f13.net forums - Merry Christmas: Fall From Heaven Final to release 12/16

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July 18, 2025, 02:31:07 PM

we're back, baby

The last version of FfH for Civ 4 is coming out Tuesday, which adds the campaign game: 17 linked scenarios. Concentrated awesome!

Full changelist: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=301834

I think I need to change my pants.

There go my Christmas holidays.

Fuck me. I'm in the middle of DoW Dark Crusade, Animal Crossing, LotRO Yule + Moria, Penny Arcade ep 2, and Defense Grid already, with Persona 4 waiting on the TV.

GODDAMNIT PEOPLE, I'M ALREADY PLAYING MORE GAMES AT ONCE THAN AT ANY POINT SINCE 1999! WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME???

Yeah, this season has been pretty great. Fallout 3 alone has been amazing, I'm still going strong on that one. And then I have RE4 sitting unopened on deck. And Space Rangers 2. And I still have to grab GTA4. And Saint's Row 2 comes out in January. Sheesh. That more gaming than I do in most years, all in a couple months. Good times.

I am unsure as to what I should do with myself.

The last full version I DL'd was .34. There's so many new and nifty things and changes in this I'm completly lost but loving it.

"You explore the dungeon and find an Adventurer who agrees to join your cause" Wtf is ths? A Hero Unit with 2 Attack? Eh why doesn't he have any promotions? Ooohh.. I can upgrade him to ANY unit and have an instant 100xp to spend if I let him mature. Awesomeness.

Those adventurers are actually something the Gregori civ gets naturally. They generate from their Great person points (or what ever their called) and actually generate pretty fast for them. The "explore a dungeon and find somebody" event can give you a pretty wide range of results. Things like Great Prophet's, or my favorite, a priest for one of the various religions. Which is amazing if you get it right off the bat, because you can walk over and found the religion in your capital, and it suddenly becomes the founding city for the religion.

Anybody know how to play the scenarios? I click on the play scenario option, but all I see are stuff for normal civ.....

Oh, and also THANK GOD they put the ability to clear forest in with mining instead of bronze working. That will make me a lot more viable when I get dropped in the middle of a massive forest when I start a game.

You can start the scenarios with the rightmost icon on the top side of the screen once you are in a game. At least in theory, my game crashes every time I try that. Its a known bug though, so it should be fixed soon.

I have an unhealthy relationship to this game. I have yet to run a vanilla civ game after downloading FfH a year+ ago. So very awesome, for real

I did play through Civ4 once again when I got BtS (for FfH2, of course). Then back to the upgraded FfH2. Was down with a stomach bug the last couple days and played through a game as ~~Ljos~~ ~~Ljof~~ elves.

I've been playing through the early stages of the game as a few different races. Bannor, Orcs, Dark Elves and Dwarves so far. The game feels a LOT slower than I remember it being on the tech side. Since I'm such a expand-then-hold slut, I find this really gets me bored quick as I click "Next turn" way too often as I wait for techs or buildings to complete.

I also learned that Orcs are "not for me." I need to build up a big army sooner than I'd like so I can crush those around me, but my brain winces when I throw away 12 orc warriors against fortified archers (how the hell did those elves get archers so early anyway) just to try and take a city. One measly ass city and I've nearly obliterated all my troops. Fuck that noise. Shaking fist

Generally you have 4 ways to crack the nut of fortified cities in FfH:

1) Overwhelming numbers. By overwhelming, I mean, a 5-1 or 6-1 advantage in numbers, and you will lose most of the attackers. Sometimes is the only way to win if you're Doviello or something and have a significant tech disadvantage. I don't usually play as the Orcs because they can't actually hold cities, but that may be the 'intended' way for them to seize cities. It certainly works for barbarians! Assassins are REALLY helpful in zerging city sieges since they can gank the unit you just damaged with a throwaway unit. However, you *have* to destroy any defenders you try to zerg kill, or else they will rack up the promotions from all your dead cannon fodder and become well-on nigh invincible.

2) Siege weapons (the "traditional" Civ 4 city-busting style). Soften up with bombardment to lose the defensive modifier, then just attack over and over. Catapults have a huge retreat percentage so even at 0.1% success chance you'll wear the defenders down and eventually follow up with other units (catapults in FfH can't kill units by themselves). This is the *only* way to kill Acheron the Red Dragon - build 15 catapults then hammer him until he's 4 or 5 strength, then follow up with a hero or a unit with a Courage buff (Acheron has a Fear effect that keeps most units from being able to attack him)

3) Magic! Fire wizards are catapults, only they're called fireballs. Summoners can send endless cannon fodder at no risk to themselves, and archmages can summon fire elementals which aren't cannon fodder any more but cannon monstrosities. Archmages are the only way for Ljosofar (the good elves) to take cities and helpful for the dark elves as well (though they also get a hero that's a good city killer due to being able to summon a doppleganger of himself).

4) HOLYCRAPWHATWASTHAT. Get a unit that just stomps everything in its path. If you have that you already won the game but hey, it's fun to play out. Candidates for this including level 20+ heroes, dragons, Vampire Lords, Auric Ascended, Meshabber of Dis, etc. The AI tends to fortify itself in Erebus maps in the late stages of the game to the point you pretty much need an unkillable god to win. Good thing you can build those.

Archers also got a pretty monstrous buff this version which may get toned down.

Winning in FfH in general:

1) Take and hold a territory. You'll be overwhelmed by barbarians (literally overwhelmed, unable to develop land at all) until your land is colonized and explored out to your neighbor's borders. So your first steps should be researching up to Festivals (where you can build Marketplaces) and sending out Settlers escorted by 2 Warriors. Once they plant a city, build a Palisade (the first level wall), Monument, then Marketplace. Do this until your claim is staked and the barbarians die down. On Erebus maps (the default now) you'll run into clear natural boundaries (oceans and mountain ranges); if you can clear away enough territory to a choke point it might be worthwhile to stop there, garrison the chokepoint and build your economy; uncontrolled expansion will eventually shut down your economy.

2) Pick a tech line and specialize. If you try to learn everything like in vanilla Civ you'll fall behind in a key tech and die. Your choices are Economy (if you want to be a peaceful builder) which will eventually end in hyper-expanding cities with tax and science benefits, Military which will eventually end in Mithril Weaponry, Religious which ends in powerful priests, and Arcane which ends in powerful mages. Each nation works better with a given line - Malakim should ALWAYS use religious and abuse the hell out of Chalid Astrakhein, Kuriotates pretty much have to use Economy, etc. Resources are crucial here as well - wizards are useless without mana, a military strat won't help a whole lot if you have no iron, etc.

3) Pay attention to the religious wars. Depending on how religions spread you'll see either stasis (everyone the same religion) or conflict (Ashen Veil vs. Order/Empyrean). If stasis, pick off the weaker nations but make sure they don't have powerful allies. If conflict, that will have a pretty clear set of alliances (the founder of the Mercurians is always at war with the founder of Ashen Veil, it's hard coded).

4) If you have a technical advantage, take advantage of it. If you have Mithril and no one else does, don't build up 30 champions, take what you have and go NOW. Eventually the AI will catch up. Eventually you'll get to the OhmygodIjustwonthegame unit for your race, at which point the rest of the map is your bitch. This is different for each race: the Illians LITERALLY have a "OK, everyone else give up now" unit - Auric Ascended, literally a god. (Of course, the #2 nation gets a unit with a instakill-Auric weapon, just to make things fair) wheras the Ljosofar get... um, a tree. Yeah. Well, they're elves. (Actually their endgame I-Won units are probably Druids, which have a huge Nature mana affinity - in other words for each Nature mana node you have they gain combat strength, and if you founded Fellowship of Leaves you probably have at least 3 nature nodes)

FfH generally is a lot more cutthroat than vanilla Civ, that's one reason it's so fun.

Civ-specific strats (yes, I play FfH THAT MUCH). This should give you an idea of the insane scope of this mod.

Amurites: Mages mages mages. They get XP bonuses, you can make buildings that give more XP bonuses, and you can make archers that shoot fireballs. Pump the mages, level them up, have fun with fire elementals. Not much of a late game, so go aggressive early. Their Civ specific hero is a pretty powerful mage (notice a theme)

Balseraph: either you love playing this civ or you hate it. Balseraph is the ultimate screw-you civ. Their hero is free to screw with people from the first turn it's built and can devastate weak colonies. They have really, really powerful early units that can mutate into some powerful monsters, and if the mutation goes badly, hey, throw em in the arena! It's like a circle of life. It's hard to get a coherent strategy with these guys which is kind of appropriate. If you ever wanted to conquer the world with a vanguard of evil clowns, these are your guys. No real late-game strategy, but you should have a pretty strong start.

Bannor: As close to generic as FfH gets. Found the Order (it's in the rules, I think), declare a Crusade and enjoy your free units as you purge the world of heathen (helpfully you get to decide who's heathen). Military strat helps with Bannor so all your free Demagogs get metal bonuses when they appear. No real strong endgame units so purge the unworthy early.

Calabim: Vampire Lords. Done, game over. Eat the world, have fun! NOM NOM NOM Their hero is a weaker vampire lord (has to get a kill before gaining an immortal promotion) which you get early. Don't forget that you can bite higher level units to turn them into vampires which give them combat and regen bonuses. For added perversity go Empyrean and make Chalid Astrakhein a vampire. Just because.

Clan of Embers/Doviello: ZERG RUSH KEKELA. These two civs play fairly identically. Both Clan leaders and one Doviello leader can start at peace with the Barbarians, which gives you a huge early advantage (and to compound that, Doviello starts with a hero from Turn 1), and they can't tech worth crap. Both races are all about the early game rush, and die off in midgame.

Elohim: if you turtle, have I got a civ for you. Weak in combat, but lots of defensive units and a national spell that kicks everyone out of your territory for 30 turns. Economic victory is probably your best option - make sure to found a religion so you can get some good heroes, Corlindale is kind of useless.

Grigori: Grigori have a huge disadvantage (can never get a religion, which blocks the entire Religious tree and most of the best units in the game) and a huge advantage (they get Adventurers, which are free heros that can upgrade into any standard unit, but with Hero-style advancement and free XP). They can make pretty good mages, especially if you upgrade your adventurers into mages, but that's about it, so you're pretty much commited to the arcane line but don't have any advantage for doing so other than the Adventurers. Still, Grigori Archmages can be game-killers (twincasted Fire Elementals are just wrong).

Hippus: I don't play these very often so don't have a lot to say - they struck me as pretty weak overall. If you like mobility to the exclusion of all else your mileage may vary.

Illians: they were the last civ to be fully implemented so have some interesting play mechancis. As Illians your job is to leave the refrigerator open and make the world useless to everyone else (kind of like Hyborem and hell terrain, but with ice instead). Your tech path is pretty well committed to arcane/religious since that's how you unlock your late game killers - the White Dragon and the Draw. The Draw does two things: makes the whole world declare war on you (whoops) and allows you to build a 30-strength flying, spell-casting god (oh, it's ON). You know, in case the dragon wasn't enough.

Khazad: Another turtle civ, the entire point of the Khazad is to found Way of Earthmother and get rich. You can't build strong mages, and your national rules (bonuses for a huge treasury) dictate an Economy push. No strong endgame units and one of the weaker civs in general (turtles do poorly in FfH).

Kuriotates: You can only build a few cities (number dependent on map size), but they are all supersized and your cottages can develop to 'enclaves' which means your economy will boom. You can build size-1 settlements beyond that and there are some cheaty ways to make them productive (planting great people in them, building high level acolytes and force-planting temples) but they don't build or grow normally. As Kuriotates you turtle up, buy everyone else off, out-tech everyone, and oh, build a dragon and eat the world with it. Since resources are going to be scarcer for you, your best bets are economy and/or religious paths.

Lanun: everybody loves pirates, amirite? Well, since Erebus became the 'default' map for FFH Lanun kind of get boned since water's sparse and Lanun get bonuses for shoreline cities. They are a gimmick but an amusing one (and Guybrush Threepwood actually is a pretty decent hero) but it's a challenge going anywhere with them. I usually go Octopus Overlords and get Hemah to spearhead the military, but that's not really civ-specific.

Ljosafar: HOT NUDE ELF ACTION. Found the Fellowship of Leaves and make your lands a verdant paradise of green (elvish workers don't clear forests when improving tiles, so you get forests + farms or forests + mines). Ljosafar cities can outpace the Kuriotate core cities for sheer population outrageousness. You get no siege weapons and weak miltiary units, so arcane is a good way to go or religious if you're neutral (you can't build druids if you're good alignment).

Luchiurp: another builder civ. Luchiurp are all about golems; as your hero Barnaxus levels up, all your golems gain free promotions. Nice in theory but blocking golems from other XP gain is pretty crippling and the Luchiurp are usually knocked out early.

Malakim: A fairly generic version of the Bannor, which gain benefits for fighting in the desert. Their hero and base mana encourages founding Empyrean and building Chalid Astrakhein who is probably the strongest hero in the game (not counting the god version of Auric).

Sheaim: Hi, I want to destroy the world, k? Sheaim units gain more power as the world careens towards Armageddon, so they're the ones founding Ashen Veil and summoning Hyborem and generally screwing it up for everyone else. As a Sheaim player you can safely ignore building units for the most part because your portals will summon everything you need (and as the Armageddon counter goes up, they'll start spewing out more). Oh, and you can build a dragon, just in case the world wasn't already screwed, although just having an economy survive to the endgame may be difficult since your entire empire is probably flaming hellash from Hyborem coming in and saying howdy (luckily, the portals are still working even when all your cities devolve back to 1 pop - and they will). Pyre zombies are fun in the early game -- Fall From Heaven's version of suicide bombers.

Sidar: a late-developed civ that I haven't experimented with much, it's dependent on turning higher-level units into great people which seems a bit of a waste of higher level units to me.

Svaltarfar: As everyone remembers from DAOC, this is FRPspeak for Dark Elves. Svaltarfar play basically identically to Ljosafar in the early game (and get elvish workers + Fellowship of Leaves synergy as well) but in the later game get lots of sneaky assassin style units including their hero so founding the Council of Esus and building their unique units is a good way to go. Or you can keep Fellowship of Leaves and play as regular Elves, but with 32% more emo.

Hyborem/Mercurian: you can't start the game as these civs, and it's probably a bad idea to switch to them as they're always be also-ran. They both power-up depending on the death of 'allied' units, so can potentially get powerful, but in practice tend to die off quickly (though Hyborem entering the world means that evil players will shortly have hellfire in the place of useful terrain improvements).

Hippus is good for early game if you rush to horse archers. Typically strategy against non-barbarian NPC is to pull up close to one city and raze some improvements, then quick move to a now-undermanned city and take it. Otherwise you get tied down in your need for seige (or wizrds+fireball) and Hippus, as you mentioned, is all about speed speed speed.

Game is awesome, I play it almost as much as you. I like that they streamlined the buildings required (no more Bowyer or Colliseum) in this latest push.

Little things I'd like to see them work on:

I dislike that the Arquebus basically replaces the use of any other non-special units in the late game (read: Champions). Replace them with a teir three archer and ditch the blasting powder.

I'd like to see another "neutral" religion option, something targeted toward the magic... or make Octopus Overlords (OO) more targeted to magic (as Earthmother seems targeted at economy and Fellowship seems targeted toward growth. Hell, make OO an evil religion, and add a neutral religion targeted toward magic.

Deceit (Esus) religion needs to suck less, or I need to figure out how to use it's strengths... ok, first I need to figure 'what' it's strength is.

This is probably a complaint against Civ 4, rather then FfH, but shipping needs to play a bigger role in the game.

Edit: changed "Followship" to "Fellowship" and other, little stuff, like sentences making sense to someone reading them

I always thought OO was targeted towards magic simply because it has Hemah which is the most powerful mage in the game. That's enough magic all by himself. OO really should be evil, though... come on, you're worshipping Cthulhu and drowning your flock and driving them insane, these are generally not good things to do.

And the slavery thing may have some rough edges, good versus evil-wise. But other then that, OO is practically good!

An idea for Esus that seems to fit in with it being the counter for the Empyrean (who have an abundance of anti-stealth units) would be to make this religion proficient at causing trouble between cultures. I'm thinking a unit that can choose it's nationality. Then you use it to generate negative influence between to cultures. Seems brokenly overpowered, but I think you get where I'm coming from. Yes, Belseraph + Esus would be disturbing.

The first game I played, that totally hooked me, was as Lanun + OO. Peanut butter and chocolate! I've played a few as them since. Then I think I did one as Balseraph, which I really enjoyed. Then one as Bannor, yay crusades. Now I'm playing the elves and somehow didn't notice the workers didn't cut the forests, mostly because my normal playstyle is to leave forests intact and just road them. Dizzam. Going to have to fire it up tomorrow and pump out some new workers, I had just finished improving my entire island.

My favorite strategy is to turtle early on an island while using privateers to keep everyone else in line. This game I've got some ridiculously upgraded privateers out there messing with people. Also somehow ended up with a massively powerful scout, can beat just about anything shy of a hero.

Love how versatile and different FfH2 is, firaxis would be foolish if they didn't hire the team and publish a full commercial version. Especially when they release what is apparently a weak Col remake (and I was asking for a Col remake!).

I got a totally awesome map last night for my new elves game. My entire eastern and southern border is mountains, my north and west border is the ocean. I've got a one square access on the southwest to another section that's mountains on the east north and south, and ocean on the west with a 3-tile wide causeway to the rest of the civs. THe walled-off areas have let me build up a total of 10 cities unmolested and with no worry of being attacked.

Sure, I was sitting at 0 tech budget and -10 gold per turn for a while, but dungeon exploring and the idiot dark elves who obligingly declared war so I could pillage their improvements for gold meant that didn't hold me back. Now that my cities are large enough to support themselves and I've gotten some better techs via trade and library/ council research points I'm the biggest badass on the block. Booyah!

Quick derail. How long does a multi player match take? Real time, LAN. Say, between 4 people? (i know it depends on the players for the most part, looking for an average commitment time)

Quote from: Sky on December 23, 2008, 08:54:19 AM

Love how versatile and different FfH2 is, firaxis would be foolish if they didn't hire the team and publish a full commercial version.

Um, they did. Most of the Illian rework first appeared in Age of Ice.

So this sounds really good and I love Civilization, but I'm definitely not big into the military side of things. My Civ games always involve teching, and economic/cultural dominance. Is that style of play not really viable here? Not that I don't love the idea of stomping around the map with god units at the endgame, but to I have to be smacking shit around the whole time?

Nah, just pick a turtle civ, like Kuriotates or Elohim. Kuriotates hard-caps your expansion so if you ordinarily don't spam all over the map anyway that plays to your strengths.

Note that the barbarians are far more aggressive and numerous than in vanilla Civ, though, so your initial empire-settling will be somewhat frenetic, but afterwords peaceful buildup is quite viable. Unless you have a crazy demon at your doorstep or something.

Quote from: Lum on December 23, 2008, 11:03:34 AM

Um, they did. Most of the Illian rework first appeared in Age of Ice.

Don't make me call you Sherlock, Shirley.

I meant something like "Sid Meier's Civilization: Fall from Heaven 2", a standalone release like Colonization was. Because FfH2 appears to whip the shit out of the Col release.

Love love love this mod. A couple of random thoughts on things said here (but bear in mind I haven't played the latest version yet)

Teching: Lum, when you say you head to Festivals for marketplace, is that before or after you hit Mysticism/Education? I generally go for a resource tech (crafting if I have wine, for example), usually exploration, then Mysticism for Elder councils and Education to get my cottages going. For a lot of civs, especially elves, my economy just dies if I don't get those cottages up. Festivals is great but I don't rush it.

Council of Esus: It's got one main strength that most people don't realize - when you declare war on someone, if you're following the Council, then your units aren't removed from within their borders. That makes it fairly easy to take/raze half of somebody's empire in a single turn, or all of a smaller empire. Also makes slow-ass catapults actually worth using.

Elohim aren't necessarily a turtle civ, IMO. Their tolerant trait is pretty badass - nothing like taking a few cities from Balserpahs and building your own freaks awesome, for real

Beelining to Priesthood for early monks is also doable in many games.

Clan of Embers: doesn't anybody like these guys? I love teching up to ogres and popping out two at a time with warrens. Although I just read in the latest patch notes that ogres are replacing orcish champions as, um, the clan champions. Starting 8 strength and can use iron, though, so possibly stronger than the old version, and a lot faster than teching up to stirrups with barbarian research.

Awesome new game setting: High to Low. Starts like a regular civ game, but when you have the top score, the game switches you to the civ with the lowest. Then you struggle to stay alive, claw your way back up to the top... and you get switched again. The second time you switch (to your third civ of the game), you finish the game with that civ. It can sometimes be difficult to do much with the third civ since it tends to be late in the game when you get there, but it's so satisfying working your way out of a crap spot.

I generally play Emperor, Aggresive (or whatever setting makes civs more likely to declare war), with Fractal or Pangea maps (hate dealing with navies and the AI can't attack another continent worth crap), and hope I don't start next to the Doviello. Lucian is ACK!

Now for my own question - I keep seeing people talk about fireball-weilding Luichirp golems, but I have no idea how to build those. Anybody know?

Quote from: Raging Turtle on December 23, 2008, 02:17:02 PM

Now for my own question - I keep seeing people talk about fireball-weilding Luichirp golems, but I have no idea how to build those. Anybody know?

Not sure if this is what you are talking about but with flesh graft you can change any unit into a golem (and they keep their enhancements), so you create a wizard, then use flesh graft to create a fireball-weilding golem.

All Luchuirp Golems built in a city with a Blasting Workshop have the ability to throw Fireballs. Yes, even their workers.

Any defense against Assassins? They killed my hero, they killed my catapults over and over, they killed a SETTER on a BOAT in my town! Gah!

Also, how the heck do you get rid of withered and diseased? Is there a monster thread somewhere with all these newbie questions in it?

I love this mod. Love.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=190

that's to the forums for the FF2 mod at Civ Fanatics.

Disease can be removed with the Cure Disease spell priests get access to with (I think) life mana. I think Herbalists can also remove it, but I'm not certain on that either. I haven't encountered withered yet.

Assassins are a bitch, but a unit with see hidden will spot them.

So going on the revelation about elvish workers (man I feel dumb for missing that one), I started planting farms and town in the forests. Then I started running my druid around growing new forest and removing some ice so I could build north a bit. Which brings me to a protip: It's sometimes best to upgrade a unit from the lowest form. I made the mistake of making another Druid directly, and he couldn't create forests, because it's a priest of leaves skill. Create the priest of leaves and then upgrade him to druid, voila, a unit that can upgrade terrain (with nature magic upgrades) and also plant forests on them. Which for elves is DRILLING AND MANLINESS

Got that project far enough that seeing an evil faction flip to Ashen Veil went from ACK!

Holy crap the dragon has taken over the lands across the mountains, and all lizardmen tribes are on his side! Fortresses of mages will hold them at bay until I can call my hero.

This game is a lesson on emergent gameplay, and should be required playing for, like, everyone. And what most fascinates me is how the game world's lore and history actually fit into a civilization-building game. I once made an Ultima mod for Civ, and about half the game concepts had to be shoe-horned into the gameplay. Meanwhile Fall From Heaven is its own thing, and is designed around the idea of building units, cultures, cities, and governments. Few game worlds fit into gameplay so well.

There is a skill that I'm going to guess is called, "Guardian", which is a defense against assassins. I'm not sure what the prerequisite it though

I haven't played in months, so I just dl'd this a few days ago. None of you warned me about Stasis. Bastards. Tantrum

In my current game, I'm playing as Malakim and everyone else besides Khazad (who hates me, for some reason) is evil/AV. I was able to hold out until I got Chalid and a gang of Luridus (no idea how to spell that; the level 6 priests). Now I'm gonna see how many fronts I can maintain at once. Oh ho ho ho. Reallllly?

Quote from: Raguel on January 02, 2009, 11:17:16 AM

I haven't played in months, so I just dl'd this a few days ago. None of you warned me about Stasis. Bastards. Tantrum

Stasis isn't NEARLY as fun as Sanctuary. Turtle long enough to build up a massive army, move it to your border then charge in on those evil fucks blocking you from your resources. Tear through a few cities, half the world declares war on you via alliances and then cast Sanctuary. Who needs defenders in captured cities? Not me, fuckers, you can't enter for the next 30 turns. More than long enough to wipe out several nations and subdue the others. And if that doesn't work, Mr. Hero Mage (Corelian?) can be sacrificed to force peace. Buahahhaha.

I've yet to play as Elohim. I've only played a handful of races and currently I'm getting cheap lulz from destroying armies 6x larger than mine with helm + pillar + radiant guards. why so serious?