spot one you'll probably go after him to get a Promotion. If Raging Barbarians are enabled there will be multiple units approaching and you go from "I don't have much to do" to "Full Alert" The bonus here is a greater chance to receive experience.

2 "End of Winter" which I originally wanted because it added damage to my units if caught in a storm and thought that was a neat addition to the game, but that was "Single" player.
I don't know how the script actually works, but what I have seen is that it begins for example in the West and travels East, having said that what if I was spawned in the East, does those on the Western side of the map get pounded by storms first? With this enabled will our Civs be spawned north to south to equal the impact?

Addressing "Maybe"
NO_TECH_TRADING maybe
NO_TECH_BROKERING maybe
PERMANENT_ALLIANCES maybe
Years ago I thought Tech trading was the way to go, but playing with you guys I've began agreeing with no tech trading which relies on your individual skill and creates diversity which greatly impacts strategy and adds to Human interaction based on wanting to know what they are doing so I can go after nonaggressive techs.
PERMANENT_ALLIANCES nah, although it would go well if tech trading was aloud

AI_NO_BUILDING_PREREQS maybe
AI_NO_MINIMUM_LEVEL maybe
I have no idea what these are and the first one sounds scary

HUMAN_HYBOREM maybe
HUMAN_BASIUM maybe
I've never noticed these options and have no idea what they do. Some of these must be enabled within a document rather than the setup screen????

 

[Qgqqqqq]

Both but use non-steam because Steam doesn't allow load game From the save file (grumble)

Ah, that may be the issue. I'll look into it.

Incidentally, see here for a solution to the issue you mention.


I'll just respond to a couple of things:

You have the use of "End of Winter" wrong. That game option turns certain tiles "colder" (plains->Tundra, Tundra->Ice and so on) and then switches them back over time.
What you are talking about is blizzards, which can turn up as a result of this, and as a result of several Illian abilities.


Those AI things only affect the AI, and make them somewhat more of a challenge.


Human Hyborem/Basium are options added by Sareln (my predecessor in EitB), and allow Humans to takeover/sub in for Basium and Hyborem easier in multiplayer. Truth be told, I don't quite understand how they work, but I recommend leaving them on by default.

 

[BobCW]

Okay, I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea about what I can or will deliver with this map.


There is no way I am going to make a map that is A: balanced, B: with heavy flavor, C: running the "End of Winter" setting and D: on the Erebus mapscript. I can do most of those, but trying to edit an inevitably hideously unbalanced Erebus map to conform with all of the above will take me significantly more time than making a map from scratch.


I can get you flavor and a reasonable approximation of balance if I can use a script like Pangea or hand-draw the map (which I would be happy to do). I can give you an Erebus map if you really want one, I could even add flavor to it (although the terrain will likely constrain me), but there is no way in heck I could deliver balance. Not without investing much more time than I am willing and probably rebuilding most of the map.


Honestly, my preference would be to just make a map from scratch. I have a fair amount of experience, and I assure you that nothing I deliver will be more unbalanced than even the best map Erebus can spit out. I also would rather not have the End of Winter setting on- it's a lot simpler for me to just add blizzards in appropriate locations.


In the end, it's your game- but there are limits as to what I can produce.

 

[BobCW]

Also, I appreciate listing all of the settings w/ preferences. That makes my job a lot easier. I don't know how you want to select the final settings, but if this is a democratic process I'll need everyone's ideal settings for a final determination.


Complete list of things I need:


* Final game settings.


* Everyone's leaders & civs.


* An official, workable mandate on the map.


* Player order.


* Email address for whoever is first in the turn order (you can PM this to me).



I can't start work on the map until I have all of the above.

 

[Luthor_Saxburg]

I do not know this MOD very well, so I am having difficulties to know what I need to DL. Eclipse, is post #3 the most updated DL info?

 

[Eclipse4449]

I do not know this MOD very well, so I am having difficulties to know what I need to DL. Eclipse, is post #3 the most updated DL info?

No

I am a bit behind here with updates and messaging our guests and you the players. I believe most of what needs done by me will be accomplished in the next day or so.

Thanks for all of the descriptions

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

1 Raging Barbarians and here is why; If we select "Normal" speed we are somewhat forced to train just Warriors for the most part even if this option is disable, we will find ourselves fortifying 3 or 4 Warriors in each city to protect our cities because this world is much tougher. It is about this time when we'll finally train a worker, this might be 40+ turns and have very little scouting accomplished.
With Raging Barbarians enabled you would play mostly the same way but have a greater sense of surviving each turn. If standard Barbarians are enable and you spot one you'll probably go after him to get a Promotion. If Raging Barbarians are enabled there will be multiple units approaching and you go from "I don't have much to do" to "Full Alert" The bonus here is a greater chance to receive experience.

I don't know, barbarians are dangerous enough in FFH as it is. Comments from more experienced players please?

2 "End of Winter" which I originally wanted because it added damage to my units if caught in a storm and thought that was a neat addition to the game, but that was "Single" player.
I don't know how the script actually works, but what I have seen is that it begins for example in the West and travels East, having said that what if I was spawned in the East, does those on the Western side of the map get pounded by storms first? With this enabled will our Civs be spawned north to south to equal the impact?

See Q's post, you misunderstand the meaning of this setting. If this is activated most of the map starts covered with ice and tundra but over time it thaws and most tiles get turned into plains, grasslands, deserts etc..

AI_NO_BUILDING_PREREQS maybe
AI_NO_MINIMUM_LEVEL maybe
I have no idea what these are and the first one sounds scary

Most units need certain buildings in place before they can be trained, for example archers need an archery range, mounted units need a stable etc. This setting allows AIs to ignore those requirements and build any unit anywhere (as long as they still have the appropriate resources and elects of course).
Some units can not be built at all and instead you need to upgrade another unit with a certain amount of experience. For instance you can only get Mages by upgrading Adepts that are at least Level 4 (3 Promotions I think?). This setting allows AIs to ignore this requirement and upgrade whatever they want.

HUMAN_HYBOREM maybe
HUMAN_BASIUM maybe
I've never noticed these options and have no idea what they do. Some of these must be enabled within a document rather than the setup screen????

These were indeed added in Eitb and not in base FFH, I've checked. You see, there are two civs that don't spawn in the beginning with all the others but instead appear later on when a certain tech is discovered or a specific wonder built. They are the Infernals under Hyborem which spawn once the technology "Infernal Pact" has been researched and the Mercurians under Basium which spawn once the "Mercurians Gate" world wonder has been completed. In singleplayer you get a popup asking you if you want to take control of the new civ or rather stay with your current one similar to RFC when they appear. I have no idea how they are handled in multiplayer, but it seems logical to assume that having these two options enabled makes them human controlled rather than AIs.

Now that I'm thinking about it I changed my mind, I want these settings on. It would allow us to bring in new players if interest increases after the game has already started and if not we can still just retire them in their first turn.

I can get you flavor and a reasonable approximation of balance if I can use a script like Pangea or hand-draw the map (which I would be happy to do). I can give you an Erebus map if you really want one, I could even add flavor to it (although the terrain will likely constrain me), but there is no way in heck I could deliver balance. Not without investing much more time than I am willing and probably rebuilding most of the map.

Honestly, my preference would be to just make a map from scratch. I have a fair amount of experience, and I assure you that nothing I deliver will be more unbalanced than even the best map Erebus can spit out. I also would rather not have the End of Winter setting on- it's a lot simpler for me to just add blizzards in appropriate locations.

Hm, alrighty then, build it from scratch. I don't really like Pangea though, it makes the whole naval side of the game useless.

But but but flavor! D:

Come to think of it, how about an Archipelago map and I get Lanun.

I do not know this MOD very well, so I am having difficulties to know what I need to DL. Eclipse, is post #3 the most updated DL info?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=13547149&postcount=58

 

[Qgqqqqq]

Comments from experienced players please...

Depends on difficulty/other settings.

I haven't been following the rest so well, but if you're on noble (which I think I saw recced somewhere) then you could probably handle it without it being an incredible pain, but if you're going anywhere into the Monarch/Emperor/Immortal range then I would strongly recommend leaving it off.

That said, with normal speed and lairs, I would say Raging Barbs would be more of a pain then fun.

YMMV



Looking at the End of Winter setting a bit more, I'm not sure how it would work with a handrawn/edited map (will it choose the tiles to freeze randomly at game start? Are they saved in the WB file? Can they be edited?), so I would recommend leaving that off.


You are correct on mages BTW.

 

[BobCW]

Concerning barbarian settings, Noble raging barbs won't be much of a challenge to begin with. With increasing difficulty they will eventually become much more dangerous, but by the point you hit Emperor (when you'll really start to notice the increased activity) everyone should be fairly well-equipped to handle them.


The biggest factor is going to be how crowded the map is. I have control over that to some extent, but it's mostly going to be determined by how many civs are present on the map. I think I saw someone earlier mention the possibility of 5 human players and 5 AI on a standard-sized map. In that scenario, even with fairly generous spacing between players you all won't see too many barbarians by the time the difficulty passes Prince, since there will be lots of units and culture fog-busting the map.


One possibility is I could start every player with a combat unit whose promotions are heavily weighted for barb defense. I don't think it would be necessary, but I'm happy to include them if you guys want the spice of barbarian combat without the danger of someone being eliminated early.

 

[Eclipse4449]

I think default difficulty and regular barbarians will be best, but I like having a promoted unit and in that case raging barbarians is ok but keep default difficulty

 

[Luthor_Saxburg]

Thanks Knoedel for the input.

Please use the most up-to-date version, located here, as that is what I will be using to make the map.

An .exe file?

Now I know why I never DL this in the first place... Isn't is possible to get it anyother way?

 

[Eclipse4449]

Thanks Knoedel for the input.

An .exe file?

Now I know why I never DL this in the first place... Isn't is possible to get it anyother way?

I just D/L this last night, it is ok but you might be warned of a potential threat because it is a .exe