[MOD] Fall from Heaven

[Xuenay]

Looking throught the thread, I see that there's the idea of a special Ancient Forest that'd give the Fellowship bonuses and that they'd be able to grow. I don't know though, wouldn't it be better to make Ancient Forests a special type of rare terrain that shows up by itself? I mean, the idea of somebody actively trying to *make* a forest old an ancient sounds a bit odd. It'd make more sense if some forests just happened to be older than the others, and the Fellowship would treasure them whereever it was able to find them.

Of course, this would introduce a potential problem if Ancient Forests didn't give anybody else any extra bonuses, as it'd be in the interest of the others to chop down the ancient woods before any Fellowship players got their hands on them. One solution might be to make Ancient Forests a special type of forest/jungle resource that's revealed by the tech that founds the Fellowship, but that'd also be problematic since the religion might spread to you far before you get a chance to discover the tech... Maybe just have the Ancient Forest grant everybody slightly better bonuses than just ordinary forest (+1 health and +2 production, maybe?) and then have the Fellowship get even better bonuses in addition to those.

Another idea I've had - assuming you don't mind stealing something out of D&D, there might be a promotion called Inspiring Music available for some units, providing other units in the same square a 10% non-cumulative bonus to their combat strength. I was thinking it might be possible to take advantage of the Medic promotions and make a version of them that works this way - doing it purely in Python'd probably get too heavy. Haven't done much CIV modding myself, though, I'm not sure if that's doable.

 

[Kael]

Another idea I've had - assuming you don't mind stealing something out of D&D

I think its safe to say that's not a problem.

I didn't want the ancient forests to be buildable, but I only wanted the to occur in fellowship lands. And once a forest switchs from normal to ancient it increases the chances of the forests around it becoming ancient. And if taken over by others they would remain ancient forests, but stop spreading.

That way there are no ancient forests in the game at the begining and they have to be cultivated. It also helps toward one of my other goals for phase 2. I want the civs religion to effect the land. So there will be a good, neutral and evil art for a grassland (for example) and each turn a tile (or maybe once every 10 turns if i want to save cpu cycles) there will be a chance a tile switches to the alignment picture of its owner.

And its pretty easy to make a unti that can buff other units. The High Priest does it with the bless spell and Bambur (coming in 0.80) does it by making weapon for all the units in his stack. The challenge is how to apply buffs in an interesting way that makes it seem like more than just stacking up combat bonus's. And the even greater challenge of doing it in a way that the computer will understand how to use it.

 

[Stidf]

Now that I am done with my finals I have free time! As such I just finished a game and noticed more stuff.

1) I was playing on a large continents game with 8 civs total. I was able to found leaves, runes and the order. You may want to look into either adding more religions (unlikely) or make it so that one civ can found more then X number of religions (more likely). Even though i only had one other civ as any of my religions (i was playing with raging barbs and a quarter of my continent was desert so i had to deal wih LOTS of barbs, so i was pretty isolated from the rest of the world) I still made a stupidly large amount of money because i had a lot of cities all with each of my religions.

2) Mages are sooooooo much fun and Archmages are even more fun. However i noticed that if you have your spells split up (ie have a bunch of stacks with 1 spell in it) your spells dont die out. So if you are really sadistic, have lots of space and lots of mages/archmages then you can get waves upon waves of spells to pelt at people halfway across the map. Im not sure if this was the intent if the spells should act more like aircraft with a more limited range.

EDIT:Ummm Im not sure about the crazy range cause I havent been able to reproduce the effect soo ya.

3) Some spells should be able to be cast out on to the sea

4) As had been said before we need a new time standard. So down with BC and AD and you could just do year 16953 or some random year is the start of the time counter and just goes up.

5) There should be upgrades for the religion specific units so that your elf archers and dwarf warriors can stay elves and dwarves instead of going to some generic upper level unit like longbowmen and macemen. For the elves your could make them become Fey elf Marksmen and be like power 8ish with both woodsmen upgrades and the demon slaying one or so. For the Dwarves they could become Dwarf Ancients and be like power 10ish with the guerilla upgrades and a slaying or combat upgrade.

So thats my two cents.
-Stidf

 

[Stidf]

More wierd problems.

Whenever i end the turn on this game (which also shows the living fireball effect to a smaller extent) the game just sits there and loads. I've waited up to half an hour for the computer to finish moving but still no luck. Can anyone else see if this is just my computer or what.

 

[Kael]

Now that I am done with my finals I have free time! As such I just finished a game and noticed more stuff.

1) I was playing on a large continents game with 8 civs total. I was able to found leaves, runes and the order. You may want to look into either adding more religions (unlikely) or make it so that one civ can found more then X number of religions (more likely). Even though i only had one other civ as any of my religions (i was playing with raging barbs and a quarter of my continent was desert so i had to deal wih LOTS of barbs, so i was pretty isolated from the rest of the world) I still made a stupidly large amount of money because i had a lot of cities all with each of my religions.

Yeah, I was thinking about making you unable to research the techs that discover leaves and overlords if you have the holy city for runes and so forth.

2) Mages are sooooooo much fun and Archmages are even more fun. However i noticed that if you have your spells split up (ie have a bunch of stacks with 1 spell in it) your spells dont die out. So if you are really sadistic, have lots of space and lots of mages/archmages then you can get waves upon waves of spells to pelt at people halfway across the map. Im not sure if this was the intent if the spells should act more like aircraft with a more limited range.

EDIT:Ummm Im not sure about the crazy range cause I havent been able to reproduce the effect soo ya.

This is fixed in 0.80, no more forever spells for you, you cheater!

3) Some spells should be able to be cast out on to the sea

I know. I wish I could do it, I have it on my list and im still trying to figure out a way to do it.

4) As had been said before we need a new time standard. So down with BC and AD and you could just do year 16953 or some random year is the start of the time counter and just goes up.

This is changed in 0.80. The clock reads 'Year 160 in the Age of Rebirth' or whatever instead of using any earth calendar.

5) There should be upgrades for the religion specific units so that your elf archers and dwarf warriors can stay elves and dwarves instead of going to some generic upper level unit like longbowmen and macemen. For the elves your could make them become Fey elf Marksmen and be like power 8ish with both woodsmen upgrades and the demon slaying one or so. For the Dwarves they could become Dwarf Ancients and be like power 10ish with the guerilla upgrades and a slaying or combat upgrade.

So thats my two cents.
-Stidf

I have the t4 religious unit upgrades on my ist before I close phase 1. They got pushed out of 0.80 because I decided to make heroes instead. There are 2 unique heroes for each religion and they are undercosted for their power.

I think the heroes will help fulfill a lot of this need (more units for the religions) and do it in a more "fantasy" way. But I still want to make some religous upgrade units too.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

About the Ancient Forests: how about, when the felowship players reserch the ancient forest tech, normal forests turn into Ancient forests at random, "An Ancient Forest has been discoverd near *insert city name*" like how ordinary forests grow.

 

[Stidf]

Quote:
3) Some spells should be able to be cast out on to the sea

I know. I wish I could do it, I have it on my list and im still trying to figure out a way to do it.

Here is a way to fix the spells really simply, just make mages like carriers. they have x spots to hold spells. This could allow you to speciallize your mages. Then you make the promotion thing like you have now to fill your holding space. Then the spells will never stay on the map and cant be used to hold off your enemies with spells that hang around. (from what i can tell the spells/elementals are killed at the end of the round after everyone has moved.) This would make the mages much more vulnerable to other units because you need to protect your mages more.

-Stidf

 

[Kael]

Here is a way to fix the spells really simply, just make mages like carriers. they have x spots to hold spells. This could allow you to speciallize your mages. Then you make the promotion thing like you have now to fill your holding space. Then the spells will never stay on the map and cant be used to hold off your enemies with spells that hang around. (from what i can tell the spells/elementals are killed at the end of the round after everyone has moved.) This would make the mages much more vulnerable to other units because you need to protect your mages more.

-Stidf

You could definitly put the spells in the mages cargo instead of dropping it at their feet, but it would just require another step of unloading the spell before you could use it.

You may mean that it would be better if the spells are made into Air units. That way they ignore land and sea. It would be perfect (and the fireballs look awesome flying through the air) but their are a few issues that keep it from being possible. The air combat code isn't nearly as exposed (and therefor flexible) as land combat. Also the AI treats air units as planes, it does a better job with a fireball as a land unit, it knows how to attack.

So I agree (in my origional design spells were both cargo and air units) but I've had to back off of both for technical reasons.

 

[Stidf]

so the AI does do very well with planes? thats funny cause you would think that using air units would be one of the more basic and nessicary unit types to have functionablity. So if i was playing vanilla civ and i went nuts with bombers then the AI wouldn't build fighters and the like to counter? If so...

 

[Kael]

Change List for 0.80

Fixes:

*1. Adepts can cast spells after being upgraded.
*2. Copper Golems now correctly require a tower.
*3. The Avatar of Wrath CTD fixed (he was a bit nastier than I expected).
*4. AI should now use Caravels correctly. (reported by Crash757)
*5. Elves can no longer be loaded into Mages. (ewwww.... reported by woodelf)
*6. Hero's don't abandon every Civ. (reported by Woodelf)
*7. Fixed an issue where a summoned unit could live forever if he gets into index 0.
*8. Fixed the issue where the Ashen Veil and Order would kill each other's holy cities.


Additions:

*1. Added Glory Everlasting. (Armageddon spell, kills all demons)
*2. Added Apocalypse. (Armageddon spell, kills 60% of all units, halves all cities populations)
*3. Added Doom Inexorable. (Armageddon spell, summons Meshabber of Dis)
*4. Added Meshabber of Dis. (Avatar Unit, permanent fire aura)
*5. Added Barbarian unit Orthus, Barbarian King. (Hero)
*6. Added Orthus's Axe promotion. (granted to any unit that kills Orthus)
*7. Added Fellowship of Leaves unit Kithra Kyriel. (Hero, art by Mumin)
*8. Added Fellowship of the Leaves unit Gilden Silveric. (Hero, art by Para.B)
*9. Added Ashen Veil unit Kael Coalbane. (Hero, art by C.Roland)
*10. Added Ashen Veil unit Rosier the Fallen. (Hero, art by Bhita)
*11. Added Order unit Valin Phanuel. (Hero, art by Bhita)
*12. Added Order unit Maros. (Hero)
*13. Added Runes of Kilmorph unit Bambur. (Hero)
*14. Added Runes of Kilmorph unit Arthendain. (Hero, art by C.Roland)
*15. Added Octopus Overlords unit Hemah. (Hero, art by C.Roland)
*16. Added Octopus Overlords unit Saverous. (Hero, art by C.Roland)
*17. Added Twincast Promotion (unit summons twice the normal amount of spells)
*18. Added Hero Promotion (unit gains 1 xp per turn up to 100 xp)
*19. Religious Heroes will desert you if their religion is abandoned.
*20. Added the Escape spell. (returns the unit to the Civ's capital).
*21. Added Spell Extension promotions.
*22. Added Enslave the Earth. (Armageddon spell, summons the Mithril Golem)
*23. Added the Mithril Golem. (Avatar Unit)
*24. Mages combat promotions are applied to their spells.
*25. Added Bane Divine. (Armageddon spell, reduces all disciples to lowly prophets)
*26. Added Haste spell for Adepts. (gives +1 move and a chance of first strike for 1 turn)
*27. Added Slave unit (half speed worker unit that can be sacrifced for 15 hammers, art by Littleredpoint)
*28. Civilizations with the Slavery civic convert 25% of the units they defeat into Slaves.
*29. If your state religion is the Order state religion recieve a free Crusader in each city that converts to the Order. (recommended by Sareln)
*30. Removed the Trojan Horse until I get some art that is better suited.


Balance Changes:

*1. Blood of the Phoenix made into an Armageddon spell (now grants Medic 1 and Immortal promotions)
*2. Wrath Unleashed made into an Armageddon spell (Wraths strength increased to 22->30)
*3. Entangle now has 100% -5% per level chance of effecting the target instead of a straight 80% chance.
*4. Mithril reduced to +2 Hammers instead of +3. (recommended by pippin_nl)
*5. All Mages lost the bombard ability.
*6. Bombard ability added to Fireballs and Meteors.
*7. Bless now gives +15% vs Demons in addition to its +15% strength.
*8. Workshops offer +1 Hammer with Poisons.
*9. Lumber mills offer +1 Hammer with Hidden Paths.
*10. Ability to build Watermills and Windmills moved up from Machinery to Engineering.
*11. Watermills and Windmills offer +1 Hammer with Machinery.
*12. Windmills offer +1 Gold with Craftmanship.
*13. Watermills offer +2 Gold with Craftsmanship.
*14. Mithril made less rare. (recommended by Dragonlord)
*15. Fellowship of Leaves spread rate changes from normal + 75% to normal +50%. (recommended by Chammadai)
*16. Mines of Gal-dur, Yggdrasil, the Oracle and Tower of Complacency all require the appropriate state religion to be built.
*17. Grove allows Druids and Beastmasters. (Druid Ring removed)
*18. Large Animal Stables allows Camel Archers and War Elephants. (Camel Stables and Elephant Stables removed)
*19. Bowyer allows Marksman and Flurry. (Archery Targets removed)
*20. Castle allows Paladins and Eidolon. (Abattoir removed)
*21. Cathedral allows High Priests and Inquisitors.
*22. Dungeon made into a Classical Era building that gives -25% War Weariness, -25% Maintenance costs and -1 Happiness.
*22. Hippodome allows Knights and War Chariots. (Jousting Field removed)
*23. Weaponsmith allows Phalanx and Immortals.
*24. Colosseum changed to a Medieval Era building that provides +1 Happy and +2 XP for Melee Units.
*25. AI made more aggresive (liklihood of delcaring war increased by 10%)
*26. Genesis now upgrades all the owning civs tiles, not just those within 10 squares of the building city.
*27. Removed the Workboat requirement for a Harbor. (recommended by tndp)
*28. Made Gunpowder, Fish, Clams and Crabs more common.
*29. Removed the +10% Military Production from the Arete Civic and added it to Social Order.


Cosmetic Changes:

*1. Copper and Iron Golems lost their shields.
*2. New Archmage skin. (created by Woodelf)
*3. Calendar changed. (recommended by pippin_nl)
*4. 35 new unit pedia entries. (written by Wilboman)
*5. New Conjurer skin. (created by C.Roland)
*6. Added notes on the religion specific civics stating that they require a state religion. (recommended by Xuenay)
*7. Mithril Weapons renamed to Quality Weapons.
*8. Mithril Armor renamed to Quality Armor.
*9. Added Strategy text to all the Civics.
*10. Monotheism renamed to Religious Law. (recommended by Mumin)
*11. BlueMarble terrain graphics added.
*12. Fixed the dash's in quotes so they appear correctly.
*13. Added unit combat pictures for demon, elf, dwarf, adept and disciples.
*14. New Dwarven Soldier skin. (created by C.Roland)
*15. New button art for Sorcery, Dwarven Mining, Hidden Paths, Alchemy, Golem Mastery and Hidden Paths techs.
*16. New button art for the Temple of the Veil, Circus Maximus, Archery Range, Gamling House, Smokehouse, Weaponsmith, Alchemy Lab, Brewery, Elder Council, Stables, Bear Totem and Money Changer buildings.
*17. New button art for the Guardian of Nature civic. (I think every patch has had a new Guardian of Nature pic)
*18. New Diseased Corpses skin. (created by C.Roland)
*19. Gave all the buildings city art. (tons of art reused here)

 

[Sareln]

Regarding the AI's ability to use (and abuse) air power

Personally I see the AI as quite capable of using aircraft. Though it will rarely use fighters for bombing runs or air strikes, rather using them as pure interceptors. Also, the AI prefers to use SAM Infantry over aircraft. This may just be because they've got the SAM's lying around or that some of their city defenders promote to them.

What you won't see is the AI assembling an air fleet of over 30 Fighters and 15 bombers to literally tear apart cities and their defenders for an advancing line of tanks

Actually, to be more clear, at the even-steven level and slightly above, which is where I play (Noble and Prince) the largest air stack that I've seen is 5 fighters and 9 bombers obviously aimed at one of my nearby cities.

 

[belkot]

some ideas

Ancient forest
maybe it can work like cottages/hamlet/village/town improvement?
Require Leaves religion, tech: hidden path.
first level: elven forest - gives this same output like normal forest but if you have guardian of nature civics you have extra +1food
2th level: after 20 turns it's change into sacred forest +1gold
3th level after 50 turns - finally ancient forest +1 hammer
all extra profits will works only in guardian of nature civics.

similar bonus you can give to dwarves dwarfs will have special dwarf mine (1 level +1gold/2l +1hammer/3l +1 gold)

overlord - special improvement for the sea titles - this religion should give extra bonuses from the sea. This improvement can work like ancient forest/dwarf mines or can be give small additional food from sea.

advantages:
1. different landscape for different religion – elves will have a dense forests, dwarfs – lot of mines, overlords – can have huge coastal cities.
2. making harder to change religion (you lost all extra output)
3. gives some diversity of less abstract religion (runes, overlord and leaves) and more abstract – veil and order

disadvantages:

1. how to make AI to use of this improvements
2. balance of religion – probably Veil and Order will need something extra.

 

[Dragonlord]

The change list looks awesome! Many thanks for all the work you're putting into this Mod, it's greatly appreciated!

I'm sure I speak for all the others who are too busy playing your Mod to post regularly

 

[Silica_Pathways]

*10. Added Ashen Veil unit Rosier the Fallen. (Hero, art by Bhita)

Sweet.... My gf's nickname is Fallen, so can u show me this artwork ? If it'll be good enough, maybe i will be able to convince her to play FfH with me

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

some ideas

Ancient forest
maybe it can work like cottages/hamlet/village/town improvement?
Require Leaves religion, tech: hidden path.
first level: elven forest - gives this same output like normal forest but if you have guardian of nature civics you have extra +1food
2th level: after 20 turns it's change into sacred forest +1gold
3th level after 50 turns - finally ancient forest +1 hammer
all extra profits will works only in guardian of nature civics.

similar bonus you can give to dwarves dwarfs will have special dwarf mine (1 level +1gold/2l +1hammer/3l +1 gold)

overlord - special improvement for the sea titles - this religion should give extra bonuses from the sea. This improvement can work like ancient forest/dwarf mines or can be give small additional food from sea.

advantages:
1. different landscape for different religion – elves will have a dense forests, dwarfs – lot of mines, overlords – can have huge coastal cities.
2. making harder to change religion (you lost all extra output)
3. gives some diversity of less abstract religion (runes, overlord and leaves) and more abstract – veil and order

disadvantages:

1. how to make AI to use of this improvements
2. balance of religion – probably Veil and Order will need something extra.

OOOO! nice ideas! i dont think it would be too hard to get the AI to use them, would it?

 

[woodelf]

WOW! Kael that is some impressive list of changes for a 2 week period.

Will there be a 0.90 or are you jumping to Phase I?

 

[Kael]

WOW! Kael that is some impressive list of changes for a 2 week period.

Will there be a 0.90 or are you jumping to Phase I?

0.90 will be released on January 27th and 1.0 on Febuary 10th. At that point Fall from Heaven Phase 1 will be complete and I will sit down to prioritizing and making decisions on what will be in Phase 2. Im hoping the SDK is available by then and I can start to look at all the ideas I had to shelve because I didn't have access to it.

But at the very least thats when I start working on quests, equipment, new civs, new resources and terrains (though Im still hoping to get Ancient Forests in phase 1). And the ability I want most, the ability to level and cast spells. If I can get that then I can start giving spells to non-mages and I can have mages pick their spell spheres when they level so they can choose their spells.

 

[woodelf]

Do you have a premade map in mind for scenarios? I'm hoping that once phase I is complete we can see some community made scenarios using this mod. I love random maps, but there's more of an atmosphere when everyone plays and discusses a premade map.

 

[Kael]

Sweet.... My gf's nickname is Fallen, so can u show me this artwork ? If it'll be good enough, maybe i will be able to convince her to play FfH with me

Rosier has the shield with the Ashen Veil symbol on it. Gilden (one of the Fellowship heroes) is standing in front of him and Saverous (Overlords hero) is behind them.

 

[Kael]

Do you have a premade map in mind for scenarios? I'm hoping that once phase I is complete we can see some community made scenarios using this mod. I love random maps, but there's more of an atmosphere when everyone plays and discusses a premade map.

Yeah, scenerios will use premade maps.