WarKirby
Arty person
I thought it might be nice to release the modifications to FF that I'm playing now. No major new features or anything like that, just some minor tweaking. Some
things for logic, some for game balance, some things to make stuff fit lore better, some things that just seemed fun, and some to remove annoyances.
Download Link: WarKirbyMod v0.1
The full list of Changes
==================================================
Units
------------
Promotions
-----------------------
Techs
----------------------
Civs:
-------------------
Installation
==============================
To use, just unzip into this directory: \Sid Meier's Civilisation IV\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Fall Further 050\Assets\XML
The xmls will go into the appropriate subfolder. However.
IT WILL OVERWRITE EXISTING FILES. I suggest making a backup of all affected files if you're unsure about these changes.
Affected files are:
\Units\CIV4UnitInfos.xml
\Units\CIV4PromotionInfos.xml
\Civilizations\CIV4CivilizationInfos.xml
\Civilizations\CIV4LeaderHeadInfos.xml
\TechnologiesCivilizations\CIV4TechInfos.xml
Explanations
==============================
things for logic, some for game balance, some things to make stuff fit lore better, some things that just seemed fun, and some to remove annoyances.
Download Link: WarKirbyMod v0.1
The full list of Changes
==================================================
Spoiler :
Units
------------
- Longbowman Ranged Strength increased from 2 to 4
- Luonnotars now start with Chaos III.
- Paramanders can now use metal weapons. Base strength reduced from 7 to 6
- Removed immune to cold and vulnerable to fire from Drifa the White Dragon
- Baron Duin halfmorn now starts with Cannibalise, as per his lore entry
- Moroi never become obsolete
- Radiant guard get +1 str (to 5)
- Radiant Guard lose +10% city attack bonus
- Radiant Guard gain +25% city defence bonus added
- Radiant Guard get free Guardsman promotion
- Radiant Guard will never become obsolete
Promotions
-----------------------
- Guerilla promotions tweaked. They have a reduced hill defense bonus, but gain some hill attack bonus too.
-Guerilla I - 15% hill attack, 30% hill defence (down from 40% defence)
-Guerilla II - 25% hill attack, 40% hill defence (down from 60% defence) - All werewolves can learn cannibalise after Combat II
- Woodsman promo line now available to archery units.
- Woodsman II now available to melee units
- Archery I now gives +1 ranged strength.
- Perfect Sight now gives +3 visibility range
- Ljosalfar archers get +1 ranged combat from Dextrous trait
- All dragons can now fly
- All dragons get +3 extra movement, to make them more reasonable in comparison to ground units on roads.
- Mounted, disciple, and archery units can now learn Scourge promotion (why was this so restricted?)
- Disciple units can now learn twincast (same reqs as Arcane, Hero + Combat V)
- Formation (anti mounted) promo, now only requires Combat I, not combat II
- Guardsman now requires Combat II, and not Combat IV
- Wall Defender promo now gives +1 visibility.
Techs
----------------------
- Boywers cost lowered from 2400 - 1500
- Elementalism/Necromancy/Alteration/Divination cost lowered 800-600
- Precision reduced 6400 - 3200
Civs:
-------------------
- Charadon of Doviello gains Charismatic trait
- Mahala of Doviello gains Financial, Barbarian traits
- Lanun now start with fishing tech
Installation
==============================
To use, just unzip into this directory: \Sid Meier's Civilisation IV\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Fall Further 050\Assets\XML
The xmls will go into the appropriate subfolder. However.
IT WILL OVERWRITE EXISTING FILES. I suggest making a backup of all affected files if you're unsure about these changes.
Affected files are:
\Units\CIV4UnitInfos.xml
\Units\CIV4PromotionInfos.xml
\Civilizations\CIV4CivilizationInfos.xml
\Civilizations\CIV4LeaderHeadInfos.xml
\TechnologiesCivilizations\CIV4TechInfos.xml
Explanations
==============================
Spoiler :
If you're wondering about some of these changes, I'd like to take the opportunity here, to explain the reasoning behind each one.
Units
------------
I've done this, because I noticed an oddity. The ranged strengths of archery units, go as follows.
As you might notice, it makes a significant jump from 2, to 4. And I find it particularly illogical, that longbowmen, which are clearly a superior unit, have the same talent at ranged attacks, as their shortbow using comrades. Therefore, I changed the value, to something in between. Giving longbowmen a nice increase, but still below the upper levels.
There's a thread over on the FFH board about luonnotars right now. There seems to be an opinion that they're underpowered, due to losing some ability in the past, and never being given anything to compensate.
Since Luonnotars are believers in The One, who reigns over all other gods, it seems appropriate that whatever power they have be as omniscient as possible, and not limited to any one sphere of influence. Although Chaos magic is it's own sphere, the Wonder spell casts effects randomly from any sphere, and is about as close as we can get to a multi-sphere spell. Since they require the same tech as Archmages, I didn't consider this to be too overpowering, but it will make them a force to be reckoned with.
A common complaint, that I'm inclined to call a bug, because it makes no sense. Paramanders (str 7) are the upgrade to Soldiers of Kilmorph (str4). But SoK can use metal weapons, and paramanders cannot. This allowed SoK to be stronger than paramanders with mythril weapons. And yet, paramanders are a permanant upgrade. And they obsolete SoK. this made no sense.
Therefore, I have given them the ability to use weapons too, and reduced their strength by 1 to compensate. They will now be stronger than Soldiers of Kilmorph, with a max strength of 10, over 8. Unfortunately, they will still obsolete SoK. I intend to change that in the future.
Drifa is immune to magic, therefore these promotions make no sense. Magic immunity may be weakened in the future, porting over a change from FFh. But if that change is made, I will be reverting it. I believe Immunity should mean Immunity. Therefore, these abilities do not, and never will (for me) have any use on drifa. Just removing extraneous junk essentially.
Read the baron's pedia entry. He's an evil general who ate his enemies in life. Now reincarnated as a werewolf, I feel he should keep this. So he now starts with cannibalize. the baron is a "Double win" mechanic, intended to help already-winning players win faster, so I feel making him stronger does no harm
An annoyance I ran into playing calabim. Vampires make moroi obsolete. Since moroi have the powerful Burning Blood unique ability, and since their easy vampirism ability can be used to make vampire versions of other units (like knights) easilly, they still have a use. Therefore, they will now never obsolete, and always be buildable.
A large number of changes to Radiant Guard. I was unsatisfied with this unit as a whole, being one of the weaker religious UUs.
Since Empyrean is a religion of Truth, knowledge, and thought, where Order is a religion of Action, I decided that they should be more defensive. Therefore, I took away the city attack bonus, but gave them city defence instead. I've also increased their base strength by 1, to help them be better overall. They're still weaker than champions, but clearly stronger than axemen.
Since Empyrean is THE anti-stealth religion, it seemed like a missing link, to give them an easily acessible Guardsman unit to defend against asassins, and Radiant guard fit this role perfectly. The small city defence bonus that it gives, is also useful to farther encourage using them defensively. I may consider changing their base strength to 4/5 (boosting only defence) if these changes have made them too powerful.
Lastly, they will never obsolete. being replaced by rathas is annoying and illogical, because they have an entirely different unitcombat, and fulfil a different role.
[/LIST]
Promotions
-----------------------
-Guerilla II - 25% hill attack, 40% hill defence (down from 60% defence)
I felt the Guerilla promotion was both overpowered in one respect, and too limited in another. There was also a niche to be filled, in that there's no hill-attack bonus promotions. I've therefore given it a hill attack bonus, and reduced the defence bonus. I feel being able to get +100% defence from just two promotions, is a bit much, so it's reduced to a total of 70%. I might tweak the woodsman promos similarly.
Just a minor thing. Wolves are carnivores, so it seems logical that they should be able to eat people.
Just opening things up more. The lack of woodsman for archery line caused an unbalance between ljos/svart, that I feel the need to correct. Melee units can also now use Woodsman II, which was previously limited to only recon and beast.
I found the lack of visibility-boosting promos beyond sentry II, to be disappointing. so I've powered up Perfect Sight to make it more worthwhile. +3 may seem like a large number, but visibility stops mattering so much beyond a point, because your line of sight will usually be obscured by hills and peaks. not even 99999 visibility lets you see through those.
This was Vehem's idea. He mentioned that the Ljosalfar dexterous trait might be better off increasing ranged attack power, instead of direct attack. I agree with it.
He wasn't sure about it, but I am, so I've preemptively changed it anyways. Perhaps we'll see this in a future version of FF. I didn't remove the +1 strength. Since you can't attack and ranged attack in the same turn, I don't think having both brings much great benefit, and melee units are still better for direct combat anyways.
Really frustrating thing I found. dragons, despite having those massive wings, can't fly. I couldn't really get the team to go along with this change, so I've just done it myself. All dragons can now cross any terrain.
A side effect of making them flying though, is that they can't use roads. So I've given them some more movement points to remedy this. +3 might be overpowered, but we're talking about dragons here. I'd be pretty worried if they're NOT overpowered.
Why was this so restricted?
Discovered this while wondering why I couldn't promote Rosier to Scourge. This probably stopped Eidolons from learning it too, which just doesn't seem right.
This is one of those fun changes. I found it frustrating that Chalid couldn't leanr Twincast. So now he can.
This one is for consistency. Shock and Cover, the other specialist promos, are available from Combat I. but formation requires Combat II. This didn't make sense to me, so I've moved formation back a bit with the others, making it easier to aqquire, and hopefully making the hippus less of a gamebreaker if you start beside them.
I found the Combat IV requirement for learning Guardsman, to be pretty odd. Generally, it's the less talented people that get left behind on guard duty, while the elite troops fight at the frontline. I also feel guardsman isn't a very useful promo, when it's so hard to get. Combat II doesn't mean everyone can have it, but it will allow it to be learned at lv4 for most races, which is within the free xp limit for a training yard, thusly you can train guardsmen at home.
You're standing on top of a high wall, so you can see farther. Seems pretty logical to me.
Techs
----------------------
I found this thread to be quite enlightening.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=309319
Archers are generally underpowered in Erebus. One reason I've been very vocal about the ranged attack mechanic. Although the melee tech line is more expensive than archery, it brings other things along the way, like forges, new ships, etc. Whereas everything beyond archery along the archery line, is pretty much a self contained tech. Existing only for tself. Sure, Bowyers is needed for machinery, but that's a long time in the future. It's not uncommon in many games, to get blasting powder before bowyers. And never even use a single longbowman at all. I feel this needs to be remedied. The most obvious thing I can see, is that the Bowyers tech just isn't worth the cost, for what it offers. Adding more stuff to it is a bit beyond my scope at the moment, so I've opted to make it significantly cheaper. Thusly, people should aqquire longbowmen a lot earlier, and actually make some use of them.
Just a minor tweak. I remember being stuck in a desert as bannor, and desperately trying to research elementalism so I could make a water node and start making my desert useful. It feels like these techs were made more expensive in FF, than base FFH. And I'm not sure I agree with that. This is, for now, a moderate reduction. Perhaps will reduce farther later.
Precision has a thread about it in the FFH forum now. It's not generally regarded as very useful. No doubt the high cost has something to do with that. I've halved the cost, hopefully to make it more acessible, and see more marksmen around.
Civs:
-------------------
I've always felt the doviello are fundamentally broken, because of their traits. And nobody seemed to be doing anything about it.
Charadon firstly. He only had aggressive/barbarian. Barbarian isn't generally a "real" trait. I consider it like Ingenuity. A very minor thing that usually should go along with two proper traits. Charadon has a habit of failing horribly most of the time I see him. So I've given him charismatic, which should suit his aggressive theme, and make him a better opponent.
Mahala, has always irked me, because she lacks the barbarian trait. I just don't like one leader having that, and the other not. So I felt she needed that.
Aside from that, I've given her Financial. Mostly based on a few stories I've read here and there. She seems to be more open to trade with outsiders, and is generally wiser. I thought financial/barbarian would be an interesting trait combo.
A seagoing people not being able to fish right from the off, just felt wrong. Fishing is the tech required to work water tiles, and it felt silly for them to not start with that.
Units
------------
- Longbowman ranged strength.
I've done this, because I noticed an oddity. The ranged strengths of archery units, go as follows.
- Archer: 2
- Longbowman: 2
- Crossbowman: 5
- Arquebusier: 5
- Marksman: 6
As you might notice, it makes a significant jump from 2, to 4. And I find it particularly illogical, that longbowmen, which are clearly a superior unit, have the same talent at ranged attacks, as their shortbow using comrades. Therefore, I changed the value, to something in between. Giving longbowmen a nice increase, but still below the upper levels.
- Luonnotars now start with Chaos III.
There's a thread over on the FFH board about luonnotars right now. There seems to be an opinion that they're underpowered, due to losing some ability in the past, and never being given anything to compensate.
Since Luonnotars are believers in The One, who reigns over all other gods, it seems appropriate that whatever power they have be as omniscient as possible, and not limited to any one sphere of influence. Although Chaos magic is it's own sphere, the Wonder spell casts effects randomly from any sphere, and is about as close as we can get to a multi-sphere spell. Since they require the same tech as Archmages, I didn't consider this to be too overpowering, but it will make them a force to be reckoned with.
- Paramanders can now use metal weapons. Base strength reduced from 7 to 6
A common complaint, that I'm inclined to call a bug, because it makes no sense. Paramanders (str 7) are the upgrade to Soldiers of Kilmorph (str4). But SoK can use metal weapons, and paramanders cannot. This allowed SoK to be stronger than paramanders with mythril weapons. And yet, paramanders are a permanant upgrade. And they obsolete SoK. this made no sense.
Therefore, I have given them the ability to use weapons too, and reduced their strength by 1 to compensate. They will now be stronger than Soldiers of Kilmorph, with a max strength of 10, over 8. Unfortunately, they will still obsolete SoK. I intend to change that in the future.
- Removed immune to cold and vulnerable to fire from Drifa the White Dragon
Drifa is immune to magic, therefore these promotions make no sense. Magic immunity may be weakened in the future, porting over a change from FFh. But if that change is made, I will be reverting it. I believe Immunity should mean Immunity. Therefore, these abilities do not, and never will (for me) have any use on drifa. Just removing extraneous junk essentially.
- Baron Duin halfmorn now starts with Cannibalise, as per his lore entry
Read the baron's pedia entry. He's an evil general who ate his enemies in life. Now reincarnated as a werewolf, I feel he should keep this. So he now starts with cannibalize. the baron is a "Double win" mechanic, intended to help already-winning players win faster, so I feel making him stronger does no harm
- Moroi never become obsolete
An annoyance I ran into playing calabim. Vampires make moroi obsolete. Since moroi have the powerful Burning Blood unique ability, and since their easy vampirism ability can be used to make vampire versions of other units (like knights) easilly, they still have a use. Therefore, they will now never obsolete, and always be buildable.
- Radiant guard get +1 str (to 5)
- Radiant Guard lose +10% city attack bonus
- Radiant Guard gain +25% city defence bonus added
- Radiant Guard get free Guardsman promotion
- Radiant Guard will never become obsolete
A large number of changes to Radiant Guard. I was unsatisfied with this unit as a whole, being one of the weaker religious UUs.
Since Empyrean is a religion of Truth, knowledge, and thought, where Order is a religion of Action, I decided that they should be more defensive. Therefore, I took away the city attack bonus, but gave them city defence instead. I've also increased their base strength by 1, to help them be better overall. They're still weaker than champions, but clearly stronger than axemen.
Since Empyrean is THE anti-stealth religion, it seemed like a missing link, to give them an easily acessible Guardsman unit to defend against asassins, and Radiant guard fit this role perfectly. The small city defence bonus that it gives, is also useful to farther encourage using them defensively. I may consider changing their base strength to 4/5 (boosting only defence) if these changes have made them too powerful.
Lastly, they will never obsolete. being replaced by rathas is annoying and illogical, because they have an entirely different unitcombat, and fulfil a different role.
[/LIST]
Promotions
-----------------------
- Guerilla promotions tweaked. They have a reduced hill defense bonus, but gain some hill attack bonus too.
-Guerilla II - 25% hill attack, 40% hill defence (down from 60% defence)
I felt the Guerilla promotion was both overpowered in one respect, and too limited in another. There was also a niche to be filled, in that there's no hill-attack bonus promotions. I've therefore given it a hill attack bonus, and reduced the defence bonus. I feel being able to get +100% defence from just two promotions, is a bit much, so it's reduced to a total of 70%. I might tweak the woodsman promos similarly.
- All werewolves can learn cannibalise after Combat II
Just a minor thing. Wolves are carnivores, so it seems logical that they should be able to eat people.
- Woodsman promo line now available to archery units.
- Woodsman II now available to melee units
Just opening things up more. The lack of woodsman for archery line caused an unbalance between ljos/svart, that I feel the need to correct. Melee units can also now use Woodsman II, which was previously limited to only recon and beast.
- Perfect Sight now gives +3 visibility range
I found the lack of visibility-boosting promos beyond sentry II, to be disappointing. so I've powered up Perfect Sight to make it more worthwhile. +3 may seem like a large number, but visibility stops mattering so much beyond a point, because your line of sight will usually be obscured by hills and peaks. not even 99999 visibility lets you see through those.
- Ljosalfar archers get +1 ranged combat from Dextrous trait
This was Vehem's idea. He mentioned that the Ljosalfar dexterous trait might be better off increasing ranged attack power, instead of direct attack. I agree with it.
He wasn't sure about it, but I am, so I've preemptively changed it anyways. Perhaps we'll see this in a future version of FF. I didn't remove the +1 strength. Since you can't attack and ranged attack in the same turn, I don't think having both brings much great benefit, and melee units are still better for direct combat anyways.
- All dragons can now fly
Really frustrating thing I found. dragons, despite having those massive wings, can't fly. I couldn't really get the team to go along with this change, so I've just done it myself. All dragons can now cross any terrain.
- All dragons get +3 extra movement
A side effect of making them flying though, is that they can't use roads. So I've given them some more movement points to remedy this. +3 might be overpowered, but we're talking about dragons here. I'd be pretty worried if they're NOT overpowered.
- Mounted, disciple, and archery units can now learn Scourge promotion
Why was this so restricted?
Discovered this while wondering why I couldn't promote Rosier to Scourge. This probably stopped Eidolons from learning it too, which just doesn't seem right.
- Disciple units can now learn twincast (same reqs as Arcane, Hero + Combat V)
This is one of those fun changes. I found it frustrating that Chalid couldn't leanr Twincast. So now he can.
- Formation (anti mounted) promo, now only requires Combat I, not combat II
This one is for consistency. Shock and Cover, the other specialist promos, are available from Combat I. but formation requires Combat II. This didn't make sense to me, so I've moved formation back a bit with the others, making it easier to aqquire, and hopefully making the hippus less of a gamebreaker if you start beside them.
- Guardsman now requires Combat II, and not Combat IV
I found the Combat IV requirement for learning Guardsman, to be pretty odd. Generally, it's the less talented people that get left behind on guard duty, while the elite troops fight at the frontline. I also feel guardsman isn't a very useful promo, when it's so hard to get. Combat II doesn't mean everyone can have it, but it will allow it to be learned at lv4 for most races, which is within the free xp limit for a training yard, thusly you can train guardsmen at home.
- Wall Defender promo now gives +1 visibility.
You're standing on top of a high wall, so you can see farther. Seems pretty logical to me.
Techs
----------------------
- Boywers cost lowered from 2400 - 1500
I found this thread to be quite enlightening.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=309319
Archers are generally underpowered in Erebus. One reason I've been very vocal about the ranged attack mechanic. Although the melee tech line is more expensive than archery, it brings other things along the way, like forges, new ships, etc. Whereas everything beyond archery along the archery line, is pretty much a self contained tech. Existing only for tself. Sure, Bowyers is needed for machinery, but that's a long time in the future. It's not uncommon in many games, to get blasting powder before bowyers. And never even use a single longbowman at all. I feel this needs to be remedied. The most obvious thing I can see, is that the Bowyers tech just isn't worth the cost, for what it offers. Adding more stuff to it is a bit beyond my scope at the moment, so I've opted to make it significantly cheaper. Thusly, people should aqquire longbowmen a lot earlier, and actually make some use of them.
- Elementalism/Necromancy/Alteration/Divination cost lowered 800-600
Just a minor tweak. I remember being stuck in a desert as bannor, and desperately trying to research elementalism so I could make a water node and start making my desert useful. It feels like these techs were made more expensive in FF, than base FFH. And I'm not sure I agree with that. This is, for now, a moderate reduction. Perhaps will reduce farther later.
- Precision reduced 6400 - 3200
Precision has a thread about it in the FFH forum now. It's not generally regarded as very useful. No doubt the high cost has something to do with that. I've halved the cost, hopefully to make it more acessible, and see more marksmen around.
Civs:
-------------------
- Charadon of Doviello gains Charismatic trait
- Mahala of Doviello gains Financial, Barbarian traits
I've always felt the doviello are fundamentally broken, because of their traits. And nobody seemed to be doing anything about it.
Charadon firstly. He only had aggressive/barbarian. Barbarian isn't generally a "real" trait. I consider it like Ingenuity. A very minor thing that usually should go along with two proper traits. Charadon has a habit of failing horribly most of the time I see him. So I've given him charismatic, which should suit his aggressive theme, and make him a better opponent.
Mahala, has always irked me, because she lacks the barbarian trait. I just don't like one leader having that, and the other not. So I felt she needed that.
Aside from that, I've given her Financial. Mostly based on a few stories I've read here and there. She seems to be more open to trade with outsiders, and is generally wiser. I thought financial/barbarian would be an interesting trait combo.
- Lanun now start with fishing tech
A seagoing people not being able to fish right from the off, just felt wrong. Fishing is the tech required to work water tiles, and it felt silly for them to not start with that.
I am afraid you might be turning into a full modder! 
Beware, soon you will never play anymore 
