Sid Meier's Civilization IV is already the greatest turn-based strategy game you can play. But the guys who actually made the game only get part of the credit for that. Because a huge part of Civ IV's appeal is what guys like Derek Paxton have done. Paxton is a guy in Germany who has nothing to do with professional game development. Instead, he's a grown-up D&D nerd, like many of us. But unlike many of us, he's taken a campaign he created when he was a kid and built it into a massively epic, massively creative, massively detailed, and just plain massive mod for Civilization IV called Fall from Heaven.

Now that sounds pretty goofy, doesn't it? Some dude's D&D campaign? But you're going to have to trust me on this: based on Fall from Heaven, Paxton's the kind of guy who makes you go, "Man, I wish he'd been my DM..." And more importantly, he knows how to transport his youthful creativity and his nerdly flights of fantasy into gameplay systems. Fall from Heaven renders Civ IV unrecognizable. And I intend that as a compliment. It's a whole new game, arguably even more so than Civilization IV: Colonization, which was actually released as a whole new game.

I bring all this up because Fall from Heaven II, the latest greatest version of the mod, just went final. It's been playable for a while, but in a state of constant flux, with Paxton and his team of modders continually building in new features. Various iterations have added -- among other things -- a cool card game, new factions, explorable dungeons, new game types, and a whole list of unlockable scenarios. But Paxton himself considers this latest version "feature complete":

This will be the final version of Fall from Heaven II. From this point on we will patch indefinitely. That isn't to say that we are done, but as developers our job is largely finished. Not its your turn as playtesters to help us fine tune, and we will be focusing on AI and documentation more than new features. The game is, more or less, locked as far as major feature changes go. But thats good, we have a real hard time fine tuning with major shifts between versions. Its no longer about creating a game, its about perfecting a game and playtest feedback is more important than ever.

Fall from Heaven II is a 400MB download available here. It requires the Beyond the Sword expansion for Civilization IV (if you don't have the expansion, you can get an earlier version, available here). You can keep track of the latest versions here, where you can also join a Facebook group, if you're into that sort of thing, to be notified as new versions are released. Paxton, who posts online under the name "Kael", doesn't accept donations for Fall from Heaven. Instead, he suggests fans express their gratitude by donating to Unicef.

In case you're still skeptical, who can blame you? I mean, come on. Some dude's D&D campaign? I'll be starting a series of game diaries for Fall from Heaven II tomorrow to run through the holidays. Stay tuned if you want a closer look at what Fall from Heaven II is really all about: chaos, torture, pissed off angels, rampaging giants, slavery, thieves, magical weapons, impossibly powerful heroes, terrible magic, and the whole world consumed by fire. I promise you this won't be dull.