[MOD] Fall from Heaven

[loki1232]

Good to hear. You won't be disappointed in FfH. Trust me.

And me.

 

[drwulf88]

First I want to say that this is a great mod. My problem is that I am able to play against a friend over a LAN, but when we try to hook up over the internet with a third friend he can't see our game in gamespy. The two of us on the LAN can see each other, but the not our friend thats connecting over the internet. We are all going though the internet hook-up (not the LAN hook-up) so it should work. We all connect using the regular civ4 game without a problem, but not with your mod. any ideas?

 

[Kael]

First I want to say that this is a great mod. My problem is that I am able to play against a friend over a LAN, but when we try to hook up over the internet with a third friend he can't see our game in gamespy. The two of us on the LAN can see each other, but the not our friend thats connecting over the internet. We are all going though the internet hook-up (not the LAN hook-up) so it should work. We all connect using the regular civ4 game without a problem, but not with your mod. any ideas?

No, sorry. The network code is all black box right now. I have no access to it, thats all Firaxis stuff.

 

[Xanikk999]

This is a great great mod i appreciate your hard work kael and everyone else but i have a few suggestions and gripes.

Is it possible if not in version 9.0 maybe in phase 2 to make it so you could have an equivelent to a space race victory? Make it so its not really space race but something that fits in with the fantasy theme.

The reason for this is because i hate winning by time or domination and conquest is a silly goal imo because you cant make any friends and have to eventually backstab everyone.

If its not possible with the current modding abilities available i understand but maybe you could make an equivelent for space race in the future?

 

[Kael]

This is a great great mod i appreciate your hard work kael and everyone else but i have a few suggestions and gripes.

Is it possible if not in version 9.0 maybe in phase 2 to make it so you could have an equivelent to a space race victory? Make it so its not really space race but something that fits in with the fantasy theme.

The reason for this is because i hate winning by time or domination and conquest is a silly goal imo because you cant make any friends and have to eventually backstab everyone.

If its not possible with the current modding abilities available i understand but maybe you could make an equivelent for space race in the future?

This was the purpose of the armageddon spells. To give civs that pursue techs the ability to win the game by it. But I have never been a big fan of simply finishing a build or researching a tech and you win (it just doesn't seem very satisfying to me) so instead of just saying "you win" for completing the armageddon spells you are given the opportunity to go crush your enemies.

Of course a lot has been done with the Armageddon spells, at some point they are just huge "fun" effects. But I would say that if you build Meshabber and the Mithril Golem, you will probably win the game. Would you rather it just ended the game and told you you won for completing it, or would you rather it just end when you build them?

 

[Xanikk999]

wow i wasnt even aware of that. I havent finished any of my games with this mod yet. Il try the armegeddon thing thanks!

 

[Chammadai]

I made the stables cheaper because I didn't want to lock aggresive civs into one tech line. They can go melee and get the promotion, or they can go mounted and get the cheaper buildings. If I moved both onto the same line players would be stuck with that path (or it would be useless to play an aggresive civ and consider any other option).

True that. Still, if you don't happen to get horses it's pretty useless. The same goes for free upgrade and copper/iron. But could you add the free upgrade to archery units? They can still get it, if you're smart enough, and if they got it anyhow it would save some sneaky manipulations.

I like the idea to make a promotion available on if the civ has the appropriate trait. I just started playing with this in 0.90, giving a civ access to a building only if they have the right trait. Im going to note that idea and when I do the cov's for phase 2 I may use it then.

I love the idea too. Go for it. Just try not to make certain combos of the buildings too dangerous/easy to exploit.

I love creative, I always have, but I have a hard time seeing this as more powerful that the other traits. Its better than it is in vanilla civ, even though it is unchanged, because of the way the buildings are formed in FfH like you say, but I don't know that it is out of line with the other traits.

Maybe it isn't, but I find Creative civs a real culture monsters - when playing one it's much easier to approach enemy cities since I travel through my land most of the time. When I get to build a wonder which gives like +8 culture and the city itself has about +50% multiplier, than it get really easy to make enemy cities revolt. If that's the way you want it work, than there's no problem with me.

Expansive also give 0 upkeep on the Compassion (Health) civics. That can be a very powerful boost, especially late in the game. I want to keep the harbor in because I want the trait to appeal to different sorts of civs. More needs to be done around the water aspects of the game (as the last 3 pages of posts suggest) but I wanted it to be a viable option for "island" players as well.

Didn't know they had no upkeep for health civics. Cool. Makes it even more worthwhile. Still, players with animals close get discriminated. Smokehouse should be half-price too.

Does knowing that the Expansive trait gives no upkeep on the compassion civics bring it into line with the others, or do you think it rates as less or more powerful?

I don't think it's too powerful, but I choose it mostly on higher difficulty levels. I didn't notice it saves me extra money but it didn't do that much difference. Still, it would be nice if it stayed that way.

This is another one I haven't changed from vanilla for exactly the reaosn you mentioned, in my mind its VERY powerful. The reason I opted to stay ont he market is that this trait is strong in the mid to late game but doesn't have much impact on the early game. By reducing the cost of the market (instead of the tax office) there is an early game advantage to having the trait as well.

Market has a lot of impact on the early game. About three to five more cities can be build on larger maps if you build markets (on smaller probably too, but I often find it too crowded with 18 civs... ). And financial boost both gold and science (or culture), so it is very dangerous.

I had a clock tower in for industrious but I pulled it becuse the trait is already so strong. This trait is also the reason Duin is a wonder costed unit, not a wonder (and I may switch Typhoid Mary to the same system). The truth is the more important the wonders are in the game, the more powerful this trait is. And they are pretty important in FfH. The nice thing is its an easy trait to adujust because I can just throttle it up and down on the production bonus. Once 0.90 comes out I will be really curious to hear what peoples opinions are of this vs the other traits.

I noticed you don't make any wonders obsolete. In that case it is pretty powerful. If you decide to change it and make at least some of the wonders go obsolete, than Industrious would suffer a lot. If you won't change anything, leave it as it is.

The reason the building is so high is ebcause there is another way to get it for non-Organized civs. You can create one with a Great Commander. So the building needs to be worth the sacrifice of a great person. But I can put other limitations on building it such as increasing the cost, or requiring a minimum level troop before it can be built or both. (which may be a good idea since it kind of makes since that you should have some decently experienced troops before you can have a great commander). What do you think?

In that case, it's fine. But still I don't think that organized is as bad as would like us to believe. It would certainly save the Great Commander for other use when playing organized.

Philosophical also gives no civic upkeep for the education civics. A very nice boost. I tend to be a little cautious around the great people so I lowered this from 100 to a 50% boost. Also libraries tend to be a lot more useful in FfH than they are in Civ4 since they allow access to adepts, mages and conjurers. Given that do you still think its underpowered.

Didn't know that as well . It does make it more useful, that's for sure. And libraries are so useful that it's weird that you created something like Catacomb Librarus. You still need to build them whether you're philosophical or not, and the units aren't free as well. What's more when you play philosophical you would never get twice as much Great People than anyone else, it's much closer to three or four, when set on 100%. Assuming a civ get 1500 GP points throughout the game in one city, it would make 5 great people. Philosophical would make 3000 GP points what gives them only two more. You make it only one more. They are not that powerful. And phi civs suffer due to it.

I would be curious to get other opinions on this. Maybe a pool to see what the most powerful trait in FfH is?

Why not? You did one poll, now it's time for another.

You just blew my mind. I just jumped through a TON of hoops to make it so you have access to units even if you have their upgrades and you are saying you keep access to units if you don't have ANY of their upgrades? So all I would need to do to keep these guys around was make their upgrade a unit you can never get?

I gotta go test that, you may have just made my day.

Did you check it? I'm not 100% sure that it works that way but from my observations, it's very likely.

Cheers

 

[Kael]

I noticed you don't make any wonders obsolete. In that case it is pretty powerful. If you decide to change it and make at least some of the wonders go obsolete, than Industrious would suffer a lot. If you won't change anything, leave it as it is.

I didn't even think about that. Yeah I never obsolete anything in FfH (there is some inbeded code that obsoletes units but Im working on undoing some of that in 0.90).

Didn't know that as well . It does make it more useful, that's for sure. And libraries are so useful that it's weird that you created something like Catacomb Librarus. You still need to build them whether you're philosophical or not, and the units aren't free as well. What's more when you play philosophical you would never get twice as much Great People than anyone else, it's much closer to three or four, when set on 100%. Assuming a civ get 1500 GP points throughout the game in one city, it would make 5 great people. Philosophical would make 3000 GP points what gives them only two more. You make it only one more. They are not that powerful. And phi civs suffer due to it.

Catacomb Libralus may need to be yanked, libraries everywhere may be a game winning move.

Did you check it? I'm not 100% sure that it works that way but from my observations, it's very likely.

I did and you were 100% correct. I had written all this code to do it myself, it was really nasty. Then using what you mentioned I just created one guy ("Sir not appearing in this Mod") and every unit I give the ability to upgrade to him will never obsolete. Right now I have it on apprentices, dwarven soldiers, elven archers and all of the disciples. I owe you a huge thanks for that.

 

[loki1232]

Catacomb Libralus may need to be yanked, libraries everywhere may be a game winning move.
.

Tsk Tsk. Don't yank it, just change it. What if it gave libraries only in cities on the same continent?

 

[loki1232]

1. True that. Still, if you don't happen to get horses it's pretty useless. The same goes for free upgrade and copper/iron. But could you add the free upgrade to archery units? They can still get it, if you're smart enough, and if they got it anyhow it would save some sneaky manipulations.

2. I love the idea too. Go for it. Just try not to make certain combos of the buildings too dangerous/easy to exploit.

3. Market has a lot of impact on the early game. About three to five more cities can be build on larger maps if you build markets (on smaller probably too, but I often find it too crowded with 18 civs... ). And financial boost both gold and science (or culture), so it is very dangerous.

4. Didn't know that as well . It does make it more useful, that's for sure. And libraries are so useful that it's weird that you created something like Catacomb Librarus. You still need to build them whether you're philosophical or not, and the units aren't free as well. What's more when you play philosophical you would never get twice as much Great People than anyone else, it's much closer to three or four, when set on 100%. Assuming a civ get 1500 GP points throughout the game in one city, it would make 5 great people. Philosophical would make 3000 GP points what gives them only two more. You make it only one more. They are not that powerful. And phi civs suffer due to it.

1. I like this idea a lot. What if agg civs had a higher chance of the valuable minerals appearing when they made mines?

2. Of course. And then when you add in the civ specific buildings we'll all have a great time exploiting unfound bugs.

3. What if financial civs got +1 trade route per city? This would be really fun, and in the style of there overseas expansion.

4. Hmm. I find Phi to be kinda weak generally. How bout + 1 available specialist of each type per city?

 

[Mano3]

The title page comes up, but no scenario to load and when the game starts, all the CIVs are 'normal CIVs' (ie: Germany, Rome, etc.). Am I screwing up or am I ********?

 

[Kael]

The title page comes up, but no scenario to load and when the game starts, all the CIVs are 'normal CIVs' (ie: Germany, Rome, etc.). Am I screwing up or am I ********?

There are no new civs in the mod yet. If you would like to use some fantasy based civs you will need to download Haarbals civ pack. There is a link to it in the first post in this thread.

 

[Kidinnu]

When applying for a job in England, you usually send off a CV

Just to go off on the tangent, in America it's a "resume" (French accent, I think grave, over both es), unless you're a professor, in which case you use a CV (curriculum vita).

 

[Tesla23]

Is it possible to add some game-mechanics which would give the Endgame a new sense? I feel every time bored when it comes to the finishing line. I finish not even 30% of my games, because I dominate the whole map or I know that this game is lost. Both is kinda boring. It´s not really a problem of your MOD, the Vanilla CIV is even worse.
Perhaps some diplomatic routine which would cause Alliances against totally dominating fractions. This would definately be very complicated to balance, but I would be pleased if someone has another better idea.

 

[Kael]

Is it possible to add some game-mechanics which would give the Endgame a new sense? I feel every time bored when it comes to the finishing line. I finish not even 30% of my games, because I dominate the whole map or I know that this game is lost. Both is kinda boring. It´s not really a problem of your MOD, the Vanilla CIV is even worse.
Perhaps some diplomatic routine which would cause Alliances against totally dominating fractions. This would definately be very complicated to balance, but I would be pleased if someone has another better idea.

Ahh... game theory, one of my favorite topics.

In some ways this is just the nature of a game and isn't avoidable. Any game to which the outcome is already determined becomes dull. Be it a football game where one team is so far ahead, or a game of chess where you have only a king and a pawn left to your opponents more considerable forces.

The only way to fight that is to give the other players a chance of winning no matter what has been done to get to that point. This is unappealing as it removes the reward from the winning player (that his good decisions would be rewarded with a later advantage).

Although we have dicussed some minor form of a "rubber band" effect, a way to boost lagging players it won't be to the level to be able to overthrow a domineering player. Only enough to tip the balance in close games.

With that all said there are a few things we are going to try to do in Phase 2 to make the end game better:

1. Open up a new area to explore in the midgame, "Hell"

2. Enable quests that can be accomplished in the late game. This will help both domineering players by giving them tasks they can pursue if they desire (quests will always be optional). As well as helping low ranked players by rewarding them and giving them a better chance to win if they successfully accomplish the task.

3. Detail the relationship system. This is what you mentioned and I think you are 100% correct. More and better options between the civ's will make the end game much more interesting. We are looking to add alignments to the civ's, making "axis vs allies" confrontations more likely. Also civs will be given specific enemies that that harbor an even greater hatred for. Civ's origional voting system was pulled because it doesn't work like I would like it to. I want to have it back and play a more meaningful role (and have players able to ignore the decree's at a relationship cost).

 

[Dragonlord]

Is it possible to add some game-mechanics which would give the Endgame a new sense? I feel every time bored when it comes to the finishing line. I finish not even 30% of my games, because I dominate the whole map or I know that this game is lost. Both is kinda boring. It´s not really a problem of your MOD, the Vanilla CIV is even worse.
Perhaps some diplomatic routine which would cause Alliances against totally dominating fractions. This would definately be very complicated to balance, but I would be pleased if someone has another better idea.

Welcome to the club .... I have the same problem, I almost never finish a game... in my latest game of FFH 0.80 (on Emperor, aggr. AI, aggr. barbs) I'm about halfway through the tech tree and already dominate the world - twice as many points as the next, 40% pop, 45% land... no question that I'll win, the rest is just mopping up.. *yawn*

The problem is, the AI (even on aggressive!) just sits there, waiting for me to pick off one after the other. Unless they have an Alliance, the AI almost never declares war on me..
I guess it's a question of attitude modifiers - the AI seems to lean toward appeasing strong civs (me!), so the stronger I get, the less they attack.

Now, if it worked the other way around - the stronger I get, the more they hate me and the likelier they are to attack... after all, I'm the competition for world leadership! - things might get really interesting in the endgame... a real AI dogpile on me would be a challenge!

Edit: just saw Kaels post: those ideas look good, but how about taking a look at the attitude modifiers as well?
It's almost ridiculous: even militarily strong AIs, sitting right on my borders with strong armies, never seem to attack, even on Aggressive AI... do I have to go kick sand in their faces? ;-)

 

[Kavok]

Welcome to the club .... I have the same problem, I almost never finish a game... in my latest game of FFH 0.80 (on Emperor, aggr. AI, aggr. barbs) I'm about halfway through the tech tree and already dominate the world - twice as many points as the next, 40% pop, 45% land... no question that I'll win, the rest is just mopping up.. *yawn*

The problem is, the AI (even on aggressive!) just sits there, waiting for me to pick off one after the other. Unless they have an Alliance, the AI almost never declares war on me..
I guess it's a question of attitude modifiers - the AI seems to lean toward appeasing strong civs (me!), so the stronger I get, the less they attack.

Now, if it worked the other way around - the stronger I get, the more they hate me and the likelier they are to attack... after all, I'm the competition for world leadership! - things might get really interesting in the endgame... a real AI dogpile on me would be a challenge!

In some ways I think you just described the way it -should- be.

Whenever your the top dog in a game everyone is always sucking up to you.

Whenever your the little guy everyone is always giving you hard time.

Maybe add a little more hate to the big guy and a little more ignore to the little?

 

[Dragonlord]

In some ways I think you just described the way it -should- be.

Whenever your the top dog in a game everyone is always sucking up to you.

Whenever your the little guy everyone is always giving you hard time.

Maybe add a little more hate to the big guy and a little more ignore to the little?

While true in real life, I'd prefer a little less realism and a little more gameplay here...
For me, a large part of this wonderful mod goes to waste, because I hardly ever see the cool endgame units - most of my game goes with Tier 1 and 2 units... by the time I get to Tier 3 (never mind 4) I already dominate and lose interest..

I think I'm going up to Deity now...

 

[c.fe]

Hallo,

this is really a great mod. So I can't help presenting two ideas of my own. Both are connected to the early/not-so-early expansion of the civs.

I would like if expansion wouldn't occur so fast, so that barabarians stay on the map a lot longer. Two things (as I said) I thought about:

1. Raise the limits for the cities' border expansions. I tried this in a small Mod I did myself and it really made the game seem less "civilized" and I think that could be appropriate for a fantasy Mod too.

2. As soon as a Civ has founded x cities (x ideally depending on map size) give them a tech (via python) that obsoletes the settler and replaces him with a more expensive alternativ or with a building (national project?) that produces settlers.

 

[Kael]

Hallo,

this is really a great mod. So I can't help presenting two ideas of my own. Both are connected to the early/not-so-early expansion of the civs.

I would like if expansion wouldn't occur so fast, so that barabarians stay on the map a lot longer. Two things (as I said) I thought about:

1. Raise the limits for the cities' border expansions. I tried this in a small Mod I did myself and it really made the game seem less "civilized" and I think that could be appropriate for a fantasy Mod too.

2. As soon as a Civ has founded x cities (x ideally depending on map size) give them a tech (via python) that obsoletes the settler and replaces him with a more expensive alternativ or with a building (national project?) that produces settlers.

I would like changes like this if I could block it behind an option when you start the game. I think its probably going to be a personel preference sort of setting. But it would be cool to have a "wild lands" setting that makes the game play like you describe.

Have you tried playing with raging barbarians?