By the power of the Octopus Overlords... Let's Play Rise from Erebus!

[Castaras]

Welcome to Rise from Erebus (Linky (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=373629)), one of the many mods of the mod Fall From Heaven II, which in turn is a mod for Civ IV.

This mod transforms the Civ IV game into a high fantasy game with a large number of new game mechanics, and new civilisations to play around with.

So this'll be a lovely little Lets Play, on Noble difficulty with a standard world and 5 civilisations - small enough to not be too daunting for me to write up, but large enough to be interesting.

Where do you guys come in? You need to tell me what to do. Within reason. :smalltongue:

I will take all your suggestions and turn them into advancing the turns forward.

So... information time, and the first decision to be made. I'll be giving information as if you guys already know how to play Civ IV. Because it's easier. :smallbiggrin:

As a high fantasy game, the first noticeable thing about the game is a new type of resource - Mana Nodes. These give you different types of mana, and you can use these to create Mages, and use all sorts of magic spells with your units.

There are lots of barbarians. As in, lots and lots of barbarians. I will not be going for any extra settings for barbarians, because there are so freaking many already. I tried and won a game with all the barbarian settings on to max. The map had a barbarian every other tile, sometimes every tile, in the less populated areas.

Another major part of the game is the Amargeddeon Counter. This is a counter that is adjusted by various events and actions in the game. The higher the Amargeddeon counter is, the more likely terrain will become a Hellish equiviliant, and you'll get all sorts of horrible things like Plague and the horsemen of the apocalypse and demons.

Religions are like the ones in the original game - except more so. Each religion has its own unique features, gives extra bonuses, and can change your alignment (more on that when I get to civilisations).

Can't think of much else... The government systems are more complex and there's a lot more to choose between. Improvements no longer require a certain technology to be able to build them - but specific technologies will speed the building of the improvements from stupidly slow to a normal speed.

There are three ways that we will be able to win the game by - Conquest (kill everybody), the Tower of Mastery (Gaining lots of different types of mana and using this to build big towers [National Wonders]), and The Altar Of Enlightenment (Research tech, use Great Prophets to build altar, then build the final national Wonder). However, the Altar Victory can only be gotten by neutral or Good civilisations (alignments again...).

Right. Civilisations. Each civilisation has its own unique features and abilities. And each leader has an Alignment. This alignment ranges from Chaotic Evil to Lawful Good, with number values ranging from +750 to -750 for the Law-Chaos Axis and the Good-Evil axis. These have an influence on other civilisations attitudes towards you, some of the units you can build, and some of the government types you can pick up. Oh, and each civilisation has a "World Spell": one big powerful spell they can use once per game (unless you get an event which allows you to use it again...).

Now... there's 33 civilisations in Rise from Erebus. I am not going to list all of them, and will purposely miss out the ones that I don't like playing (mostly due to how boring they are, in my opinion). But I'll list most of them, give a little information on who they are and what they're like.

So the first decision that's needed to be made is which Civilisation I choose to conquer the world with lead.

Anything I've missed out, feel free to ask. I'm not very good at remembering the differences between Civ IV and RifE (Rise from Erebus acronym thing. Easier to write). :smallbiggrin:

Civilisations!

Amurites- Mage civilisation. Get lots of bonuses to their mage units, and some of their melee units can use magic also. All but one leader have traits that help with mages. Their worldspell gives all their mage units XP, and disables spellcasting temporarily for all other civilisations.
Archos - Crazy Spider people. Their main units are Spiders and Scorpions, which are "Born" at random times into their capital city. One of their leaders is an Aggressive Warmongerer leader, giving bonuses to all units, whereas the other gives extra power to the spiders, and more spiders. Their world spell is "Awaken Mother", which gives you their big mother spider. Which has a lot of strength and stomps over people. :smallbiggrin:
Balseraph - Crazy people. They're all about festivals and freakshows and partying. They're a flexible people, with reasonable melee units and good magic units. Their leaders include a crazy guy who's traits change at random times in the game, his crazy daughter who's good with summoning demons, and various minor leaders that have "ordinary" traits. Their World Spell gives them an extra long extra powerful Golden Age.
Calabim - Vampires. Their main units are - logically - vampires, and they can grant Vampirisim to high level units of other types. These vampires can then eat population from your cities to get experience. It's all about the high level vampires and eating people. Their leaders have "ordinary" traits, one with financial traits, the other with aggressive traits. Their World Spell takes population from every other city in the world and adds population to their cities.
Doviello - Tundra Barbarians. They get special animal units spawned at random intervals in their lower population cities. They also get more food from tundra and ice tiles than normal civilisations. Their leaders are barbaric in their trait selection, with one being a little more money orientated than the other. Their world spell gives them one animal in their capital for every unit they own.
Elohim - Pacifists. They have a special promotion on all units that decreases their attack strength by one when not in their home territory. They also have the ability to see the unique resources on the map, and if one of their units reaches some of these special resources, they get extra traits and bonuses. Their leaders are Defenders, with another less combat orientated trait. Their world spell prevents any non-elohim units from entering your lands, and removes any non-elohim units currently in your lands.
Illians - Worshipers of Auric. Auric is the main leader, and he wants to become the new god of winter. Illians get +2 food from ice, spread ice everywhere, and can only take the ice religion. They get extra hammers on some Tundra and Ice as well. Their world spell stops all production and technology research in all other civilisations temporarily.
Khazad - Dwarves that just care about money. They don't get many mage units, and they get happiness bonuses depending on how much money you have in your bank. Their leaders have various "ordinary" traits.
Kuriotates - Big big cities. Kuriotates can only have a small number of "normal" cities, but these cities take resources from a 3 tile radius rather than the normal 2 tile radius. They instead can build "Settlements", which are 1 pop cities with no extra production, and are used for landgrabbing. Their world spell adds culture to all cities.
Lanun - Pirates. Okay okay, "Free Spirited Sailors". They have a crazy economy, and control of the seas. They also get extra food from coast and ocean. And one of their units can sing ("This ability is useless and provided only for your entertainment"). Their leaders have varying "normal" traits, and their world spell does damage to all non-Lanun units near ocean, and has a chance to damage enemy improvements.
Malakim - Desert Religious Fanatics. Very good economy, and lots of special religious stuff. They also don't need roads, as they get trade over Desert, and extra movement over desert - and they spread it! Win win. Their world spell creates a religious unit in every one of your cities with your state religion, with 1xp for every one of your cities with your state religion in.
Mechanos - Obligatory Steampunk Civi. They don't have any magic, and change magic nodes into "Refined Mana", which is used in their technology stuff. They also have lots of flying units - Thopters, Zeppelins, etc. - and lots of ranged units. Their world spell creates a building called Steamworks in the city you use the spell in, and gives you extra research beakers for each windmill, watermill and workshop in your territory.
Scions of Patria - Undead Nation. This... is a complicated civilisation. Well, not that complicated, but more so than most. They don't get food, and instead raise population through units they either build or get spawned in their capital every now and again. They have quite a few special units which they get through various random events. Their worldspell creates a load of new units in a random section of the world.
Sheaim - Evil Apocalypse people. They get extra bonuses and extra units the higher the amargeddeon count is. They get awesome fun units, and a special building called a Planar Gate that gives you new creatures to join your civilisation. Their world spell causes damage in non-sheaim lands depending on the armageddeon count.
Legion of D'tesh - Necromancers and Undead. That's... pretty much all there is to them. They can only build 4 cities, but can conquer and keep any other cities they come across. They don't get food, and turn all the land around them into wasteland, and burn most of the resources they find to gain research. They get population in their cities through slaves. Their world spell allows all units to have a 100% chance to generate a slave on winning a combat.

So... yeah. Lots of choice, eh? :smallbiggrin: Once I've got a consensus on which civi to use, then I'll start... and if I haven't, I'll pick one of the more popular civis among people. :smalltongue:

small note - will need lots of prodding and poking to keep this up. I'm notoriously bad at keeping things like this going. D: Just to warn you.

[Wookieetank]

I'll throw in the first vote for Sheaim, sounds like it could be interesting.

[Cieyrin]

I likes the look of the Mechanos. Also, that Lanun singing Hero? That's Guybrush Threepwood, Mighty Pirate! He'll Insult Swordfight you till you run away crying to your mum. :smalltongue:

[tyckspoon]

Sheaim. Bring on the apocalypse!

[Eledragon]

Mechanos
Scions of Patria
Sheaim

because I can't decide >.>

[nyarlathotep]

Balseraph have always been my favorite, quite possibly because of how radically overpowered Loki is at low levels.

[Castaras]

So three for Sheaim, two for Mechanos, one for Balseraph and Scions.


I likes the look of the Mechanos. Also, that Lanun singing Hero? That's Guybrush Threepwood, Mighty Pirate! He'll Insult Swordfight you till you run away crying to your mum. :smalltongue:

Yep, it is. :smallbiggrin: He's quite awesome, although the Balseraph have some units which are even more awesome on the annoying count... :smallamused:

[Carecalmo]

I've never played RiFE, though I played FFH plenty.
I vote Mechanos, as long as they are suitably different from the unlisted "magi-punk" dwarves of the Luchuirp.

[Abakus]

Scions of Patria, definately.

The best counter to a deadly environment is to already be dead.

[Castaras]

I've never played RiFE, though I played FFH plenty.
I vote Mechanos, as long as they are suitably different from the unlisted "magi-punk" dwarves of the Luchuirp.

They are, yes. Mechanos have no magic whatsoever (instead they get Tech-Priests, which do the terraforming spells), whereas the Luchuirp have quite a bit.

[Castaras]

Righties... We had a tie for Mechanos and Sheaim, and I have made the decision to go with the Sheaim and end the world (mwahaha).

So! Standard World, 5 civilisations in total, Continents map type. And the leader who will be serving you to-

Serving you? Me? I am the first of the humans made by the gods themselves, working with the pathetic creatures of this land to bring an end to all creation, and you say that I will be serving you?

http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/519/87962470.png

Oops. Sorry Os-Gabella. This fine upstanding young lady will be leading the Sheaim to end the world. She is Industrious - this gives us extra production for Wonders, Free Promotions for our Workers to make them work faster, and Double Speed for Forges and Artisan's Workshops - and Summoner - which gives the free Summoner Promotion to all Arcane units, and gives extra duration to any units we summon using magic (units summoned with magic normally last only for the turn they are summoned, with the summoner trait they last 3 turns). The Sheaim civilisation as a whole also has a special trait named Sundered. This gives our mages the ability to give their summoned creatures extra combat strength depending on the Amargeddeon Counter.

Unit-wise, we get:

- Pyre Zombies, which are like Axemen except they explode when they die, causing damage to all units not on their square. Useful for creating stacks of explodey doooooooom.
- Planar Gates, which aren't units but improvements, but these improvements give us free units every now and again depending on the buildings in our cities. We get units like Witches (medium level spellcasters), Manticores (rawr), Tar Demons (good defense), Burning Eyes (fireballs :D), Revelers (Assassin-like units that can see invisible units and scout), Chaos Marauders (low strength cannon-fodder), Succubus (Okay offensive with some Mind Magic), and Minotaurs (good defensive and reasonable offensive).
- One unique Black Dragon that takes forever to research to but is a freaking black dragon so is awesome.
- Eaters of Dreams - highest level spellcasters which are just like the normal unit, except they can eat a cities population to cast a second spell in a turn (rather than the normal 1 spell a turn).
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/7043/90359423.png

Our starting location is near lots of floodplains, Mushrooms, Camels, and quite a few mana nodes. The weird people looking things are Shadow Mana, the fire is Fire mana, the candle is Spirit Mana. And we also have the Pyre of the Seraphic, one of the Unique Features in the terrain in this game. It gives us already refined Fire Mana (normally a mana node would need an adept to improve it to give us the ability to use it), and is also a permanent Lair. Lairs are like villages, except you use your units to kick down the door, kill the monsters, steal the treasure etc. etc. They have good and bad effects. Good effects mean extra promotions, money, free Great People, a Golden Age, or Technology. Bad effects mean promotions that harm the unit, powerful enemy units spawning (strength 6-18ish when you begin with strength 2ish units), losing the unit, or other such stuff.

We start off with Settlers, Scouts, and a Duskbringer. Duskbringer is probably the only one that needs explanation - it's a low level scouting-ish unit with a little bit of magic ability. This one we have has level 1 spellcasting ability, and has the Death 1 promotion - thus meaning it can cast Death level 1 spells - aka the skeleton.

What do you want me to do? Settle in place? Move about a bit? Run around in circles panicking? Torture some slaves? You can also ask questions and I'll do my best to answer.

Oh - and research wise, there's a few things we can go for - We could go for Worker technologies to get ourselves improving the land quicker. We could go for Bronze Working / Iron working and get the Pyre Zombies, which would be one of our best defense (sure, you killed them. But your units are nearly dead too!). We could go for Magic technologies and start getting some magic units created to summon armies of death to destroy our foes. We can go for a religion to help increase the armageddeon count (or a non-evil religion for other benefits).

So yeah. If you've managed to survive through all that ramble, throw in your thoughts as to what you want to see. :smallsmile:

[Eledragon]

hmm...I suggest going on top of that hill, then either settling on it or to the left of it if possible.

also, if this is a horrible idea, tell me.

[Cieyrin]

Research Pyre Zombies, for everything is better when they are on fire! :smallamused:

Follow up with Workers so we can take from the land the resources we need to exact horrors on the land. :smallbiggrin:

[tribble]

Mana nodes will not contribute to our city growth or production effectively. I vote we settle in the square our settler started in. Palace Culture should mean we don't have to worry about not getting the mana nodes. But wow, that's a ton of mana nodes.

[Castaras]

Right, advanced rather a large amount of turns because on Marathon speed the game progresses quite slowly to begin with.


http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/2849/23898779.png

The settler has settled on the spot it started out on, and the Duskbringer has headed into the city to fortify it. It seems that Duskbringers start out with Death I promotion, which gives them the ability to summon a permanent skeleton. So we have 2 defenders already, one with 2 defence, one with 2+1death defence. The scout buggers off to go explore.

http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/5592/31332064.png

Mutation, yay! Normally a mix of good and bad promotions. Let's see what the random number generator gave us...

http://img831.imageshack.us/img831/2145/50952018.png

Overall a less than great set of promotions. Mostly because of the final one, Crazed. This wonderful promotion gives a small percentage chance each turn for the unit to go crazy and wander around like a headless chicken until it enters any combat.

http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/155/38503453.png

That down there is a monster fort. It's like a normal fort, except that it spawns monsters. The longer you leave it, the higher level it gets and the stronger the mobs that spawn out of it. This one is a goblin fort. Unfortunately, it's normally better to ignore these things and leave them alone (unless it's next to enemy territory...).

http://img840.imageshack.us/img840/160/53283688.png

Volcano! yey. Buggy event this one, the oil symbol is meant to give the Obsidian resource to us, but it doesn't seem to do anything other than a pretty effect.

http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/4021/36502529.png

That's a Centaur Warcamp, not a village. Honest.

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/6849/15236082.png

Cliffs of Kelle, and a skeleton monster fort. The Cliffs of Kelle aren't anything special other than giving you free air mana if you put a road to it.

http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/5885/78134153.png

Curses, if only we had been good, then we could have either got a free Great Prophet or more technology. Oh well. Evil always wins, because good is dumb.

http://img854.imageshack.us/img854/6971/75259125.png

Talking about evil... Meet Daracaat, leader of the Archos. These are the spider people. They have spiders. Shocking, I know. But... the problem for us, is the spiders are invisible units. And some of them can look like barbarians as well. So we don't know if the spiders are Archos or Barbarian. Oh, they're at peace with the animal barbarians as well. And they're a very warlike people. This dwarf's evil though. So he'll like us. Which is good.

http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/5464/67897598.png

Yay, Yggdrasil! Lots of food, if we can get it in our territory.

http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/1595/35695698.png

Oh look, our Duskbringer has gone nuts. There's a surprise.

http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/9259/53212679.png

Praise Oghma!

http://img835.imageshack.us/img835/8995/53008934.png

Yey.

http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/5508/42479114.png

And thanks to this ancient tower, which boosts viewing distance when you stand on it, we've found the Archos capital. Now we know where to send our pyre zombies peace-loving ambassadors.

http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/502/74274489.png

Oh Crud. This is the one thing I hate about RiFE. We just had a random event of the Muris Clan Goblins dumping toxic waste in one of our squares. In Fall from Heaven/Fall Further, you could just say "Let them leave." With Rife, you have to select "Chase them!" if you don't have nature mana. Which spawns the barbarians you see here. They're death to early civilisations. Like ours.

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/6923/78086979.png

Go go Crazed Duskbringer! Solved two problems in one.

http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/1027/52219159.png

And we survive. Yay for skeleton/duskbringer combos.

http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/9590/10632249.png

Tomb of Sucellus. Probably something I should add - some types of mana give special effects if you obtain them. Life mana gives +1 health to all your cities. So while it doesn't give anything in the city radius other than block the way for improvements, having a road there in your territory is very useful.

http://img840.imageshack.us/img840/7979/93507063.png

2 scouts! Thanks village.

http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/9258/75864999.png

The ambassador was probably scared of spiders and squished one. Mother wouldn't have been happy.

http://img851.imageshack.us/img851/7901/37528241.png

We're wealthy, yaaaaaay.

http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/575/26178542.png

Mining, woohoo! Now just Bronze Working and we can create our pyre zombies of doom!

http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/4463/28234857.png

And there goes our last scout. Oops.

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/9964/45382854.png

Nothing special about this one. Just an amusing event.

http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/2172/37826185.png

And at turn 97, we reach a random event which gives us a settler. Woohoo!


Now we just need to work out where to put the settler. Screenshots below of the surrounding area.


http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/1536/32982509.png
http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/508/60865223.png
http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/9599/45301345.png

Where should we settle our second city? It looks like we're on one continent with just the Archos, so the other three will be on a second continent, most likely.

[tyckspoon]

Near the river to the left, somewhere that will be able to put the copper there in your borders in a reasonable time. It's the only copper you've got on your map so far. Or a little bit further up the river, placed to use the cow/corn/deer/wine spot would make for a great population center/Cottage farm city.

[tribble]

Near the river to the left, somewhere that will be able to put the copper there in your borders in a reasonable time. It's the only copper you've got on your map so far. Or a little bit further up the river, placed to use the cow/corn/deer/wine spot would make for a great population center/Cottage farm city.

I second the bolded motion.

What's the green and red thing down south?

[Castaras]

Creation Mana. Gives some rather meh spells.

[tyckspoon]

I second the bolded motion.


On closer examination that would be aggressively close to the Centaur warcamp. Not being terribly familiar with this mod, I don't know if Castaras has or can readily supply the military power to take it out or at least defend against any raiders it generates. Still, that's a spot we're going to want to claim at some point, what with the river and the resources and mostly being plains/grasslands suitable for worker exploitation.

[ShinyRocks]

I'd say down on the bottom right, so that you can get a coastal city and, with culture expansion, bring Yggdrasil into your borders.

Also, Os-Gabella totally looks like Cher.

[tribble]

Unless this modmod has changed the barbarian AI to be smarter and mass up its early attacks, a pair of warriors and a duskbringer with skelly pet should be more than enough to defend the new city until we get archery.

-EDIT: also, securing bradeline's well is a priority once we have the infrastructure to throw off the cost of an extra city without buggering our economy. Once we do that and refine the shadow mana we should be able to make the tower of necromancy, a core wonder for the Sheaim.

I like to imagine Tebryn Arbandi as a geek who likes to build gadgets, and being the primary architect of the tower of necromancy, soul forge, and stigmata on the unborn. However, we're playing Os-Gabella, the less effective omnicidal maniac. She's just a crazy lesbian whos AI, unfortunately, knows that a zerg rush can't fail.

[Castaras]

Unless this modmod has changed the barbarian AI to be smarter and mass up its early attacks, a pair of warriors and a duskbringer with skelly pet should be more than enough to defend the new city until we get archery.

-EDIT: also, securing bradeline's well is a priority once we have the infrastructure to throw off the cost of an extra city without buggering our economy. Once we do that and refine the shadow mana we should be able to make the tower of necromancy, a core wonder for the Sheaim.

I like to imagine Tebryn Arbandi as a geek who likes to build gadgets, and being the primary architect of the tower of necromancy, soul forge, and stigmata on the unborn. However, we're playing Os-Gabella, the less effective omnicidal maniac. She's just a crazy lesbian whos AI, unfortunately, knows that a zerg rush can't fail.

Hey, nothing wrong with Os-Gabella. She's better than Tebryn at building the wonders you mention. Plus she makes the workers work faster, which is damned useful in RiFE where improvements take forever even with the various technologies. :smalltongue:

Update coming soon (tm).

[tribble]

Yeah, but Os-Gabella actually has a developed character and is active in world politics in a custom game, which makes it harder to reimagine her character. Tebryn's AI is altogether more laid back, probably because he isn't automatically furious at every male leader in the game. Tebryn also has actual synergy in his leader abilities.

[Castaras]

True, true. I do like reading all the lore for the stuff that's got lore so far though. Really interesting. :smallsmile:



http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/55/89748283.png
Our settler boldly goes forth to territories untold! And meets up with barbarians. Luckily, we had defenders with the settlers, so all was well.

http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/4004/12971671.png
Another random event. The other options give you nothing, or culture with a smaller chance to get a skeleton.
http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/5302/65409107.png
These skeletons aren't anything to worry about. They sit on their butts unable to attack anyone or move from the spot. They just give you an annoying "Demons spotted near your city!" every turn.
http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/1181/94580564.png
On an unrelated note, our second city was founded. And they all rejoiced.
http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/7348/24597638.png
This, however, is definitely a good thing. However, it requires a little bit of explanation (as always :smallsigh: :smalltongue:).
http://img828.imageshack.us/img828/2605/60751837.png
1 XP per turn until your guy has 100+ xp. Duskbringers can be promoted into Adepts. Adepts, at level 4, can be promoted into Mobius Witches. Mobius Witches can be promoted at level 6 into the Eaters. This means that this little Duskbringer will be well prepared when it gets up the levels of magic to bringing death and destruction to the world. And there's also less collateral damage, which is always good for a mage unit. Win win.
http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/9926/10819734.png
We had the good version of this a while ago. This is the evil version. I went for a prophet, to add as a specialist to our capital - more money is useful this early in the game.
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/7528/63369949.png
Isn't she a nice girl? Must be best friends with Gaby.
http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/941/78203229.png
Should have taken a screenshot, but was an idiot - We discovered Bronze Working. This opened up a new and special ability which I didn't know about and went into fits of giggles about when I saw it. Ignite Pyre. Trade 1 population in the city for one Pyre Zombie of awesomeness. Ehehehe.
http://img585.imageshack.us/img585/2047/42457531.png
Fiiiiireeeeeee.
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/9629/73865385.png
And little elflings. Kill them all! A smoke being created means that the forests will be set on fire, but that doesn't matter, does it? :smallbiggrin:
http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/8145/24994325.png
This, however, does. With the production of a few pyre zombies, I decided to go take out some of the barbarian forts. Meet his ugly bastard, who decided to poke his/her/its nose into our business.
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/3416/32852320.png
Completely pointless random event. The unit's dead already.
http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/6958/12321245.png
We're cultured! Yay!
http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/4241/62080737.png
I might be a slight pyromaniac.
http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/7678/88321210.png
I was very disappointed that we couldn't be cannibals and eat the assassin. Unfortunately, only the vampires can do that. Bitterly disappointed.
http://img854.imageshack.us/img854/3669/11681435.png
Another appearance by the ogre. It didn't last long.
http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/6427/22084186ap.png
I think I just killed Rarity. Or maybe Twilight Sparkle. Oops. :smallamused:
http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/8836/60673937.png
And the update ends with this "Oh crap." moment. What's so bad about Acheron, I hear you cry! Dragons are awesome, surely!
http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/6862/66979608.png
35 strength. Big dragon. Barbarian. The only good thing about it, is that it's tethered to a barbarian city. The bad thing, is that RiFE made that tether a bit longer - instead of, like in Fall From Heaven, Acheron being unable to leave the city at all, he can now fly around a few squares around the city.
We might need to get our dragon to make an appearance to solve this issue. Let's hope it's on another continent. Me being me, I forgot to wait for the pointer which shows where on the map the dragon appeared. This does, however, tell us that there's at least one barbarian city on the map.


Screenshots of the current state of our cities.

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/6062/52908718.png
http://img828.imageshack.us/img828/6194/83869245.png


So. Lots of things to ponder. I'm currently building a settler, so where do we want a third city?

We have, technology wise, Exploration and Agriculture, which gives us faster roads and farms respectively. I'm currently going for Animal Husbandry, for Pastures. Do we want to continue with worker technologies, or go for magic technologies, or go for a religion? I can give more details on all three if people want.

There's barbarians out in them there wilds. And the spider people, who've been a little too quiet. Thoughts? Opinions?

And anything else is nice. I'm not the best at Civi of any sort, so any advice on anything is good. :smalltongue:

Or even some tips on this LP, seeing as it's my first. Any opinions on extra stuff you want me to add? Too much information? Not enough? Etc.?

Now I'm just rambling. Enjoy. Next update in a couple of days again. Updates won't necessarily be the same number of turns. If something interesting happens, I'll update when the interesting stuff happens.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

I have no advice or anything, I'm just interested in watching this mod that I've never actually seen, but heard oh so much about. Almost makes me want to shell out for the expansions to get it...

[tribble]

-Acheron has 35 strength-

DAYUM. That is a hell of a buff.

Oh, and good on you for killing that stupid pony. equine species are good for pulling things and making glue, and nothing else.:smallamused:

I vote we prioritise the combat upgrades on the duskbringer IF we can get doublecast afterwards. If not, then get him to combat V and then put him to sleep until we can make him a mobius witch. After he's at combat 5 we should make him summon all our skeletons. Empowerment promotions are good stuff.

What did we do with Lita? Have we spent her yet? if not, I vote we save her so that we can build the necronomicon. The Stigmata's super easy, because it builds off of Great Sages too, so it's less of a big deal.

Let's secure the cliffs of Kelle. Air level 2 is strictly better than fire level 2, because it:
-hurts demons (and angels, but I don't recall if angels actually have resistance to fire.) Hyborem is going to be a right pain in the arse if we're not careful.
-never feeds a lucky defender XP
-always allows your actual soldiers to get kills.
-damages a % of nearby unit's health, so you can use a smaller number of mages to blast the city defenders.
-Is harder to get.

My experience is that nuking defenders down to 0.8 strength is more efficient than worrying about city defenses.

[Castaras]

Lita I already spent, used her as a specialist. Needed the money so we can get some early expansion without sacrificing research (which takes forever already).

[tribble]

Lita I already spent, used her as a specialist. Needed the money so we can get some early expansion without sacrificing research (which takes forever already).

Well, that's a right shame. Let's continue to focus priests until we have the Necronomicon. It's good money and delicious AC, which will save us some nonsense with elegy/Ragnarok spam.

[Castaras]

Right, I haven't forgotten this. I was planning on updating it tonight, but after working an unexpected full day shift I'm shattered and can't deal with doing it tonight. Expect an update tomorrow.

[Cieyrin]

Right, I haven't forgotten this. I was planning on updating it tonight, but after working an unexpected full day shift I'm shattered and can't deal with doing it tonight. Expect an update tomorrow.

Feel free, no rush. We'll still be here to enjoy the next update when you get it up. :smallsmile:

[tribble]

S'okay, take your time.

Know what I think is the most frustrating thing on earth? when a pyre zombie gets the kill on a hero.

[Castaras]

Definitely.

Solution: Make your pyre zombie a hero! :smallbiggrin: :smalltongue:

Update at last!


http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/3650/screenshot0036layer1.jpg
Another Unicorn! Kill it!

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/2405/screenshot0035layer2.jpg
An interesting random event. Each option costs money, but shows you 1 spot on the map. You never know what. I've only really got it to work with largest cities... sometimes...

http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/8189/screenshot0034layer3.jpg
Huh, who'dathunk. It worked. We now have a location for the second continent, and we also know that we have the Svartalfar, aka the Unseelie Court. Dark Elves. Etc. Have potential, but I find them to be rather boring. Their main shtich is lots of assassins and poisons and recon.

http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/1531/screenshot0033layer6.jpg
We have a slight barbarian trouble.

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Okay, possibly a major barbarian problem. Thankfully, Orthus seems to have spawned on the other continent, which is good. Orthus is the death of early civilisations. One unit, high strength. And a Hero, so gets more powerful the longer you leave him. But he drops a sweet axe item when you kill him.

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More research! Sorely needed.

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This tiger is like an avatar of the gods. It won't stop killing the skeletons and its got up to bloody combat 5 from nomming upon my settlers protectors! Damnit.

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Daracaat = crazy spider leader.

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Oh yeah, I founded a city. Woohoo. Barbarians nearby though. Unfortunately.

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I need to clear this fort out.

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Yay, Mysticism! The path to both magic and religion is open, and we now can build elder council... which is more research!

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Runes of Kilmorph has been founded... by the crazy spider people. From this we can deduce that the last 2 civilisations we don't know of are not dwarves. Dwarves always beeline to Kilmorph. Always.

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/4941/screenshot0024layer20.jpg
Holy Spider people, batman.

http://img847.imageshack.us/img847/7876/screenshot0023layer21.jpg
Crap, again? Geeeeeze. Gimmie a break, RNG!

http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/6950/screenshot0022layer24.jpg
Did someone want the Necronomicon? The Message from the Deep gives one of the 3 "Evil" religions, the Octopus Overlords *cough* cthulhu *cough*. While not quite as devastating for Armageddeon as the Ashen Veil (the 2nd evil religion, and the evilest of the evil), can cause some increase in the armageddeon count. Which is good.

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Screw you, RNG.

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/5425/screenshot0020layer28.jpg
Very appropriate Great Prophet. Yay random events. This 'un will make the Necronomicon.

http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/7344/screenshot0019layer29.jpg
Kick down the door, kill the monsters, steal the treasure, stab your buddy - oops, wrong game.
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/8408/screenshot0018layer30.jpg
And now we have a guy to save for the Ashen Veil special building. Sweet. Great Sages are pretty much Scientists with a fancy name.

http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/2478/screenshot0017layer32.jpg
You all need to give me a slap on the wrist. I forgot all about Forts. These are different to the vanilla forts. They're an improvement that generates a leashed unit that helps defend your territory. It also spreads a little bit of culture, automatically. Bad me. I forgot completely, and they're damned useful against barbarians. :smalltongue:

And even better - as the Sheaim, we get a special Fort Commander - the Pyre Lord. All Fort Commanders have a ranged attack, and the Pyre Lord has the special effect of exploding when dying. So, like a regular pyre zombie.

http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/1310/screenshot0016layer33.jpg
Yep, I'm sorry game, stop punishing me.

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/5199/screenshot0015layer34.jpg
Zarcaz the Long-Sighted. He appears a few turns after Orthus, with some extra goblins. He's a ranged kinda guy. Couldn't see which continent he spawned on. Fingers crossed it was the other one. For some reason, he's not cool enough to get a special message like the other barbarian heroes do.

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Ooo. Think this was a dark elf one, believe it said that it was born in Thariss (or whatever their city is)

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Best part of being evil.

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This took me completely by surprise. There was a monster lair next to this city, and its disappeared. My suspicion is that a spider unit (which most of them are invisible, iirc) explored the lair, and this lich spawned as a result of exploring the lair. Spider died/ran away, lich attacks us. Yey.

http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/7664/screenshot0011layer39.jpg
It died, leaving behind a unicorn. Wait, what?

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Armageddon Count! Yay!

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Oo, we've reached 10. This is the first bogeyman text. There'll be more later. It just goes "Haha, you're gonna diiiieieeeeeeeahahahaa."

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Ooo, pyre zombie mutated to be more of a scout. I can live with that.

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There's quite a few barbarian cities about.

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Yep. And an Engineer for the lovely little arachnophiles.

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Oooo, a Great Commander! These are fun. They give us the ability to either get lots and lots and lots of units from one city at once, more xp for units built in a city, and doesn't get used up and can be used to command troops as well!

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I just failed my san roll.

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And we have founded the Octopus Overlords. In our Capital. Awesome.

http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/8572/screenshot0002layer63.jpg
And we get a Zealot. These are one of the few units we have that can allow other units to heal faster, but can also spread religion and give culture.

http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/5217/screenshot0001layer64.jpg
One Necronomicon, as ordered, sah.

http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/7455/screenshot0000layer65.jpg
And here's a good place to stop. Things to decide:

- Keep the Great Sage for when we get the Ashen Veil?
- What to do with the Great Commander?
- Expansion may be a problem until we sort it out with more cities with Octopus Overlords, but doable. New cities or steal barbarian cities?
- Research: More Religions, More religious units, Magic, Worker Techs, or Melee techs?
- Heathen goody-two-shoes Spider people of Kilmorph. Continue to ignore them? Or start preparing to wipe them out?
- Anything else? Infastructure is woefully neglected at the moment, thanks to the barbarians. Currently building workers to help resolve this, and building pyre zombies to continue clearing the land of barbarians.

That's all, I think. Next update will hopefully be sooner than this one.

Oh, and somewhere in that mess, the Fellowship of the Leaves was founded in a distant land. This is the tree hugging hippy religion, regularly got by Elves, weird undead people, and the spider people (which is why the spider people getting kilmorph surprised me).

[tribble]

yay, an update and the Necronomicon!:smallbiggrin:

I vote we save the commander to use in conjunction with some hero later, preferably Rosier. Why did the AC drop back down?

[Castaras]

Huh, the AC did went down. No idea. I'll blame the svartalfar because they're annoying. :smalltongue:

[Cieyrin]

You broke the img tag for founding the Octopus Overlords, btb.

Also, I say the barbarians and spider people have been a thorn in our sides for too long. Crush them with hordes of Pyre Zombies and watch their civilizations burn!

[tribble]

If the AC is decreasing for no reason, that probably implies the presence of the Elohim somewhere. They get a lot of civ-specific options on random events that lower the AC.

[Nanoblack]

I bought the game and then DL'd all of the mods due to this thread but the swiftly learned that this is nothing like some of the older Civ games. Been playing Legion of D'Tesh and Sheaim a lot and failing hard. Anyone have some advice for good early games to get me moving?

[tribble]

I bought the game and then DL'd all of the mods due to this thread but the swiftly learned that this is nothing like some of the older Civ games. Been playing Legion of D'Tesh and Sheaim a lot and failing hard. Anyone have some advice for good early games to get me moving?

Okay, so I've only played vanilla fall from heaven, but here are my tips, most are based on stupid stuff I did:
-don't play on erebus maps, they're cramped and almost completely useless. I think about 70% or more is jungle, desert, or mountain. Yeah, ew.

-the basic religious soldiers for kilmorph, fellowship, and octopus overlords are a stopgap measure. They do not replace axemen by a long shot. Don't try to storm cities of archers with them.

-Lairs are mostly bad. Don't trigger them in or near your own lands.

-Alexis and Os-Gabella have the temperament of Montezuma, and extremely powerful militaries. The counter to Os-Gabella is to either micromanage horsemen to pick her zombies off one at a time, sending the horsemen in one by one over a large distance, or train a stack of mages with the life 2 promotion. The counter to Alexis is to get lucky and start right next to her so you can bumrush her before she gets out of warriors. (In seriousness I don't know how to fight the vamps.)

-Read the 'pedia. Seriously, just have an archive binge. Knowing the difference between delicious Yggdrasil and the Guardian of Pristin pass could save your life.

-Don't focus death adepts! Skeletons are horrible. The real reason they exist is to be weaker than your mages, thus serving as a hillarious defense against assasins.

-The Empyrean is very straightforward, I recommend it.

-Yeah, the Sheaim are a bad way to learn the game, they change it more than anyone save maybe the infernals.

-I think a good Civilization to learn with is Falamar's Lanun. You want to start on an Archipelago map if you do this.

-Here's a breakdown of the practical benefits of each religion:
Kilmorph: Money, a hero with enchantment spells at a very early juncture, the earliest unit with medic 3 (The grigori medic is available at the same time) , money generation instead of culture (this can be a double edged sword if you need culture in a city and forget about it. Curse you loki etc.) You also get a pimpin' golem if you're the luchiurp, but only at AC70+, at which point freaking Gojira is running around. Priests can buff their stack by a percent and high priests can cast earthquake, which ought to be obvious. Also, Arete is wonderful if you have a ton of mines.

Fellowship of Leaves: It's horribad until you research Guardian of nature. Elves are nigh-on unplayable without it. Once you research Guardian of nature, this becomes very powerful, with a spammable summon on priests (this is useless and only good for shockspamming someone weak enough to actually take damage from them) and pretty much unparalleled economic strength. Also, you get one of the best casters in the game at the end and the second best mounted unit in the earlier lategame. (the best is magnadine but I digress).

Octopus Overlords: This is the strongest militarily of the early religions. The Drowned are lacklustre, but oh, man, dem stygian guard. Also, Holy Guacamole, Tsunami. Speakers have an outrageous summon, but it's strictly naval. Still, you don't beat the OO at sea. They're good at making great prophets, too. Fanatics are useless.

The Order: They're kinda lacklustre at first glance. Then you realize that they're easymode to spread because of the free acolytes. That's huge. Then you realize that Crusaders are concentrated rape against demons and acceptable otherwise. Then you realise how potent a blitzing Valin Phanuel is. Sphener is simply amazing, he's one of the best heroes in the game. Social order allows truly outrageous city growth. Also, they have the best music. They convert you to good, so laugh it up with vampire paladins.

The Ashen Veil's main attraction to me are that they provide research. This is awesome. They also up the AC, prompting plagues, hero barbarians, and plummeting real estate markets. This is less awesome. To make up for this, they bring to you The best religion militarily period. Ring of fire is a shorter ranged and weaker tsunami that you don't have to be on coastline to cast. High priests can summon balors, which are endgame-tier. Rosier is every bit the equal of Valin Phanuel. Mardero is the equal of Sphener, except for those certain counters built into the game for fighting demons, such as the demonslayer promotion and Glory Everlasting. Beasts of Agares are so outrageous your cities revolt as a balancer! (If you kept some temples from another faith you can sacrifice a missionary to shut them up. This doesn't work with savants.) Unholy crap, the stigmata builds off of scientists? Can you say Easymode? Also, after AC70 you can go for Meshabber of Dis-respect, because he flips people the bird while he obliterates entire armies of endgame-tier units. Now, pumping up the AC is a LARGE handicap, but it can work to your advantage! Try playing the Veil as a barbarian civ on a harder difficulty and laughing as the horsemen ignore you.

The Empyrean is my favorite. Rathas are meh, but the Radiant Guard are a guarantee of a city's safety. you need a few of them, because blinding light is no guarantee, but believe me when I say there is no better city defender. Chalid Astrakein makes the game boring, he's so good, and the high priests are also broken. Crown of Radiance is just crazy.

The Council of Esus is mostly strong because it never fails to spread when you want it to. You just pay the money and there it is. This becomes more attractive after you send like eight missionaries to try and convert a town. The Nightwatch are reasonable, but they don't hold a candle to the mighty Shadowrider. The Shadowrider is a knight with an affinity for shadow mana. You can build Nox Noctis from a merchant, but I never use merchant specialists so that's no help to me. Nox Noctis makes everybody in your borders a ninja, and I don't mean the visible kind. Also, it's shadow mana for your riders. It's a really really good shrine. The Coe can also declare war without removing their units from a city, you should abuse this. It can win you scenario games to be able to march your army straight to the city you need to raze and raze it and run without fighting through an entire country. Gibbon Goetia is an excellent mage, he can spam summons without denying your army XP, because illusions can't kill their targets. DO NOT STEAL CIVS WITH HIM. The computer will run your country into the ground while you're selling yourself cities, changing the state religion and disbanding the military.

[Castaras]

I'd recommend trying the Malakim as well, as a starting civi. Or, quite honestly, the Archos.

Malakim are normal(ish) units, with a focus on religion. They also turn everything into desert and have amazing trade because of this - they don't need roads, they get trade over desert. The only problem they have is food, at times.

Archos are nice and simple to play. Melee civilisation, with an extra druidic unit that has some magic. However, you shouldn't give a damn about building any melee units, but instead focus on increasing your capital city's population as high as possible - City of a Thousand Slums is a good wonder for this, if late on (extends city radius to 3x rather than 2x). The size of your capital city gives you more spiders and scorpions. I believe at 5 population you get baby spiders and the first tier of scorpions. Oh, should mention - all spiders and scorpions automatically Grow, and become bigger as time goes on. Then at another higher level population, you start off with the normal grown up Spiders and Scorpion Swarms. Plus, you need a high population city to use your worldspell (Awaken Mother) and summon the badass 22 strength mummy spider (Muuuuuuuuum! They're stealing our cities! Eat them!). Who can also using spells summon more baby spiders. Which then grow into normal spiders. Leaving you able to summon more baby spiders.

Yeah. I might like the Archos. :smallredface: :smalltongue: They're easy to play and a good starting civilisation. They're simple.

- Only your population in your capital counts
- Spiders are your weapon
- Scorpions are useful too
- if you want, you can get the Spider priests (can't remember the exact name) for magic
- Fellowship of Leaves or Kilmorph are useful religions to have, though you can try any religion, or none at all
- However; there's two leaders for them. I prefer the guy with the single trait, but he has complicated extra mechanics due to being a minor leader, so the guy with Defender and Aggressive is best for starting out.
- Kill everyone :smalltongue:


Update will be happening today. I apologise for being so slow about all this.

[tribble]

The thing about the malakim is that Varn Gosam, though a terrific leader, is adaptable, so he's an added layer of complexity you have to account for, juggling plans and all that. Decius is just terrible.

[Castaras]

That is true. The adaptable trait, however, can be useful for beginners (at least, I found it useful when I started with the Grigori). Gives a little extra flexibility in how you play your game.

Update!

I decided to try something slightly different this time, mainly because my computer's internet seems to die when I try and post on this thread because of all the images. Here's a slideshow with all the screenshots and my comments on what's happening. Lemmie know what you think, although I may go back to how I did it before. Was a little easier. :smalltongue:

Ta da. (http://s167.photobucket.com/albums/u130/Castaras/RiFE%20Lets%20Play%2013%2009%2011/?albumview=slideshow)

Nearly 200 turns of death, glory, and destruction. I'm currently finishing off some old worker techs I forgot, but after that, which direction would we like to go? There's a few more barbarian cities, and there's the spider cities. There's also that pathetic armageddeon counter. Should be much higher. What do we all think?

[tribble]

Aw, the white hand doesn't count as a religion!

We're doing well, I think. have we got horses yet? I want us to have Rosier.

[Castaras]

We have horses.

And the White Hand does count now. :smalltongue: (http://greyfox.me/rife/wiki/index.php?title=White_Hand)

Can't find a link to the actual religion, but that's the advance for it. :smallsmile:

[Nanoblack]

While appreciate the advice thus far, it wasn't really what i was looking for. How do I get a city up and running?

[tribble]

OH. That. Er, you might wanna learn those basics on vanilla civ. Basically, build a city with a settler, it'll generally go straight to focusing food at first. build a warrior or something that's not a settler or a worker first, and only start worker production once the number in the bubble is 2 or higher (3 is ideal). After that, put the worker on resources and build the appropriate improvement. Take the recommended tech paths, that'll get you a fairly decent economy for a beginning game. Your city will automatically work tiles within two spaces or so of the city. Turn on the button that displays tile output, it's helpful.

[Castaras]

Go for defences rather than improvements earlier on. If you can, a capital city with either a river around it, or on a hill are good. The barbarians are tough. I personally wait until I have 3 or 4 warriors in the city before moving on to workers.

[Cieyrin]

The slide show caused my browser less panic when trying to load images, so I actually approve of that format, should you continue to do so. My only gripe about it is if there's a way to set the default on the slide show to pause instead of play, since I flailed around trying to find the button while I tried reading the slides.

[Castaras]

I'll have a look in the options, but yeah, slideshow worked a lot better for me so I'll keep doing it then. :smallbiggrin:

Any suggestions game play wise, or are you all happy to see me bumble about and do stupid things continue with magnificent skill and finesse? :smalltongue:

[Cieyrin]

Any suggestions game play wise, or are you all happy to see me bumble about and do stupid things continue with magnificent skill and finesse? :smalltongue:

Since the big thing about this mod is magic, I'd like to see adepts sooner than later, especially to deal with those goblin despoilers that seem to have chosen your domain as their personal dumping grounds. Also advancing AC via the Ashen Veil would be cool. If that's where you're going, anyways, full steam ahead! :smallbiggrin:

[tribble]

You should totally show off the outrageous power of sheaim summons, and there's no better sphere for that than death magic. The Sheaim, I think, really depend on a certain selection of wonders: The tower of necromancy, the stigmata on the unborn, the prophecy of ragnarok, and the catacomb libralus. The tower provides additional death mana and boosts the power of pyre zombies, the stigmata gives further bonuses for having the AC high, the prophecy allows for much faster AC pumping, and the catacomb libralus allows you a chance for delicious moebius witches in every city with a gate. Oh yeah, gates, when do we get those again?

[Castaras]

Gates! I'll just che....

:eek:


mysticism.

:smallredface:

I'll get building them next update. Currently working on Catacomb Liberalis and Prophecy of Ragnarok. :smallsmile:

[tribble]

Gates! I'll just che....

:eek:


mysticism.

:smallredface:

I'll get building them next update. Currently working on Catacomb Liberalis and Prophecy of Ragnarok. :smallsmile:

Yeah, those are somewhat more important. The catacomb libralus is so OP with gates. Channeling 2 at knowledge of the ether? Yes please!

[Castaras]

Crap, over a week. :smalleek: Sorry for the delay guys, it's my last week of work and I'm starting to have to sort stuff out for uni. Dunno when I'll be able to pick this up, but I will get the next update out soon(tm).

[tribble]

well, at least you aren't having to cancel your LP like I did.:smallsigh: Just don't make yourself hate the game and you'll do fine.