Fall from Heaven 2

Fall from Heaven 2 is a dark fantasy total conversion of Civilization 4 by Derek "Kael" Paxton and a team of volunteers, with spellcasters, heroes, 21 civilizations and an Armageddon to hold back; its final version, 0.40, came out on Dec 16, 2008 for Beyond the Sword, and Firaxis shipped its "Age of Ice" scenario inside Beyond the Sword.

Fall from Heaven 2 is a dark fantasy total conversion of Civilization 4 by Derek "Kael" Paxton and his team, and its final version, 0.40, came out on Dec 16, 2008, per the mod's own site, three years to the day after the first Fall from Heaven. It replaces history with a world of magic, gods and monsters: in Paxton's words to Soren Johnson it has "21 different civilizations" (Designer Notes), and the Beyond the Sword manual (p. 40) calls it "the premiere fantasy mod for Civilization IV". It runs on Beyond the Sword, which also shipped a scenario made from it, "Age of Ice".

Quick facts

Type	Fantasy total conversion for Beyond the Sword
Lead	Derek "Kael" Paxton
First Fall from Heaven	Dec 16, 2005 (original Civ 4)
First Fall from Heaven 2	May 19, 2006
First version on Beyond the Sword	0.25, Oct 5, 2007
Final version	0.40, Dec 16, 2008, with 18 scenarios
Civilizations	21, per Paxton
Needs	Beyond the Sword, patch 3.17 or later (download page)
Downloads	200,000 on CivFanatics alone, by Jan 2009
Award	First place, GameFlood's $25,000 Mod & Map Contest, Sep 15, 2007
In Beyond the Sword	The "Age of Ice" scenario (manual, p. 40)

What Fall from Heaven 2 changes

Fall from Heaven 2 keeps Civ 4's turns, cities and diplomacy and replaces nearly everything else. The Beyond the Sword manual (p. 40) describes "a completely revamped tech tree" with buildings and units "like you've never seen in Civ before", upgradeable Hero Units, Mammoth Riders and Stone Ogres, in a world where Mulcarn, the God of Winter, has claimed dominion and the Godslayer blade must be reforged to kill him.

Magic is the center of the mod. The mod's About page says Paxton recruited Talchas to build its spell system, and Johnson, reviewing it in 2009, liked the way spellcasters earn experience steadily over time, giving the game "a classic RPG structure" through its promotions (Designer Notes, Part II and Part III).

The mod was built in four phases, each adding a layer, as its About page lists them:

Phase	What it added
Light	The spell system and 16 civilizations
Fire	Armageddon, and the Mercurian (angelic) and Infernal (demonic) civilizations
Shadow	Quests, equipment, and the Sidar and Svartalfar civilizations
Ice	Scenarios and the Illian civilization

Version 0.30 also added two religions, the Empyrean and the Council of Esus, and later versions brought a "Final Five" mode that removes the lowest-scoring player every 50 turns until five remain and a card mini-game, Somnium (0.33), per the mod's site.

History

Fall from Heaven began as Paxton's dark fantasy world, loosely based on his Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Its first version came out on Dec 16, 2005, less than two months after Civ 4, with a few spells, summoning and a new way of upgrading units; Fall from Heaven 2 followed on May 19, 2006, and the team grew to 14 members.

The SDK made the second version possible. Paxton told Johnson that much of his design "I wouldn't be able to do until Firaxis released the Source Code", which happened in April 2006, and that he beta tested it a few months earlier (Designer Notes, Part I). Johnson added that the XML parsing and Python glue, which let the team write its own XML files and Python functions, were "late additions to the SDK" (Part II).

For Beyond the Sword, the team rewrote the mod from scratch. Paxton said they "removed all hard coding from the mod" (Part II), and the spell system was rewritten so the AI could understand it (Part III). Version 0.23 was the last for the original game and 0.25, released on Oct 5, 2007, the first public version on Beyond the Sword. Johnson wrote in June 2008 that after the rewrite "Fall from Heaven is now a platform in its own right", for "mod mods" such as Dungeon Adventure, which turns it into a roguelike (Designer Notes: Mod Mods).

The team called version 0.40 the final ("gold") release, out on Dec 16, 2008 with 18 scenarios. In the interview that followed, Paxton said he planned to be done with the mod, adding no new features (Part III).

Age of Ice: the scenario in Beyond the Sword

Firaxis put a Fall from Heaven scenario on the Beyond the Sword disc. The Beyond the Sword manual (p. 40) lists "Fall from Heaven" among its two "Fan-Created Scenarios/Mods", a single-player mod with three new civilizations whose goal is forging the Godslayer and destroying the God of Winter and credits Paxton's team by name. The scenario's name in the game is "Age of Ice", and Paxton told Johnson that being included was a major boost in getting players to try the full mod (Designer Notes, Part I). The other mods on the disc are on Scenarios.

Reception

Fall from Heaven 2 was the best-known Civ 4 mod of its time. Its own site calls it "the most popular Civ4 mod in the world", Johnson called it "easily the most popular Civ4 mod yet" in 2008, and Paxton said it had 200,000 downloads on CivFanatics alone and had been on the discs of four gaming magazines. It won first place in GameFlood's $25,000 Mod & Map Contest, announced on Sep 15, 2007, and the team gave the prize to UNICEF.

Johnson's own review was mixed. In Part III of his history he praised its "remarkable level of polish" and "a tangible sense of discovery", but faulted three things: many features are not explained in the game or the Civilopedia, games run too long (he would "rather play 3 short 300-turn games"), and there is "simply too much stuff in it".

Downloading and playing Fall from Heaven 2

Fall from Heaven 2 is a free download from the mod's own download page, which says it needs Beyond the Sword with patch 3.17 or later. Like other Civ 4 mods, it goes in the Beyond the Sword Mods folder and is started from Advanced, then Load a Mod, as Mods explains. It can be played online, but Paxton said out-of-sync errors were the team's top priority before the last versions, which add a log of the game state on every computer to find them (Part III).

Frequently asked questions

What is Fall from Heaven 2? Fall from Heaven 2 is a free dark fantasy total conversion of Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword by Derek "Kael" Paxton's team, with magic, heroes, 21 civilizations and an Armageddon to avoid.

Where can I download Fall from Heaven 2? Fall from Heaven 2 is downloaded from the mod's own site, whose download page links the files and says it needs Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword patched to 3.17 or later.

What is the latest version of Fall from Heaven 2? The final version of Fall from Heaven 2 is 0.40, released on Dec 16, 2008; the team called it the "gold" release.

How many civilizations are in Fall from Heaven 2? Fall from Heaven 2 has 21 civilizations, per its lead Derek Paxton, among them the Mercurians, the Infernals, the Sidar, the Svartalfar and the Illians.

What is Age of Ice in Civ 4? Age of Ice is the Fall from Heaven scenario that Firaxis included in Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword, a single-player fantasy mod in which you reforge the Godslayer to kill Mulcarn, the God of Winter (Beyond the Sword manual, p. 40).

Does Fall from Heaven 2 work with the Steam version of Civ 4? Fall from Heaven 2 needs Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword patched to 3.17 or later, and the Steam version carries the final patch, 3.19, released on Steam on Jun 11, 2009; the mod's site does not say whether it was tested on 3.19.