[MOD] Fall from Heaven II

[Rhymes]

Because it is the first version documentation isnt where it should be. Afterall one of the main things we need to know is does the AC raise to fast, to slow, etc. So we dont spend much time documenting stuff that will likely change.

But here is a list of the things I know of that effect the armageddon counter so far:

1. Building an Entropy node (+1)
2. Building a Life node (-1)
3. Razing a city with the Ashen Veil in it (-1)
4. Razing a city without the Ashen Veil in it (+1 per 4 points of population)
5. The Ashen Veil spreads to a city (+1)
6. The Ashen Veil is founded (+5)
7. Raze the Ashen Veil Holy City (-5)
8. Death of Valin (+2)
9. Death of Sphener (+3)
10. Death of Rosier (-2)
11. Death of Mardero (-3)
12. Build the Stigmata of the Unborn (+5)
13. Raze the city with the Stigmata of the Unborn (-5)
15. Creation of an Eidolon or Beast of Agares (+1)
16. Death of an Eidolon or Beast of Agares (-1)
21. Building a unit with a Prophecy Mark (+1).
22. Killing a unit with a Prophecy Mark (-1).
22. Destroying the Prophecy of Ragnarok (-5).

I,ve quoted the aspects that represent the problem imo.

The thing is, making the AC go up requires to build/create things. While decreasing the AC requires to destroy or raze the things that made the AC go up in the first place.

The problem is that it is a lot easier, especially for the AI, to build stuff then to destroy. So the chances that all these AC boosting improvements will "happen" is almost 100%, while it is really unsure if they will ever get destroyed.

After reading last post, I agree that since the AC start at 0 its only normal that it should be easier for it to go up. But when it reaches a certain level, it becomes really hard , unless being the Elohim, to bring it back down.

There should be easier ways to bring down the AC that get unlocked when the AC becomes higher

 

[TheJopa]

Are demons spawning on hell tiles?

(And +what Rhymes wrote)

 

[thealien_83]

Your right, I documented it backwards. I'll fix it.

Whew! Had me worried there for a bit.

 

[thealien_83]

I may be masochistic in my playstyle ( which you wouldn't think, as I used to be one of those players who felt inclined to give up a game when I lost a favorite city or something. But I guess FFH is just doing wonders for me in all kinds of ways ), but I am very happy with the Armageddon system as it is. Though as noted, it does rise perhaps a bit too fast when you have a lot of civs, but that can probably be addressed with some minor fine-tuning later.

However, it seems a lot of people expect/want to stop the counter entirely or reverse it. I just don't see that happening. In fact I don't see that as ever having been the intent either. Like that creepy popup says/used to say "the seeds of destruction have been sown". The end of the world is approaching. And while you may wish to counter it, ignore it or embrace it, it still is coming. You should certainly be able to valiantly fight to counteract it, but if you can just snap your fingers a little and stop it it loses all it's oomph. So the fact that it goes up more than down is just well and good IMHO. You can still, as noted, do plenty of stuff to bring it down, but it requires heroic effort. And since when should NOT the struggle of good to save the world from evil require sacrifice and heroic effort, eh?

Just my two cents'n all.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

You should certainly be able to valiantly fight to counteract it, but if you can just snap your fingers a little and stop it it loses all it's oomph. So the fact that it goes up more than down is just well and good IMHO. You can still, as noted, do plenty of stuff to bring it down, but it requires heroic effort.

Yes, the intention is that bringing down the counter is an uphill struggle. Though we certainly may be changing the slope of that hill per everyone's feedback.

Wouldnt it be better to make the Armageddon Clock advance to 100% ? So at 40% the blight appears ? By including % the counter could be scaled/altered more flexible by the amount of landspace and/or civiliations instead of using fixed values.

How is 100% any different from 0-100?

 

[Broken Hawk]

Yeap, the general tendancy is for the AC to go up. Thats intended.

Is it also intended for there to be more evil civs than good? It appears to be the case in my games. Right now I'm playing the Bannor and the only other good civs are the Malakim and the Mercurians on a huge map. Both are sitting around doing nothing despite my attempts to get them involved in a war with what appears to be all the evil civs (noble level). By sheer dumb luck, I happened to have two large stacks near the AV holy city and the Infernals when they and the Clan declared war on me. I was able to destroy the Clan's AV holy city and send Hyborem packing. The AC was at 30 and dropped to 0. If it wasn't for those stacks, who knows what might have happened. I might have been pretty ticked off. Fire is harder than Light, frustrating at times, challenging and fun (I think ).

 

[evlutte]

How is 100% any different from 0-100?

I thought the general idea was to have a different value of 100% for different settings, for example a huge map with all civs would have a "100%" value of 200 or something while a tiny map with three civs might have a value of 60 or somthing, take number points, divide by total and voila scalable yet easy to understand AC. blight still happens at 40% avatar at 90 and so on

That was my understanding at least

 

[Kael]

Yes, the intention is that bringing down the counter is an uphill struggle. Though we certainly may be changing the slope of that hill per everyone's feedback.

How is 100% any different from 0-100?

I actually went ahead and did this, so it will be in 0.21. Its just a little math game.

The difference was the creation of a ArmageddonCounterLimit value. So when we call getArmageddonCounter() instead of just returning the number we return:

iArmageddonCounter / iArmageddonCounterLimit * 100

If the limit is 100 then of course nothing changes and we are actually returning the true value. But this is the line that is in 0.21 game start function:

CyGame().changeArmageddonCounterLimit((-4 + iPlayerNum) * 10)

So if there are 2 players in the game then the limit will be set to 80 and the armageddon counter will seem to raise faster (since its a measure of the percentage between it and 80).

Or if there are 9 players in the game the Armageddon Counter Limit will be set to 150, meaning the counter will raise slower. When Hyborem is created that adds 6 to the Armageddon Counter (1 for the AV and 5 for Hyborem) but it would only show up as 4 on the counter (6 / 150 * 100).

Its a really good idea and a great way to speed or slow down the counter without having to modify each of the indivdiual adds and subtracts. It also makes sure that Blight always hits at 40 (which would best be said as the 40 adjusted arm count since the true arm count could be different). We can alos adjust on different things if we want (map size, game speed, game setting).

The bad part of it is that it no longer makes individual adds and subtracts give a fixed amopunt. So we won't be able to say that the Elegy of the Sheaim increases the Arm Count by 5, since that will be game dependant. We will also get occasional reports from players that they sanctified a city and it didnt reduce the counter because of rounding and such.

 

[AncientSion]

If you dont want people to complain about an action that makes - 0.5 and therefor not showing up properly you can always make the counter show up with a max 1000 instead of 100, then the action will have the same effect, but people will notice 5 points were visually substracted

Lastly, i think its good that the Elegy ritual does not add a fixed amount anymore. Why would it anyway ? Adding in % seems to be a lot better, for every action.

 

[styles70]

i downloaded the file and the patch installed it and everything. after clicking yes when it says game must restart the screen that says loading in 5 different languages comes up for about 3 min then disappears and the program is closed. any ideas?

 

[frenchman]

The more I play the more I find this mod great !!

 

[Egypt]

Yeah! FFH 2 Fire came out! Can't wait to download it!

 

[Blathergut]

metal upgrades...okay, i figured out i needed the forge ...so now my amurite dudes upgraded to copper + iron...but for the life of moi i can't get them to upgrade to mithril...been building every possible building...am i still missing something??...have lots of mithril...but my poor olde macemen haven't been bumped up...

...it's been interesting...a couple games, Hyborem popped in and just stood around (seems that happens when he has nowhere to build)...once built near me and hell spread fast and furiously...latest game, AC never went above 5 ..guess nobody was interested in hell

 

[Kael]

metal upgrades...okay, i figured out i needed the forge ...so now my amurite dudes upgraded to copper + iron...but for the life of moi i can't get them to upgrade to mithril...been building every possible building...am i still missing something??...have lots of mithril...but my poor olde macemen haven't been bumped up...

...it's been interesting...a couple games, Hyborem popped in and just stood around (seems that happens when he has nowhere to build)...once built near me and hell spread fast and furiously...latest game, AC never went above 5 ..guess nobody was interested in hell

You need a weaponsmith to upgrade to mithril weapons.

 

[Blathergut]

hmmm...i built some thingie that gave me a weaponsmith in every city...maybe it's not working right...

..each city shows a weaponsmith...it will let me build phalanx...but no mithril upgrades anywhere

 

[Kael]

hmmm...i built some thingie that gave me a weaponsmith in every city...maybe it's not working right...

It was broken and should have been fixed in patch "e". What version were you using?

 

[Kael]

Patch "g" is uploaded and linked in the first. It resovles the following issues:

1. Sacrificing Corlindale for peace halves the Armageddon Count.
2. Fixed the Unit strength displays so they are consistent (and correct).
3. Sanctify removes city ruins and reduces the Armageddon Counter.
4. You can't banish a unit unless you are at war with their owner.
5. Increased the AI's liklihood to use attack spells.
6. Fixed the pink bubble when a Hellfire tile is destroyed.
7. Altar of the Luonnotar tech requirements increased, last step moved to Omniscience most of the prior steps moved up a level.

It will not break save games.

 

[Blathergut]

hmm..i thought f...but maybe i downloaded and never ran ...ah, olde age...what can i say..i will run f again just in case and let you know if it makes a diff

..g fixed it...entire nation suddenly upgraded ...ahh...apologies for useless posts...must have downloaded by never ran f

 

[Rhymes]

Is it also intended for there to be more evil civs than good? It appears to be the case in my games. Right now I'm playing the Bannor and the only other good civs are the Malakim and the Mercurians on a huge map. Both are sitting around doing nothing despite my attempts to get them involved in a war with what appears to be all the evil civs (noble level). By sheer dumb luck, I happened to have two large stacks near the AV holy city and the Infernals when they and the Clan declared war on me. I was able to destroy the Clan's AV holy city and send Hyborem packing. The AC was at 30 and dropped to 0. If it wasn't for those stacks, who knows what might have happened. I might have been pretty ticked off. Fire is harder than Light, frustrating at times, challenging and fun (I think ).

Well there are 6 good civs and 8 evil civs.
And two of the good civs only have 1 leader (malakim and kuriorates). And one is Basium which can't be selected from the start. So, if you leave out Hyborem and Basium:
8 good leaders
12 evil leaders

So yes, you should usually get more evil then good. (Unless there is an unknown script that adjusts that??)

I personally would really like to see a second Kuriorate leader. I never liked that child very much.

 

[Rotting]

for the balancing:

I played Valledia again. Founded the Order. Now I have 9 good civs, 1 netral (Cassiel, Agnostic) and one evil. --> no armageddon-count. Thus no Basium, no Hyborem, nothing happening.

I think it should be balanced in a way that, depending on world size an number of civs, evil and good civs are at least at the beginning of the game at approx. 50:50

For the AC:

Why do I have to destroy cities, world Units, world wonders? Doesn't fit imo, doesn't make fun. I think it should be enough, if a good or neutral Civ gets hold of evil buildings/civs. I don't want to have to raze and destroy.

Addition: why raze´Ashen veil cities, why not conquer them and use some kind of inquisitor to free the city of it? The counter of course should fall that way...

And please: don't let the AC destroy resources at 40. Please take this out. Pleeeeaaase!