[MOD] Fall from Heaven

[The Spoon]

First I want my turn to be a parrot and say that this mod look awesome! I've downloaded it and fiddled with it a bit, but I'm having a little problem, and maybe someone here can help me out.
This is the first mod I've installed and run, so maybe I'm doing something wrong.
The problem is that when I start it up there are no interface menus (you know, the unit status thingy, the map, etc...) and I cannot bring them up with keyboard commands. I also cannot access the city screens, civpedia, options menu, or any of the advisors. So I can still sorta play the game, but not really. Anyone know what is happening here or how I can fix it?

Thanks

The Spoon of Doom

 

[Kael]

First I want my turn to be a parrot and say that this mod look awesome! I've downloaded it and fiddled with it a bit, but I'm having a little problem, and maybe someone here can help me out.
This is the first mod I've installed and run, so maybe I'm doing something wrong.
The problem is that when I start it up there are no interface menus (you know, the unit status thingy, the map, etc...) and I cannot bring them up with keyboard commands. I also cannot access the city screens, civpedia, options menu, or any of the advisors. So I can still sorta play the game, but not really. Anyone know what is happening here or how I can fix it?

Thanks

The Spoon of Doom

First off welcome to civfanatics and cool name!

I would check for 2 things:

1. First make sure you are running Civ patch 1.52.

2. If you are you may have some conflicting files in your customassets directory. Rename the customassets directory to customassets.old (the game will make a new one when it starts up).

let me know if that doesnt fix it for you.

 

[The Spoon]

OK, I did that - now an error message pops up while it's loading. The message reads: "Failed to Load Python Module CvEventInterface"

Any meaning to you?

 

[TheNewSaint]

OK, I deleted the version .70 (?) and dl'ed .95. When I ran the mod, I was playing .80! This makes no sense considering I haven't even dl'ed .80! What did I do?

 

[naf4ever]

Was it intentional that the Arete and Military State civics give a + bonus to free "military units" and not just "units"? The reason I ask is because it seems rather pointless. The military unit cost section of the financial advisor screen only becomes positive in the first place if you are in pacifism and have an increased cost to military units, otherwise im pretty sure the base default cost of the "military unit" section is always zero no matter how large your army. Which means a bonus to this is moot and only useful if you are in pacifism. I noticed this while playing a game where i had lots of units that were eating up my treasury. I switched to Arete hoping for a discount but none appeared. Feudalism in the vanilla games gives a bonus to just "units" and results in making it a militaristic type civic by allowing for the free support of more units. Im thinking maybe this is what you were intending. As it stands now only people with big armies in pacifism benefit from these two, otherwise you get no bonus.

Heres a good article that explains maintence costs: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=141475

 

[Kael]

OK, I did that - now an error message pops up while it's loading. The message reads: "Failed to Load Python Module CvEventInterface"

Any meaning to you?

That probably means you have files in your customassets directory.

 

[Kael]

OK, I deleted the version .70 (?) and dl'ed .95. When I ran the mod, I was playing .80! This makes no sense considering I haven't even dl'ed .80! What did I do?

No idea. If you installed 0.95 in the correct location you should have a "Fall from Heaven 0.95" mod listed in your mods even if you have earlier versions.

When you run the executable check and make sure that the path it default to is where you installed Civ4.

 

[Kael]

Was it intentional that the Arete and Military State civics give a + bonus to free "military units" and not just "units"? The reason I ask is because it seems rather pointless. The military unit cost section of the financial advisor screen only becomes positive in the first place if you are in pacifism and have an increased cost to military units, otherwise im pretty sure the base default cost of the "military unit" section is always zero no matter how large your army. Which means a bonus to this is moot and only useful if you are in pacifism. I noticed this while playing a game where i had lots of units that were eating up my treasury. I switched to Arete hoping for a discount but none appeared. Feudalism in the vanilla games gives a bonus to just "units" and results in making it a militaristic type civic by allowing for the free support of more units. Im thinking maybe this is what you were intending. As it stands now only people with big armies in pacifism benefit from these two, otherwise you get no bonus.

Heres a good article that explains maintence costs: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=141475

I was wondering what the difference between those 2 things were. I'll switch it to units as you suggest.

 

[TheJopa]

I suppose that Felowship of the leaves and runes will lose their current special units once you add elven and dwarven civ. But will you add some other units instead? Mud golems, ents, valkyres? Elver Riders for elf civ etc?
What will be downsides of Vampires and vampire civ?
You have my full support, if I can do anything useful, like going through Morowind MP3s and picking valuable ones, I will do that.

 

[felwar]

I've been trying out seafaring a bit, and I had a question and some comments. First, maybe I'm just not finding it, but do arcane and seafaring reduce the cost of any buildings?

For my comments, seafaring is an odd trait in that I feel it's either vastly overpowered, or vastly underpowered, with little middle ground. Granted, this depends a bit on what map type you are playing, but I doubt many people would choose a seafaring race on a highlands map to begin with.

Underpowered: Simply put, if you dont have fish, clams, crabs, or whales, it doesnt do anything. If you have 1 at a city, it's still underwhelming, and if you have 2, it may be fairly balanced. But it heavily relies upon map position and luck in 2 degrees. By that I mean you are not only hoping to be by the sea, you're also hoping for sea-based resources.

Overpowered: This trait has also made for some of the easist games I've seen, to the point of just starting over because victory was so clear (2 games on prince, one on monarch). On an island or archipelago map, this was understandable. I started with 2-3 sea resources and just settled cities by more of them, and the cities grew incredibly fast. This also happened on a pangea map because for some reason many capitals along the shore start with 4-6 clams/fish/crabs.

The reason for this seems to be that you are able to build work boats instead of workers, and the benefit you're getting by the third workboat while your city has been growing this entire time, is roughly 50% greater than normal. Population growth is very fast, and you can spit out workers and settlers (and warriors with conquest) at a rate completely unmatched by anyone else. It makes for incredibly fast expansion with the need to only work 4-6 tiles in a city.

In the prince games I had triple the score of the next highest opponent by turn 200, and I hadnt even gone to war. The monarch game was still double their score by turn 200, and it was clear there was no way I was going to lose.

I realize it may seem overpowered to give a bonus to every coastal or ocean space within a city's workable area, but at this point I am thinking it may help balance out this trait, both by making it more useful in general, but making it less "concentrated" in its power, if that makes sense.

 

[Kael]

I suppose that Felowship of the leaves and runes will lose their current special units once you add elven and dwarven civ. But will you add some other units instead? Mud golems, ents, valkyres? Elver Riders for elf civ etc?
What will be downsides of Vampires and vampire civ?
You have my full support, if I can do anything useful, like going through Morowind MP3s and picking valuable ones, I will do that.

I will still want to have unique units that can only be gained by having the appropriate religion. Just as you say that may not be Elven archers and Dwarven soldiers (or it may be, I don't know yet). The Drown will definitly stay in for the Overlords.

Elven Riders and Mud Golems are already in. Elven Riders are UU's for the Ljosalfar ("Elves"), Mud Golems are a UU worker unit for the Luchuirp ("Good Dwarves").

The bad side of the Calabim at this point is that they aren't that strong until they get to their Vampire UU. The Blood Pets and Moroi are decent units on their own but don't really come into their full use until you have Vampire units to work with them. Vampires themselves are also vulnerable to the anti-undead spells in the mod.

The spell sphere they start with (Body) doesn't have any direct damage spells just buffs. And one of the most powerful of those buffs (Burning Blood) comes with a serious negative consequence, 50% chance to kill the unit.

Body also doesn't have any summoning spells, meaning they will have to get access to another mana type before they will be able build conjurers and summon anything. And they are evil, which means the more trustworthy civs will start with negative relationships toward them, and the people that do like them aren't very loyal.

It would definitly save me time if you could put together some audio spell effects for me. I will PM you my email address. Im on the wrong side of the planet than my Morrowind CD's so it will be great to have. Thanks!

 

[Kael]

I've been trying out seafaring a bit, and I had a question and some comments. First, maybe I'm just not finding it, but do arcane and seafaring reduce the cost of any buildings?

For my comments, seafaring is an odd trait in that I feel it's either vastly overpowered, or vastly underpowered, with little middle ground. Granted, this depends a bit on what map type you are playing, but I doubt many people would choose a seafaring race on a highlands map to begin with.

Underpowered: Simply put, if you dont have fish, clams, crabs, or whales, it doesnt do anything. If you have 1 at a city, it's still underwhelming, and if you have 2, it may be fairly balanced. But it heavily relies upon map position and luck in 2 degrees. By that I mean you are not only hoping to be by the sea, you're also hoping for sea-based resources.

Overpowered: This trait has also made for some of the easist games I've seen, to the point of just starting over because victory was so clear (2 games on prince, one on monarch). On an island or archipelago map, this was understandable. I started with 2-3 sea resources and just settled cities by more of them, and the cities grew incredibly fast. This also happened on a pangea map because for some reason many capitals along the shore start with 4-6 clams/fish/crabs.

The reason for this seems to be that you are able to build work boats instead of workers, and the benefit you're getting by the third workboat while your city has been growing this entire time, is roughly 50% greater than normal. Population growth is very fast, and you can spit out workers and settlers (and warriors with conquest) at a rate completely unmatched by anyone else. It makes for incredibly fast expansion with the need to only work 4-6 tiles in a city.

In the prince games I had triple the score of the next highest opponent by turn 200, and I hadnt even gone to war. The monarch game was still double their score by turn 200, and it was clear there was no way I was going to lose.

I realize it may seem overpowered to give a bonus to every coastal or ocean space within a city's workable area, but at this point I am thinking it may help balance out this trait, both by making it more useful in general, but making it less "concentrated" in its power, if that makes sense.

Thats great feedback, Im going to have to think about it.

 

[Dragonlord]

Im sure those that played 0.50 and 0.60 will agree.

Oh yes! Getting better all the time!
I'm just waiting for 1.0 to jump back in with both feet..

 

[nealhunt]

Kael: Hey. I'm glad my post didn't offend you and I'm also glad that you had recognized those problems already. I think I may try a few games on higher difficulties to see how much that compensates for the AI challenges.

I'm also sure that in ~260 pages of posts, some of this has been addressed before, but I'm far too lazy to read all of that, so please forgive me if some of this has been repeated.

Since the question of UUs was raised, I have a few thoughts.

One of my friends' biggest complaints was the fact that the differences in civs weren't expressed in the units. A Halfling Axeman was just as good as a Dwarven Axeman. That got me thinking about UUs and such.

The idea that Elven/Dwarven units would only be available to the appropriate civs is obvious. However, in keeping with the religion-based units, there could also be Elven/Dwarven/Whatever units available based on religion. I could see, for instance, a Runes civilization attracting close dwarven allies.

That kind of approach would give you built-in UUs (basically absconding with existing units) but still allow religion-based units.

In a similar race-based approach, rather than creating a Centaur UU, you could simply count the Centaur nation as always having access to Horses. If that is deemed too powerful, perhaps it could be instituted in place of a normal civ trait.

I don't know how difficult it would be from a coding perspective (I suspect rather difficult), but doing something like reducing the size of the halfling/goblin skins and increasing the numbers would be a very nice improvement in the feel. Seeing 5 or 6 little axemen versus 3 big ones would put things in a better perspective.

====

Anyway, it's clear that you have specific plans for religions, units, and such. I looked through all the "reserved" posts at the top of the threads, but only saw vagure references. Before I rattle on with a horde of ideas that have been discussed already or may even already be on the drawing board, is there a place where you have a collection of intended development?

 

[Kael]

Kael: Hey. I'm glad my post didn't offend you and I'm also glad that you had recognized those problems already. I think I may try a few games on higher difficulties to see how much that compensates for the AI challenges.

I'm also sure that in ~260 pages of posts, some of this has been addressed before, but I'm far too lazy to read all of that, so please forgive me if some of this has been repeated.

Since the question of UUs was raised, I have a few thoughts.

One of my friends' biggest complaints was the fact that the differences in civs weren't expressed in the units. A Halfling Axeman was just as good as a Dwarven Axeman. That got me thinking about UUs and such.

The idea that Elven/Dwarven units would only be available to the appropriate civs is obvious. However, in keeping with the religion-based units, there could also be Elven/Dwarven/Whatever units available based on religion. I could see, for instance, a Runes civilization attracting close dwarven allies.

That kind of approach would give you built-in UUs (basically absconding with existing units) but still allow religion-based units.

In a similar race-based approach, rather than creating a Centaur UU, you could simply count the Centaur nation as always having access to Horses. If that is deemed too powerful, perhaps it could be instituted in place of a normal civ trait.

I don't know how difficult it would be from a coding perspective (I suspect rather difficult), but doing something like reducing the size of the halfling/goblin skins and increasing the numbers would be a very nice improvement in the feel. Seeing 5 or 6 little axemen versus 3 big ones would put things in a better perspective.

====

Anyway, it's clear that you have specific plans for religions, units, and such. I looked through all the "reserved" posts at the top of the threads, but only saw vagure references. Before I rattle on with a horde of ideas that have been discussed already or may even already be on the drawing board, is there a place where you have a collection of intended development?

The design docs for Phase 2 haven't been released and probably won't be until the first version of phase 2 goes beta. I do update the 7th post in this thread with occasional phase 2 updates for those that are wondering how we are doing.

Keep in mind that phase 2 is not version 1.0. Version 1.0 was finished in early february and I haven't been able to release it yet. It will contain the same civs that are in 0.95 and is fully detailed in the first post in this thread. Phase 2 is a complete reworking of Fall from Heaven with some very ambicious features planned.

As civilizations go there are 22 in phase 2, 19 of which are playable. 16 of those 19 are currently checked in as playable in the first build of phase 2 ("Light"). All of the civs have some UU's, some have more than others. The Elven, Dwarven and Orcish civs have the most UU's (because they have racial version of almost all the units) but even the human civ's will have a few. Every civ will also have at least one hero.

People tend to view the Fellowship as the "Elven religion" and Runes as the "Dwarven religion" but there are no forced ties between those. The game will incent that relationship just by starting configuration (the elves will beging with techs that lead them toward the Fellowship so if they want to get it fist they can) and the starting alignment will match the religion, but if you want to play the elves and make them into a cruel demon worshipping, elf sacrificing, necromantic civilization then you are free to do so.

And more than it being possible, it is also viable. I won't be blocking UU's based on religions or otherwise handicapping players who want to try an unusual combination. To me, that is part of the fun of the game.

 

[tyrantpimp]

Kael, Great mod i have been playing it off and on for the last month or so. Usually i end up playing with the fellowship religion. One thing that bugs me is that in order to cultivate resources or build cities the forests must be cleared. It just seems like the elves would be a bit more adept at being one with nature ~ its hard to see them clear cutting forest just for some resources. And you would figure their cities would be more eco friendly. Have you thought about these things?

 

[Kael]

Kael, Great mod i have been playing it off and on for the last month or so. Usually i end up playing with the fellowship religion. One thing that bugs me is that in order to cultivate resources or build cities the forests must be cleared. It just seems like the elves would be a bit more adept at being one with nature ~ its hard to see them clear cutting forest just for some resources. And you would figure their cities would be more eco friendly. Have you thought about these things?

Yes, the Fellowship are not elves, it's just a religion that reveres nature.

The actual Elven civs in Phase 2 are planned to not be able to remove forests and they are able to build improvements on tiles without removing the forests and jungles from them. Which sounds riht along the lines of what you are thinking.

 

[Unser Giftzwerg]

For my comments, seafaring is an odd trait in that I feel it's either vastly overpowered, or vastly underpowered, with little middle ground. Granted, this depends a bit on what map type you are playing, but I doubt many people would choose a seafaring race on a highlands map to begin with.

The reason for this seems to be that you are able to build work boats instead of workers, and the benefit you're getting by the third workboat while your city has been growing this entire time, is roughly 50% greater than normal. Population growth is very fast, and you can spit out workers and settlers (and warriors with conquest) at a rate completely unmatched by anyone else. It makes for incredibly fast expansion with the need to only work 4-6 tiles in a city.

In the prince games I had triple the score of the next highest opponent by turn 200, and I hadnt even gone to war. The monarch game was still double their score by turn 200, and it was clear there was no way I was going to lose.

Aha! I started a Monarch game playing a random civ, and got a Seafaring civ. I didn't know what that trait did, and I sort of forgot I had it. But now I understand why crabs, etc, produce so much food and even a hammer!

I have not played the mod long enough to make any judgment on Seafaring. However, I have played a few games of vanilla cIV in which my starting area had a lot of crabs, fish, and clams. And I found that sort of starting position to be a tremendous benefit, for exactly the reasons you mention. I think some of sucess with sea reasorces is built into the basic cIV game.

It's an amazing mod. Can't wait for the next version.

 

[naf4ever]

Hey just wanted to say that i noticed one of the features from slaves is they can be upgraded to lunatics. This is very expensive though, like 250 gold for 1. Not real viable. Is it possible to change this around. Maybe add a button to the slave so it can either function like it does now giving +15 production to any building OR maybe adding twice or 3 times that amount to the production of lunatics?

 

[Kael]

Hey just wanted to say that i noticed one of the features from slaves is they can be upgraded to lunatics. This is very expensive though, like 250 gold for 1. Not real viable. Is it possible to change this around. Maybe add a button to the slave so it can either function like it does now giving +15 production to any building OR maybe adding twice or 3 times that amount to the production of lunatics?

I can make it cost whatever we want. What do you think is fair?