[BTS] What are the mods one should have on Civ4:BtS?

[Jomackson]

This list includes Beyond the Sword mods, no other civ4 versions will be listed. If you have a mod to recommend, go ahead and reply and based on popular vote I will add it. Atm I am adding a few I do know. Anyone who finds parts of the list may speak out why, and if voted up, it can be removed or interchanged. Votes are stated as likes of the given reply.

Fall From Heaven 2
This is a fantasy mod that is unique and the community offers more refined mod mods for if it gets stale.
This is the base mod for this series within FFH2, it in it's self is very different, but unlike Ashes of Erebus is easily mod moded, and mod mods that plant themselves correctly work in seamlessly. This can be considered a vanilla entry, but mod mods will be added to give more depth, but only if they have an installer or have an easy means of being grafted in.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/mod-fall-from-heaven-ii.171398/
Mod mods:
More Naval AI
This adds some elements to naval and some other quality of play options within custom play. If going with FFH2 might as well add by default.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/forums/more-naval-ai-modmod.476/

Fall From Heaven 2: Ashes of Erebus Final Fixes Reborn
This mod takes place in a fantasy realm that takes to a level of D&D styling that Ashes of Erebus goes further than the vanilla ffh2, giving leaders the orderly and morality scales and adds many races. This one is it's own download and not dependant on ffh2 and can be considered it's own thing. Because of this it is receiving edits and it is by worked by the 3rd or 4th people to take it's mantle.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/final-fixes-reborn.493730/

Planet Fall
This may also be well known, but introduces a Sci-fi play as colonists on a mushroom covered planet, and you get to pick from several factions to attempt to survive along with many of the others. And before you ask, yes it can turn into an Avatar scenario given you have hippies and earth supremacist.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/download-thread.253775/

Caveman2Cosmos
This takes vanilla Civ4, but adds so much to it that you could spend an entire day just getting through an era and a week getting half way through the rest. To boot much of the system has been altered for realism, the custom game allows more feature choices than any other mod I've seen, and it even allows if you meet the conditions to create region specific rl cultural identities, based on what civ you choose. Among them is even the different later ages Steam Punk and other punks as well. If you have not tried it, you are missing out. Then when you have you will not play vanilla ever again. Promise. I did forget to mention it adds game speeds that the slowest is Eons, so you probably can tell the game is a long haul.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/caveman-2-cosmos.288570/

 

[Nightinggale]

I think this post would be way better if it contains links to the mods in question. It would also benefit from having a more complete list of quality mods with explanations to why that particularly mod should be better than all the other mods.

Also now that I think about it, somehow a forum post might not be the best place for this. Ideally speaking we should have a wiki page with a list of mods where it's told if it's active and stuff like that and preferably a voting system. The problem with that approach is: who should make it? I'm not doing it. Both me and the community will benefit more from me sticking to developing brand new features.

 

[Jomackson]

Thanks, I will update the list based upon your recommendations!

A wiki seems like a great idea, but it would come down to needing someone who has the time and willpower to maintain that page. If someone creates a page that keeps up to date, I will gladly link off to it.

 

[Tholal]

Fall From Heaven 2: Ashes of Erebus Final Fixes Reborn
This mod takes place in a fantasy realm that takes to a level of D&D styling that Ashes of Erebus goes further than the vanilla 2nd ffh, giving leaders the orderly and moral scales. Many are no doubt familiar with this series and it's many variants, but this one is the first up because it is receiving edits and is the only one doing so right now.

Bolded and underlined by me for emphasis.

More Naval AI continues to be updated and has had a more recent release - https://forums.civfanatics.com/forums/more-naval-ai-modmod.476/

 

[Jomackson]

I will check it out. Right now I am working on it but ashes has been weird for me, but seems to be an only me thing. It is a long standing line of revisions, possibly being the 3rd or 4th generation of rework. At some point it was huge and known as Rise From Erebus, and that might have been a carry over from something older, but RFE got handed to Ashes of Erebus and rn a guy who is currently working the project might be the 3rd or 4th team on keeping it going. So based on a stand point of it being a very long lived, long spanned project it takes the place for at least until people want MNA, but I will check it as even 2/2 people in agreement makes a majority.

 

[Jomackson]

I looked it over and based on the fixes done am impressed and want to test immediately. They will share space, if anything just because of them both being regularly updated and preference should be seen as per user, not per group.

 

[JeremyHussell]

Recommendation: Realism Invictus

C2C may have everything including the kitchen sink, but as a result it's quite imbalanced. Realism Invictus' primary focus is on game balance (despite the name, realism is only its secondary concern). A lot of work has been done to make certain there aren't (m)any cheesy ways for human players to get ahead of the computer players. Typically, players used to vanilla or other mods will have to reduce the difficulty level they play at by two or more when coming to RI, especially if the the "Raging Barbarians" option is enabled at game start.

Civilizations in RI are differentiated from each other more strongly than in vanilla, somehow without sacrificing game balance.

Like C2C, and unlike Planet Fall, RI incorporates BUG's interface upgrades. It's difficult to go back to vanilla or non-BUG mods afterwards.

Also, the graphics are gorgeous and consistent (not mixing significantly different aesthetics, e.g. in units meant for different mods).

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/realism-invictus.411799/

 

[vincentz]

“It has been said that the VIP mod is the worst form of civ4 mod except all the others that have been tried.” - Winston Churchill

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/vincentz-infinite-projects-vip-mod.398499/