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When I got fed up with C2C's random crashes, I decided to dig out the fantasy side of the Civ4 mods. I can't really choose which mod I like the most between Fall From Heaven II, Rise from Erebus or Erebus in the Balance, as they're all fun to play and I still haven't really grasped the mechanics in-depth. Usually, I gravitate towards the one that has most civilizations, that is, RfE. Strangely, I can't play those mods without feeling... on edge, somehow. I don't know why, but whatever the circumstances, I'm always a bit more nervous than usual when I play them, even when I'm not having my ass kicked by Barbarian hordes, even when giant spiders aren't on the map. It's the same deal as with Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance II's ostensibly innocuous indication that "A door opens in the distance" : I never understood why I found them creepy, but I still do to this day.
Anyway, I decided to try out the scenarios. And they're pretty good, each in their own way, but the most original has to be "Gift of Kylorin". Simply put, it's a turn-by-turn version of Dungeons and Dragons. Or, in this case, Dain the Caswallan and the Meshaber of Dis. Now, I'm afraid to say... even if it is a great achievement given what Civ4 was originally made for, the game's mechanics simply aren't made for a dungeon-crawler. Or maybe I'm just too picky. Or maybe I'm just so pissed off by the absurd number of times I lost, to the point of making my Hall of Fame look more like a Hall of Fail. To be fair, most of those losses were my own damn fault : I think I died about 9 times to an immobile Tar Demon because I kept summoning a Fireball with Dain, and then sending Dain to fight the Demon instead of the Fireball as I forgot to select it (and Dain's death is instant loss, of course). Then I lost four more times because I just didn't want to actually stop and think for a second about the Meshaber of Dis' riddle.
... I ended up taking a break. Last part is a labyrinth and although it seems feasible, I'm just too tired to press on.
And typing about the giant spiders just made me want to try a game as the spider-loving civ whose name I can't remember. Shock therapy, they say.
Anyway, I decided to try out the scenarios. And they're pretty good, each in their own way, but the most original has to be "Gift of Kylorin". Simply put, it's a turn-by-turn version of Dungeons and Dragons. Or, in this case, Dain the Caswallan and the Meshaber of Dis. Now, I'm afraid to say... even if it is a great achievement given what Civ4 was originally made for, the game's mechanics simply aren't made for a dungeon-crawler. Or maybe I'm just too picky. Or maybe I'm just so pissed off by the absurd number of times I lost, to the point of making my Hall of Fame look more like a Hall of Fail. To be fair, most of those losses were my own damn fault : I think I died about 9 times to an immobile Tar Demon because I kept summoning a Fireball with Dain, and then sending Dain to fight the Demon instead of the Fireball as I forgot to select it (and Dain's death is instant loss, of course). Then I lost four more times because I just didn't want to actually stop and think for a second about the Meshaber of Dis' riddle.
... I ended up taking a break. Last part is a labyrinth and although it seems feasible, I'm just too tired to press on.
And typing about the giant spiders just made me want to try a game as the spider-loving civ whose name I can't remember. Shock therapy, they say.
