Question about civs in RtR mode. My understanding is development has basically halted (by design) on the base RtR mod, making the current set of changes roughly the final set, and any additional mod ideas are going into the gameplay expansion mod (correct me if this understanding is wrong, though even if it is half of what i have to say below is still relevant).

I personally feel somewhat ambivalent about the gameplay expansion mod, not necessarily because of objections to any particular idea in it, but just that I feel weird about playing a mod with the goal of broad gameplay changes as opposed to balancing the civ 4 that already exists. Nothing bad intended towards those who are interested in the concept, and honestly I'll probably try it out once it's done, but it's just not my cup of tea.

But that said, I think RtR still has a one area for reasonably large improvement: civ balance. About 5 civs or so are better than the others, and notably are "interesting", with cool unique buildings/units that you can to some extent base a strategy around. Another set of civs are good enough that you'd feel excited about them as long as you had the right start techs. And then there are the civs that are honestly, just... err meh. Like Germany. Or Korea. None of these are civs that will screw you like some will in base Civ 4 (fixed mostly via start tech balancing), and the gap between weakest and strongest civ has certainly shrunk. But I think there's still room for improvement.

So is there any interest in brainstorming/working on another round of civ rebalancing to RtR? My understanding is most (all?) civ changes can be done via XML, so the coding isn't the hard part here, but rather deciding what exactly needs to change. I don't really care if this becomes RtR 2.0.7.4 or 2.0.8.1 or a mod-mod "RtR-civ-rebalance", but I think it's a worthwhile project.

In the case I was wrong and RtR development isn't done, then this is really just a brainstorming thread for whenever the next wave of changes comes out.

Actual Discussion of Changes:
I think we should shy away from nerfing anything, I don't think any of the top tier civs are so OP that the need to be brough back down to the pack (possible exception: Zulu and the rushes it enables, but I don't feel anywhere close to strong about that). Instead I think we need to identify the civs that have little to their name and think about giving them small to medium buffs, the idea being every civ should feel roughly as exciting or solid to play as something like Inca or Aztecs or Zulu (my opinion of which civs are the best atm) do right now.

Candidates for upgrades in my opinion (and to be clear upgrade doesn't mean I think these are unplayable or suck, but that there is clearly room for buffs while not breaking the current top-tier ceiling)
Germany
Maya
Korea
Greece
Japan
Ethiopia (this one is close, Oromos are pretty cool)
Spain (impacted a ton by the power of Free Market and Economics obsoleting the UB, if the Free Market balance fixes work then this one feels fine to me)
America (as far as I know hasn't been played up to Rifles with new changes, so maybe minutemen changes are better than I think. Woodsmen feels pretty useless by that point of the game though, and Guerilla only ok)

Another catagory that I haven't gone through and made a list for yet are the civs that feel pretty useless without trait-synergy. These I feel like could use small buffs to their non-trait-synergistic aspects to make them a bit more generally interesting. However, they often aren't really that weak, so might be worth leaving off. Good example of civs in this category are Khmer or Russia. And America if it isn't in the above catagory.

So, anyone else interested in working on this? Where working means thinking of what changes to make to what civs, not coding, that should be easy and a bridge to cross when we come to it. I can probably do it myself, never modded civ 4 before but have a reasonable amount of coding experience.

ON May 16th, 2006, a forum thead for one of the greatest mods ever was created: here

Currently Fall From Heaven is mostly dead. It has pockets of forum activity in a couple of places. But, a mod of a game is nigh guaranteed to have less traffic than the main game and it has been several years. Civ5 has come and gone. New Fantasy 4X Games have come onto the scene to capture our hearts. It's natural that Fall From Heaven will "Fall" out of use and that's okay. Fall from Heaven has brought so much fun and joy to those who played it. It had an excellent run.

But, before that chapter is closed completely, it deserves a celebration. It deserves one crowning game that highlights the great diversity of Fall From Heaven's mechanics and structure. A crowning game that will determine once and for all who is truly the undisputed master of Fall from Heaven.

Game Proposal:
A Double Elimination or equivalent Duel League of at least 8 people. The final 2 players will battle against each other. Whoever wins the final battle gets the title of "Master of Fall From Heaven"

Game Settings:
The game settings below are the proposed default game settings for the Duel Matches. If the two opponents agree to something else other than below, that would also be acceptable. LIkewise, if they could not come to an agreement, the below is recommended as the default Setting

Mod: Erebus in the Balance v11.1
Format: Play by Email
Game Speed: Quick.
Difficulty: Monarch
Barbarians: Normal.
Orthus: Off.
Acheron: Off.
Lairs: Off
Huts: Off
Start Era: Thaw
Vassals: Off.
Tech trading: Off.
Victories: All
Map: Mirror Pangea-Like Map with Naval Opportunities
Map Size: Tiny

Let's discuss these and more. If you're interested, please post!

I think this city spells is almost useless without modding. The idea is implement "node aura" with this spells.
However, this aura conter spells of attacking wizard only, and not the units spells even.
The question is whats better? var 1. what dispell strenght make for it ? 50 like node, 20 or other strength? var 2. equal the percent of casted spell -50% ,100% other?
3. note that nodemastery wizard negates this effect, and mastery increases chases of sucessfull cast spell of this realm anyway.

ON May 16th, 2006, a forum thead for one of the greatest mods ever was created: here

Currently Fall From Heaven is mostly dead. It has pockets of forum activity in a couple of places. But, a mod of a game is nigh guaranteed to have less traffic than the main game and it has been several years. Civ5 has come and gone. New Fantasy 4X Games have come onto the scene to capture our hearts. It's natural that Fall From Heaven will "Fall" out of use and that's okay. Fall from Heaven has brought so much fun and joy to those who played it. It had an excellent run.

But, before that chapter is closed completely, it deserves a celebration. It deserves one crowning game that highlights the great diversity of Fall From Heaven's mechanics and structure. A crowning game that will determine once and for all who is truly the undisputed master of Fall from Heaven.

Game Proposal:
The group of volunteer players will vote amongst themselves the group of civilizations that will be played. The total number of civilizations will match the number of players (i.e. 6 players = 6 civilizations).

A map is created with equal or roughly equal starts for each civilization. Then, that map is used to create a number of games equal to the number of players (i.e. 6 players = 6 games). Every player plays every civilization just in different games. The player who wins a plurality of games is the undisputed master of Fall from Heaven!

Unlike other games, the map will start out revealed to all players because each player can already see the map parts in a different game. Civilization choices are suggested to be as diverse as possible to reflect the differing strategic and flavorful niches each civilization possesses.

Suggested Game Settings

I'm asking for a sub for PB24; IRL stress is high for me right now, and so, I realized today, and as disappointed as I feel about it, I shouldn't be playing a new game if I'm already frustrated with just the setup. My enthusiasm has dwindled down to 10% of what it was just a few days ago, and in the past I've been super excited about a new game for weeks... so, I think its better for me to go sooner than later, and give someone a chance at subbing a clean game not influenced by any decision of mine, beyond the picks.

You'll be playing Justinian of the Aztecs, a very strong combo with a unique and particularly-powerful (in RtR) Civ, with a nice starting capital. It's only turn 5 right now, so you'll have a blank canvas to grow a powerful civ in whichever which way you'd like! I'd be happy to stay on as a dedlurker, if you'd like, or to completely disappear from now-your thread - whichever you prefer.

Game settings:
Mod: RtR 2.0.7.4
Map: The same land-shape as PB1, with the tiles painstakingly rebalanced using a custom script by SevenSpirits
Huts: on
Espionage: off
Barbs: on, not Raging
Choose Religion: off
City Trading: only real trades

Link to my spoiler thread, with thoughts on the picked leader/civ and a picture of your starting capital: http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=7284

This game is so weird. The last 7 games I've been unable to kill King Leoric as a solo Warrior in Lock-in Ironman. In the past this enemy has generally been a 70/30 gamble, with less than a third of my games ending here because of insufficient equipment or clvl. Now it seems like I can't beat him at all.

Some random results I've had.

Clvl9, mace, 28AC, 55 dex, 35 str: 6 reds, Leo defeated
Clvl8, mstar, 29AC, 55 dex: died to Leo
Clvl9, mstar, 30AC, 58 dex, 32 str: 2 reds, Leo defeated
Clvl10, mace, 27AC, 58 dex, 37 str: No reds, Leo defeated

The last 7 games I've been at least clvl9 with 28+AC and an mstar, and my very last game I was even clvl10, with 58 dex, 37 str, mstar, and 32AC, and I died to Leo. I was using Diablo Torch for this particular fight and he had full HP when I died, after burning 8 reds (all I had left, he had burning archers for minions in a wide open room with no cover).

Ridiculous. Such random results. What exactly is necessary to be able to go toe to toe with Leo and beat him as a Warrior, because I can't figure it out. I'm starting to wonder if its the game just being an enormous prick with its RNG and algorithms in calculating to-hit and whiffs. 79% to-hit and clvl10 and I whiffed more than 3/4ths of my swings against him.

Since pitboss seven (which never happened) we've had one rule for most of the pitboss games here: Don't be a jerk. It seems to work pretty well for anyone who played in or has read pitboss seven (I know even reading those two words hurts some of you, I can only apologize). For recent arrivals there are some finer points of pitboss etiquette that can be a bit obscure though so I thought a thread where everyone suggests issues and/or explains how to avoid them might be a good idea.

I'll collect a set of guidelines into this first post if anyone suggests them. Here are a few to get you going - and please shoot them down if I've got anything wrong. This is not an exhaustive list. If you think of something not covered here then please Don't Be A Jerk.

1. Play your turn as soon as you can. A fast turn pace is a happy turn pace.
   
2. If you can't play your turn(s) find a sub. Otherwise you might find it hard to get into future games. (Thanks retep)
   
3. The person declaring war can choose which half of the turn timer they get, so long as they didn't move after the victim on the previous turn.
   
4. Don't try to play after another player on a regular basis. If you are trying to prevent them getting the second half when they attack you then you're playing clock games and Krill will find your pathetic civ and crush it. If you are planning to attack them then just drop behind them one or two turns in advance (it's actually less likely to telegraph your intentions). In fact you can play before them the turn before you attack - there is no problem with letting your victim double move you.
   
5. If you are at war with someone don't log in before/after they've played unless they have given you explicit permission. (Edit: Controversy! See thread for details...)
   
6. In a peace-time turn split (eg a settling or hut-popping race) the turn you realise there should be a split is when the order is established.
   
7. The tech thread is not the place to argue about in-game issues in an AI diplo game - the lurkers should be able to get both points of view and arbitrate without giving spoilers. (If you haven't got many lurkers post in the tech thread asking lurkers to come look at your question).
   
8. Sending in-game messages with numbers and letters (gold and city names) are a grey area - assume they are banned unless the setup specifically allows them edit: with the new ai diplomacy options it seems to make more sense to use gold to send messages, just don't be surprised if someone accepts your deal...
   
9. No naming units with messages for other players. (I really want to play a variant of AI diplo where you are allowed to communicate, but only by gifting named units, but no-one else seams that keen )
   
10. Global lurkers should give no spoilers - even asking what turn someone plans to finish a wonder can tip them off that they have competition...
    
11. Don't hide your research by changing it just before the turn rolls
    
12. Try to only log in once per turn, or play all your moves in one session - this is harder for teams or if you have a surprise or simming to do, but it makes figuring out turn splits easier.
    
13. In the event of a reload forcing you to replay your turn, replay the turn exactly like you originally played it, to the best of your ability. (Thanks novice)
    
14. It is the responsibility of all players to check that the settings are correct once the game is hosted. (Thanks Krill)
    

1. Can use promotions for XP received defending on the previous turn
   
2. Can use promotions for new units
   
3. Can hide (newly produced) units from prying eyes
   
4. Can track what your opponent has produced more easily
   
5. You don't have to watch civstats for your turn
   
6. *If logging in outside your half is allowed* Can use persisting vision given by airships/planes/floating eyes to log in after your opponent to see what they did
   

1. Whipped units will appear before your opponent plays
   
2. Going second allows you to move twice before an opponent's builds complete. ie you can move HA/knights 4 tiles through culture before you have to deal with units built in reaction (thanks Krill)
   
3. You can re-connect resources that were pillaged on that turn (thanks Donovan Zoi)
   
4. *If logging in outside your half is allowed* Can track what your opponent has produced more easily
   
5. *If logging in outside your half is not allowed* Can hide what you are researching the turn after you acquire a tech
   
6. If you control a wonder at the turn roll in most cases you get the economic benefit (see PB42 where we repeatedly took the Great Lighthouse from Superdeath then let him recapture the city)
   

Don't read anymore if you are playing or want to be a possible replacement player.











.

Rules:

Day start. 48 hour days and 24 nights. 6pm CST deadline and starts at the 15th.

Tie break rule: Subtract off votes until someone dies. No lynch is possible and always wins on tiebreaks if it happens in the first 24 hours. There may be roles that can change this rule but this is only shown on lychee when it matters. (Edit: Lengthen the 24 hour role to the last hour before deadline as it's only supposed to stop a cheap mafia tactic and nothing else. )

Note to non-hidden mode users: profile camping is banned but I should point out that I'm not Rowain so if you do something stupid that gets you killed immediately your team has a high chance of being put at a disadvantage. Also, the amount of invisible users is counted so if you want to be totally safe you have to log-in and log-out every time. If you profile camp and get "caught" I'll probably won't allow you to vote for a day.

Win condition for everyone: You win when your side kills all other factions or nothing can stop it (you don’t win just because the numbers are even).

I will try and post a clock check at 6pm tomorrow.


DON'T POST !!!

I don't know if people saw this, but https://archive.org/details/softwarelibr...s_games/v2 has an in-browser DOSbox and a big library of DOS games. I saw MOO and Sim City on there, and figured there might be people here who would want to play it.