Can you pls save default optons, and show premotions tips for enemy units

Hi, first I want to say I reckon this mod is really cool, and much much more interesting to play than normal civ. Thanks to everyone who put time in to making it, it's great!

But I am finding starting a new game a little onerous and frustrating cuz I keep getting crappy maps where player start positions are really unbalanced - using Erubius map, or however it's spelt, the one that comes with the mod.

One thing that makes this process a real drag is that I have to set the same options time and time again while trying to get a decent map. Can it be made to save them in the ini file or somewhere, so they don't have to be set each time? This would be a real time and patience saver IMHO.

Secondly, from the 4 or so games I've had, the thing I think that would improve it most would be if there was a way to quickly and easily see what the promotions enemy units have do. There are so many promotions and effects, I don't know if I will ever be able to recognise them all, and finding the little icons in the 'pedia is very slow (and boring). If a unit with more than 5 or so comes, it is way too much work to be bothered working out what it's got, so I just think, 'oh no, probably a tough one' continue without a clue what it's abilities and weaknesses might be. Would it would be possible to make it so you can select enemy units and stacks, without showing their orders, so that the promotions tips can be shown the same way as they are for my units?

P.S if anyone can direct me to a map script or something that improves on the original it would be much appreciated. What I wanted was one where you start somewhere easy to defend, like how Erebus has the mountains and passes, and for start locations to be reasonably fair. Not with a player blocked by another player with like 20 total tundra plots to use and no chance to expand, but with each player with some space and ok start spot, and with the dwarfs in hills etc, or whatever the races affinity for terrain is - I haven't played enough to know. Thanks again

Iguanna said:

One thing that makes this process a real drag is that I have to set the same options time and time again while trying to get a decent map. Can it be made to save them in the ini file or somewhere, so they don't have to be set each time? This would be a real time and patience saver IMHO.

Click to expand...

They're stored in Assets\XML\Gameinfo\CIV4GameOptionInfos.xml. Just change 0 to 1 for your desired option.

the modmod Orbis already tried this, but it somehow seemed to cause various problems such as cities always getting raized

Iguanna said:

Can it be made to save them in the ini file or somewhere, so they don't have to be set each time? This would be a real time and patience saver IMHO.

Click to expand...

Until very recently the options were saved.... but it was apparently causing some problems for some players.....

I don't know much.... I'm just a playa

The saving game options was added in a BtS patch, and we had it for awhile. But when Kael started added some new options for scenarios, like no buildings, people who changed from one mod to another or to none would run into problems. In the end, it seemed that it was causing more trouble than it was worth.

I very much agree with the promotions thing. Maybe just some sort of pop-up box query contraption?

How about a "?" button (like in some windows programs), which toggles a mode that turns all clicks into querying clicks (display a box with all functional information, and a link to the 'pedia).

- If on a unit it'll bring up a box with the base info of the unit along with a promotion list. Maybe just the promotion icons and the standard mouseover promotion description.
- If on a resource it'll give a quick functional overview with maybe a list of what it enables if harvested.
- If on a unique map feature it'll bring up a description of what it does.

...and other things I've forgotten about. I know this seems like a fair amount of work, but FFH really needs something like this to help new players, and most of it should be able to be built upon the standard civ popup interface.

(Also, some of the promotion graphics are standardised, but others are just pictures, which make it hard to remember what does what initially (and I hate inconsistency ). Ideally they'd have colour-coded backgrounds depending on category (regular, magic, spell effect, race etc.). I know this isn't a priority, but it's something I'd like to see in the future, perhaps as a modmod by a talented artist).

A word of advice about having to reset the options every time: the WorldBuilder has a button to regenerate the map. I'm not sure what it would do if you did it late in the game, but it works fine if you use it at the beginning of the game. The only trick is that you have to save and then reload once you find a map that you like, otherwise the height of individual tiles won't update.

I'll just paste something i wrote in another thread last week. This trick should really be mentioned somewhere, since it improves the map by and awesome lot. Or just include an Erebusia map with the mod.

I got sick of the erebus mapscript never giving me any passages to the outside world, so i modded it a bit myself. I think i got the tip from someone on this forum a couple of months ago, so i'll give it to you since it really made my game experience a lot better, and can be done in about two minutes.

First, go to your Beyond the Sword->Mods->Fall from Heaven 2->PublicMaps folder. Open up Erebus.py in notepad. Look for the line (the third configurable line in the script) that says "self.SoftenPeakPercent = 0.0". Change this value to somewhere between 0.1 and 0.2. Save the script as "Erebusia"

Voila! Just choose Erebusia in your next game and watch 10-20% of the mountains become hills! You can tweak the number yourself to suit your own demands, if you really like chokeholds you could probably just set the value to 0.02 or something.

Considering that Ffh2 is on its "final path", I have to say that I'm pretty disappointed how saving options and regenerating maps are handled or in this case are not handled at all.
I'm aware that there are problems regarding those features, but imho there is always a way to solve problems, if you really want to.

MiKa523 said:

Considering that Ffh2 is on its "final path", I have to say that I'm pretty disappointed how saving options and regenerating maps are handled or in this case are not handled at all.
I'm aware that there are problems regarding those features, but imho there is always a way to solve problems, if you really want to.

Click to expand...

Not to sound smug somehow, but if you really want to solve the problem, why don't you?

Wow thanks for all the replies everyone! I settled on a map at last (and then got stomped on by that bad ass barbarian hero, but I'm gunna load it and beat him). Next time I start I'll try those tricks, use the map editor to regen the map, and changing the options in the file, and with luck that 20% thing will mean I wont need to put some passes in in the editor too

About seeing what the enemies promotions do, I don't know if there needs to be any extra buttons or anything - if the units were selectable then we could see them in the quick and simple way we can for our own units, by hovering the mouse over and looking at the tip. But any way that makes it easier would be great, IMHO.

Luckmann said:

Not to sound smug somehow, but if you really want to solve the problem, why don't you?

Click to expand...

Don't worry, you don't sound smug somehow, but just plain childish

If you counter every critic, you don't like or can't deal with, with "Nanana, make it better yourself", you can screw over most of the feedback in this forums.

MiKa523 said:

Don't worry, you don't sound smug somehow, but just plain childish

If you counter every critic, you don't like or can't deal with, with "Nanana, make it better yourself", you can screw over most of the feedback in this forums.

Click to expand...

That wasn't the point. The point you tried to make was "if there's will there's a way". By that logic, since you're the one that apparently really have the will for a change, you by your own account should be able to do it.

I'm not countering critique by "nanana, make it better yourself" - I'm countering the logic (or lack thereof) of your statement.

No hard feelings. We welcome feedback, thats why we have the forum. But do try to be polite about it. Without the ability to see and hear each other we have only the words to draw context from and that doesn't leave much to go on.

But yes, anything can be fixed given enough time and effort. Saving game options and the ability to regenerate the map would require a lot of work. And in my opinion the time it would take to do either is better spent elsewhere (like documentation and AI). Its extremely low priority (as neither directly effects game play) for a ton of work, which means its very unlikely to get time.

even though I wouldn't disagree with Kael (I mean hey, he's an Immortal after all, right?) I think it would be REALLY nice if someone who has found out how to edit the apppropriatoe files could explain us HOW he did this, so that everyone can start games (maybe even with "Play game") with the options he most likes.
I'd be really thankfull.

Gelvan said:

even though I wouldn't disagree with Kael (I mean hey, he's an Immortal after all, right?) I think it would be REALLY nice if someone who has found out how to edit the apppropriatoe files could explain us HOW he did this, so that everyone can start games (maybe even with "Play game") with the options he most likes.
I'd be really thankfull.

Click to expand...

You want to edit the CIV4GameOptionInfos.xml file in Fall from Heaven 2\Assets\XML\Gameinfo.

Bear in mind that any patch will replace this file, so you would be best making a copy of your own settings and replacing it each time.

As for editing the file - open it in a text editor like wordpad. It is pretty much self-explantory.

it's a lot easier than that actually. just open Fall from Heaven 2.ini in your FFH2 folder, and edit the first line.

from: ForceGameOptions = 1

to: ForceGameOptions = 0

voilà , it will now save game options.

[to_xp]Gekko;7738710 said:

it's a lot easier than that actually. just open Fall from Heaven 2.ini in your FFH2 folder, and edit the first line: forcegameoptions to 0 . voilà , it will now save game options.

Click to expand...

True, probably much easier that way. However, the other way allows you use the hidden options that were meant for scenarios.

true. a couple of the hidden options are nice and you might actually want to use them in every game. personally I kinda like the one that makes it so buildings are never destroyed on city capture for example.

*thankfullbe*