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

[Sky]

I don't use scenarios, don't know about that. Don't know how the new Col plays, just got it. BtS is vanilla civ ++. Espionage, corps, more units and techs, new civs, yadda.

[Draegan]

Aaah ok, so that's what BtS added. 

[Lum]

Warlords, I dunno, multiplayer stuffs?

Warlords was the first expansion pack which BtS essentially made obsolete. If you just buy Civ4 + BtS the only thing you're missing from Warlords is a few scenarios.

[Sky]

Which is all irrelevant because you should just install FFH2 

[Draegan]

Which is all irrelevant because you should just install FFH2  

Crap, I knew I was forgetting something (even if it is the name of the thread).  This is so going to fuck up my workout tonight.  I hate rushing at the gym.

Edit to add:
What is the difference between what's included in the game and FFH2?  What's the difference and do I need to download anything different?

[Sky]

First post has the download link. Make sure BtS is patched (yay Steam), then install FFH2 and then the FFH2 patch. You can also install the media patch for FFH2.

[Draegan]

BtS might not be patched after Steam's download? 

I'll play around with it later.

[Sky]

No, I mean Steam takes care of that stuff for you.

[Draegan]

Oh.  Good.  I thought you were being sarcastic.

[Sky]

S'okay. Sometimes I'm not even sure when I'm being sarcastic.

[Draegan]

So I played a bit of FFH2 last night.  Interesting mod.

Single player, used whatever the custom map generator selection was (The one that made the best "fantasy map").  First one was me stuck inside a mountain range surrounded area.  The second was more open bit more with "choke" valleys.  I had no idea what race to pick though so that was confusing.  The dungeons etc were pretty fun, but the barbarian hordes were relentless.

I was busy taking down a Barb town and right when I was about to take it over the next turn, some other race just plopped down and took it from me.  Meh. 

It's incredibly slow paced, at least my Civ was.  I was making scientific discoveries every 30 turns or so after the first 2 tiers.  I couldn't make money to save my life either.

It's all pretty cool though. 

[Teleku]

I don't normally use the "fantasy" map generator, just the normal ones.  Actually, I mainly use Pangea or Lakes because none of the civ games or mods have ever done Navel invasions worth a damn. 

But yeah, the game is much slower paced than a normal civ game.  Everything takes longer to build/research, but everything is also much more varied and has a bigger effect on the game.  You basically need to make sure that your first city has a bunch of plots that will make you money.  The amount of money you generate directly effects how many research points you generate in a turn.  So if you have a couple of big money making plantations in your initial starting city, it will help out big time.

[Typhon]

I like fractal.  You aren't really sure what you're going to get.

[Hoax]

Questions:
-how and more importantly what are the conditions to get the free new abilities on casters?
-the religions?  Each have a temple and that lets you create missionary units?  State religion?  Is there somewhere I can read up on the religion system?
-are granary/smokehouse worth it at all earlygame?  I'm starting to think until I can make one for around 10 turns its a waste of my time compared to having 3-4 extra units.

I've got more but can't think of them atm.

[Tebonas]

Adepts get free spells of a mana type if you have enough mana of that type. 2 Mana gives them the Level 1 spell for free, 3 Mana gives them the Level 2 spell for free (if they are eligible to Level 2 spells, so they have to be upgraded to Mages).

Religions give you Missionary Unites and Priest units (with temples). Priest units can gain xp over time (like Arcane units) and can cast divine spells. Also, each religion has at least one religious hero that can only be built once in the game and there are some buildings that are religion-specific as well. Religious units leave you if you abandon their religion as a state religion.

Here is a manual in pdf-form. It is a bit old but it still gives you an overview of the features. I have it in a binder next to the computer for quick browsing.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=8635

I generally build Granaries/Smokehouses. The quicker growth rate usually balances out the waste of time relatively soon, especially when the new citizens can be brought to work in a mine :)

[Sky]

Judgement call on the food processing buildings. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. Usually if I'm not rushing to some goal and it's a production-heavy, food-light city I'll build them. Also (obviously) they're a good multitasker if you've got health issues and the appropriate resources to tap into the health benefits.

Tebonas covered it pretty well. The main thing with mana is whether you want to specialize and get free spells in a school and more powerful affinity summons or have versatility of many schools of magic, but less powerful. If you're getting your main school of magic for free, your upgrades can be spent on spell extension, magic resistance, mobility, etc. But then you won't have access to giving your units as many buffs from multiple schools.

[Lum]

Specializing in a mana type gives you:

* Free abilities for mages (4 mana sources = every spell in that line free once you hit Archmage) freeing up those ability points for other things
* If you have units with "affinity" to that mana type (druids, spectres, Chalid, others) they gain strength with every mana source. This can be a game-winning linchpin.
* Some mana types have inherent bonuses - for example Mind mana sources give you a flat research bonus.

Being a generalist in many mana types gives you:

* Unlocks spells in that mana type - you almost always need at least one mana source for that type to begin learning abilities (some units start with a free ability that bypasses this, such as Vampires with death magic and Illian priests with ice magic)
* Special buildings are unlocked if you get one of every mana type in a tech line - for example having one of each mana type in Necromancy allows you to build the Tower of Necromancy which lets you summon more and stronger skeletons

Religions:

* let you build units that can heal. This is important! (So important that civs that are hard coded to be athiest like the Grigori get "medics" instead)
* give you access to religion specific heroes if you're the first one to build them (Rosier the Fallen and Mardero for the Ashen Veil, Valin Phanuel and Sphener for the Order, Chalid Astrakein for Empyrean, etc etc) These are some of the most powerful units in the game
* having a state religion gives you inherent bonuses to each city of that religion, depending on the religion (usually happiness, Ashen Veil gets a research bonus instead)
* allow you to build temples that have bonuses depending on the religion (mostly happiness and culture bonuses, health bonus for Fellowship of Leaves, etc)

Basically if you don't have a religion you are crippling your city growth; civs that can't use religions like Grigori have that as a penalty to offset other bonuses they may have.

[Hoax]

More questions, haven't looked at that pdf yet, not sure I want to look at a pdf I have real reading I could be doing..

-Resource reveals:  When you get animal husbandry/mining etc. which reveal a new resource will it show up on tiles behind fog of war or just ones you have revealed?
-City health bonus:  What is the maths behind the forest tile health bonus?  I'm always too scared to cut down trees to get the precious hammer boosts because I can't seem to tell which ones effect the health of the city.

I've been playing and enjoying evil humans starts with Ill, but I'm still very bad at the early game.  I like the concept of rush Philosophy to get the building that gives them 3 free casters transition but I need to work on my expansion strategies a little since I often find myself behind Civs like Doviello who pwned me in my last game thanks to some treacherous bullshit from the Eloheim and the fuckhead Dwarves (god I hate Dwarves).

Those 3 casters don't have hero but do seem to give themselves abilities over time, I'm going to pay more attention to what is going on in light of what you guys said.  It has not seemed to work the way I would expect based on this comment

* Free abilities for mages (4 mana sources = every spell in that line free once you hit Archmage) freeing up those ability points for other things

I've never noticed casters being given an ability choice that was limited to 1 spell, I've noticed they can only get the spells linked to mana types you have but I need to watch more closely in future games.

[Lum]

-Resource reveals:  When you get animal husbandry/mining etc. which reveal a new resource will it show up on tiles behind fog of war or just ones you have revealed?

Everywhere, assuming you've explored them once and the square isn't black.

City health bonus:  What is the maths behind the forest tile health bonus?  I'm always too scared to cut down trees to get the precious hammer boosts because I can't seem to tell which ones effect the health of the city.

Trees only give you a health bonus if you have certain Fellowship of Leaves-centric civics, and the mouseover on each will tell you in that event. Generally only resources will give you health bonuses (as opposed to food, which is different).

[Arinon]

You get half a health point per forest tile before any modifications no?  The treehugger bonuses are for happiness I thought.

Only on my second serious FFH2 game.  The mod totally lives up to the hype it's getting around here.  I played the shit out of vanilla and BtS and this is a whole new game.  They ripped out all the late game micromanaging craziness so I actually want to finish games.  Once vanilla games got to air units I usually didn't last long.

[Azazel]

Anyone got an exact link to the correct file for this, and instructions on how to install it to steam?
There's about 3 files on their webpage, and it's not 100% clear which one you need.

I have both FallfromHeaven2.exe and FallfromHeaven2031.exe but neither of those seem to be the current one.

[CmdrSlack]

Anyone got an exact link to the correct file for this, and instructions on how to install it to steam?
There's about 3 files on their webpage, and it's not 100% clear which one you need.

I have both FallfromHeaven2.exe and FallfromHeaven2031.exe but neither of those seem to be the current one.

First post in the thread.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=308020

You need the mod and the patch. It looks like Patch "n" was released on May 15, 2010.

You don't "need" the music pack, but it is somewhat nice.

Installing into steam requires re-setting the install path. If you use google to search the Civ Fanatics site, you can find a discussion thread that gives you the path you need to use.

[Azazel]

Thanks - that was making me unsure, since there's usually a full update for these things.

[CmdrSlack]

Heck, I didn't even know about Patch N until you asked your question. It took me forever to find the install path info -- wish I'd bookmarked it now that someone else needs it.

[Soulflame]

If you run Beyond the Sword once from Steam, the installer for FfH will be able to find that.  At least, that was my experience.

[Hoax]

You get half a health point per forest tile before any modifications no?  The treehugger bonuses are for happiness I thought.

It is something like this but I need to do more testing before I'm convinced, also are you thinking it counts the 21 squares the city can use or anything within its influence area?

There is also the penalty to health for jungle tiles but I always play on cold setting so it hasn't come up often.

A few more questions,
-what the fuck do I do about fire?  I've had fires rage around for like 20 turns it feels like before they decide to go out.
-does having a unit in your starting city make it grow faster?  I haven't noticed the typical undefended unhappiness but sometimes it feels like the city grows quicker if it is defended.

[Sky]

Manual pg 163, Water sphere promotion 1 spell: Spring. Desert -> Plains, also puts out fires in surrounding tiles.

[Lum]

There is undefended unhappiness but depending on difficulty level a city has to be a certain size before it can be unhappy.

[Ingmar]

If it works like vanilla variable early growth rates in cities is probably mostly being caused by building workers or settlers.

[Hoax]

I wish there was a list of what spells are unlocked by having what mana resources, anyone help me w/ that?  Couldn't find it in the pdf manual.

[CmdrSlack]

I wish there was a list of what spells are unlocked by having what mana resources, anyone help me w/ that?  Couldn't find it in the pdf manual.

The manual kind of tells you since it gives the icon associated with the spell/mana type, IIRC. You still have to figure out by comparing to other stuff, though. There isn't a simple key.

[Hoax]

Actually I accidentally found it clicking around after you posted that.  Page 183 has the Spell Spheres section which does exactly what I wanted.

[CmdrSlack]

Actually I accidentally found it clicking around after you posted that.  Page 183 has the Spell Spheres section which does exactly what I wanted.

Well, fuck. I've been doing it the "I don't read the ToC" way this whole time.

Page 183 it is, then.

[Sky]

Also, the Promotions section of the civopedia shows the I/II/III promotions for each mana type, you can click through those to find spells and effects.

[Kageru]

So damn addictive. Civ4 not so much, but this mod is worth the price to get the game. The variety in how the game plays out and the factions play is really quite well done. The Erebus map allowing me to focus defence a bit and the AI in the most recent patch being quite lethal are all good too. Considering how much it adds the balance is pretty decent.

It's now beaten BC2 in hours played (90+ hours) .. not bad for a 10$ steam game