So far I'm really enjoying Final Frontier. Firaxis made so many drastic changes to it, that it hardly feels like I'm playing Civilization IV anymore, yet it stills holds that traditional Civ turn-based charm. It's original, it's fun and the 3D graphics on it are pretty neat.

Kudos goes to Afterworld, too. I like what they did with the whole comic strip thing with it. Very unique!


With as much neat stuff Firaxis packed into this expansion, I feel it's going to be very hard to top with the next EP, if they make one!

Final Frontier is what Master of Orion 3 should've been.

I voted FF just because it's fun, innovative and playable (even with some silly bugs!)..... personally if I want a turn based, space 4X game, I'll play Galactic Civ which is undeniably better..... but this is still my favourite scenario for now.

Age of Ice was very very good, but personally I'd only play it once. I love the FfH mod for it's variety.

I haven't touched Rhye's yet..... but it will almost certainly be a scenario I come back to many times.

Charlemagne was nicely balanced and very playable - I'm sure I'll try this out a number of ways.

Afterworld - while I can respect the innovation, I personally have no interest whatsoever in it..... bored after 20 minutes.

Broken Star was good for the hour or so I played it - I'll probably come back to it again.

Road to War is the kind of scenario I have to be in the right mood for.... and I'm not in the right mood for it now! ;)

Gods of Old looks good.... but I'd personally like to mod it a little to make it play out in ancient to medieval times and no further.

Crossroads of the World didn't appear well balanced and the map was dull.

Defense.... silly.

I loved Final Frontier, as it is a great deal of fun to play, but I am a little disappointed that it was not finished for the release of the expansion. I hope the creator does not abandon the project, because it still needs a lot of work, but it is a fantastic module, nonetheless.

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Recommendations:

You cannot determine which planetary systems are more advantageous to settle, until after you have already spent the Colony Ship. Giving Scout Ships an ability to obtain vital information of a system would be great.

If you open the World Builder, you will see that there are many icons and terrain options that simply do not belong in a space themed scenario.

There should be a management screen for each planet, instead of just one for an entire system.

A better tutorial that shows how to get things going would be nice, as some players may not want to spend the time learning what strategy and tactics are needed to succeed, which would prevent them from discovering how much fun the module is (It took me a while to figure things out). For instance, a tutorial that is scripted in such a way that it walks the player through important first techs to create a sustainable economy, military, and espionage network would be a great help. An explaination of how warp lanes, jump points, mining, and starbases work could also be included. Consequently, preventing contact with Pirate or Rival Civilizations until the tutorial reaches that point of the lesson would be neccessary. Also, the addition of a non-competitive entity in which to establish Trade Route Lanes would be welcome. I have a hard time trading technologies and resources with Rival Civilizations, because each one is so important to victory.


Anyway, those are my initial thoughts after playing a couple of times through. Cheers!
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I've only managed to play about half of them so far, but Final Frontier was one of the reasons that I really wanted BtS and I have to say that it exceeded my expectations of what I thought it would be.

My favorite scenario:
- Gods of Old

Good scenarios:
- Broken Star
- Charlemagne
- Age of Ice
- Final Frontier
- Rhye's and Fall of Civilization

Not so good scenarios:
- Crossroads of the World
- Next War
- Road to War

Garbage:
- Afterworld
- Defense

I played FF for a little while, but at the time I didn't feel like finding out how things worked. And I haven't played all the scenarios, but I think of the ones I spend considerable time with (which is just R&F and NW) R&F is the best. NW is pretty nice too. I did try out defense, and think that's probably the worst scenario. Just not a whole lot of fun. But the others seem quite interesting. I'm really hoping for a 34-civ worldmap soon though.

I'll wait to vote until I've played more than one of them. I tried Gods of Old, since I find the concept intriguing.

The way religions work is quite different, since they all are available at the beginning of the game and are founded by building things. The idea appears to be to keep only one religion in your civ (and get only one in the whole world to win a religious victory). At least one religion allows new promotions; that's cool.

Afterworld isn't so terrible once you get past the mindnumbing dialogue at the start. The gameplay works all right and the missions work pretty well -- except I'm stuck of course not being able to kill the stupid blob or exit in any way.

"Gods of Gold" needs to be fixed.

Final Frontier was my favorite the second I booted up the demo. :goodjob:

I haven't finished my games on all the scenarios yet, but played at least a little time on all of them. My impressions:

Afterworld: My favorite. I liked the story and the gameplay a lot.
Final Frontier: Fantastic scenario. I'd like more different leaders, but for a mod released with the game, it's fine. All the new units ant techs are very cool, and I loved the idea of colonizing a whole system, not just a planet.
Age of Ice: Not as good as FFHII, but it's a good scenario. Probably I'll playing it just once.
Rhye's and Fall of Civilization: That's a scenario I'll play for a long time. A lot of civilizations with different ways to win.
Next War: The Next War scenario didn't catch my attention, what I really liked was the option to play an entire game with the Next War techs and units, but it needs some fixes, though.
Crossroads of the World: The idea of a economic victory didn't catch my attention. Someday I'll play it again and maybe I'll like it.
Road to War: Definitely the best WWII mod for Civ IV. I'm not a fan of WWII scenarios, I need to be in the right mood to play it, and I'm not now.

I haven't played enough the Charlemagne, Broken Star and Defense scenarios to write something about them, but I can't say they are good, except Defense.

I liked Crossroads cause of money. This is one ( and only ) aspect of the game I am good at. I like playing Ethiopia, cause of all the political pressure and constant wars.

I actually kind of like Broken Star. It's a straight up modern-era slugfest, which is great, as I rarely make it to the modern era, and when I do the wars are foregone conclusions.

It does have a couple of problems, however. The rebels are tough to crack early on because they airlift into any city under attack; until you get their reserves worn down, it's slow progress in taking their cities. Also, I have my doubts as to whether the AI knows how to buy units and promotions; fortunately, build times are reasonable enough that they can get by using the "old fashioned" build-it-yourself model.

Rhye's and Fall.

Boot it up, wait for Japan to come into play and bang!

Love it.

Broken Star is my favorite Scenario.
Charlemegne for a 2nd.

I voted Afterworld as my favorite, even though playing it is actually isn't. BUT its creative design is second to none. Loved the comic strip and really the whole feel of the mod, its great to play once, but yea not much on replayablity, but I rate it highly because it is basically an rpg running on a civ engine. Great work.

Others I enjoyed;

Final Frontier - basically feel the same way about this as afterworld, both had great design. Only downside, I could research techs faster than I could produce units, kinda odd.

Rhye's - always been a rhye's fan since long ago

Crossroads - it was fun to play once, but I think the AI needs an overhaul in order to compete, I won the game with the commerce victory after 92 turns...on monarch... no other civs were even close.

Road to War - this is my favorite genre of the scenario's, but due to ugly grey buttons, wrong leaders, and about every single city has the wrong food supplies and resources it nearly makes it unplayable for me (example, spokane grows to size 13 easily while los angelas can't grow past size 4). Also on the pacific map, there is not a single fish, clam, crab or whale resource on the entire map.

Ok, Jon Shafers changed my mind Final Frontier rocks!

Just guess what I voted. :D

I think your sig says it all. :lol:

Well, if I was forced to play a scenario, I guess I'd pick Charlemagne.

Why would you have to be forced if you played Final Frontier once that would be the only thing you'd play.

I've tried Final Frontier, and it didn't take.. I just kept thinking I'd rather play Dark Avatar, and when I thought about playing DA, I thought I'd rather just play the BtS epic game - so I did and am! :)

I think it's a tie between Broken Star and Final Frontier.

Broken Star is Great because of it's emphasis on Modern-era warefare and that is rare in Civ4. The build times are manegable and the unit and promotion purchase options are great. My only complaints are the Toughness of rebel and coalition forces along with limited moneymaking opportunities

Final Frontier is great too. All of the reasons for it have been named though.

I think they are all good but I would pay £ for Final Frontier.

Why would you have to be forced if you played Final Frontier once that would be the only thing you'd play.

FF is the Best Game-Included Mod the CivIV series has seen. I fully agree With You:scan:

Rhye's and Fall all the way. The Stability system requires some smart moves on the part of the player in order to survive and the random events can be interesting if infrequent. Also the replayability is one of its strengths. The only weakness I see in this is the improper balance, Arabia and Turkey tend to dominate most of the games in terms of size, and Russia if under AI never reaches the Pacific. Some of these aspects disturb me, but I guess it would not be much fun if the game was like a rail shooter. I would still like to see more correlation with history yet though.

FF is wonderful, and defenitely an impressive mod, but I wouldnt call it the best mod. Play Galactic Civilizations and youll say "FF who?"

Broken Star sort of bothered me due to the multitude of units and the inability for the makers to make some custom pictures. I dont really like playing with Catherine of Russia or Hannibal in a Russian civil war of the future scenario.

Also, I had a problem with the lack of Adolf Hitler being the leader of Germany in the Road to War, and the lack of the technical flag of Germany at the time not being used. I understand the sensibilities of some people, but it should hinder the correct protrayal of historical events due to discomfort.

Yes, RFC is fantastic. I rate it 9.9/10. Only stability (expansion) make me sick. I played China and when I took Babilon city from Arabia, 15 from my 16 cities was taken by Independents :( (city wars or something like that).
I had only 'one star' expansion so I'm wondering if it is possible to reach (playing China) Europe or even further-Africa or both Americas??
If expansion=distance other cities from capital so I guess no...

It's funny how on the "worst scenario" thread everybody says "Rhyes is horrible" and everybody on your "favorite scenario" thread sayes it's great. :crazyeye:

Its one of those love-hate things I suppose. Me, I love it :goodjob:

Rhye's is great, really the only downside of it, is it seems quite random at times, and honestly, their is no concept of world domination or anything like that on that scenario. The AI does so horribly, if you can just stay alive you win. I personally enjoy regular earth maps more for actual playing the game all the way through, but I still like it much for the historical victories, its about the only challenge the mod offers for experienced players.

I Think that all the hype about Rhye's and Fall is overstreched. It isn't really that good.

Afterworld - One of my favorites, but usually when I play a Civ game I want to build an empire, not control a tactical squad of Gravebringers.

Broken Star - Buying units and promotions when you can build units as well sounds like the stuff of RTS Games.

Charlemagne - Is the AI better on higher difficulty levels?!

Crossroads of the World - I like a fight in the Middle East during the Middle Ages, but I hate the idea of hoarding gold.

Defense - About the same feelings as Afterworld.

Final Frontier - I love fighting epic wars in the Galactic Era!

FfH Age of Ice - Not much replayability here, but otherwise I like it.

Gods of Old - This can get quite enjoyable, but I think it should only play with Ancient and Medieval Civs/Leaders in the first three ages.

Next War - The Future is cool, but the historical backgrounds sound crazy and most of the leaderheads are from BC Leaders, which sounds out of whack.

Rhye's and Fall - Good except for a few somewhat minor issues.

The Road to War - Takes too long to load and too much waith in between turns, but good otherwise.

Overall I guess I'd have to say that Age of Ice is my favorite BTS scenario.

At first, when I saw Final Frontier, I was completely blown away. But, as I played, its flaws became evident. I still like the concept, but in its current state it's not good enough.
Rhyes and Fall is a fun scenario, too...
The WW2 and Next War scenarios don't appeal to me because there's too much stuff on the board at the beginning. I get overwhelmed when presented with lots of cities and units that I didn't build.
I don't have much of an opinion on the others currently.

Great::D
NEXT WAR
FINAL FRONTIER
WWII
Good:;)
Rhye's and Fall
Defense
bad::sad:
After world
Charlemagne
Broken Star
Crossroads of the World
FfH Age of Ice
Gods of old

Great::D
NEXT WAR
FINAL FRONTIER
WWII
Good:;)
Rhye's and Fall
Defense
bad::sad:
After world
Charlemagne
Broken Star
Crossroads of the World
FfH Age of Ice
Gods of old


Defense and Rhye's should go in "bad". Charlemane, Crossroads, and Broken Star should go in "good".

Rhye's and Fall all the way. The Stability system requires some smart moves on the part of the player in order to survive and the random events can be interesting if infrequent. Also the replayability is one of its strengths. The only weakness I see in this is the improper balance, Arabia and Turkey tend to dominate most of the games in terms of size, and Russia if under AI never reaches the Pacific. Some of these aspects disturb me, but I guess it would not be much fun if the game was like a rail shooter. I would still like to see more correlation with history yet though.

I have never seen Arabia survive. And Turkey, while powerful, never gets that far ahead. Sadly, none of the Asian civs do well. For Russia, the Mongols are blocking them, and They've got lots of rescources right in their starting position, and invading Germany would be easy.

Japan is about the easiest civ to win with that I can think of. Really really simple, get 3 cities on mainland, invade the korean minors, make sure you get swords and cats, kill china, build great walls, win game.

china will usually fall into rebellion and turn into minors after you take beijing and 1 or two other cities, then it gets really easy to take all of asia, just keep teching good and u win ;) oh and don't forget about the mongols spawning so be ready to declare war on them when they pop up.

I've always found it easy as Japan... either 3000 BC or 600 AD. My plan is pretty much what Shiggs highlighted above. :goodjob:

Really liked Crossroads and Charlemagne. Both kicked my butt several times on Noble before I won each. Crossroads wins for being a little more eloquent, faster running, and a bit more uncertain to the end as there isn't a clear, easy path to victory. Charlemagne as Charlemagne is a bit of an unstoppable train, though you still have to be tactically careful, and the tons of units lag in Charlemagne gets a bit wearisome. Definitely these two are the standards, along with Chinese Unification (Warlords), and Age of Discovery (Civ3 Conquests) for expansion scenarios in my opinion.

Final Frontier is a very impressive mod, though it won't replace Galatic Civ2 for me.

Rhyes is always the great Rhyes.

Only downside, I could research techs faster than I could produce units, kinda odd.



That's the exact reason Rhye's better than FF (to me anyway).

FF it's the best 4x space game since MOO2 :) (yeah you Galciv-fan's let's flame me ;) ) of course there are some things, one could change and add (only 1 wonder of the world, unit promotions which are available from the beginning and not tied to the research tree. A research tree which is too fast finished (even though I was "killed" by a domination victory) ). But look at the possibilities! it's a whole new game, it has planets, it has ships (which need no time to be built, not like in AC or GC2) it has even space bases... It really a new game, maybe someone with much time for modding (and talent :) ) could make even more out of it.

Rhye's is definately a fun scenario, the extra victory conditions really add interest to the game.

I'm also a fan of the Next War epic game (Chiyu's version, that is). I took one look at the scenario and just ran though. So many cities...

I've always found it easy as Japan... either 3000 BC or 600 AD. My plan is pretty much what Shiggs highlighted above. :goodjob:

Greece and Egypt are also incredibly easy.

I like FF, but I wish there was more content. The next war scenario would be better, if there were more cities, and new units. Im not a fan of Afterworld, or Gods of Old. And Rhyes is fun. Ive yet to play the others though. So my vote goes to FF. =D

I liked FF at first, but I feel like ultimately it let me down. Dealing with pirates constantly becomes tedius, and once you have a resonably large empire, the tech tree is researched too quickly

I admit I haven't played all scenarios yet (such as final frontiers), but up to this point road to war (pacific) is my favorite scenario. I am playing the Japanese, and love the craziness of war in this scenario. Air battles are bigger, there are more units to choose from which can lead to different battle outcomes, lots of civs, and accurate historical events are also cool. My second favorite is RFC, although sometimes I can't switch to other civs. Then again maybe there are limitations I don't know about.