[MOD] Fall from Heaven

[Kael]

I played a long game with this and its great! (Long as in, researched every tech and had half a large map under my control) Though obviously a work in progress. Some comments:
1. Some wonders & promotions need documentation. I figure that can wait til last, but just reminding. For instance, all of a sudden, half my towns werereplaced by forests one time. I don't think I had prior warning!

All buildings have strategy tags now. I love Genesis but I can see how it can be a bit surprising if you aren't prepared for it.

2. The religion shrines can be built multiple times, or at least attempted by the computer. I think someone was wasting their GP's, 'cause I got a message about the song of autumn 5 or 6 times in one game.

This will be fixed in tomorrows release of 0.60.

3. Maybe conjurers are too powerful? or at least, I don't know if the computer can use them. But a group of 4 or so and a high priest can keep my land free of invaders and soften up any city. I shudder to think if I'd build an army of them. Maybe they should be a national unit as well.

You're right. Conjurers have been switched to summoning fire elementals which aren't as powerful as earth elementals. They also don't have the range. Demons have also been dropped from 19 strength to 17 strength. Im also gonna try to find a way to teach the computer to use them before I release 0.60 tomorrow.

4. Like was mentioned, mulitple berserkers can be built.
Speaking of which, shieldwall, berserkers, and flurrires are a tad busy--may want a few less images.

All the formations have been redone, they will look much better tomorrow.

5. Yggdraisil--does it do anything? I thought it might put a tree fort in every city or something, but didn't seem to.

It is supposed to produce 3 special resources 'The Fruit of Yggdrasil', that gives a nice health and happiness bonus to the cities that have access to it. It is borken in 0.50, and will be fixed tomorrow in 0.60.

6. barb scouts are evil... maybe bump them back a few turns, to give more time to build a warrior to protect workers.

But I like evil

7. Maybe the forrests druids build could have really high move costs, to function as choke points?

Woodelf had suggested an 'Ancient Forest' feature. I think if the player is following the Fellowship of Leaves their will be a chance that enemy units going through Ancient Forests will get jumped by Treants. Making your "choke point" idea more literal than you may have been thinking.

I'd love to get to the point that each religion has terrain type that it gets a unique benifit from.

More ideas when They come to me, I'm gonna play again! Look forward to next version!

Have fun!

 

[Oneluv]

I guess i missed the bulletin that Christmas has been moved to the 23rd. I can hardly stand it. I'm anticipating this release more than the vanilla game.(maybe i just feel that way because i've played the vanilla game ) And just in time for Christmas. Now I'm embarassed i didn't get you anything. Hope each of you has a great weekend, especially you Kael, even if you do like evil. Thanks for the Great work.

 

[loki1232]

What if Octopus Overlords got ships that could use cool spells:
Tsunami, Typhoon, Whirlpool, etc.

Viel priests get spells that spread disease, or make cities unhealthy?

Infact, could diseased units make any city they are in unhealthy?

My biggest complaint is that all the religions seem the same. If you could mention the differences in the civ.pedia (and make some new ones) that would rule.

What if there were some promotions that were only available to units if they had a certain religion.

I guess that each religion could get bonuses about a certain type of unit:
Fellowship-recon
Runes-melee?
Order-disciples
Octopus-ships
Veil-disciples (like the order, except when the order gets crusader bonuses, it gets demon summoner bonuses, etc)
These units would be produced quicker and with more XP?
Maybe only units of the right religions would be able to use spells.

Also, they could get terrain bonuses based on the religion
These would be defensive, movement, and production/food/commerce bonuses
Overlords, Runes, and Fellowship are fairly obvious.
Not sure about Order and Veil.

Also, maybe the different religions would also be able to build different city improvements.

Why don't you give prophets a bonus that makes them usefull, instead of being just weaker warriors. The medic is nice, but it doesn't give them any XP.

Genesis: omg I built it but restarted from a saved game when i realized what it had done. Speaking of which, what exactly does it do?

The improvemnet herbalist becomes available early on, but its ability is only to give health from reagents, which don't appear until the end.

The civic State Funded Education is supposed to give infinite scientists, but only gives plus 1.
Civic caste system: strategy guide (not the civic itself) says gives infinite specialists, but only gives +1 in reality.

 

[Kael]

What if Octopus Overlords got ships that could use cool spells:
Tsunami, Typhoon, Whirlpool, etc.

Viel priests get spells that spread disease, or make cities unhealthy?

Infact, could diseased units make any city they are in unhealthy?

Why don't you give prophets a bonus that makes them usefull, instead of being just weaker warriors. The medic is nice, but it doesn't give them any XP.

Genesis: omg I built it but restarted from a saved game when i realized what it had done. Speaking of which, what exactly does it do?

The improvemnet herbalist becomes available early on, but its ability is only to give health from reagents, which don't appear until the end.

the civic State Funded Education is supposed to give infinite scientists, but only gives plus 1.
Civic caste system: strategy guide (not the civic itself) says gives infinite specialists, but only gives +1 in reality.

The Veil have a unit called Diseased Corpse that spreads disease to units. They currently don't disease cities. They actually make pretty good city guards because no one wants to attack them and get the disease.

The purpose of the prophet is to allow players without a religion to begin building disciple units and xp. They aren't intended to be the equal of peer units. There are a few "under performing" units in the mod that in as a option.

Genisis upgrades the terrain in a 10 tile radius around the building city. Snow becomes tundra, tunfra becomes plaines, desert becomes plains, plaines becomes grasslands, grasslands becomes forests. In 0.60 it no long destroy's improvements. (It was actually my prototype test for armageddon spells, but I liked to so much I left it in).

The Herbalist give +1 Health, and an additional +1 Health if you have reagents. So its a minor boost early on and ramps up a little later on if you get reagents.

Yeah, Im working through the strategy text now. There is literally 1000's of lines of text with this game. Units have been done, and buildings will be in 0.60. It will take me a bit longer to get through the rest (thank god for the auto-documentation).

 

[loki1232]

Armageddon Spells:

1.So will Entropy Unbound be kind of a continuing reverse Genesis?

2.Could some of them be National wonders, so they can happen multiple times?

3.Having some sort of UN interacting with Armageddon would be very fun.
-Instead of the current spell that stops all other spells, you could have a UN resolution that did it.

4.What does the SDI available with Armageddon do?
-will it block enemy Armageddon spells?

5.Lets add many Armageddon spells but make it so each civ can only cast a certain number, and once 3/4 of the possible Armageddon Spells have been built, no more can be.

On other Topics:

1.Can there be a tech that gives some archers fire arrows that work similar to the fire spell?
-like diseased, there can be a bad promotion like on fire. It can only happen to wooden units, or those inside cities.
-It spreads like disease, and reduces city and fort defenses nearby. It can also reduce terrain.

2.Or, the fire shots could only be used by siege engines, increasing their effectiveness, especially compared to Conjurers.

 

[Kael]

I guess i missed the bulletin that Christmas has been moved to the 23rd. I can hardly stand it. I'm anticipating this release more than the vanilla game.(maybe i just feel that way because i've played the vanilla game ) And just in time for Christmas. Now I'm embarassed i didn't get you anything. Hope each of you has a great weekend, especially you Kael, even if you do like evil. Thanks for the Great work.

Thanks! This is awesome to hear!

 

[Kael]

Armageddon Spells:

1.So will Entropy Unbound be kind of a continuing reverse Genesis?

Entropy Unbound, according to the design doc, will actually drop tiles off the edge of the map, they simply won't be there anymore. I don't know if thats possible but that is the design.

2.Could some of them be National wonders, so they can happen multiple times?

I may look at creating an armageddon spell that can be "rechaged" by building a smaller building that reactivates the effect and then deletes itself.

3.Having some sort of UN interacting with Armageddon would be very fun.
-Instead of the current spell that stops all other spells, you could have a UN resolution that did it.

Yeah, I cut voting out of this mod, at some point I want to bring it back, that may be a good reason for it.

4.What does the SDI available with Armageddon do?
-will it block enemy Armageddon spells?

No. SDI only exists because you get an error if you don't have any projects in the game. So I left SDI sitting there doing nothing.

5.Lets add many Armageddon spells but make it so each civ can only cast a certain number, and once 3/4 of the possible Armageddon Spells have been built, no more can be.

The build costs on the armageddon spells will be so prohibative that I don't think there will be much else that needs to be done to limit them. They represent a scientific victory to the game but instead of simply giving the win like the spaceship does now, they allow the player a huge amount of control over the game.

On other Topics:

1.Can there be a tech that gives some archers fire arrows that work similar to the fire spell?
-like diseased, there can be a bad promotion like on fire. It can only happen to wooden units, or those inside cities.
-It spreads like disease, and reduces city and fort defenses nearby. It can also reduce terrain.

2.Or, the fire shots could only be used by siege engines, increasing their effectiveness, especially compared to Conjurers.

If I do add forests fires (ie: if I can get some reasonable burning animation) then I will probably add a few ways to get these fires started. If it becomes a serious aspect of gameplay I will allow it in more than one line so players aren't forced to research a go through a specific build to play.

 

[loki1232]

Entropy Unbound, according to the design doc, will actually drop tiles off the edge of the map, they simply won't be there anymore. I don't know if thats possible but that is the design.

Sounds awesome.
Would it start fromt he edges?
-the civs in the center would probably win then.
-or from both the center and the sides at once?

So what is done enough to be in .6 for tomorrow?
And what GMT time is it released?

I may look at creating an armageddon spell that can be "rechaged" by building a smaller building that reactivates the effect and then deletes itself.

Yeah, I cut voting out of this mod, at some point I want to bring it back, that may be a good reason for it.

I just hope we can do the spells multiple times: things like Bane Diviine could be useful time and time again.
The spell Glory Everylasting (kills all demons?) doesn't seem very useful since there aren't many demons in the game.

The build costs on the armageddon spells will be so prohibative that I don't think there will be much else that needs to be done to limit them. They represent a scientific victory to the game but instead of simply giving the win like the spaceship does now, they allow the player a huge amount of control over the game.

However, things like apocalypse kills everyone including the builder.
To give the player more control can you get it down to one turn and then postpone it?

 

[Zurai]

Entropy Unbound, according to the design doc, will actually drop tiles off the edge of the map, they simply won't be there anymore. I don't know if thats possible but that is the design.

Actually, that's easy. Create a new terrain type, call it "Void" or somesuch. Make it impassible to all units. Change the .dds texture for it to be pitch black. Then just have the script start changing the terrain into Void at the edges of the map as desired. The only thing to be wary of when adding new terrain is that you have to add them at the top of the XML for some reason. I had all sorts of strange bugs when I added my Swamp terrain at the bottom of the file that were all fixed when I moved it to the top.

 

[loki1232]

Actually, that's easy. Create a new terrain type, call it "Void" or somesuch. Make it impassible to all units. Change the .dds texture for it to be pitch black. Then just have the script start changing the terrain into Void at the edges of the map as desired. The only thing to be wary of when adding new terrain is that you have to add them at the top of the XML for some reason. I had all sorts of strange bugs when I added my Swamp terrain at the bottom of the file that were all fixed when I moved it to the top.

Yeah, but also make the void spaces have no producton, food, or commerce.

 

[Zurai]

That goes without saying But yeah good point.

 

[Zurai]

Another possible solution is to just hijack the global warming script and have it turn any tile into void, and just have the Entropy Unbound spell automatically trigger global warming. I'm not positive the GW script is exposed at the moment, but it will be in January for sure (with the SDK).

 

[loki1232]

I'm hoping the new mod is coming out at midnight.

Oh well guess not.

I'll get it in the morning.

 

[Kael]

Sounds awesome.
Would it start fromt he edges?
-the civs in the center would probably win then.
-or from both the center and the sides at once?

It with either be from the edges (making it, like you say, an awsome spell for center located civs). Or I might let the player choose where it begins.

So what is done enough to be in .6 for tomorrow?
And what GMT time is it released?

I don't know about the GMT, the following is the current change list for 0.60. Everything with an asterisk is already in. I might add some more, just depending on how it goes.

Change list for 0.60

Fixes:
*1. Fixed promotion granting benifits of the Weaponsmith, Armorer, Altar of Luonnotar and the Dragon's Horde. (reported by mamimo)
*2. Fixed the fact that holy city wonders could be built in any city. (reported by Joliette)
3. Forests can no longer be built on a tile that already has forests (reported by Joliette)
*4. XP no longer resets after upgrades (reported by Dragonlord)
*5. Yggdrasil now correctly provides 3 bonus resources 'The Fruit of Yggdrasil'. (reported by Question Mark)
*6. Galleys and Caravels can be upgraded to Galleons (reported by Agraza)
*7. Typhoid Marys Birthplace now correctly creates Typhoid Mary. (reported by vDragOn)
*8. Formations fixed
*9. Players are now limited to 3 Berserkers. (reported by Grimaldi)


Balance changes:
*1. Moved Remove Jungle from Iron Working to Survival, making it available earlier. (recommended by Stalin_Bulldog)
*2. Increase the unit upgrade costs. Base 5 + 1 Gold per production changed to base 5 + 2 per production. (recommended by woodelf)
*3. Anti-unit promotions reduced from +50%/+100% to +40%/+80% (recommended by woodelf)
*4. Forest build time increased from 4 to 7 turns with Elven Archers (recommended by Joliette)
*5. Removed Saboteurs ability to pillage (recommended by Joliette)
*6. Reduced Axeman and Maceman bonus vs Melee from +50% to +25% (recommended by mamimo)
*7. Increased the computers likelihood to rush to t2 military units (recommended by mamimo)
*8. Priests can be used to add religions to cities like disciples (recommended by Mumin)
*9. Decrease the costs for the unit training buildings. (recommended by Crash757)
*10. Conjurer switched from being able to summon an Earth Elemental to a Fire Elemental.
*11. Money bonus on Market reduced from +3 to +2. (recommended by woodelf)
*12. Genesis no longer destroys improvements. (recommended by Agraza)
*13. Pikeman reduced from +100% to +50% vs Mounted.
*14. Demons reduced from 19 to 17 strength.
*15. Initative tech removed.


Additions:
*1. Added a Fireball spell for Mages (summons a strength 4 collateral damage fireball).
*2. Added a Meteor Swarm spell for Archmages (summons 3 strength 7 collateral damage fireballs).
*3. Added a Root spell for Druids.
4. Added an Escape Spell for Saboteurs and Shadows.
*5. Fire elemental added.
*6. Blood of the Phoenix wonder added (gives immortal promotion to all the civ's current units)


Cosmetic changes:
1. Civics/Techs changed to fantasy themed names (recommended by Felzor)
* Representation changed to Anarcho-syndicalist Commune
* Confederacy changed to City States
* Health Care changed to Compassion
* No Health Care changed to Fend for Themselves
* Senior Coverage changed to Protect the Meek
* Socialized Medicine changed to Public Healers
* Military schools changed to Martial Discipline
* Religious Schools changed to Religious Discipline
* State Funded Education changed to Scholorship
* Environmentalism changed to Guardian of Nature
* Omnipotence changed to Omniscience
*2. New skin for the Demon unit.
*3. Add building strategy tags
4. Add tech strategy tags (this will probably fall to .70)
*5. New button graphic for Maceman

I just hope we can do the spells multiple times: things like Bane Diviine could be useful time and time again.
The spell Glory Everylasting (kills all demons?) doesn't seem very useful since there aren't many demons in the game.

Demon list:
- The Drown
- Diseased Corpse
- Eidolon
- Demon
- Stygian Guard
- Skeleton

Killing all of those units can be a serious setback for Ashen Veil and Overlord players.

However, things like apocalypse kills everyone including the builder.
To give the player more control can you get it down to one turn and then postpone it?

Yeah I could do that. The armageddon spells are just a design concept right now so don't look to closely into them. They may need some serious work, strategies that make them valuable and hopefully some larger interaction with each other than has been spec'ed so far.

 

[Agraza]

Wow. That's a nice list. I'm looking forward to the new version.

If the building is available you should be able to promote. I will check and see what is allowing unit to be promoted in the wilderness (I noticed it in one of my games and I think that with Catacombs Libralus you are able to upgrade adepts anywhere).

You know in the default game you can promote a unit anywhere in your territory, given that you have the proper resources and money. Are you saying you're changing this in your mod? It should be behaving this way by default, not because of the Catacombs.

When this is addressed will I have to send units on pilgrimage to the proper city to have them promoted as in Civ3?

 

[Kael]

Wow. That's a nice list. I'm looking forward to the new version.



You know in the default game you can promote a unit anywhere in your territory, given that you have the proper resources and money. Are you saying you're changing this in your mod? It should be behaving this way by default, not because of the Catacombs.

When this is addressed will I have to send units on pilgrimage to the proper city to have them promoted as in Civ3?

Yeah, you should need to return a unit to a city with the appropriate building to upgrade it. The reason this requirement isn't in normal Civ4 is because you don't need buildings for units in Civ4.

 

[Zurai]

Actually it's not quite "anywhere in your territory". The rule is as follows:

A unit can be upgraded if:
1) There's an upgrade available for it (researched)
2) It is within your territory (possibly allies as well, havn't checked)
3) Your nearest city to the unit has the appropriate resource hooked up, either directly or through the trade net


I discovered that third rule by accident one game - the Greeks dropped a city too close to me and one of my uber-culture cities pushed the borders directly adjacent to the Greek city. When I moved my attacking force up to the city, they all had their upgrades available. As soon as I took that city in the next war, the units that were on the old border were suddenly unable to upgrade - because the Greek city was now the closest city and wasn't hooked into my trade net.

 

[Agraza]

Ah rule 3 probably accounts for my issues. I needed to move the units within the sphere of influence of a city with access to upgraded units.

 

[Dragonlord]

Very important question:

Does your Mod, and especially your upcoming 0.60 build, work with the new patch 152 that Firaxis has released today?

Has anyone tried this yet?

I'm hoping to DL the 0.60 first thing after work this evening (hint,hint) and the Firaxis patch as well - I'd hate for this Mod not to work anymore and maybe rather wait with the Firaxis patch if necessary.

 

[woodelf]

If push comes to shove I won't patch the main game if it means I can't play v0.6 of this one.