[MOD] Fall from Heaven

[nealhunt]

That would be here, go for it.

Hmm...

To be honest, I was hoping to find something that was not intermingled with the tech talk about the mod.

I have played it a couple games and while it seems pretty cool, just the sheer volume of units, buildings, and civs makes for a much greater number of permutations when it comes to designing strats. Then the fact that a lot has been modded so that there are minor bonuses and penalties strewn about really cries out for additional considerations beyond just what you would expect from the numbers.

I think a bit of "talking shop" would go a long way towards giving me a bit of focus, but I am quite afraid it will get buried in this thread.

Is there a spot on the boards where any mod-play issues/strats are discussed? If so, I don't mind starting a thread.

 

[Mr.Earl]

I have another question, about religion this time. Is there a religion that is sort of an Anti-Magic religion? Or an Anti-Magic Civic? I'm just curious.

 

[Kael]

Hmm...

To be honest, I was hoping to find something that was not intermingled with the tech talk about the mod.

I have played it a couple games and while it seems pretty cool, just the sheer volume of units, buildings, and civs makes for a much greater number of permutations when it comes to designing strats. Then the fact that a lot has been modded so that there are minor bonuses and penalties strewn about really cries out for additional considerations beyond just what you would expect from the numbers.

I think a bit of "talking shop" would go a long way towards giving me a bit of focus, but I am quite afraid it will get buried in this thread.

Is there a spot on the boards where any mod-play issues/strats are discussed? If so, I don't mind starting a thread.

Yeah thats cool, you could start a thread wherever you prefer and link it here. I could even put a link to it in the first post if you would like.

 

[Kael]

I have another question, about religion this time. Is there a religion that is sort of an Anti-Magic religion? Or an Anti-Magic Civic? I'm just curious.

The Grigori (a phase 2 civ) are Agnostic. They believe that the gods still wage the war they fought directly during the Age of Dragons, but now they fight it through their mortal pawns. Cassiel is their leader, he is a renegade angel that has disobeyed his lord to try to protect men. Technically he isn't anti-religion, he just thinks the gods should leave mortals alone and relgious people are fools.

There is also a Magic Resistance trait, units created by civs with this trait start with the Magic Resistance promotion (+40% vs magical creatures and spells).

 

[kopaladin]

I'm using .95g version

My melee characters seem to have lost the ability to blitz. I have the celerity tech and combat V but still my macemen or my berserker can't choose the blitz promo.

When looking at the pedia entries it's missing on all the melee units cept Baron Von Bitey.

Did something change to nerf the blitz promo. I had this ability still in .9

 

[Snerk]

Ok i've got a problem, hope someone can help.
I've founded runes of kilmorph and im going for a religion victory. I've spread it to every singel city and every civs have it as their state religion. But in the victory screen i just have a 77% religion influence and not the required 80% to win. Why havent I won yet? I cant see anything more to do...

 

[ma.KaBre]

Ok i've got a problem, hope someone can help.
I've founded runes of kilmorph and im going for a religion victory. I've spread it to every singel city and every civs have it as their state religion. But in the victory screen i just have a 77% religion influence and not the required 80% to win. Why havent I won yet? I cant see anything more to do...

Sounds like Runes is not the only religion in all cities! All secondary religions per city count towards the religious influence as well. You'll have to use inquisitors to get rid of these religions in some cities.

 

[Snerk]

Sounds like Runes is not the only religion in all cities! All secondary religions per city count towards the religious influence as well. You'll have to use inquisitors to get rid of these religions in some cities.

Yes that would explain it...
Ok but how do i get inquisitors, and how do i use them?

 

[Kael]

I'm using .95g version

My melee characters seem to have lost the ability to blitz. I have the celerity tech and combat V but still my macemen or my berserker can't choose the blitz promo.

When looking at the pedia entries it's missing on all the melee units cept Baron Von Bitey.

Did something change to nerf the blitz promo. I had this ability still in .9

I will take a look at it tonight. I can't think of anything that would let Duin have it but no one else.

 

[Kael]

Yes that would explain it...
Ok but how do i get inquisitors, and how do i use them?

Inquisitioners require the Divine Right tech and a Cathedral.

To use them send them to the city to purge and they will have an "Inquisition" button.

 

[TheJopa]

Well speaking of anti-magic and anti-religion, there could be civic in religion category, called "Technocracy" or "Pro-Science" or whatever, with benefits: No state religion, +25% science, -1 happy per non state religion. It would allow bulilding of some special units like heavy arquebusier or something similar. Free religion would have to lost science bonus.
Just a thought for phase 2.

 

[Kael]

Well speaking of anti-magic and anti-religion, there could be civic in religion category, called "Technocracy" or "Pro-Science" or whatever, with benefits: No state religion, +25% science, -1 happy per non state religion. It would allow bulilding of some special units like heavy arquebusier or something similar. Free religion would have to lost science bonus.
Just a thought for phase 2.

That sounds pretty close to free religion. I thought about allowing for a technology path that would be anti-religion and anti-magic that would allow the invention of more scientific devices. The problem from a design level is that functionaly science and magic are the same. So I had problems making the techno tract different at a functional level than the magic, melee and religious tracts. Without a design space to work in there wasn't much I could do.

Thats not to say that someone couldn't mod in their own civ with new uu's and blocks on the arcane units that lets them add a techno civ to FfH.

 

[Pegasos]

Yeah thats cool, you could start a thread wherever you prefer and link it here. I could even put a link to it in the first post if you would like.

Now there is that problem that that thread will get full also Kael, you´ve made this mod a bit too good.

 

[Pegasos]

Oh well...
10000 posts we are on the way!

I´d say 100.000 if world doesn´t end before it

 

[Good Sauce]

The Grigori (a phase 2 civ) are Agnostic. They believe that the gods still wage the war they fought directly during the Age of Dragons, but now they fight it through their mortal pawns. Cassiel is their leader, he is a renegade angel that has disobeyed his lord to try to protect men. Technically he isn't anti-religion, he just thinks the gods should leave mortals alone and relgious people are fools.

I don't think agnostic is quite the right word. If their leader is an angel i don't think there'd be much doubt about the existance of a diety.

 

[CurtisC]

Feel free, anything you would like.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=164283
Not really what I would like, but it is a start. Will update soon.

Curtis

 

[nealhunt]

First, before I start with what is (hopefully) constructive criticism, let me say that I really like the overall design. I think the conceptual work is first rate and it's clear that Kael has a lot of backstory stuff that is yet to be incorporated. I also think that a lot of the play effects, like disease spreading and summoning units, are well done.

That said, I have a few issues but he biggest one is the AIs. I don't think they are up to the challenge of the radically different enviornment.

I play normally on Prince/Monarch with a wide range of maps and size types. I usually win on prince and I stay competitive on Monarch. Last night I played a Fall game on Prince and dominated. Not only did I dominate, I took 2 stacks of 4 units each and completely swept 2 opposing civs off the map. My biggest problem was producing follow-on units fast enough to garrison the cities I was capturing. I was also behind my first victim on technology when I started the rampage. The civs never did react like they were at war.

Basically, it seems like they are simply incapable of judging the relative value of all their new options or optimizing at all.

I suspect that the issue probably has a lot to do with the interactions between the large number of prerequisites and allowable units. In the core game, the substantially lower number of restrictions means that it's easier for an AI to optimize as it doesn't have to plan ahead 3 steps to get to a good unit. It just pounds down the tech chart until it's available and if the "random" production doesn't produce a particular building in the meantime, that doesn't change whether the better units become available.

Even in the core game, the AIs are known for not using buildings in an optimal fashion. In Fall, both the large number of buildings with (imho) questionable value and the large number of building prerequisites means that the AIs seem to do especially poorly.

I suppose that on the really high difficulties the massive production discounts might make up for that, but I'm not sure. I have a feeling that most would just end up with a large horde of lousy units and buildings.

I would suggest trying to reduce the heavy reliance on buildings and also make certain that all the buildings have a substantial value as the best ways to increase AI play. There might be other issues exposed after that (like AI use of civics), but if they exist they are currently second-order issues.

===

Again, I want to emphasize that I really like the conceptual work and overall I think this is a good job.

 

[Kael]

I don't think agnostic is quite the right word. If their leader is an angel i don't think there'd be much doubt about the existance of a diety.

agnostic

adj : uncertain of all claims to knowledge [syn: agnostical] [ant: gnostic] n : a person who doubts truth of religion [syn: doubter]

You may be thinking if atheist, and atheist doesn't believe there is a god. An agnostic doesn't know, or believes that even if there is a god it doesn't have any application to their lives.

Cassiel doesn't know if the "gods" are truely gods are not. Regardless (in his opinion) they are undeserving of worship. There is a sect of the Grigori called the Luonnotar who beleive that the "true god" came before and has abandoned the world to its current caretakers. The wonder "Altar of the Luonnotar" was the Luonnotar's holiest relic, evidence of a creator power beyond that of the worlds "gods".

But agnostic may not be the best term. Its better to say they are anti-religion.

 

[Kael]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=164283
Not really what I would like, but it is a start. Will update soon.

Curtis

Awesome, thanks CurtisC, I added a link to your thread in the first post in this thread.

 

[Kael]

First, before I start with what is (hopefully) constructive criticism, let me say that I really like the overall design. I think the conceptual work is first rate and it's clear that Kael has a lot of backstory stuff that is yet to be incorporated. I also think that a lot of the play effects, like disease spreading and summoning units, are well done.

That said, I have a few issues but he biggest one is the AIs. I don't think they are up to the challenge of the radically different enviornment.

I play normally on Prince/Monarch with a wide range of maps and size types. I usually win on prince and I stay competitive on Monarch. Last night I played a Fall game on Prince and dominated. Not only did I dominate, I took 2 stacks of 4 units each and completely swept 2 opposing civs off the map. My biggest problem was producing follow-on units fast enough to garrison the cities I was capturing. I was also behind my first victim on technology when I started the rampage. The civs never did react like they were at war.

Basically, it seems like they are simply incapable of judging the relative value of all their new options or optimizing at all.

I suspect that the issue probably has a lot to do with the interactions between the large number of prerequisites and allowable units. In the core game, the substantially lower number of restrictions means that it's easier for an AI to optimize as it doesn't have to plan ahead 3 steps to get to a good unit. It just pounds down the tech chart until it's available and if the "random" production doesn't produce a particular building in the meantime, that doesn't change whether the better units become available.

Even in the core game, the AIs are known for not using buildings in an optimal fashion. In Fall, both the large number of buildings with (imho) questionable value and the large number of building prerequisites means that the AIs seem to do especially poorly.

I suppose that on the really high difficulties the massive production discounts might make up for that, but I'm not sure. I have a feeling that most would just end up with a large horde of lousy units and buildings.

I would suggest trying to reduce the heavy reliance on buildings and also make certain that all the buildings have a substantial value as the best ways to increase AI play. There might be other issues exposed after that (like AI use of civics), but if they exist they are currently second-order issues.

===

Again, I want to emphasize that I really like the conceptual work and overall I think this is a good job.

I agree with everything you have said. And there are tons of things I haven't implemented because the AI doesn't use them well. And even a few things I pulled out because the AI wasn't using it correctly. To be honest there are a few things in the mod now that I know the AI doesn't use but I judge them as of very minor strategic importance (the AI used hawks SO badly it isn't allowed to make them anymore).

Remember prior to version 1 was done without having any access to the AI, so I just had to do the best with what I had. To Firxais's credit nearly the whole system has been rebuilt and the AI does a decent job of adjusting to the changes. But your right, it isn't as good with the new stuff as it is with the vanilla civ features. For example the AI doesnt calc the units a building will give access to when judging what to build, so there has been some very dirty tricks done in the background to get it where it is. It could be better, but it gets better in every version. Im sure those that played 0.50 and 0.60 will agree.