I've been playing a bit of Fall Further (with Fall Flat) while we patch up Orbis. Some of the stuff I like a lot, some I'm not so sure about. So here are some thoughts on, if I were God-King of Civ, I would merge and what I would avoid like the plague.

First, the tech tree in Orbis is insanely more intuitive to me. I just don't think the base tech tree from FFH makes a lot of sense: I'm sure if you play it a lot you get a feel for it, but certainly things you'd expect to be near eachother or flow from one to the next can be way across the tree and it just seems like a mishmash. Sure the tech tree from Orbis could be tweaked (the later techs should be way more expensive IMO) but it certainly flows more naturally.

I really kind of like the necessity of building the base barracks/archery range/etc buildings to produce anything but basic warriors. It makes you plan out what you're doing a lot more in the early game and makes cities less interchangeable.

On the other hand I think the stuff with all the master fletchers, master outfitters, master whatevers, etc, that let you build various unit upgrades starts getting too involved. There is a point where you move too far away from the base Civ engine and the complexity-from-simplicity greatness of Civ gets lost. I think this stuff moves over that line.

The upgrade path for giant spiders is really cool. I'm not sure it doesn't make spiders TOO desirable but it's definitely very fun. In Orbis I just wipe out spiders as soon as I find them, it's just not worth it.

I like having to capture Elephants or Griffons to make War Elephants or Griffon Knights. It makes the strategy on wiping out griffons or not a lot more interesting, where in Orbis the griffons are dangerous enough you probably want to just wipe them out as soon as you can unless you REALLY need a unit that can fly over a mountain range or something.

This is a minor point which I'll bring up in the minor requests thread, but City of a Thousand Slums has a bigger health penalty in FF (+5 sickness?) which is good. I think this is easily one of the most powerful wonders if you settle in a location planning ahead for it, is easy to build relatively early, and doesn't seem to be a big priority of the AI. Frankly, I wouldn't mind seeing the penalty go up to +10 sickness or something. +5 sickness is nothing for an extra ring of tiles.

I didn't realize Imperial Roads were an Orbis thing. I'm torn: With the ease you can get mobility promotions in FFH, the imperial roads pretty much let you move across your entire empire in one turn with many units. Is it possible to kick it from 1/4th cost to 1/3 cost? I like them but they're really too powerful.

I prefer the slower approach to adding new civs in Orbis: The new civs are hit and miss in FF, and the best ones will no doubt continue to be added to Orbis anyway.

This is a minor point which I'll bring up in the minor requests thread, but City of a Thousand Slums has a bigger health penalty in FF (+5 sickness?) which is good. I think this is easily one of the most powerful wonders if you settle in a location planning ahead for it, is easy to build relatively early, and doesn't seem to be a big priority of the AI. Frankly, I wouldn't mind seeing the penalty go up to +10 sickness or something. +5 sickness is nothing for an extra ring of tiles.

BUT FF also has a certain "Sewer" building available, IIRC, at Sanitation, and it removes all negative health effects originating from buildings inside the city. Your city needs to be adjacent to a river to build a sewer, though.

Many of the things you have mentioned are things from FFH that were carried over into FF; where Orbi changed them...

Examples:

1. Tech tree in FF is more like FFH and Orbi changed it to be more like BTS

2. The building requirement is from FFH... one of the great things orbi did was do away with those requirements to allow the AI to be more competitive. Being specialized is nice, but forcing a building to get units gives a huge advantage for the player to plan ahead - something that the AI can't do. - At higher difficulty this isn't affected, but orbi places more emphasis on exp than just needing a building.

3. city of a thousand slums is a world wonder in orbi... better plan way ahead to get that tech and build it before another civ takes it.

I like the idea of a sewer building.

the newest patch has a lot of cool things from FF that are now in orbi... good things eventually make it over back and forth between the mods

About the +10 unhealthiness thing - City of 1k Slums is meant to make the city be really big. +10 unhealthiness would be a real damper to anyone without a sewer or lots and lots of Ancient forests, or both.

Yeah I probably should have titled it from non-Orbis FFH rather than from FF since a lot of it is from vanilla FFH2. Like the tech tree. Doesn't change the point which was that I really like making the tech tree more intuitive in Orbis.

I didn't realize that having to build the basic building to produce units made the AI much crappier. A better AI is definitely preferable to the alternative. Best of all would be a good AI *and* being able to tie units to that kind of building, of course.

There's always the "AI no building requirements" option when starting a custom game ;)

I've been playing a bit of Fall Further (with Fall Flat) while we patch up Orbis. Some of the stuff I like a lot, some I'm not so sure about. So here are some thoughts on, if I were God-King of Civ, I would merge and what I would avoid like the plague.

First, the tech tree in Orbis is insanely more intuitive to me. I just don't think the base tech tree from FFH makes a lot of sense: I'm sure if you play it a lot you get a feel for it, but certainly things you'd expect to be near eachother or flow from one to the next can be way across the tree and it just seems like a mishmash. Sure the tech tree from Orbis could be tweaked (the later techs should be way more expensive IMO) but it certainly flows more naturally.

I too like the Orbis tech tree better, much for the same reasons. Perhaps end game techs should take longer but by the time I get to them, I am pretty much trying to outrun MAF so I want to win quickly.

I really kind of like the necessity of building the base barracks/archery range/etc buildings to produce anything but basic warriors. It makes you plan out what you're doing a lot more in the early game and makes cities less interchangeable.

I don't really care if my units required a building or not. As long as I get the free xp from the buildings. And I build the military buildings everywhere anyway.

On the other hand I think the stuff with all the master fletchers, master outfitters, master whatevers, etc, that let you build various unit upgrades starts getting too involved. There is a point where you move too far away from the base Civ engine and the complexity-from-simplicity greatness of Civ gets lost. I think this stuff moves over that line.

I like them but if Ahwaric decided they did not fit in Orbis, I don't need them.

The upgrade path for giant spiders is really cool. I'm not sure it doesn't make spiders TOO desirable but it's definitely very fun. In Orbis I just wipe out spiders as soon as I find them, it's just not worth it.

I never tried it, but imo the enhanced spiders are an Archos mechanic. And I don't want Archos in Orbis. But I like getting more silk for my globe troupe from spider pens.

I like having to capture Elephants or Griffons to make War Elephants or Griffon Knights. It makes the strategy on wiping out griffons or not a lot more interesting, where in Orbis the griffons are dangerous enough you probably want to just wipe them out as soon as you can unless you REALLY need a unit that can fly over a mountain range or something.

I like buildable war elephants better. I already have elephants for a resource anyway. I don't feel it is necessary for elephants to wander around the map. Generally animals in Erebus are too big of a deal. I like capturing griffons for totems. Flying is not the reason I get them.

This is a minor point which I'll bring up in the minor requests thread, but City of a Thousand Slums has a bigger health penalty in FF (+5 sickness?) which is good. I think this is easily one of the most powerful wonders if you settle in a location planning ahead for it, is easy to build relatively early, and doesn't seem to be a big priority of the AI. Frankly, I wouldn't mind seeing the penalty go up to +10 sickness or something. +5 sickness is nothing for an extra ring of tiles.

Perhaps it could use unhealthiness. But it's not like unhealthiness is that big of an issue by the time you get to sanitation.

I didn't realize Imperial Roads were an Orbis thing. I'm torn: With the ease you can get mobility promotions in FFH, the imperial roads pretty much let you move across your entire empire in one turn with many units. Is it possible to kick it from 1/4th cost to 1/3 cost? I like them but they're really too powerful.

The tech that allows one to build imperial roads also upgrades roads to 1/3 movement cost so that would also require a nerf to roads. Agreed positioning units should be a major strategic choice. But I don't want to wait for them to move forever. Also it takes time to get imperial roads everywhere.

I prefer the slower approach to adding new civs in Orbis: The new civs are hit and miss in FF, and the best ones will no doubt continue to be added to Orbis anyway.

Agreed, FF has many poorly designed civs.

I like Orbis's way of adding civs, one at a time, and improving it so it reaches high quality before adding a new one, slower but overall better

Imperial Roads are my favorite Orbis feature, personally. It can take SO LONG to move a stack anywhere in FFH/FF. It's not a question of strategy, it's a question of slow turn timers and how many you are willing to sit through to finish your game, to me.

I like them but if Ahwaric decided they did not fit in Orbis, I don't need them.

I like the master promotions too, but think they should be part of the corporations, not a whole new entity.

I like the idea of master promotions coming from a city with the corporation HQ. That would be interesting.

Although the more I play FFH2 (and Orbis) the more I think the primary concern should be improving the early AI and re-balancing the exponential growth in income/research in the late game. Adding new features is great but those should probably be addressed first.

I concur, most should be corporation derived, with a few coming from certain civ's palaces...

I like the idea of master promotions coming from a city with the corporation HQ. That would be interesting.

Although the more I play FFH2 (and Orbis) the more I think the primary concern should be improving the early AI and re-balancing the exponential growth in income/research in the late game. Adding new features is great but those should probably be addressed first.I'm currently tweaking some things in this way (improving early AI), using the modifications made by Turinturambar. I will test them and if they're really good, they may be included in base mod... Well, I hope so at least :lol:

I'm sure you are doing this already but the early AI in Orbis needs to be different than in base FFH2 or FF to take into account the 3 food per population requirement. As is, a bunch of civs don't know what to do and end up crippled because they don't build farms and such right away.

Maybe it's due to the fact that many don't research Agriculture? I remember seeing civs without agriculture really late in game...

Yep. When it is turn 200 and Bannor don't have agriculture you don't have to wonder why they have one pop 3 city :)

At least I'll fix this part. For example, Bannor are currently set to research Bronze Working ASAP, thus crashing as BW is pretty expensive. Now, I've set them to research Mining first and then, if they have less or equal to 3 cities and the capital has copper around, they research BW. But if the capital doesn't have copper, they will research Agriculture. Maybe they should have at least two of those techs (Ancient Chants, Masonry, Agriculture, Hunting, Pottery) before researching BW...

At least I'll fix this part. For example, Bannor are currently set to research Bronze Working ASAP, thus crashing as BW is pretty expensive. Now, I've set them to research Mining first and then, if they have less or equal to 3 cities and the capital has copper around, they research BW. But if the capital doesn't have copper, they will research Agriculture. Maybe they should have at least two of those techs (Ancient Chants, Masonry, Agriculture, Hunting, Pottery) before researching BW...

Why less or equal to 3 cities and not more or equal to 3 cities? It seems to me you want them researching bronze working if their expansion isn't hobbled. If they have only 1 or 2 cities it probably means they don't have enough food to grow without farms and so starting on BW at that point means they'll be crippled for the rest of the game.

My suggestion would be to get mining, then do BW if they have at least 3 cities but if they only have 1 or 2 cities get agriculture.

I forgot something. The copper check thing is only done when having 3 or less cities. If they have more than 3 cities, even if they don't have copper, they will research Bronze Working.

I forgot something. The copper check thing is only done when having 3 or less cities. If they have more than 3 cities, even if they don't have copper, they will research Bronze Working.

The mostest thing I like from FF is deadliver!

Okay, nevermind. I'd love to see high quality equipment in orbi thou (playing .22c). How can that not be economy based?

Okay, nevermind. I'd love to see high quality equipment in orbi thou (playing .22c). How can that not be economy based?

Problem is, it adds an extra level of complexity and micromanagement to the game. It's a trade-off, does the additional functionality add enough to the game to warrant it's inclusion. I'd prefer to see a new Civ like the Archos or the Khadi redeveloped as a faction of the Amurites.

The exponential growth would be curved slightly with the master promotions, as then you would have a cash dump to divert your resources from research/upgrades/rushing

I really like the equipment stuff from FF, especially since I tend to play a hero-centric game. The equipment lets me tweak my elite units a bit more. I think that having specific equipment available from each corporation would be a cool thing to do.

Making the Master equipment quite a bit harder to get (either as prereqs for the buildings or cost of the equipment) would help with the micro/complexity. There wouldn't be less per building, but you'd have fewer of them and/or buy the promotions less often.

this thread seems like a nice place for my question: yep, I know Orbis has tons of features that are not in FF. I like most of those. and I know most good FF features end up in Orbis sooner or later. however, which FF features are NOT in Orbis? aside from the new 051 stuff and the new civs obviously. :D

Gekko;8295460']this thread seems like a nice place for my question: yep, I know Orbis has tons of features that are not in FF. I like most of those. and I know most good FF features end up in Orbis sooner or later. however, which FF features are NOT in Orbis? aside from the new 051 stuff and the new civs obviously. :DLet's see...

Some UFs still don't give mana (Odio's Prison, Seven pines).

...

I don't remember anything else. That was a long time ago since I played FF050...
It's a bit like Civ4 vanilla, FFH vanilla... Can't play it now that I've Orbis :lol:

yeah, Orbis actually reminds me a lot of Rise of Mankind for vanilla ( I guess Ahwaric likes that too... pretty sure he took the 3-food-per-pupulation-point from there :p ) . FF would be what, RevDCM? Legends of Revolutions? :lol:

I guess that's it for me too... Whenever I play BTS, it's with RoM (or Rhye's) and nothing else :lol:

I used to play RoM before trying FFH. it's very good indeed :D

* de-cloaking err.. lurking *

Since re-discovering Civ and the AoIce-mod I 've been hooked by FFH. I now mostly play Orbis but if there is one thing I miss from FF it's the way workers can start building improvements even if you 're not yet teched-up.

Should have mentioned earlier: I am really grateful for your work, which I enjoy tremendously. Thank you very much. :goodjob: