[MOD] Fall from Heaven

[naf4ever]

You are right, your civ doesn't have the Seafaring tech. If you go and look at it in Worldbuilder you can see it isn't one of the ones you have.

The seafaring tech is given to seafaring trait civs on the 1st turn. I restarted at least a half dozen games and Im unable to get one to start where it doesn't apply seafaring correctly. How did you start this game? If you start a few more with Marina do you get the seafaring tech (check it out in worldbuilder and you can see if you have it or not)?

I see the problem. I originally wanted to test out the seafaring trait so i regened the map until i started by fish. After a few tests i notice that seafaring does work correctly on the FIRST start,, but if i regen the map it will no longer start with seafaring. odd

On another note. Since there are only 3 seafaring civs and the sea is pretty important to them, is it possible in the future to make it so those 3 civs always start on the coast? While this wont guarantee a sea resource it makes it much more likely and at least it doesnt put them in the position of having nothing but farms to build which they get negatives for.

 

[driftinj]

Downloaded the modpack on Saturday and spent the next 3 days glued to my desk chair. Great mod!

A couple of observations I have after playing through a few games (I told you I was clued to my chair for 3 days).

The Drown are too powerful, too early. I can make a beeline to OO and start pumping out Drown (especially with a coastal city, with the lighthouse and the Conquest civic) and overrun everybody early in the game (not to mention the unpassable terrain bonus makes them that much better.) Also, with Slavery enabled, I can send the countless slaves back to my Empire and boost my production levels through the roof. It seems a little balancing is in order.

Adept>Mage>Archmage - If I upgrade an Adept to Mage I get both fireball and the -50% strength spell. If I build a Mage I don't get the strength spell, only fireball.

Also, archmages are pretty damn powerful. Give me all 3 in a single stack and your city doesn't stand a chance. And your hero? Dead in the first turn.

Finally, is there any way to tweak the AI that determines which units will defend first? I lost Valin and a ridiculously promoted unit from the dawn of time late in the game because they were attacked by a longbowmen a turn after Typhoid Mary hit them and diseased them. They were still the strongest stack but didn't stand a chance. I would have much rather had some of the other shmucks in the stack take the hit from the longbowmen at that point. Normally it's not a big deal but with the emphasis on heroes and promotions that type of thinking doesn't work logically any more.

 

[driftinj]

One more thing: 0 Size cities. If I capture a small sized city and it reduces to Zero it doesn't automatically get razed, I can keep it and have a size 0 city which, then doesn't grow because it can't produce food.

 

[Kael]

Downloaded the modpack on Saturday and spent the next 3 days glued to my desk chair. Great mod!

A couple of observations I have after playing through a few games (I told you I was clued to my chair for 3 days).

The Drown are too powerful, too early. I can make a beeline to OO and start pumping out Drown (especially with a coastal city, with the lighthouse and the Conquest civic) and overrun everybody early in the game (not to mention the unpassable terrain bonus makes them that much better.) Also, with Slavery enabled, I can send the countless slaves back to my Empire and boost my production levels through the roof. It seems a little balancing is in order.

I will check it out.

Adept>Mage>Archmage - If I upgrade an Adept to Mage I get both fireball and the -50% strength spell. If I build a Mage I don't get the strength spell, only fireball.

Thats intentional, a Mage who has come up through the ranks is a little more experienced than one who is right off the shelf.

Also, archmages are pretty damn powerful. Give me all 3 in a single stack and your city doesn't stand a chance. And your hero? Dead in the first turn.

They are supposed to be powerful, and I would expect that 3 of them could take out any hero. I will look at it, I will probably reduce Achmages strength (just to make them easier to kill) but they will probably be just as effective on the attack side.

Finally, is there any way to tweak the AI that determines which units will defend first? I lost Valin and a ridiculously promoted unit from the dawn of time late in the game because they were attacked by a longbowmen a turn after Typhoid Mary hit them and diseased them. They were still the strongest stack but didn't stand a chance. I would have much rather had some of the other shmucks in the stack take the hit from the longbowmen at that point. Normally it's not a big deal but with the emphasis on heroes and promotions that type of thinking doesn't work logically any more.

Ive looked at this. It can be done but I don't know a good way to let the computer determine what to use (and I dont want the player to have to pick a unit every time).

And I don't know that I dont like it like this. It is abotu the only vulnerability that heroes have and without it it would be to easy to SOD protect them. This way heroes are vulnerable to the dogpile, which is probably a good thing.

 

[Kael]

One more thing: 0 Size cities. If I capture a small sized city and it reduces to Zero it doesn't automatically get razed, I can keep it and have a size 0 city which, then doesn't grow because it can't produce food.

This is fixed in the patch (there is a link to the patch in the first post in this thread).

 

[driftinj]

Oh and one more thing (sorry) - The Barbarian King (Orcus?) acts like an animal in regards to borders instead of like a true Barbarian. He's not as scary as he could be if he won't enter your lands. (Oh and a stack of 3 Drown took him out no problem, going back to my first point above).

 

[Kael]

Oh and one more thing (sorry) - The Barbarian King (Orcus?) acts like an animal in regards to borders instead of like a true Barbarian. He's not as scary as he could be if he won't enter your lands. (Oh and a stack of 3 Drown took him out no problem, going back to my first point above).

Orthus can definilty enter your lands, he must have just skirted yours on random chance. He has wiped out many many civilizations.

 

[driftinj]

Orthus can definilty enter your lands, he must have just skirted yours on random chance. He has wiped out many many civilizations.

Okay. It was the first time I saw him outside of the Headline News updates. He came up to my borders and I just about soiled myself but then he backed off. He did this a number of times and never once crossed the borders. Eventually, as I mentioned, I gathered some Drown and took him out.

 

[driftinj]

While we're being conersational and all, one other thought. In the regular CIV game Open borders become available pretty early on and you are penalized if you don't have the ability in terms of trade.

In this game with the tech tree having many more branches and the initial period being stretched out it doesn't really come into play for a while. This makes it easy for the player to create a "border wall" sealing off a good deal of neutral territory from the AI. Normally Open borders wouldmitigate this but since it doesn't really get around until later it can be a bit of a problem. While I like sealing off neutral lands from the AI, it does make things a bit easier.

 

[Lunargent]

Oh and one more thing (sorry) - The Barbarian King (Orcus?) acts like an animal in regards to borders instead of like a true Barbarian. He's not as scary as he could be if he won't enter your lands. (Oh and a stack of 3 Drown took him out no problem, going back to my first point above).

I once had him spawn one square away from my capital and wipe me out.

 

[loki1232]

I just played a game with him and I was getting it.

Are the people with the problem starting FfH directlyby modifying the ini, or are they loading vanilla first, then FfH?

 

[Kael]

Are the people with the problem starting FfH directlyby modifying the ini, or are they loading vanilla first, then FfH?

I think Naf4ever figured it out. You don't get it if you regen the map. Im not sure what the regen process does, I will have to check it out.

 

[Civmansam]

Hey Kael,

I just had some great ideas.

How about a Acromentula unit or civ (giant spiders
Or A sphinx unit or civ
Hydras
Minotaurs
Cyclopses
Chimearas
Medusas

Just saying ideas

Are you going to use any?

 

[Xuenay]

Oh, one more idea for boosting Seafaring civilizations - if you want to give them a minor bonus, they could get extra Health or Happy bonuses from sea resources. That would make sense to me, seeing how they spend a lot of their life on the seas and are probably experts in getting the best out of those resources.

(More oceanic resources would be nice to have, of course - maybe even some less pleasant ones. How about, say, underwater ruins left by the creatures the Octopus Overlords worship - with a -1 health but +2 happy, or maybe a global bonus to research? Or, say, sea monsters like giant sharks and krakens that become powerful naval units?)

I think I actually have a note somewhere in a design doc that says no unicorns.

In general I want FfH to be Dark Fantasy. Meaning that I only want to include the more twisted and gothic forms of fantasy. This isn't a clear line but it does effect a lot of the design. For example, the Carnival in .95 was origionally a Circus, but it got changed to the Carnival name (and a Civ was written that uses their carnivals to display caged elves, humans, orcs and dwarves) because it better matched with the dark feel.

I almost removed Haarbal's halfling civ's from the game because I didn't think that they fit the Dark Fantasy image. In the end I decided to leave them in just because Haarbal did such awesome work making them that I couldn't bring myself to take anything away from his work (though I did replace 2 pictures and added diplomacy music to a bunch of them).

Well, there could always be *dark* unicorns... feral, bloodthirsty beasts that are a terrible corruption of the normal horses, created somewhere in the twisted laboratories of an insane alchemist. Living solely on the meat of the still-living, they won't touch any prey they can't eat alive... and as for the horn they have on their head, well, why do you think they like virgins so much?

(Not that you can't make halflins fit the dark fantasy theme, too... Dark Sun, anyone?)

They are supposed to be powerful, and I would expect that 3 of them could take out any hero. I will look at it, I will probably reduce Achmages strength (just to make them easier to kill) but they will probably be just as effective on the attack side.

Then again, paradoxally enough making them *stronger* might also help... since that way they'll be picked as the defenders from the stack more often.

 

[Kael]

Are you going to use any?

If I could get the models I would have them in the mod in a heartbeat.

 

[loki1232]

If I could get the models I would have them in the mod in a heartbeat.

As wild units you can canpture to be able to build.
Maybe some unit would have the penalty to not be able to capture wild units.

 

[loki1232]

I once had him spawn one square away from my capital and wipe me out.

Just noticing, when he spawns the message is that a barb kingdom built him.

btw: How can Kael have a game where every unit can cast and level, but the new spell system is still screwed up?

 

[loki1232]

Well to balance out archmages, maybe units with magic resistance could "stealth attack" them.

 

[Kael]

Well, there could always be *dark* unicorns... feral, bloodthirsty beasts that are a terrible corruption of the normal horses, created somewhere in the twisted laboratories of an insane alchemist. Living solely on the meat of the still-living, they won't touch any prey they can't eat alive... and as for the horn they have on their head, well, why do you think they like virgins so much?

(Not that you can't make halflins fit the dark fantasy theme, too... Dark Sun, anyone?)

I do plan on having a horse resource in hell that gives access to some very mean mounted units. And I could shoehorn halflings in the game, but why?

Its interesting that you mention the horses as meat eating the Celtic had Mares, majestic meat eating horses that would lure soldiers away from camps and kill them. The celts had a lot of things that lured soldiers away from camps and killed them. I guess they really didn't want their men wandering away from camp.

 

[loki1232]

1. (More oceanic resources would be nice to have, of course - maybe even some less pleasant ones. How about, say, underwater ruins left by the creatures the Octopus Overlords worship - with a -1 health but +2 happy, or maybe a global bonus to research? Or, say, sea monsters like giant sharks and krakens that become powerful naval units?)

Well, there could always be *dark* unicorns... feral, bloodthirsty beasts that are a terrible corruption of the normal horses, created somewhere in the twisted laboratories of an insane alchemist.

Then again, paradoxally enough making them *stronger* might also help... since that way they'll be picked as the defenders from the stack more often.

1. I think that this type of unit works best as a quest, wild animal combo. Maybe seafaring civs would get these quests more often.

2. Great quest idea.

3. I of course think that my idea is better. But this might work.