Intro
Sup bros.
So I've been away from RPGs for the last couple of months because I went back to my addiction of more than 1500 hours: Civilization 4. I thought about making a Civ 4 mods (I tried a lot of them) thread, but the stuff I wanted to talk about in the FfH section is simply too much and deserves its own thread. Anyway, let's get to it!
Mini-guide to this thread:
"I don't even know what this thread is about" -> read on
"LOL, everyone knows about FfH, you're like six years too late. Fucking newfags..." -> skip the first post, start HERE
"Yeah I remember FfH. Good times. I wonder if they ever fixed the AI..." -> this thread is for you! HERE
"I wanted to see the FfH universe being expanded. How is RifE doing anyway?" -> good question. Read HERE
"Master of Mana is the tits!" -> HERE
2022 Update: I'm gonna come out and say I never cared for these transformative mods, only the "polishing" mods like MNAI and EMM. An article on pcgamesn.com made a flowchart on Fall From Heaven modmods that I find both accurate and useful:
As you can see, my focus with this thread has always been the "vanilla" branch with EMM. I find AoE/RifE/etc to be autismo mods that suffer from a severe "too many cooks stirring the pot" issue. It's adding stuff for the sake of adding stuff. Some of it is good, but a lot is bad and the end result is a diluted experience. Master of Mana OTOH is more interesting, but woefully underdeveloped. The Wildmana subforum in pretty much dead nowadays and Xtended 5.6 is the last version. I played it, it doesn't work. AI doesn't know shit about the game, unlike EMM.
WTF IS "FALL FROM HEAVEN" AND WHY SHOULD I CARE?
Simply put FfH is the answer to the "what if we had a total conversion mod to turn this game into medieval fantasy with RPG elements™ while keeping the core of Civilization 4 gameplay?" question.
Dwarves? Check! Magic? Check! Dark Elves? Check! Stack of Doom? CHECK!!!
So all your favorite medieval fantasy tropes are there, don't worry. What makes the game great isn't its "rich lore™" but rather the mechanical implementation of the whole medieval fantasy thing. While most Civilization mods try their best to keep the same "feel" as the original game (and if that's what you're looking for then I suggest you install Realism Invictus ASAP) Fall From Heaven tried something new and, IMO succeeded.
If you think this is just a reskin of military units to look like medieval fantasy stuff then, well, you're wrong. FfH brings a lot of new CORE concepts that work alongside regular Civ 4 mechanics like culture, production, research etc. The main thing about the FfH universe is the implementation of magic and Armageddon mechanics. As you can see on the screenshot, there is a number on the top left corner of the minimap area. It starts at 0 and rises all the way up to 100 (Armageddon) according to what is happening in the world. Demon is brought into the world? Armageddon rises. City full of innocents gets razed? Armageddon rises. The Celestial civilization is brought into the world? Armageddon lowers. Big bad fallen angel is slain? Armageddon lowers. And so on.
The Armageddon counter puts a sense of urgency into the late game, thus countering classical Civ4 late game stagnancy/boredom. Late game is usually when the BIG wars between good and evil actually happen. Being "good" in FfH isn't about being a "nice" and faggy, but rather it's about avoiding the almost inevitable DOOM. In fact, good leaders like Capria are among the biggest warmongers. Good and evil are directly related to Armageddon.
And how does Armageddon affects the gameplay? Heavily. There are several scripted events that will always fire at certain thresholds. The Blight, the Horsemen of the Apocalypse and the spread of hell terrain are just some of the many nasty things that will happen to the world as you get closer to The End. Armageddon mechanics also influence rituals, the strength of demons and Marked units, the arrival of Avatar heroes and several other things. It's hard to explain (since it's a ton of stuff), but easy to understand once you get into the game.
Yes, Horsemen of the Apocalypse. There is a bit of hell terrain on the right corner, for extra effect.
Another cool mechanic is, obviously, magic. Mana works similarly to how strategic resources work in vanilla Civ 4. In order to be able to cast spells of a particular sphere you need at least one source of mana. So just as a single source of Iron allows you to make an entire army of Iron armed troops, one source of Fire Mana is enough to fuel every single one of your mages all the way up to Summon Fire Elemental.
And if we're talking about "magic", we're talking about the Amurites. Featuring in the screenshot is Govannon, an Archmage willing to teach every single one of your units how to cast magic. Sweet!
Magic is treated via "promotions". So in order to cast fireball your unit needs the "channeling II" promotion and the "fire II" promotion. Magic users come in 3 tiers: adepts -> mages -> archmages. There is a fun little twist: only adepts can be trained in your cities. You need to upgrade a 4th level adept in order to have a mage and your mage must reach level 6 before becoming an archmage. If they get assassinated before that, well...tough luck.
Mana also provides some passive (and cumulative!) benefits to your empire, according to their type. Law mana reduces your maintenance costs, Life Mana gives you extra health in your cities, Mind Mana increases your Great Person Points and so on. Another advantage to hoarding mana of the same type is that new adepts will be created with FREE promotions if you have surplus mana. Some summons also have "affinity" to a certain type of mana, meaning they become stronger the more mana of that type you acquire. Hold 3 death nodes and watch as your summoned specters stop being cannon fodder and become actual tools of DOOM.
Heroes are another fun mechanic that FfH brings. Every civilization has one or more heroes and every religion brings at least one hero. Civilization heroes are "guaranteed" while religious heroes belong to whoever recruit them first. So you're always competing with your "brothers and sisters of the faith" for the heroes said faith attracts. If they die in battle they are gone. Civ heroes can be revived if you have someone capable of casting Life III, but they will come back with ZERO xp. Religious Heroes will always abandon your cause if you change your religion, but they are not "dead". They can be recruited again by another player who still worships your original religion.
Religion mechanics are also very nice. There are seven religions in the game, each providing unique mechanics, unique civics and even changing your leader's original alignment. So if you start as a good/neutral leader but later decides that converting to the Ashen Veil religion is a good idea, well...
...here is your new friend. Don't worry, he's got your back, bro!
But Religion in FfH is not just a "moral" choice. As stated above, religions have associated heroes, they bring unique units and they allow you to use unique civics. All these things are GONE if you convert away from your chosen religion. Abandoning the Runes of Kilmorph, for instance, means you won't be able to use the Arete civic and you'll lose your dwarven heroes. Paramanders won't abandon you, tho. Oh, and speaking of unique civics:
Finally we have a civic option worthy of RPG Codex
Every civilization has a couple of unique mechanics. The Clan of Embers can bring barbarian cities to the fold without bloodshed. Every city the Kuriotates build has a radius of workable tiles of 3 instead of the usual 2. The Illians have a ton of unique rituals to bring the world to an ICY end instead of a fiery one. The Khazad (Dwarves) have a vault mechanic (top right corner of the first screenshot) that increases happiness as you hoard gold and causes unhappiness if your vaults ever become empty. There is still adventuring, Over/Undercouncil, magical items...I could go on forever about FfH mechanics, but I hope I convinced you by now to try the game.
FINE YOU CONVINCED ME! HOLY SHIT! THERE IS SO MUCH STUFF!!!!1111 WHERE DO I EVEN START!?!?
First of all, you need the basegame MOD. Don't install Blue Marble!!! LINK
Then you need Extramodmod. Read the second post if you don't know why the base game isn't enough. DOWNLOAD THREAD
Now that you're all set, pick the Bannor civilization and Monarch or Prince difficulty and start a new game. Trust me, Bannor is by far the go-to "noob civilization".
Ready to smite some evil doers! And some good-doers who happen to have easily conquerable and rich lands...
Now, as you probably already know, there are two types of economy in Civ 4: cottage based and specialist based. The Bannor leans heavily towards a cottage based economy due to their World Spell. Rally (the Bannor World Spell) gives you a free Demagog (mid-high power melee unit) for every town improvement and every city you own. You don't want to use Rally during your first or second expansion war since World Spells can only be used once per game. You want to save your Rally for that ONE war against your biggest rival. Crusade + rally = certain victory (assuming you haven't been sucking too much balls).
So back to economic strategy, you want to be doing cottage based horizontal growth which also synergizes with the Order religion and the Overcouncil. Playing with a cottage focused Civ first is a good thing because cottage based economies in FfH are almost identical to Vanilla, while specialist based economies are very different and rely on a bit of meta-game knowledge. Cottages are unlocked via the "Education" tech.
You have two objectives, technology-wise: founding the Order religion and reaching Fanaticism ASAP. The Order has great synergy with the Bannor, but you can easily replace it with Runes of Kilmorph for extra production instead of happy faces and reduced maintenance. Fanaticism OTOH is non-negotiable since it is THE biggest power spike for a Bannor player, giving you the ability to recruit Donal Lugh (your national Hero), the ability to recruit (or upgrade to) Paladins AND your unique civic Crusade.
"Crusade" is insanely good. War weariness becomes a non-issue, great generals emerge all the time, your cities train units 25% faster and everyone is happier (as long as they follow the State Religion, that is). What else do you need to conquer the world!? Well, there is one drawback (two, actually): no diplomacy with enemies and you can't create non military stuff during a Crusade. Before changing civics to Crusade, make sure you're willing to go all the way. And scream "DEUS VULT!" before declaring war, since that improves your battle RNG drastically.
Don't neglect your religion! Confessors can Bless your troops, giving everyone an additional strength point and they can also remove pesky diseases that might otherwise screw an entire stack. They also bring the Medic promotion, which is always nice. Sphener (Order hero) and Priors have the OP spell "Unyielding Order" which instantly removes all unhappiness from a city and stays that way while the unit remains inside the city. This spell can be used for insta-pacification of newly conquered cities!!! Everything about the Bannor screams "Conquest Victory".
Even if the Bannor isn't a very magic focused civ they sure as hell have no qualms about using it and magic is ALWAYS useful in FfH. The short version is this: you want to have at least one guy with Enchantment I and Body I. "Enchanted blade" gives every melee unit in the stack an additional 20% Strength. 'Nuff said. Other magic spheres with a big "bang for your buck" include Shadow (immunity to First Strikes and the ability to ignore building defenses at Shadow II), Body (Haste = 1 extra movement for the entire stack), Chaos (1 Extra First Strike for the entire stack) and Metamagic (summons a magical eye to scout the map, just like airplanes in vanilla civ).
tl; dr: pick Bannor, choose Monarch/Prince difficulty, found the Order (and recruit its heroes), play it cool until Fanaticism, build a reasonable army and start your conquering spree. Use Crusade when you're confident that you can DESTROY an enemy completely. Use Rally to win the game (by crushing your main rival). Don't forget about mages and priests, they are very useful.
Well guise, I hope this was useful/entertaining. I'm gonna need a bit more time to write the other three posts, but I'll get there eventually. Feel free to PM me with any Civ 4 related stuff OR typos/wrong information/broken links ITT.
persianronin Irenaeus III JarlFrank
Sup bros.
So I've been away from RPGs for the last couple of months because I went back to my addiction of more than 1500 hours: Civilization 4. I thought about making a Civ 4 mods (I tried a lot of them) thread, but the stuff I wanted to talk about in the FfH section is simply too much and deserves its own thread. Anyway, let's get to it!
Mini-guide to this thread:
"I don't even know what this thread is about" -> read on
"LOL, everyone knows about FfH, you're like six years too late. Fucking newfags..." -> skip the first post, start HERE
"Yeah I remember FfH. Good times. I wonder if they ever fixed the AI..." -> this thread is for you! HERE
"Master of Mana is the tits!" -> HERE
2022 Update: I'm gonna come out and say I never cared for these transformative mods, only the "polishing" mods like MNAI and EMM. An article on pcgamesn.com made a flowchart on Fall From Heaven modmods that I find both accurate and useful:
As you can see, my focus with this thread has always been the "vanilla" branch with EMM. I find AoE/RifE/etc to be autismo mods that suffer from a severe "too many cooks stirring the pot" issue. It's adding stuff for the sake of adding stuff. Some of it is good, but a lot is bad and the end result is a diluted experience. Master of Mana OTOH is more interesting, but woefully underdeveloped. The Wildmana subforum in pretty much dead nowadays and Xtended 5.6 is the last version. I played it, it doesn't work. AI doesn't know shit about the game, unlike EMM.
WTF IS "FALL FROM HEAVEN" AND WHY SHOULD I CARE?
Simply put FfH is the answer to the "what if we had a total conversion mod to turn this game into medieval fantasy with RPG elements™ while keeping the core of Civilization 4 gameplay?" question.
Dwarves? Check! Magic? Check! Dark Elves? Check! Stack of Doom? CHECK!!!
So all your favorite medieval fantasy tropes are there, don't worry. What makes the game great isn't its "rich lore™" but rather the mechanical implementation of the whole medieval fantasy thing. While most Civilization mods try their best to keep the same "feel" as the original game (and if that's what you're looking for then I suggest you install Realism Invictus ASAP) Fall From Heaven tried something new and, IMO succeeded.
If you think this is just a reskin of military units to look like medieval fantasy stuff then, well, you're wrong. FfH brings a lot of new CORE concepts that work alongside regular Civ 4 mechanics like culture, production, research etc. The main thing about the FfH universe is the implementation of magic and Armageddon mechanics. As you can see on the screenshot, there is a number on the top left corner of the minimap area. It starts at 0 and rises all the way up to 100 (Armageddon) according to what is happening in the world. Demon is brought into the world? Armageddon rises. City full of innocents gets razed? Armageddon rises. The Celestial civilization is brought into the world? Armageddon lowers. Big bad fallen angel is slain? Armageddon lowers. And so on.
The Armageddon counter puts a sense of urgency into the late game, thus countering classical Civ4 late game stagnancy/boredom. Late game is usually when the BIG wars between good and evil actually happen. Being "good" in FfH isn't about being a "nice" and faggy, but rather it's about avoiding the almost inevitable DOOM. In fact, good leaders like Capria are among the biggest warmongers. Good and evil are directly related to Armageddon.
And how does Armageddon affects the gameplay? Heavily. There are several scripted events that will always fire at certain thresholds. The Blight, the Horsemen of the Apocalypse and the spread of hell terrain are just some of the many nasty things that will happen to the world as you get closer to The End. Armageddon mechanics also influence rituals, the strength of demons and Marked units, the arrival of Avatar heroes and several other things. It's hard to explain (since it's a ton of stuff), but easy to understand once you get into the game.
Yes, Horsemen of the Apocalypse. There is a bit of hell terrain on the right corner, for extra effect.
Another cool mechanic is, obviously, magic. Mana works similarly to how strategic resources work in vanilla Civ 4. In order to be able to cast spells of a particular sphere you need at least one source of mana. So just as a single source of Iron allows you to make an entire army of Iron armed troops, one source of Fire Mana is enough to fuel every single one of your mages all the way up to Summon Fire Elemental.
And if we're talking about "magic", we're talking about the Amurites. Featuring in the screenshot is Govannon, an Archmage willing to teach every single one of your units how to cast magic. Sweet!
Magic is treated via "promotions". So in order to cast fireball your unit needs the "channeling II" promotion and the "fire II" promotion. Magic users come in 3 tiers: adepts -> mages -> archmages. There is a fun little twist: only adepts can be trained in your cities. You need to upgrade a 4th level adept in order to have a mage and your mage must reach level 6 before becoming an archmage. If they get assassinated before that, well...tough luck.
Mana also provides some passive (and cumulative!) benefits to your empire, according to their type. Law mana reduces your maintenance costs, Life Mana gives you extra health in your cities, Mind Mana increases your Great Person Points and so on. Another advantage to hoarding mana of the same type is that new adepts will be created with FREE promotions if you have surplus mana. Some summons also have "affinity" to a certain type of mana, meaning they become stronger the more mana of that type you acquire. Hold 3 death nodes and watch as your summoned specters stop being cannon fodder and become actual tools of DOOM.
Heroes are another fun mechanic that FfH brings. Every civilization has one or more heroes and every religion brings at least one hero. Civilization heroes are "guaranteed" while religious heroes belong to whoever recruit them first. So you're always competing with your "brothers and sisters of the faith" for the heroes said faith attracts. If they die in battle they are gone. Civ heroes can be revived if you have someone capable of casting Life III, but they will come back with ZERO xp. Religious Heroes will always abandon your cause if you change your religion, but they are not "dead". They can be recruited again by another player who still worships your original religion.
Religion mechanics are also very nice. There are seven religions in the game, each providing unique mechanics, unique civics and even changing your leader's original alignment. So if you start as a good/neutral leader but later decides that converting to the Ashen Veil religion is a good idea, well...
...here is your new friend. Don't worry, he's got your back, bro!
But Religion in FfH is not just a "moral" choice. As stated above, religions have associated heroes, they bring unique units and they allow you to use unique civics. All these things are GONE if you convert away from your chosen religion. Abandoning the Runes of Kilmorph, for instance, means you won't be able to use the Arete civic and you'll lose your dwarven heroes. Paramanders won't abandon you, tho. Oh, and speaking of unique civics:
Finally we have a civic option worthy of RPG Codex
Every civilization has a couple of unique mechanics. The Clan of Embers can bring barbarian cities to the fold without bloodshed. Every city the Kuriotates build has a radius of workable tiles of 3 instead of the usual 2. The Illians have a ton of unique rituals to bring the world to an ICY end instead of a fiery one. The Khazad (Dwarves) have a vault mechanic (top right corner of the first screenshot) that increases happiness as you hoard gold and causes unhappiness if your vaults ever become empty. There is still adventuring, Over/Undercouncil, magical items...I could go on forever about FfH mechanics, but I hope I convinced you by now to try the game.
FINE YOU CONVINCED ME! HOLY SHIT! THERE IS SO MUCH STUFF!!!!1111 WHERE DO I EVEN START!?!?
First of all, you need the base
Then you need Extramodmod. Read the second post if you don't know why the base game isn't enough. DOWNLOAD THREAD
Now that you're all set, pick the Bannor civilization and Monarch or Prince difficulty and start a new game. Trust me, Bannor is by far the go-to "noob civilization".
Ready to smite some evil doers! And some good-doers who happen to have easily conquerable and rich lands...
Now, as you probably already know, there are two types of economy in Civ 4: cottage based and specialist based. The Bannor leans heavily towards a cottage based economy due to their World Spell. Rally (the Bannor World Spell) gives you a free Demagog (mid-high power melee unit) for every town improvement and every city you own. You don't want to use Rally during your first or second expansion war since World Spells can only be used once per game. You want to save your Rally for that ONE war against your biggest rival. Crusade + rally = certain victory (assuming you haven't been sucking too much balls).
So back to economic strategy, you want to be doing cottage based horizontal growth which also synergizes with the Order religion and the Overcouncil. Playing with a cottage focused Civ first is a good thing because cottage based economies in FfH are almost identical to Vanilla, while specialist based economies are very different and rely on a bit of meta-game knowledge. Cottages are unlocked via the "Education" tech.
You have two objectives, technology-wise: founding the Order religion and reaching Fanaticism ASAP. The Order has great synergy with the Bannor, but you can easily replace it with Runes of Kilmorph for extra production instead of happy faces and reduced maintenance. Fanaticism OTOH is non-negotiable since it is THE biggest power spike for a Bannor player, giving you the ability to recruit Donal Lugh (your national Hero), the ability to recruit (or upgrade to) Paladins AND your unique civic Crusade.
"Crusade" is insanely good. War weariness becomes a non-issue, great generals emerge all the time, your cities train units 25% faster and everyone is happier (as long as they follow the State Religion, that is). What else do you need to conquer the world!? Well, there is one drawback (two, actually): no diplomacy with enemies and you can't create non military stuff during a Crusade. Before changing civics to Crusade, make sure you're willing to go all the way. And scream "DEUS VULT!" before declaring war, since that improves your battle RNG drastically.
Don't neglect your religion! Confessors can Bless your troops, giving everyone an additional strength point and they can also remove pesky diseases that might otherwise screw an entire stack. They also bring the Medic promotion, which is always nice. Sphener (Order hero) and Priors have the OP spell "Unyielding Order" which instantly removes all unhappiness from a city and stays that way while the unit remains inside the city. This spell can be used for insta-pacification of newly conquered cities!!! Everything about the Bannor screams "Conquest Victory".
Even if the Bannor isn't a very magic focused civ they sure as hell have no qualms about using it and magic is ALWAYS useful in FfH. The short version is this: you want to have at least one guy with Enchantment I and Body I. "Enchanted blade" gives every melee unit in the stack an additional 20% Strength. 'Nuff said. Other magic spheres with a big "bang for your buck" include Shadow (immunity to First Strikes and the ability to ignore building defenses at Shadow II), Body (Haste = 1 extra movement for the entire stack), Chaos (1 Extra First Strike for the entire stack) and Metamagic (summons a magical eye to scout the map, just like airplanes in vanilla civ).
tl; dr: pick Bannor, choose Monarch/Prince difficulty, found the Order (and recruit its heroes), play it cool until Fanaticism, build a reasonable army and start your conquering spree. Use Crusade when you're confident that you can DESTROY an enemy completely. Use Rally to win the game (by crushing your main rival). Don't forget about mages and priests, they are very useful.
Well guise, I hope this was useful/entertaining. I'm gonna need a bit more time to write the other three posts, but I'll get there eventually. Feel free to PM me with any Civ 4 related stuff OR typos/wrong information/broken links ITT.
persianronin Irenaeus III JarlFrank
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). Their main weakness is their tendency to bite more than they can chew. 3 AIs fighting the Clan at the same time is not an uncommon sight and I find that to be thematically appropriate and fun.
