Fall from Heaven - Shadow

[GenVec]

The next build for FfH is released publicly on the 16th, and it contains enough new content to grab the attention of even the most jaded Civ 4 player. Without turning this into a "new features list", i'll briefly talk about some of the things that caught my attention:

1. Sidar (Ghosts) are now playable, along with Svartalfar (Dark Elves). Both civilizations are based on stealth and deception, a mechanic that is actually implementable thanks to the improvements in Beyond the Sword. Information on Sidar isn't released until the 15th, but the Svarts play like a more aggressive elven civ and get "free" hidden nationality promotions with the Council of Esus, which is now a religion (more on that later). Also, Svart infantry look like witch elves 

2. The Overcouncil and The Undercouncil, aka. The United Nations of Erebus. Basically this serves as a SMAC-style mechanic allowing you to promote resolutions which will have a global effect - instituting slave trade, starting a smuggling ring, embargoing a certain player, etc. I like this nod towards the diplomatic aspects of the game and think it should add an interesting new angle to multiplayer.

3. Global spells - each civ now has its own unique spell, castable once per game, with or without tech requirements. They range from sort of weak (Calabim River of Blood gives +2 pop in your cities and -1pop in all enemy cities) to game-crushingly powerful (March of the Trees - All Ljort forest tiles become trents, which revert to forests on the tile they're occupying when slain).

4. Guilds - rank up a level 6 assassin and you can found Aeron's Bounty, a guild that allows you to spend money to quietly "Take care of" dissenters in rebelling cities. Likewise, if one of your cities is razed, there is a % chance of the Brotherhood of Wardens appearing in your next largest town, granting it a highly increased defense bonus.

5. New religions, new heroes, new promotions, new game options (including "The Thaw", in which the world starts as frozen tundra and slowly reverts to playable terrain).

Anyway, there's a long list of new features http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=249189. This game is so good that i'm actually beginning to be tempted to write AAR's for it, which is a level of nerd debasement i'd sworn I would never sink to. Check it out if you haven't already, and like (or dislike) vanilla Civ 4. 

[Sky]

Goody gumdrops. I was waiting for the next FfH2 release before buying the Civ4 expansion. Vanilla Civ4 doesn't do much for me, but FfH2 is amazing.

FfH2 is what a spiritual successor to MoM should be, that any developer would probably fail to achieve.

 

[Tebonas]

Finally something to get psyched about for the christmas holidays. I'll probably waste hours upon hours again.

[Flood]

Suhweet, some juicy TBS action to liven up my current SimCity Societies doldrums.

[Stormwaltz]

Hell's bells. Between this and my recent Homeworld 2 obsession, I'm not sleeping until February.

[Roac]

Best mod ever.

[Morfiend]

I never got in to FfH but I would like to as some of my friends play it. I got bored with vanilla Civ4 pretty quickly. Would I need to buy the expansion pack to play this?

[Roac]

Would I need to buy the expansion pack to play this?

For the latest version, you need the latest expansion, yes.  You can play up to v0.23 on basic civ install. 

[Luxor]

And here it is, version 0.30 released today, goodbye spare time

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=1

[Merusk]

Goody gumdrops. I was waiting for the next FfH2 release before buying the Civ4 expansion. Vanilla Civ4 doesn't do much for me, but FfH2 is amazing.

FfH2 is what a spiritual successor to MoM should be, that any developer would probably fail to achieve.

 

Good god yes.  All that's missing is artifact creation and the spell casting system. 

[Raguel]

Originally, if I took a city with Sphener it would spread the Order religion.Is evangelism just not working anymore/removed from the game? I've asked twice and haven't gotten a response.

[Lum]

FFH Shadow is out???

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE   

[Tebonas]

Indeed it is, and on Patch D already. Best christmas holiday ever! 

[Cheddar]

God you people suck, I have a thread going with lots of info:

BIG ASS THREAD ALREADY IN PROGRESS!

[Raging Turtle]

Would the mod work with a steam-downloaded Civ4 + Beyond the Sword expansion?  My game cds are in another country 

[caladein]

Would the mod work with a steam-downloaded Civ4 + Beyond the Sword expansion?  My game cds are in another country 

Very yes.

Can I play this if I have the steam copy of Beyond the Sword?

Yes, you will need to change the default path to "C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\sid meier's civilization iv beyond the sword\Beyond the Sword\Mods" in the install program and it should work.

[schild]

This is funny because I reinstalled Civ IV to play FFH.

And now I can't. Because it requires Beyond the Sword. GREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAT.

Might as well buy it tomorrow. Had been planning to.

[schild]

Ok. Bought Beyond the Sword.

Had to reinstall.

FfH2 just crashes and Crashes on me. I suppose I'm SUPPOSED to launch Fall From Heaven 2 030 and not Age of Ice. But then, yea, just crashes on me.

Bleh.

[Mazakiel]

Is it crashing at startup before it can even start loading?  I had the same problem until I realized that even though I'd thought it checked for patches when I reinstalled last week, I didn't have the most current version of BotS.  One patch later, and it seems to be working just fine. 

[caladein]

It's right as he's supposed to go into a game basically.

The one upside to my failed tech support session over AIM was...

(7:59:43 PM) f13dotnet: maybe I'm not gay enough for the game to let me be an elf queen
(7:59:49 PM) f13dotnet: (but i want elf slaves!)
(8:00:03 PM) Cal: I dunno, you did complain about hair styles in Mass Effect.
(8:00:10 PM) f13dotnet: They were bad.

[Mazakiel]

Yeah, that's the same problem I had then.  Getting the 3.13 patch fixed that up. 

[schild]

3.13 still didn't work.

[Raguel]

I had to turn down graphics to get past the opening movie.

[schild]

Hm. I have everything turned up. Did the opening movie kick you to the desktop? I assume that's what is supposed to be happening when I get crashy.

[Roac]

1) Install Civ IV
2) Install BtS
3) Patch the game to 3.13.
4) Install the full install of FfH, v0.30 (200+ Mb)
5) Install patch 'e'.

Doing things out of order will cause problems.  Specifically, people not patching before installing FfH, or people installing just the patch (and not the full 0.30 version of FfH) have caused CtD issues. 

And yes, you have to have Beyond the Sword to play v0.30 of FfH.  You can play v0.23 with vanilla Civ IV, which does not include the Shadow expansion but is more stable than v0.30 (but not for long). 

Edit: v0.30 is what I meant.

[schild]

The's the order I did it. But after step 5 I installed the media pack.

[Cheddar]

1) Install Civ IV
2) Install BtS
3) Patch the game to 3.13.
4) Install the full install of FfH, v0.25 (200+ Mb)
5) Install patch 'e'.

Doing things out of order will cause problems.  Specifically, people not patching before installing FfH, or people installing just the patch (and not the full 0.25 version of FfH) have caused CtD issues. 

And yes, you have to have Beyond the Sword to play v0.25 of FfH.  You can play v0.23 with vanilla Civ IV, which does not include the Shadow expansion but is more stable than v0.25 (but not for long). 

Latest version is .30.  Look at the updated thread I have been painstakingly keeping for correct information.

[Roac]

Latest version is .30.  Look at the updated thread I have been painstakingly keeping for correct information.

That's the version I meant, post corrected.  Also, my post wasn't about patch information but trying to help schild with his issue, which has been reported numerous times in the main thread on civfanatics.  In most cases, that sort of CtD is due to incorrect installation order (missing patch 3.13 for Civ IV, or not loading the full FfH install *before* doing the patch). 

Edit:  Schild, for the media packs I've always installed that after the main version install.  I don't think the order for that matters, and I don't think it's even required for play (likely lots of pink boxes without it), but you may want to try and re-run patch e if you haven't already.  Unlikely, but worth the 30s to try it.

Does BtS run for you?  The main game that is, not FfH mod.  Can you load other mods (there are a bunch included)?

[schild]

Main games work.

I've already reinstalled all the FFH stuff a few times.

[Raguel]

Hm. I have everything turned up. Did the opening movie kick you to the desktop? I assume that's what is supposed to be happening when I get crashy.

Sorry I thought I already replied to this. I get that generic Windows "this program terminated unexpectedly" message (or whatever it says; I just click on "Don't send :p). If it's the same thing happening with you, an autosaved game should have been created, and you can play that, until you build a Wonder, and then it'll crash again while trying to play the movie. 

I just turned down the graphics a tad and turned off combat animation. Sometimes I have movies off.

[schild]

hm

maybe I should try just turning off movies altogether

[Roac]

maybe I should try just turning off movies altogether

You're not missing anything; the movies are slideshows, not 3d cutscenes.  They're very good for a vol effort, but nothing to gawk at.  Wonder movies are just stills with various parts fading in. 

If that works, that's odd that it would only bust for FfH though.  I'd have guessed they used the same parts to play media.

[schild]

AppName: civ4beyondsword.exe    AppVer: 3.0.0.86    ModName: cvgamecoredll.dll
ModVer: 0.0.0.0    Offset: 001a9b10

Movies were turned off.

[Tebonas]

Did you install Civ4 in the standard paths? If not, did you edit the Fall From Heaven link according to the changed directories? Did you install the Mod under \Beyond the Sword\Mods ?

I remember I had a similar problem at the beginning of my FfH career if I tried to start Fall From Heaven from the main game menu.

[schild]

Did not change Anything.

Also, just noticed that that said 3.0.0.84 as the app version. Weird considering I installed the patch for BTS 3.13.