FfH Manual Major Revision

xienwolf

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Well, Spring Break is over for me and I have to get back to the joys of Electricity & Magnetism, so my time to work on the manual is mostly at an end. I didn't get NEARLY as far as I had wanted to because I kept on making revisions to the layout, and now I am contemplating almost starting over, so I wanted to get some outside opinions on how things look.

The reason I am considering starting over is so that I can get each Civilization to be 2 pages (the ones facing each other if printed and placed in a binder). As it stands, the Amurites managed to be 2 pages, but I think that the majority of the others will be 3, and some may even be 5.

To fix that, I can cut the size of the pictures in half and make the information columns be 4 wide instead of 2, but that might not be so readable (I'd have to shrink the font as well). So take a look at what is there and let me know what you think overall, Maybe people prefer it with just the palace, Worldspell & Hero, then everything else as simply a link?


Anyway, I'll be making sure that everything links later on, I didn't want to do that yet so that I could sit down after all the information was entered and re-write all of the Strategy & Advice entries. Right now it doesn't actually have much more information than the v1.0 manual did, and is missing quite a few buildings from being able to replace that one for completeness.


Also, do people care about having the Technologies and other areas listed? And should I list all of the Resources, Improvements & Terrains which are already in Vanilla Civ? I started to think that I ought to, just in case FfH has changed something about them, but mostly just to make the manual actually COMPLETE. For all I know some people have never played normal Civ because a friend hooked them on FfH immediately :p

Anyway, I'd love all the feedback you can give me on this so that I can make the manual be the best that it can be. Download link is:

Link removed, V2.0 Released
 
Woot! First download, checking it out now.
 
Impressive and much better than the first version !!!
I guess the empty parts will be filled along in the next version ?
I liked the civ part and especially the hero part as well as you made it clear whom each belongs.
 
Is it possible to add the starting tech for each of the civs? It has a significant influence on which of the early religions you're likely to be able to found.
 
Yeah, and I'll add the starting units back as well I supopose. Had cut them from the old format for space, but I can easily put them back in on this one.

Anybody have a preference yet on the format for the Civ pages? Does putting the full unit information on the Civ's section justify making them more than 2 pages each?
 
Does putting the full unit information on the Civ's section justify making them more than 2 pages each?

Yes yes !
I even found some info I didn't know (like eholim seeing the unique feature , I thought it was a bug).
 
I agree, more is better, even if it's not quite so convenient. Anyway, it makes good sense. Most of us will quickly learn almost everything we need so we'll only be referring to the manual occasionally. When that happens, we'll want completeness (of the information not easily accessible in the game, i.e. Civilopedia) more than quick reference. Not that this makes your job any easier, but I would suggest you don't include much of the information that's already available, and correct, in the Civilopedia.
 
One minor complaint: I don't like how the civ names are in relatively small font and in the corner. Center them and make them bigger.

Other than that, great work.
 
I've still got to rework a LOT with the titles. The font which I am using for the page and section headers doesn't export into PDF for some bizarre reason. And the Civ names are legacy from Version 1.0, I haven't really done ANYTHING with the Civ sections so far, I just popped up Amurites and half of the Balseraphs to demonstrate what the pages will look like eventually (roughly) so people have a reference when I ask if they prefer that I find a way to stay 2 pages per, or would like it to be as is and not so readily viewable.
 
This looks amazing. I've been trying to get friends to play FFH2, and having a ready source of organized information will be great. Looking at it from a new player perspective, though, the manual jumps into things awfully fast. Could you put the game mechanics before the civs, so people understand what they are reading a little easier? For example, new players reading about the Amurites will not even know that there is magic in the game.

I wouldn't worry about length. It is a lot of information, it will take as much room as it takes.
 
If you're making this manual to help people understand the game, and to give a good, concise reference for people to consult, then you should scrap the whole '2 pages per civ' notion.

If this were a brochure, or quick guide then having 2 facing pages for each civ would be a very nice consistent format, However if I understand correctly this is meant to be a manual detailing each or most aspects of the game and that means the information comes first. Don't get me wrong, layout is still important but it now comes down to consistent formating and readable text (both font and size). You can also leave an empty page where required to ensure each new civ can start on 2 facing pages (but will run as long as needed).

My 2 cents.
 
Could you possibly include the Fall Further civs in the manual as well? They're very good - just as well done as any of the vanilla ffh civs IMO.
 
I'll see about adding a brief overview of the new concepts to the Manual right after the introduction. Just something to give a brief concept of what the new things in the game are and point a new player to Appendix A for starting his reading if he wants to know more details.

After I get the main manual done for FfH I'll look into making either alternate manuals for the new things of extensive mod-mods, or adding an appendix B with information from mod-mods to this one. But for now... it'll take me a while to get this thing finished up working on it between/around class work :)
 
The most important thing to have in the manual is information. If readability needs to be sacraficed to include more information, so be it IMO. The only reason I would ever even look in the manual is to find some specific piece of obscure information, like starting techs and units, UU/UB hammer costs, etc.

Just my $0.02.
 
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