CivIV - Fall from Heaven 2 PBEM

Ok, I fancy trying an experiment to see if we can get a game of Fall from Heaven 2 going. It will probably take an age to complete, and as it's a mod, we may well run into sync issues, etc, but hey, I fancy trying :)


Would be looking for a steady couple of turns a week. Hopefully more at the start of the game when not much is happening. And aim to "role play" a bit more, rather than aim for gamey victory. Some elements are unbalanced by design, so this is probably a good approach.

Leave your name below if you're interested.

I'm thinking of using the FfH2 - better navel AI mod. Mainly as that's the one I've used in single player. And I think FfH2 is big enough without adding even MORE content (like some of the other modmods). I'm open to suggestions though!

Current lineup:

riadsala
heliocentric
dominicus
gorzan
bonuswavepilot
kelron

I'm very much up for this, bagsie racist genocidal Elves.

I would be willing to give it a try. Although I do remember that FfH2 has the tendency to be unforgiving to players. Once you have a bad roll you can be thrown out of the game pretty fast.

Let me know when you want to give it a try, as I need to "unlearn" some bad habbits from civ v and refresh the civ 4 basics :P

BTW, pitboss or dropbox?

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Originally Posted by Dominicus

I would be willing to give it a try. Although I do remember that FfH2 has the tendency to be unforgiving to players. Once you have a bad roll you can be thrown out of the game pretty fast.

Let me know when you want to give it a try, as I need to "unlearn" some bad habbits from civ v and refresh the civ 4 basics :P

BTW, pitboss or dropbox?

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dropbox i think. And yes, the game can be very a bit lopsided - hence the idea of roleplaying it a big (it, play in the rough strategy of your race)

ps... I think a roughly equal balance between alignments might be a good idea.

I'm up for this, like a crazy clown!

Been meaning to give FFH mods a bash - would be up for doing so in a PBEM such as this if you don't mind a n00b in the mix...

How does pitboss work? Would be a lot better than handing files round sequentially with a lot of players. I'm in, though.

Pitboss is a server thats always running the game, people can just drop in and do their turns and the turn itself progresses on either a timer or when everyone's submitted.

One problem with it then is that it's possible to take your turn last, have the turn progress then take your turn first which is quite a natural thing to do since your right there but is generally frowned upon when it means your taking a second turn in a war against someone else.

What I don't know is how Civ 4 handles dropbox and all the turns being processed at the same time.

Does someone need to be hosting the pitboss server 24/7 for everyone to take their turns, or does it have a master server thing?

Doing it via dropbox would mean each player takes their turn in order, which generates a file to pass on to the next player. If we're looking at 6+ players you might end up waiting a few days for your next turn.

For dropbox it is best to ad your timezone as well. It is best to have a turn flow with the day instead of hopping over the globe.

Also, shall we start picking characters? I assume Riadsala will be game leader, so shall we send him a pm with your pick or will we go for an open pick?

If we have to choose now, I'd like ot be Perpentach.

Ok, I think I'd rather just use dropbox, as it's straightforward, and I have now experience with pitboss. But if somebody wants to make a strong case for pitboss, and sets it up, etc, then fine :)

Current list of players is:

riadsala
heliocentric
dominicus
gorzan
bonuswavepilot
kelron
jarvis

which is enough, but I'll wait a day and see if anybody else is interested :) Probably don't many more players though.

I was thinking of having random faction assignment: the balance of the game is (by design) a bit wonky, and so having random draws is perhaps the fairest thing to do. But, if people object hugely, we can do it another way.

I'm fine with random. Otherwise I'll go with Grigori because they confuse me less than some of the other factions.

I'd much rather use pitboss than dropbox as the game will move faster, especially if we're in different timezones. I'd be able to host but I can't guarantee having the server up 24/7.

I'm happy with random, but I demand the right to rename my leader.

@ Riadsala, Might I suggest to do random with the pick of allignment? I think it is possible to do that with single player, so I assume that it's the same in multiplayer (might be wrong though). Otherwise, random will be fine. Plenty of time to learn a new civilisation....how hard can it be :D

My timezone: CET (+1:00)

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Originally Posted by Dominicus

Plenty of time to learn a new civilisation....how hard can it be :D

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Yeah, this is going to be a slow moving game! Should be interesting to see how the unbalanced nature of the design works with human players.

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I'd much rather use pitboss than dropbox as the game will move faster, especially if we're in different timezones. I'd be able to host but I can't guarantee having the server up 24/7.

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Sure, in which case: you're now in charge of getting Pitboss set up. Whatever that involves.

What are people's thoughts on which exact version of FfH2 to use? I favour something as close to "vanilla" FfH2 as possible (as that's already pretty epic!).

I'm not in for the game sorry.

I think the regular version of the mod without anything added on is the best option.
And I'm OK with random.

I assume for the regular version we are talking about the mod + patch O?

For my own games I have also the media pack and blue marble mods with it, but I assume those are only graphics and such so should not have any effect.

Also, I looked it up. There is the possibility of random, but with a picked allignment. I think that might make sense to even out the people over the three allignments. What are your thoughts on that?