I'm fairly new to Civ IV, and especially to Fall from Heaven. I got Civ IV about a month ago, and have played 4-5 games to this point. I don't consider myself a great player, but I love the strategy. Just last week, I found out about the FfH mod. Here I should say that the mod looks awesome. I cut my teeth on Master of Magic, and the blend of fantasy and strategy is irresistable. Nothing is better than training an army of giants and swordsmen, researching new spells, and dominating the world. It plays to my alter ego 
So, after an aborted attempt at a FfH game that only lasted about 20 turns, I decided to start a game as Doviello. As someone who previously played Warhammer Fantasy and had a Chaos army, the beastmen made me smile. I could just imagine my unstoppable hordes multiplying in the frozen wastes and then sweeping across the face of the earth in a campaign of pillage and destruction. It would be glorious! It would also be challenging, as my normal playstyle is more along the builder lines.
So I started the game, and immediately things looked a little... different. A granary only gave me 20% of food savings, and it would take me 120 turns! Researching even the cheapest tech would take over 20 turns! And that tech tree. Holy cow, that's a broad tree. How do you decide where to start? Hmm, apparently this would be more of a challenge than I thought. I decided that scouting and such would be good in the early days of the game, so I set about building scouts, workers, and a few beastmen for protection. I had raging barbarians turned on, so I figured I'd be happy to have the extra muscle.
Things progressed well as I slowly built up my fiefdom and explored the world around me. The key word in that sentence was slowly. Everything was taking so long, and I had a growing fear that I was quickly falling behind the rest of the world. I double checked my settings to verify that yes, indeed, I was on normal speed (what I always play on). Hrrm. Well, I figured, I guess I would just have to roll over my opponents with a wave of hairy beastflesh, before they could pull too far away.
I had found a couple of my victims in the meantime. I was on the south end of a large continent, but separated from the main landmass by an isthmus of sorts that was 5-6 tiles wide. Just north of the isthmus was Dain the Caswallan of the Amurite. Bordering him to the northwest was Hyborem of the Infernal, and beyond Hyborem was Sabathiel of the Bannor. In the far southwest of the continent was Os-Gabella of the Sheaim, while the eastern half of the continent, separated by another isthmus, was Hannah the Irin of the Lanun. I hadn't researched enough to trade with anyone, and I had no way of knowing how far ahead of me my victims were, so I focused on researching military and construction technologies and completing my exploration of our continent.
My hunters worked hard killing barbarians and uncovering new lands. Along the way I captured a tiger. Neat! My tiger feasted on orcflesh for a while before wandering into Amurite lands, swallowing a worker, and being cut down by the Amurites' swift response. Ah well. That was just the first of what I was sure would be many slain beastmen on the road to the glory of chaos.
I raced a settler onto the isthmus protecting me from the rest of the world and settled it, providing a buffer that would keep my war machine safe from prying eyes. Open borders were closed, and I set about the business of warmaking.
I built up what I felt was a respectable army of roughly 10-12 beastmen and 2-3 axemen. About this time, I had trained my first witch doctor. I had no idea how magic worked, but I figured no respectable general sends his beastmen into battle without some voodoo to incite their rage. My witch doctor joined the army, and at about turn 150 the horns of war sounded. Beastmen marched to the tune of mighty drums, and within 25 turns, the Amurite civilization had been destroyed. I kept the capitol and razed the rest. Although I had been expecting some fierce resistance, the most heavily defended city had only a hunter and 3 warriors. Pah. They were barely enough to keep the troops fed.
The rest of the world stood calmly by and watched the destruction of the Armanites. That Bannor worm, although he claimed to be annoyed, even offered to trade valuable resources to keep the beastman horde happy. The Lanun empire, as well, pitched in to support the cause. Their foolishness would keep the Doviello working hard until we could march into their lands and seize the resources for ourselves.
During the war, the plunder from Amurite lands was pouring into shadowy libraries and observatories. Sometime during the Amurite genocide, a witch doctor's ritual summoned the first of the Octopus Overlords from the briny seas.
Meanwhile, the war machine had still been cranking. With nothing more useful to produce, troops were marching endlessly out of the cities. By the time the last Amurite scream ended, a new army was ready, with the dread silhouette of skull catapults towering overhead. The question now was, where to direct the hordes? To the west were the dangerous Infernal, and beyond them were our puppets the Bannor and the mysterious Sheaim. To the east were the pliable Lanun.
It was tempting to strike into the Infernal heart and rip it out, then march on Sheaim to steal their secrets. That would leave the Doviello hordes with two dupes who could be easily crushed. That plan had two problems, however. First, the Bannor were growing more annoyed with our campaign of bloodshed, and they were settling aggressively around the northern border of the Infernal lands. I could not guarantee their docile compliance, and a strike by the Bannor could badly flank my supply chain and leave the hordes exposed. Even if I destroyed the Infernal, I could easily find myself battling both the Sheaim and Bannor at the same time. Furthermore, although the Lanun were tame for now, they sat at what would be the rear of a western campaign, and it would be a trifle for them to put a knife in my back. It was decided. The Lanun blood would be spilled back into the seas from which they came.
Catapults creaked and witch doctors chanted. The rumble of footsteps shook the earth as the armies marched east. Meanwhile, a settler moved to establish a fortress near the Infernal border, better to keep a close eye on the Demons and provide an additional buffer should they prove hostile. The war lasted perhaps 40 years, but finally the last of the Lanun was served to the troops. The beastmen kept the capitol and one other choice prize for their own, and the rest were razed. As the veterans of the Lanun campaign returned to the west, I rubbed my hands in anticipation. The stage was set. Four full armies of beastmen, axemen, witch doctors, and catapults were prepared to sweep west, destroying everything in their path. It mattered little that, by now, the Doviello economy depended on their warmaking ways. Destruction and chaos was their natural state of being, and they would have done so even without my whip.
I had recently seized the only source of iron on the entire eastern half of the continent from the Bannor, and my armies had never been so strong. The hunters' ravens told me that the strongest Infernal defenders were simple hellhounds. "Ha," I thought, "their defeat will be swift."
The first of the sinister cultists moved into the fortress I had established earlier near Infernal borders. This was the staging ground for reinforcements, and their the cultists set about mutating fresh batches of reinforcements for the front lines, while the main armies moved west in a wave stretching from the northern seas to the southern shores. Within 10 turns three mighty Infernal cities lay in ruins with Demon corpses strewn about, and the iron city of Dis was under seige.
Which brings me to where I am now. It's roughly turn 240. I've conquered over 1/2 of the world. I have a score of about 1500 and my closest competitor is at about 500. I'm churning out iron-reinforced beastmen and axemen by the dozen, supported by skull catapults, witch doctors, and cultists. The strongest enemy troop I've seen has been a hellhound or an imp, neither of which could beat a single beastman in one-on-one combat, and my troops outnumber my opponents' by at least 2:1. My win is, I believe, inevitable.
With nothing very useful to build in my cities, and all the buildings taking so very long to build, I've stuck to pretty much (Obelisk, Forge, Elder's Council) in each city, with a few getting a Temple of the Overlord, and the odd Hunter's Tent or Seige Workshop. I've built at least one of most of the buildings just to see how much it does, though. I've only built one wonder (the Angkor Wat-like wonder), although I was beaten to Pact of the Nilhorn by someone. My wonder does help out quite a bit, though, as I'm running on Agriculture-fueled farms and lots of mines, so I just priestify citizens once I'm at the happy-cap. My production capacity is pretty ridiculous at this point, at least as far as raising an army goes. I have at least 4 cities that can crank out a strength 4 beastman every turn. The highest techs I've researched are Sanitation, as I had a lot of jungles to clear, followed by the one that reveals iron and then Priesthood.
So, all in all it's been successful and a lot of fun. I have a few comments and questions. First, why has it been so easy? I mean, why do I march up to most cities, only to find they are only defended by two spearmen and perhaps a scout? Doesn't the AI know how to raise an army? I feel like my victory has been way too easy. In vanilla Civ, you will at least face some enemy stacks and strong troops from time to time. Maybe the building requirement to recruit advanced troops stymies the AI? Whatever it is, the catapults, witch doctors, and even axemen that I built have been complete overkill. I could build nothing but beastmen and roll over my enemy just as easily, and a lot more quickly. This isn't a criticism, but I just wish my shiny new toys had actually been useful in my victory. I realize a lot of people will say "play on a higher difficulty," but I'm wondering if the AI has more problems with FfH than it does with vanilla Civ.
Also, I really like the magic troops! The spells are great and add a whole new dimension to the combat. There's still a ton for me to learn here, so I may play a game with one of the magic-focused civilizations next.
Next, how are the time frames different in FfH versus vanilla? It seems like my cities may have been growing more slowly, and it also seemed like build times were longer. I think I may have read something about Doviello buildings taking longer to construct, so that's probably part of it, but is there more that I'm not aware of?
This is just an observation, but Conquest + Agriculture = teh win! I haven't actually tried it, as I haven't needed to, but I had so much food I was swimming in loaves and had to scale back the number of farms. Turning that food into troops would just be sick.
And finally, a great big thank you to the entire FfH development crew. The mod is awesome, and I can tell that a ton of work went into it. I love the details and the atmosphere you have lovingly crafted, and I look forward to much more exploration of this mod.
So, after an aborted attempt at a FfH game that only lasted about 20 turns, I decided to start a game as Doviello. As someone who previously played Warhammer Fantasy and had a Chaos army, the beastmen made me smile. I could just imagine my unstoppable hordes multiplying in the frozen wastes and then sweeping across the face of the earth in a campaign of pillage and destruction. It would be glorious! It would also be challenging, as my normal playstyle is more along the builder lines.
So I started the game, and immediately things looked a little... different. A granary only gave me 20% of food savings, and it would take me 120 turns! Researching even the cheapest tech would take over 20 turns! And that tech tree. Holy cow, that's a broad tree. How do you decide where to start? Hmm, apparently this would be more of a challenge than I thought. I decided that scouting and such would be good in the early days of the game, so I set about building scouts, workers, and a few beastmen for protection. I had raging barbarians turned on, so I figured I'd be happy to have the extra muscle.
Things progressed well as I slowly built up my fiefdom and explored the world around me. The key word in that sentence was slowly. Everything was taking so long, and I had a growing fear that I was quickly falling behind the rest of the world. I double checked my settings to verify that yes, indeed, I was on normal speed (what I always play on). Hrrm. Well, I figured, I guess I would just have to roll over my opponents with a wave of hairy beastflesh, before they could pull too far away.
I had found a couple of my victims in the meantime. I was on the south end of a large continent, but separated from the main landmass by an isthmus of sorts that was 5-6 tiles wide. Just north of the isthmus was Dain the Caswallan of the Amurite. Bordering him to the northwest was Hyborem of the Infernal, and beyond Hyborem was Sabathiel of the Bannor. In the far southwest of the continent was Os-Gabella of the Sheaim, while the eastern half of the continent, separated by another isthmus, was Hannah the Irin of the Lanun. I hadn't researched enough to trade with anyone, and I had no way of knowing how far ahead of me my victims were, so I focused on researching military and construction technologies and completing my exploration of our continent.
My hunters worked hard killing barbarians and uncovering new lands. Along the way I captured a tiger. Neat! My tiger feasted on orcflesh for a while before wandering into Amurite lands, swallowing a worker, and being cut down by the Amurites' swift response. Ah well. That was just the first of what I was sure would be many slain beastmen on the road to the glory of chaos.
I raced a settler onto the isthmus protecting me from the rest of the world and settled it, providing a buffer that would keep my war machine safe from prying eyes. Open borders were closed, and I set about the business of warmaking.
I built up what I felt was a respectable army of roughly 10-12 beastmen and 2-3 axemen. About this time, I had trained my first witch doctor. I had no idea how magic worked, but I figured no respectable general sends his beastmen into battle without some voodoo to incite their rage. My witch doctor joined the army, and at about turn 150 the horns of war sounded. Beastmen marched to the tune of mighty drums, and within 25 turns, the Amurite civilization had been destroyed. I kept the capitol and razed the rest. Although I had been expecting some fierce resistance, the most heavily defended city had only a hunter and 3 warriors. Pah. They were barely enough to keep the troops fed.
The rest of the world stood calmly by and watched the destruction of the Armanites. That Bannor worm, although he claimed to be annoyed, even offered to trade valuable resources to keep the beastman horde happy. The Lanun empire, as well, pitched in to support the cause. Their foolishness would keep the Doviello working hard until we could march into their lands and seize the resources for ourselves.
During the war, the plunder from Amurite lands was pouring into shadowy libraries and observatories. Sometime during the Amurite genocide, a witch doctor's ritual summoned the first of the Octopus Overlords from the briny seas.
Meanwhile, the war machine had still been cranking. With nothing more useful to produce, troops were marching endlessly out of the cities. By the time the last Amurite scream ended, a new army was ready, with the dread silhouette of skull catapults towering overhead. The question now was, where to direct the hordes? To the west were the dangerous Infernal, and beyond them were our puppets the Bannor and the mysterious Sheaim. To the east were the pliable Lanun.
It was tempting to strike into the Infernal heart and rip it out, then march on Sheaim to steal their secrets. That would leave the Doviello hordes with two dupes who could be easily crushed. That plan had two problems, however. First, the Bannor were growing more annoyed with our campaign of bloodshed, and they were settling aggressively around the northern border of the Infernal lands. I could not guarantee their docile compliance, and a strike by the Bannor could badly flank my supply chain and leave the hordes exposed. Even if I destroyed the Infernal, I could easily find myself battling both the Sheaim and Bannor at the same time. Furthermore, although the Lanun were tame for now, they sat at what would be the rear of a western campaign, and it would be a trifle for them to put a knife in my back. It was decided. The Lanun blood would be spilled back into the seas from which they came.
Catapults creaked and witch doctors chanted. The rumble of footsteps shook the earth as the armies marched east. Meanwhile, a settler moved to establish a fortress near the Infernal border, better to keep a close eye on the Demons and provide an additional buffer should they prove hostile. The war lasted perhaps 40 years, but finally the last of the Lanun was served to the troops. The beastmen kept the capitol and one other choice prize for their own, and the rest were razed. As the veterans of the Lanun campaign returned to the west, I rubbed my hands in anticipation. The stage was set. Four full armies of beastmen, axemen, witch doctors, and catapults were prepared to sweep west, destroying everything in their path. It mattered little that, by now, the Doviello economy depended on their warmaking ways. Destruction and chaos was their natural state of being, and they would have done so even without my whip.
I had recently seized the only source of iron on the entire eastern half of the continent from the Bannor, and my armies had never been so strong. The hunters' ravens told me that the strongest Infernal defenders were simple hellhounds. "Ha," I thought, "their defeat will be swift."
The first of the sinister cultists moved into the fortress I had established earlier near Infernal borders. This was the staging ground for reinforcements, and their the cultists set about mutating fresh batches of reinforcements for the front lines, while the main armies moved west in a wave stretching from the northern seas to the southern shores. Within 10 turns three mighty Infernal cities lay in ruins with Demon corpses strewn about, and the iron city of Dis was under seige.
Which brings me to where I am now. It's roughly turn 240. I've conquered over 1/2 of the world. I have a score of about 1500 and my closest competitor is at about 500. I'm churning out iron-reinforced beastmen and axemen by the dozen, supported by skull catapults, witch doctors, and cultists. The strongest enemy troop I've seen has been a hellhound or an imp, neither of which could beat a single beastman in one-on-one combat, and my troops outnumber my opponents' by at least 2:1. My win is, I believe, inevitable.
With nothing very useful to build in my cities, and all the buildings taking so very long to build, I've stuck to pretty much (Obelisk, Forge, Elder's Council) in each city, with a few getting a Temple of the Overlord, and the odd Hunter's Tent or Seige Workshop. I've built at least one of most of the buildings just to see how much it does, though. I've only built one wonder (the Angkor Wat-like wonder), although I was beaten to Pact of the Nilhorn by someone. My wonder does help out quite a bit, though, as I'm running on Agriculture-fueled farms and lots of mines, so I just priestify citizens once I'm at the happy-cap. My production capacity is pretty ridiculous at this point, at least as far as raising an army goes. I have at least 4 cities that can crank out a strength 4 beastman every turn. The highest techs I've researched are Sanitation, as I had a lot of jungles to clear, followed by the one that reveals iron and then Priesthood.
So, all in all it's been successful and a lot of fun. I have a few comments and questions. First, why has it been so easy? I mean, why do I march up to most cities, only to find they are only defended by two spearmen and perhaps a scout? Doesn't the AI know how to raise an army? I feel like my victory has been way too easy. In vanilla Civ, you will at least face some enemy stacks and strong troops from time to time. Maybe the building requirement to recruit advanced troops stymies the AI? Whatever it is, the catapults, witch doctors, and even axemen that I built have been complete overkill. I could build nothing but beastmen and roll over my enemy just as easily, and a lot more quickly. This isn't a criticism, but I just wish my shiny new toys had actually been useful in my victory. I realize a lot of people will say "play on a higher difficulty," but I'm wondering if the AI has more problems with FfH than it does with vanilla Civ.
Also, I really like the magic troops! The spells are great and add a whole new dimension to the combat. There's still a ton for me to learn here, so I may play a game with one of the magic-focused civilizations next.
Next, how are the time frames different in FfH versus vanilla? It seems like my cities may have been growing more slowly, and it also seemed like build times were longer. I think I may have read something about Doviello buildings taking longer to construct, so that's probably part of it, but is there more that I'm not aware of?
This is just an observation, but Conquest + Agriculture = teh win! I haven't actually tried it, as I haven't needed to, but I had so much food I was swimming in loaves and had to scale back the number of farms. Turning that food into troops would just be sick.
And finally, a great big thank you to the entire FfH development crew. The mod is awesome, and I can tell that a ton of work went into it. I love the details and the atmosphere you have lovingly crafted, and I look forward to much more exploration of this mod.
I can't wait to get a few Archmages so I can fire off 12 meteors a turn 
