lilyophelia
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2007
- Messages
- 11
I've been lurking a bit, and I realize that development on MoM has pretty much stopped. Sephi is MIA atm, and I can understand where he's coming from. You get burnt out, but you've created something meaningful, and you're not sure that you're ready to be done. My gut says, that's why he's silent atm.
I really, really enjoy MoM. It's a wonderful game, and while it was very scary and confusing at first (my partner and I were extremely confuzzled when we first started), the economy and magic changes are insanely cool.
I played FFH2 for a few weeks (on a team with my girlfriend, versus 3-4 teams of 3 AI each, on the difficulty setting just below Deity) and we got bored of the semi-dumb AI and the grind of mid-to-late game (repelling endless stacks of doom and pillagers, til we got Archmages/Hemah/Baron/Kithra, along with every flavor of mage, and just steamrolled the continent). I think we played 20 games of base FFH2 (and they were awesome to start), but after a bit, it was just...too grindy and a little dull.
Master of Magic changes so much of that. First, we play with Raging Wilderness (Barbs and Animals spawn on any unclaimed territory, even if visible), and fewer civs on a bigger map. From the start of the game, there are scary things lurking outside the borders of our first cities. There are sea serpents and pirates everywhere. Even with second chance (33% chance each turn to get a promotion that prevents your hero from getting killed in the next battle), I'm scared to venture out too far. There be dragons and other scary things out there in the wilds. And the dragons have no problems leaving their land nests to attack my Black Wind!
The tech tree still seems messy (and there's a bow research that has no perks/units attached to it, which leaves me scratching my head), but it's like almost there. You can tell a lot of thought has gone into the redesign, and I love how much there is to go after, and how many choices you have to make.
The improvement system is very, very neat and complex. You want to pop new resources, and even though cottage spam and trade post might be awesome, it's also very cool to see deer (for Fyrdwell) pop up on a leather improvement, or sugar appear on a plantation. It's just really neat. Terraforming and kelp is the coolest thing ever. Deep ocean, and storms (are they just flavor, or can they sink my ships) make the world so cool and claustrophobic. It really feels like there are wilds out there.
Epic Destinies are just the coolest thing ever. Having a new, unique, fun way to win the game is just amazing. In 17+ games as Lanun, I'm going to make my first boarding parties this game. Every civ has it's own destiny, and while some might be a challenge to meet, the adventurers (which are amazingly cool, with the new promo system) are a nice perk; and the victory feels satisfying.
Back to the wilderness, barbs and animals are constantly spawning. The barbs don't attack you unless you move near to them, which I kind of like and kind of hate. It would be cool to repel barbs, but as many as I see...I'd get pummeled if they could move. Even with stronger units (archers and hunters) headed out into the wilderness, I've lost nice groups of units to the sheer mass of angry wildlife out there. It feels fun and scary, and I know that there are stronger, scarier things in the deep wilderness.
Cultural borders on cities pop way slower (think at half the rate they do in FFH2), and culture is slightly harder to obtain. Buildings matter more; a monument is a stepping stone to greater buildings. Culture points is a finite resource you can use to make your cities field more terrain improvements.
All the resources seem neat. I think there's more work to be done there, because sometimes I'm not entirely sure what they're used for exactly, but I do know understand the equipment system that's in place. Even if it doesn't make sense (in terms of efficiency) to stockpile 1000-2000 herbs for a strong promotion, it's still cool to do it to boost up your heros. Lairs and dungeons are awesome, wicked fun when you pull items out of them, instead of endless waves of enemies and crazed promotions on your units (maybe I just had bad luck in my 20 games of vanilla FFH2).
Right now, our current plans in the game are just way different than FFH2. Instead of the crushing, desperate-for-survival, packed military games we played for the past 20 games (and we're seriously on game #21 moving into MoM), we're going to slowly settle to expand our borders, and outfit a group of heroes with some side units (think 5-6 units each) and go exploring in the inky black wilderness. Suddenly, it's not fun to just scout the entire map, as fast as possible, with ships. We want it to be a surprise when those drakes or spectres (or hero-eating dinosaurs and dragons) pop up. We still haven't run into anything too scary yet.
And once you do settle a new city, and free the area from new wilderness pops, it still needs to be cleaned out (there are often 3-4 forts surrounding each land city). Culture borders expand slowly, and new cities can be expensive to build (but not really as Lanun, because we have all the gold!)
City specializations are awesome, neato, cool. My cities have a personality now, which is really neat and fun. It's like level-ups for your cities. My capital is a sagey (salon) research center; my Lanun have their own story and personality. Why would they be interested in research (besides the fact that I want techs)? Maybe their sprawling, economic kingdom of pirates and thieves has something more sinister at it's heart! Maybe they hoard knowledge, as if it where gold. There are the pirate towns, wealthy, and wicked (with some even sporting a bordello and tavern), but there are other types of towns as well. It's just way fun!
My partner is doing the whole noble/warrior district thing with her elven capital. It's just really neat! You could easily make your first 10 cities each different.
I'm not sure yet if this is in the game, but it would be very cool if the barbarians and animals that popped up got stronger (or even more numerous) as the turns passed by. I've heard something about dragons spawning in the later game, and we've yet to meet our first Wildmana Guardian (I think that's what they might be called), but I'm excited to see scary stuff. For the first time ever, we've preloaded lots of Sheaim (sp?) for the AI teams, just so that we can deal with the impending Armageddon.
We have the enemy civs, but they're somewhat distant. We know that there will be wars, but we can avoid them if we want. It's more of a down the line thing, where one of us will say, "Want to go to war with those peeps?" and the other will giggle and nod enthusiastically.
I just really, really like this mod (and I'm very glad we went to MoM after we were done with FFH2) and I wanted to say thank you! The FFH team definitely deserves their own round of thanks, because they did so much work on top of which MoM was built, but MoM is very different and new in it's own way. Like it or hate it, it's a very developed and interesting game that's unique. And so far, the AI and the wilderness and all of that just makes it so much fun. So thank you Sephi (and others) who have built this wonderful game up; please keep working on it, and I promise to keep playing it!
P.S. For some of the active modmodders, could you guys eventually work up some more modmods to make the wilderness and it's spawns even more crazy and exciting, if it even needs it? Is that something you'd consider doing (and I'll have some ideas once we're through the next 5-6 games of MoM).
P.P.S. It would be cool if the MoM website wasn't broken ; ;
xoxo,
Lily
I really, really enjoy MoM. It's a wonderful game, and while it was very scary and confusing at first (my partner and I were extremely confuzzled when we first started), the economy and magic changes are insanely cool.
I played FFH2 for a few weeks (on a team with my girlfriend, versus 3-4 teams of 3 AI each, on the difficulty setting just below Deity) and we got bored of the semi-dumb AI and the grind of mid-to-late game (repelling endless stacks of doom and pillagers, til we got Archmages/Hemah/Baron/Kithra, along with every flavor of mage, and just steamrolled the continent). I think we played 20 games of base FFH2 (and they were awesome to start), but after a bit, it was just...too grindy and a little dull.
Master of Magic changes so much of that. First, we play with Raging Wilderness (Barbs and Animals spawn on any unclaimed territory, even if visible), and fewer civs on a bigger map. From the start of the game, there are scary things lurking outside the borders of our first cities. There are sea serpents and pirates everywhere. Even with second chance (33% chance each turn to get a promotion that prevents your hero from getting killed in the next battle), I'm scared to venture out too far. There be dragons and other scary things out there in the wilds. And the dragons have no problems leaving their land nests to attack my Black Wind!
The tech tree still seems messy (and there's a bow research that has no perks/units attached to it, which leaves me scratching my head), but it's like almost there. You can tell a lot of thought has gone into the redesign, and I love how much there is to go after, and how many choices you have to make.
The improvement system is very, very neat and complex. You want to pop new resources, and even though cottage spam and trade post might be awesome, it's also very cool to see deer (for Fyrdwell) pop up on a leather improvement, or sugar appear on a plantation. It's just really neat. Terraforming and kelp is the coolest thing ever. Deep ocean, and storms (are they just flavor, or can they sink my ships) make the world so cool and claustrophobic. It really feels like there are wilds out there.
Epic Destinies are just the coolest thing ever. Having a new, unique, fun way to win the game is just amazing. In 17+ games as Lanun, I'm going to make my first boarding parties this game. Every civ has it's own destiny, and while some might be a challenge to meet, the adventurers (which are amazingly cool, with the new promo system) are a nice perk; and the victory feels satisfying.
Back to the wilderness, barbs and animals are constantly spawning. The barbs don't attack you unless you move near to them, which I kind of like and kind of hate. It would be cool to repel barbs, but as many as I see...I'd get pummeled if they could move. Even with stronger units (archers and hunters) headed out into the wilderness, I've lost nice groups of units to the sheer mass of angry wildlife out there. It feels fun and scary, and I know that there are stronger, scarier things in the deep wilderness.
Cultural borders on cities pop way slower (think at half the rate they do in FFH2), and culture is slightly harder to obtain. Buildings matter more; a monument is a stepping stone to greater buildings. Culture points is a finite resource you can use to make your cities field more terrain improvements.
All the resources seem neat. I think there's more work to be done there, because sometimes I'm not entirely sure what they're used for exactly, but I do know understand the equipment system that's in place. Even if it doesn't make sense (in terms of efficiency) to stockpile 1000-2000 herbs for a strong promotion, it's still cool to do it to boost up your heros. Lairs and dungeons are awesome, wicked fun when you pull items out of them, instead of endless waves of enemies and crazed promotions on your units (maybe I just had bad luck in my 20 games of vanilla FFH2).
Right now, our current plans in the game are just way different than FFH2. Instead of the crushing, desperate-for-survival, packed military games we played for the past 20 games (and we're seriously on game #21 moving into MoM), we're going to slowly settle to expand our borders, and outfit a group of heroes with some side units (think 5-6 units each) and go exploring in the inky black wilderness. Suddenly, it's not fun to just scout the entire map, as fast as possible, with ships. We want it to be a surprise when those drakes or spectres (or hero-eating dinosaurs and dragons) pop up. We still haven't run into anything too scary yet.
And once you do settle a new city, and free the area from new wilderness pops, it still needs to be cleaned out (there are often 3-4 forts surrounding each land city). Culture borders expand slowly, and new cities can be expensive to build (but not really as Lanun, because we have all the gold!)
City specializations are awesome, neato, cool. My cities have a personality now, which is really neat and fun. It's like level-ups for your cities. My capital is a sagey (salon) research center; my Lanun have their own story and personality. Why would they be interested in research (besides the fact that I want techs)? Maybe their sprawling, economic kingdom of pirates and thieves has something more sinister at it's heart! Maybe they hoard knowledge, as if it where gold. There are the pirate towns, wealthy, and wicked (with some even sporting a bordello and tavern), but there are other types of towns as well. It's just way fun!
My partner is doing the whole noble/warrior district thing with her elven capital. It's just really neat! You could easily make your first 10 cities each different.
I'm not sure yet if this is in the game, but it would be very cool if the barbarians and animals that popped up got stronger (or even more numerous) as the turns passed by. I've heard something about dragons spawning in the later game, and we've yet to meet our first Wildmana Guardian (I think that's what they might be called), but I'm excited to see scary stuff. For the first time ever, we've preloaded lots of Sheaim (sp?) for the AI teams, just so that we can deal with the impending Armageddon.
We have the enemy civs, but they're somewhat distant. We know that there will be wars, but we can avoid them if we want. It's more of a down the line thing, where one of us will say, "Want to go to war with those peeps?" and the other will giggle and nod enthusiastically.
I just really, really like this mod (and I'm very glad we went to MoM after we were done with FFH2) and I wanted to say thank you! The FFH team definitely deserves their own round of thanks, because they did so much work on top of which MoM was built, but MoM is very different and new in it's own way. Like it or hate it, it's a very developed and interesting game that's unique. And so far, the AI and the wilderness and all of that just makes it so much fun. So thank you Sephi (and others) who have built this wonderful game up; please keep working on it, and I promise to keep playing it!
P.S. For some of the active modmodders, could you guys eventually work up some more modmods to make the wilderness and it's spawns even more crazy and exciting, if it even needs it? Is that something you'd consider doing (and I'll have some ideas once we're through the next 5-6 games of MoM).
P.P.S. It would be cool if the MoM website wasn't broken ; ;
xoxo,
Lily
