[MOD] Fall from Heaven II

[Grillick]

Hey, do you think you could link to the version .025 Bug Thread from this post? You've got the .023 Bug Thread, but not the recent one.

 

[Smiling Jack]

Great Mod Kael, keep up the good work.

while playing to bts version of FFH2, i noticed baron halfmoon is not spawning werewolves, regardless of what (or who) it kills.

however this mod is great, and if you ever think about an italian translation, i will gladly help you.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

This is a tiny gripe. I mention it only because I love this mod so much.

I really like having the Infernals vs Mercurians in the game. I play only terra maps so the Infernals will have a big place to hang out and get tough before I meet them, and I make sure that the Sheaim and one other evil civ is in the game.

Trouble is, 75% of the time the Infernals never show up. Leaves, Runes, and Overlords get founded first, of course, because they come early in the tech tree, and within 20 turns or so everyone in the continent has converted to one of these. But after the Order and the Ashen Veil get founded, the AI is way too lazy about spreading these religions and switching to them.

Is there a way to tweak the game so that the evil civs will prefer to switch to an evil religion when it becomes available, especially if they found it? Actually ditto for the good civs. I rarely see the Order come into play either.

Also, even when the Infernals do come, and there is room for them to grow, they always get left way way behind. Even the barbarians are kicking their butts. Is there a way to give them a bigger head start and help them keep up? Since they usually come in around turn 200 or so, I think they should start with at least a size 10-15 city and some built-in resources.

I think they should be as big a threat as that awesome lich who lives in the broken sepulcher. I love him, by the way. Him and his earth golems just tear stuff up.

As to the second part, the Infernal palace does give them some good resources (Iron and multiple mana) and they start with a few manes to build decent sized city. But I think the ai looks at it's score and power rating and thinks it can't do anything, and so doesn't bother. Maybe if the Hyborem hero was given an artificially high power rating it would be more aggressive?

As to the first, if you like, you can increase the chance that ai leaders will adopt a particular religion as their state religion. The editor hasn't been working for me, but I found the section of the XML. You can try this if you want, I only changed The Sheaim and Bannor leaders, but the Sheaim will be very likely to adopt the Ashen veil if it should spread to their lands, and a bit more unlikely to adopt any good religion; vice versa the Bannor. Just put this file:

View attachment zealousleaderhead.zip

here:
C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Fall from Heaven 2 025\Assets\XML\Civilizations
(unless, of course, you installed somewhere else.)

Here's the original, to change back.
View attachment original leaderheadXML.zip

 

[Ambreville]

Great Mod Kael, keep up the good work.

while playing to bts version of FFH2, i noticed baron halfmoon is not spawning werewolves, regardless of what (or who) it kills.

however this mod is great, and if you ever think about an italian translation, i will gladly help you.

Actually, he does -- but it's sporadic. There's always a chance he won't. Maybe you've been very unlucky (wait for a full moon?)

 

[Hangly Man]

As to the second part, the Infernal palace does give them some good resources (Iron and multiple mana) and they start with a few manes to build decent sized city. But I think the ai looks at it's score and power rating and thinks it can't do anything, and so doesn't bother. Maybe if the Hyborem hero was given an artificially high power rating it would be more aggressive?

He's aggressive enough, he just gets his butt kicked. He has too little considering the part of the game he shows up in. His cities never really grow, he gets skunked in tech, and he loses all the wars he declares.

In my current game the infernals got gated in at around turn 350 or so, right between Cassiel and Cardith in the only unsettled part of the continent. By this point every civ had at least 8 cities of size 10 and above. Hyborem came in with his size-3 city and no room to expand without fighting.

For the infernals to even have a fighting chance, they need to start with at least a size 10-15 city, compete with state-of-the-art improvements and enough of a military to immediately start expanding into whoever else's territory he happens to be next to.

That goes for the Mercurians, too. They have it even worse, because they start inside whatever civ gated them in. The city that builds the mercurian gate will usually be a big one with lots of hammers, and that means it's right in the middle of the empire.
That means they are surrounded by their allies with no room to expand unless there happens to be an AV civ nearby on the same continent with cities that are weak enough for them to defeat (and defend) with the four or five angels they start with.

It seems to me that heaven and hell should not suffer from the same spatial drawbacks as mortal civs. They traveled into our would, it makes sense they would be able to move around it no problem without building boats (which they don't do anyway.)

I say give angels and demons the same ability as paratroopers, except with a much much longer range. That way they can strike anywhere at any time. It would be more fun, it would be more realistic, and it would make the war between heaven and hell completely global. The infernals come in, start tearing . .. .. .. . up, and then Basium can arrive and save the day. It won't be unbalancing, because the two of them can balance each other out.

As to the first, if you like, you can increase the chance that ai leaders will adopt a particular religion as their state religion. The editor hasn't been working for me, but I found the section of the XML. You can try this if you want, I only changed The Sheaim and Bannor leaders, but the Sheaim will be very likely to adopt the Ashen veil if it should spread to their lands, and a bit more unlikely to adopt any good religion; vice versa the Bannor. Just put this file:

Thanks, I might try that.

Oh, one more thing. I'm playing Clan of Embers on a large continents map at prince level. The rankings say Cardith is a full 1000 points ahead of me, he's certainly way way ahead in tech.
I just scouted his territory though, and all of his massive cities are defended with one (1) warrior, and one (1) centaur each. He hasn't even improved his magic nodes. He doesn't have a single adept or even an archer.

I smashed through Cassiel just a moment ago, and he had the same thing. Just warriors. I didn't even meet one of his adventurers.

What gives? Us orcses were itching for a good fight! Is something broken?

I'm thinking it must be an AI thing. The Dovielo gave me a good fight at the beginning of the game.

 

[Webrider]

I have a well dumb question... where the heck is the armegeddon counter?

There is an event in the game where all farms and pastures disappear. I know it is coming and am ready with workers and archmages or druids. The AI can't handle this event. I was 900 is points down before this event and after the event I recovered to 1200 ahead just by rebuilding my country.

 

[ichbinsehselber]

@webrider
the armageddon counter was moved from top to bottom right, it is no longer so prominent

 

[Webrider]

You should have to make a stable and archery range upgrade before you can do the more advanced respective buildings. Or they should have some cumulative effect perhaps?

 

[ichbinsehselber]

@Hangly Man
I find your arguments very interesting, and they are probably true.
On the other hand I played the infernals once and had the tech lead apart from the civ, which I abandoned. The units, Hyborem got were technologically ahead and it was easy to conquer some cites and later I even got to position number one again, permanent alliance with number 2 and no more serious problems...

What I really want to say is, that it is probably extremely difficult to balance a civ, that comes into play later and what it gets would have to be dependant on the game progress and whatever factors to balance out well. Also the difficulty level at which the game runs and whether the infernals are AI or player are an important factor.
It will be extremely hard for the development team to make this near perfect.

One problem in 0.23 was that the automatic selection, which tile to work, infernals do consider food in the selection, so you always have to pick manually where the cities shall harvest. The AI probably has a serious problem with this.

 

[Hangly Man]

The weird AI thing happened to me again. The Bannor had virtually no military at turn 550 when I invaded them, just a few catapults, chariots, and axemen, maybe one per city. They didn't start building more advanced units until I attacked, and by then it was too late... They didn't have adepts either, and their nodes were unimproved.

They did, however have about 50 disciples of leaves. Just hanging out, enjoying the forests I guess.

@ichbinsehselber
You're right, I can do great things if I play the infernals, too. Mainly because I use Hyborem for more than just defending my capitol, and aggressively look for empty places to settle or invade.
Seems to be more than the AI can manage though

 

[jprc]

I found no clear info in the pedia and civwiki about teh Kuriotates and their ability to use "the 3rd ring".
Visually, there is nothing changed in the city screen and you can not select the 3rd row.

1- How do you select a square, or unselect it in the city screen for managing well productions/specialists?
2- If you can't, does it mean that you have to imagine it? i.e., if you can improve further than the 2nd row, but you can not select/unselect and can not visualize it inside teh city screen?

Currently the "regular fat cross looks like:
-XXX-
XXXXX
XXOXX
XXXXX
-XXX-

is the 3rd row looking like:
--XXX--
-XXXXX-
XXXXXXX
XXXOXXX
XXXXXXX
-XXXXX-
--XXX--

or like:
-XXXXX-
XXXXXXX
XXXXXXX
XXXOXXX
XXXXXXX
XXXXXXX
-XXXXX-

 

[ma.KaBre]

Quoting from the first post of the bug-thread

To do- waiting for "Shadow":
1. Trophies
2. invisibility applied by promotion
3. causes war attribute/check on spells
4. mana bar gui
6. Horsemen spawn mana when they die
7. Need to add the Sprawling trait effects
8. Dirge spawn
9. evangelist mechanic
10. Magnadine captures barbarians
11. Heroes listed in pedia for each Civ.
12. Hidden Nationality units can't capture units or cities.

As soon as it is implemented you will see the effects in the city-screens as well. IIRC it will look like your suggestion:
--XXX--
-XXXXX-
XXXXXXX
XXXOXXX
XXXXXXX
-XXXXX-
--XXX--

 

[jprc]

Thank you Ma.Kabre!
I saw this point 7, but thought it was related to other effects than visual and monitoring (ex.: related to the revision of formulas and extra calculations needed t be reajusted for hyper large cities)
I am then going to stay away from this Civ as you can not have full control on it yet...

 

[War Chicken]

I have that all the time.
All cities are guarded by one single warrior, maybe a chariot later on instead of the warrior.
Even the Barbarian cities are better defendet - they use two warriors mainly.
The AI empires build lots of catapults and almost no real combat units.
The biggest threat are the Skeletons and the Lizardman from the lairs, and they're only dangerous until you research bronze working and get access to Axemen. The direct threat to cities ends with archery.
That's quite annoying, 'cos theres no real challange anymore.

 

[Ambreville]

I have that all the time.
All cities are guarded by one single warrior, maybe a chariot later on instead of the warrior.
Even the Barbarian cities are better defendet - they use two warriors mainly.
The AI empires build lots of catapults and almost no real combat units.
The biggest threat are the Skeletons and the Lizardman from the lairs, and they're only dangerous until you research bronze working and get access to Axemen. The direct threat to cities ends with archery.
That's quite annoying, 'cos theres no real challange anymore.

Same here. That's one of those "intermittent" problems -- I observed this in many games, but not all of them -- basically mobs of disciples or hordes of catapults. That's unfortunate...

 

[Kyrian]

I found a little problem with religions.
Often the first religion conquers the world, going near the limit of 80%!
In my game, this religion is "Felloship of the Leaves", controlled by an evil player , and even Alexis discovered Ashen Veil, or other players The order..ecc.., they didn't change their faith!
In this way, war is very hard to do, because all have good diplomacy with all.
It's possible to minimize religion value in diplomacy, or to assign a alignment to religions so that It's very difficulti to accept Ashen Vail for good players and Felloship for evil or that players prefer to adopt their discovered religions instead of diffused one?

 

[Kael]

Patch "l" is linked in the first post. It will break save games. It makes the following changes:

1. Fixed the Double Fortify error (was causing OOS errors from combat in multiplayer).
2. Hidden Nationality units can't capture cities or units.

 

[seZereth]

I found a little problem with religions.
Often the first religion conquers the world, going near the limit of 80%!
In my game, this religion is "Felloship of the Leaves", controlled by an evil player , and even Alexis discovered Ashen Veil, or other players The order..ecc.., they didn't change their faith!
In this way, war is very hard to do, because all have good diplomacy with all.
It's possible to minimize religion value in diplomacy, or to assign a alignment to religions so that It's very difficulti to accept Ashen Vail for good players and Felloship for evil or that players prefer to adopt their discovered religions instead of diffused one?

shadow

 

[Gyromancer]

@Hangly Man
I find your arguments very interesting, and they are probably true.
On the other hand I played the infernals once and had the tech lead apart from the civ, which I abandoned. The units, Hyborem got were technologically ahead and it was easy to conquer some cites and later I even got to position number one again, permanent alliance with number 2 and no more serious problems...

You'd already won that game from the sound of it. Switching to the Infernals just made it more of a challenge. (Is that really what they are meant to do?) The infernals really don't get rolling and research their own tech for a long time.

One problem in 0.23 was that the automatic selection, which tile to work, infernals do consider food in the selection, so you always have to pick manually where the cities shall harvest. The AI probably has a serious problem with this.

I agree. Once their cities do get large it becomes a real chore to keep them on an even keel.

 

[zanzibar196]

...so... like, is it even possible for the infernals (when you play as them) to build the mercurian gate?? That would be kinda... odd...