Civ 4 - Fall from Heaven 2 (version .41N) and more - Updated 6/3/2010

[Sky]

Don't hate the player, baby. Hate the build.

No, I'll just hate the player. Just because you can exploit game holes doesn't mean you should.

But then, that's why I don't play multiplayer any more. You'll always get some bunny-hopping, dolphin-diving douche that says "Hey man...the game allows it!".

[Lum]

I'm up for multiplayer. I can probably get a pitboss set up. Think the only way we'd ever get anything done is to just set some time aside to play live though. PBEM would be WAY too slow.

[GenVec]

No, I'll just hate the player. Just because you can exploit game holes doesn't mean you should.

Nor would I play a game that relies upon an "honor system' to prevent cheese tactics from being exploited. Battlefield Vietnam being the first example to spring to mind.

One of the beautiful things about playing a work in progress is to explore the different gaming holes and go bitch about them on the forums. I did just such a thing in regards to the tier 2 entropy spell, and within a month they fixed it. Huzzah for their responsiveness.

Anywho, there are a number of holes still left in the game - notably the upgrade system. Experienced multiplayer folk apparently have a complex map for building new units with max promotions - starting with a dwarven warrior, then immediately uprading him  up through the tiers to shield wall to produce a unit with guerilla II, sentry, commando, etc, for example. Personally I dislike essential build orders in games, no matter what their form, and this seems to be just another abstract realization of that.

Anywho, i'm free for a game Thursday or Friday before 2. Or on the weekend. And I'll try my hand at the dwarves - I call Kandros Fir.

Edit: What the hell is dolphin diving?

[MrHat]

I'll give a medium world quick pace game a try w/ the computer today and tomorrow and see how I like it.

I fully expect to have run my attentionspan course by this weekend.

[WayAbvPar]

Is 2.022 the latest version? I was poking around teh webz last night and couldn't conclusively answer that.

[Sky]

Dolphin diving = exploit in BF2. Jumping and proning in rapid succession while still being able to shoot.

[MrHat]

Is 2.022 the latest version? I was poking around teh webz last night and couldn't conclusively answer that.

2.022f I believe (Don't forget to DL and apply the patch).

[Stephen Zepp]

I'd possibly be interested in an MP session, but given that my games are taking 10+ hours for 250 turns single player before the first war by anyone is even started, I just don't see that happening :(

Maybe we could try a scenario, or play a second era game--although that could really break some of the civs that have specific starting strats--for example with my Calabim builds, I can't automate workers since they seem to not understand that all I want is farms and mines and pastures--cottages are for the weak.

[GenVec]

It's very dependent upon the civs, the size of the map, and the playstyles being employed. On Quick/Standard/Pangea i've seen fighting break out as early as turn 35-50 (much to my detriment, as scouting wargs capture my second city). It's also important to note that the computer's willingness to go to war is greatly influenced by the Armageddon counter, which invariably favors clashing mid to late game empires rather than quick and dirty skirmishes in the wilderness. While some civs in multiplayer games - Calabim included - will still hold off in favor of rushing aristocracy and their other "essential" techs, early game parties such as the Doviello and Clan of Embers will try to mount up their goblins on Wargs and go on an early game rampage in hopes of buying them enough time to get a sizable advantage.

From what I read on the forums, 2-3 hours would be a reasonable amount of time to play. While I doubt anyone will secure total victory, it would still see some good fighting, and a couple civs wiped out.

And if we still feel we have unfinished business, we could save it and reload next time we play.

[Flood]

I'd be interested in the MP game.  Let's see how it pans out. 

Don't worry Hat, I'm the same way, I love me some culture and religious city turning.

[Cheddar]

Clan of Embers needs to be at war.  Always.  If you do not war then you are losing- you cannot produce shit fast enough during peace time to keep up with others.  Meta tip:  pop a shitload of goblins and go get wolves; BAM free Warg Riders!

[tar]

OK, so any hints on how to level up disciple units (healers/priests)?

Unlike the arcane units, they don't gain exp over time, and with a strength 2, by the time you can produce them, the barbarians (and other civs) have units that obliterate them.

To clarify a bit on this question, the first tier (strength 2) disciple units don't get XP over time. The unit needs a channelling promotion in order to get XP/time, ie. you need priests, high priests or inquisitors.

For example, with the Order as your religion the acolyte is the basic disciple unit and it doesn't get XP over time, although it can upgrade into a confessor which does. The confessor can also be built in a city. The confessor can then be upgraded to a high priest of the order or an inquisitor once it reaches level 6, which is the only way to get those units (they can't be built). You also need the appropriate tech/resources/buildings to do this.

[Merusk]

Leaders with the "Arcane" trait are awesome.   Elves, however, ARE fucking E-Z mode.  Holy crap. I started a 'quick' game last night and I'm about 1k points ahead of everyone else on the scoreboard after only 200 turns.

Think I'll try some dwarves or vampires later today.

[Roac]

Think I'll try some dwarves or vampires later today.

Vampires are teh awesome.  Midgame, setup a few cities as pure growth, and have your vampires (or lords if you have them) suck the population.  They get xp based on city size, so a city of 20 gives more xp than one of 5, even if they down a point either way, so you'll want to find the sweet spot where you get the most xp, but also high growth.  Or my personal favorite, conquer an opponent's high pop cities and suck them dry.  Each city turns another vamp into a war god.  Or for more fun, vamp a high level mage, and have your mage suck a city.  Easy way to advance 200xp archmages (plus, it lets you rapidly advance 3 of them into liches).

[Raging Turtle]

Leaders with the "Arcane" trait are awesome.   Elves, however, ARE fucking E-Z mode.  Holy crap. I started a 'quick' game last night and I'm about 1k points ahead of everyone else on the scoreboard after only 200 turns.

Think I'll try some dwarves or vampires later today.

Starting area and neighbors > Race.

Or maybe I'm just telling myself that because elves are the only race that I haven't gotten my butt kicked with so far 

[Sky]

I started a game last night with the elves and got stomped a couple times by barbarians before I finally got things going. Those first two starting islands sucked anyway.

Then I started thinking I want to play the pirate guy because I love archipelagos....Love this mod.

[Hoax]

I got Civ4 on direct d/l, installed the mod and...

remembered its been fucking forever since I played whatever civ was ported to the SNES way back in the bygone era.  I dont remember how to manage city growth for shit.  Also I keep building workers only to realize that they can't actually improve anything because the needed tech research hasn't been done for them to be anything beyond road builders.

I think I'm going to need to actually participate in a tutorial...   *sigh*

[Stephen Zepp]

I got Civ4 on direct d/l, installed the mod and...

remembered its been fucking forever since I played whatever civ was ported to the SNES way back in the bygone era.  I dont remember how to manage city growth for shit.  Also I keep building workers only to realize that they can't actually improve anything because the needed tech research hasn't been done for them to be anything beyond road builders.

I think I'm going to need to actually participate in a tutorial...   *sigh*

Heh..the biggest problem is that city/empire infrastructure is fundamentally different for each of the civilizations. You can't re-learn a single infrastructure strat and expect it to apply to the next civ you use.

Personally, after playing evil races hard (vampires, sheim mostly), I've realized that I really like the simplicity (3-4 cities tops, but super sprawl) of the Kuriotites. Of course--I make them evil by going Veil, but hey, I start off good!

[Lum]

I'm not sure that any civ that starts the Cult of the Dragon can be considered "good".

[Sky]

I wish Brian Reynolds would hire these guys and get back into TBS.

[Strazos]

From what limited time I had to play this so far, I am Liking it. I started off Bannor, thinking I would make a huge army of crusading Paladins or somesuch, only to learn that actually getting good units is Hard. And then I learned that the Confessor casters I was able to get easily don't actually cast Fireball, so now I have to go back and train up my arcane tech.

Is it just me, or are the normal ground units weak as piss?


Anyway, the Demon civ decided to spawn within spitting distance of two of my northern support cities, so now I'm up there with a sizeable stack, including 2 hero units and a bunch of Crusaders with a few Confessors/Prophets as healing/support.

Unfortunately, it's practically impossible for me to engage directly in melee, as the lead demon wtfpwns whatever I send at it. So for now, while I am teching to Paladins, I am just using Ring of Fire on the one enemy stack to keep them under control.

Also, my long-time southern neighbor/ally has decided I am vulnerable. Too bad her only targets are my heavily defended capital, and another city that's defended almost as much as my capital.

PS; Why does it seem that The Order, the religion I founded, sucks?

[Stephen Zepp]

From what limited time I had to play this so far, I am Liking it. I started off Bannor, thinking I would make a huge army of crusading Paladins or somesuch, only to learn that actually getting good units is Hard. And then I learned that the Confessor casters I was able to get easily don't actually cast Fireball, so now I have to go back and train up my arcane tech.

Is it just me, or are the normal ground units weak as piss?


Anyway, the Demon civ decided to spawn within spitting distance of two of my northern support cities, so now I'm up there with a sizeable stack, including 2 hero units and a bunch of Crusaders with a few Confessors/Prophets as healing/support.

Unfortunately, it's practically impossible for me to engage directly in melee, as the lead demon wtfpwns whatever I send at it. So for now, while I am teching to Paladins, I am just using Ring of Fire on the one enemy stack to keep them under control.

Also, my long-time southern neighbor/ally has decided I am vulnerable. Too bad her only targets are my heavily defended capital, and another city that's defended almost as much as my capital.

PS; Why does it seem that The Order, the religion I founded, sucks?

It's all a matter of how you use it.

Promotions are a huge deal, and while the barbarians seem like a PITA, they are really there for you to farm up exp on your early melee units. You also probably need to tech up your weapon metal upgrades (bronze, iron, then mithril), and as Bannor, your big strengths are in the holy line--specifically your pallies, and don't forget to build the mercurian gate--it'll steal one of your cities for the Basium civilization (which you can choose to actually swap over to if you like), but they will be full ally with you--you can even tell them what to research.

Before summoning Basium, get yourself stocked up on lots of units--Basium will declare war on any Holy Veil civs he finds, and drag you into it.

The Order is pretty damned awesome once you figure it out--and Bannor is a good civ as well. I highly suggest you study the wiki, especially bookmark the spells section--your casters have 3 "types", and there are like 14 different nodes of magic. Based on their channeling level (which they don't gain promotions in directly, but from being upgraded to mage/summoners, then arch mages) they get different spells, and you won't necessarily know what to promote on each level--yet you must spend your promotions to get to the unit level where you can upgrade to the next type.

Oh yah, and don't forget your custom/specialized civic--Crusade I think it is.

[Hoax]

Fuck.

Hella reading.

We're going to set up a multiplayer game of this at some point soon right?  Otherwise its so not worth it...

[Typhon]

I can't run anything bigger then a 'standard' sized game as the turns begin to take up to 30 seconds (and I start to want to put my head through the screen).

...  that's what I think a multiplayer game would be like.  If we were all in the same room, and drinking, and giving each other shit for taking so long it's sounds like it would be fun.  But not actually knowing any of you, I wouldn't feel comfortable saying, "will you hurry the FUCK UP!" over ventrillo.

also, I HATE THE GODDAMN WOLF BUG!  I've stopped playing anything but tropical just to keep them from going spawn crazy (which doesn't seem to bother the NPC civs very much... bastards!)

[Stephen Zepp]

I can't run anything bigger then a 'standard' sized game as the turns begin to take up to 30 seconds (and I start to want to put my head through the screen).

...  that's what I think a multiplayer game would be like.  If we were all in the same room, and drinking, and giving each other shit for taking so long it's sounds like it would be fun.  But not actually knowing any of you, I wouldn't feel comfortable saying, "will you hurry the FUCK UP!" over ventrillo.

also, I HATE THE GODDAMN WOLF BUG!  I've stopped playing anything but tropical just to keep them from going spawn crazy (which doesn't seem to bother the NPC civs very much... bastards!)

Yah--it's one of the reasons I moved to the kurio's--I was getting about 2 turns every 90 mins micromanaging 20 cities of the vamps.

The wolves breeding out of control should be fixed next patch according to Kael, but personally I just periodically open up the world builder and delete 'em if there are too many--especially once I've gotten level 6+ on all the units that want it.

[Tairnyn]

I'm really loving this so far, and it's rekindled my love for the game. It made me realize that the primary thing missing from Civ IV was variety, in units and technologies especially. I actually want to try every race just to approach the game from a different angle. I'm finishing up a Llosafar(?) elf campaign and just teched up to the Elven Flurry, which are crushing my enemies cities with only some meager bombard support.

My only complaint so far is that I can't change the type on a mana node. I made some bad decision early on (not realizing you only need 1 mana of each type) and now I have some useless nodes that I'd love to switch to another type to try out some other schools of magic.

[Cheddar]

I'm really loving this so far, and it's rekindled my love for the game. It made me realize that the primary thing missing from Civ IV was variety, in units and technologies especially. I actually want to try every race just to approach the game from a different angle. I'm finishing up a Llosafar(?) elf campaign and just teched up to the Elven Flurry, which are crushing my enemies cities with only some meager bombard support.

My only complaint so far is that I can't change the type on a mana node. I made some bad decision early on (not realizing you only need 1 mana of each type) and now I have some useless nodes that I'd love to switch to another type to try out some other schools of magic.

If you get 3 of one node type your arcane units automatically begin with that type of magic...

[Sky]

Then I started thinking I want to play the pirate guy because I love archipelagos....Love this mod.

Ok. Now my original like for the game just went over the top.

First Lanun (pirate) city = Innsmouth. Second = Dunwich. Etc. Of course, went for sailing tech and the Octopus Overlords.

The variety between civs is definitely refreshing, can't wait to see the addition of quests and whatnot, this game is going to be insane.

[Merusk]

Yeah the variety is great.  The decision to limit the # of units in Vanilla C4 was because people complained about "early obsolesence" in Civ3.  You'd get your first unit of x type.. then the very next tech would obsolete it, so they simply reduced the number of unit types out there.  Taking the unique racial units in the direction FFH has would have been the better choice. (Particulalry since the "unique" units in C4 are just replacements for base units.)

I didn't know that about the 3-nodes, Ched. Thanks for the tip. If he could add-in overland spells (other than rites) and the mana pool of MoM I'd be in complete bliss.

[Stormwaltz]

Yeah the variety is great.  The decision to limit the # of units in Vanilla C4 was because people complained about "early obsolesence" in Civ3.  You'd get your first unit of x type.. then the very next tech would obsolete it, so they simply reduced the number of unit types out there.

Personally, I find the number of crap obsolescent units that clutter my build menus obnoxious in the the late game, particularly given the fact that things seem to be listed in random order (city improvements followed by sea units, followed by land units, followed by more city improvements, followed by a couple more sea units...). YMMV.

[Sky]

mmdv

[Stephen Zepp]

Yeah the variety is great.  The decision to limit the # of units in Vanilla C4 was because people complained about "early obsolesence" in Civ3.  You'd get your first unit of x type.. then the very next tech would obsolete it, so they simply reduced the number of unit types out there.

Personally, I find the number of crap obsolescent units that clutter my build menus obnoxious in the the late game, particularly given the fact that things seem to be listed in random order (city improvements followed by sea units, followed by land units, followed by more city improvements, followed by a couple more sea units...). YMMV.

It would be nice if you could filter out buildings/units you don't ever want to see--but that's Civ IV mechanics for the most part I think, not the mod itself (although I did read somewhere that they forced non-obsolesence on some units by using "Sir Not Appearing In This Mod" as a unit all can upgrade to, but can never get the tech for).

I just found out last night that the "multiple of one mana node type" is even more complex: 2 gives you level 1 spells without burning a promotion, and 3 gives you level 2. Would  be useful if the mana nodes weren't a relatively scarce resource, but with a just about mandatory requirement for a water node, followed by whatever additionals you may want (fire is very nice for many races for example, and law/death can be pretty important if you go unyielding order archmage/liches).

The one down side I've found is some of the scripts don't do a ton of checking, especially the Armegeddon stuff. I routinely find myself entering the world builder and "helping out" the other races by giving them more land, especially if they wind up forming their cities in the middle of the arctic tundra. This is even more important for the Infernals, since hell terrain doesn't spread through the arctic, effectively dooming him to nothingness.

[Cheddar]

I just found out last night that the "multiple of one mana node type" is even more complex: 2 gives you level 1 spells without burning a promotion, and 3 gives you level 2. Would  be useful if the mana nodes weren't a relatively scarce resource, but with a just about mandatory requirement for a water node, followed by whatever additionals you may want (fire is very nice for many races for example, and law/death can be pretty important if you go unyielding order archmage/liches).

That is new.  Also note that different mana types have different effects; Death adds 1 unhealthiness point to all cities, for example. 

Fireballing Arch Mages are super uber; get a stack of 2-3 and you pretty much roll through another civ. 

[Stephen Zepp]

I just found out last night that the "multiple of one mana node type" is even more complex: 2 gives you level 1 spells without burning a promotion, and 3 gives you level 2. Would  be useful if the mana nodes weren't a relatively scarce resource, but with a just about mandatory requirement for a water node, followed by whatever additionals you may want (fire is very nice for many races for example, and law/death can be pretty important if you go unyielding order archmage/liches).

That is new.  Also note that different mana types have different effects; Death adds 1 unhealthiness point to all cities, for example. 

Fireballing Arch Mages are super uber; get a stack of 2-3 and you pretty much roll through another civ. 

I like meteor better ;)

[Strazos]

I was just happy when I finally killed a Red Dragon and took his Loots.