FramedArchitect,
First off I want to say that your work is outstanding (i used several of your mods before trying this one and really appreciate all your laborous effort and dedication) and the mod is not only a statement to your creativity, but your attention to detail. It is simply amazing. My comments are based on V11 and I saw you updated to V12 just the other day (my steam account did not catch the update so I missed it I guess) so some of these may already be addressed and I apologize if this is so. I read through the forum here and did not see anything that related so I thought I'd ask.
Religion (unit): I see the "remove heresey" comment in the unit's description box but cannot activate it.
Domination Victory: I won this after defeating the capital of the undead Civ (sorry I forgot their name). It was the ONLY city I conquered and as soon as I did it ended the game. I thought that was rather odd and had to select the "just one more turn" to keep playing. I had thought that it should have taken more than a single vanquished CIV capital to gain that victory.
Tech Finishers: I was able to research these (I did the Dritz one) at what I thought was a much too early stage of the game and wondered if that was purposeful. I felt that they were given too soon for a finisher, but that was just my own opinion and wondered your reasoning. Yes, I forgo some other techs to get it, but it still seemed like I should have had to have had a few more prerequisites to honestly qualify for it.
Dritz Do'urden: While I was thrilled to see you use these (unique Hero) types of figures, I was a little disappointed when the unit wielded an axe (or maybe it was a hammer) instead of sword(s). I realize (I did modding for the OLD NWN game) the difficulty you have with modeling, but had hoped to at least see the figure with the appropriate weapons. This was a unit that I could not wait to build and when it went to combat I have to admit it was a little dissappointing.
Wheat tile: I could not seem to figure out how to develop these - what tech was I missing?
Underdark Portals Are these still in the game or did I miss something reading through the convo's here and they were subsequently removed in one of your later versions (G&K).?. I looked for something in the two games I played that would fit this description in the hope of entering the Underdark, found a couple of "secret passage" tiles near vanquished NPC's, but never located anything I could interact with (i paid attention to your earlier comments on who could and could not use them). Was this just my oversight (if so how do I find/use them) and bad luck and I never found them, or was this dual-map feature removed. Just curious.
In-game notation on +1/+2 weapons, armor, etc. : based on what the text said (something like (map shows +1 bows - I forget the exact wording so I hope you can figure this out) I spent a lot of time early in the game scanning the map for the locations of these, thinking I needed to either farm them or locate and capture them. The way it is worded it is a little confusing as (I think I understand this now) they are available for development after researching the tech based on a new building which then provides the resource and has nothing to do with the actual map.
Alignment, Hostility & War I was also wondering if you'd considered upping the hostility of counter-aligned Civs. It seemed to me that the "Evil" Civs should have become hostile and more aggressive once I researched my alignment and increasing the further along that path I went. I even thought that the nearer ones might opt to go to war (OK, I actually hoped that they would) when I hit the tech finisher for the alignment, but they never did. Is that something that you can or would even consider ramping up, or if possible, having as an option at start up for the player to choose to initiate. I think that it would increase the interaction of the opposed AI Civs in a logical way.
As a secondary thought for you, if not outright declaring War (and something I think would be more interesting) would be to allow them to "Raid" outlying settlements, isolated units or allied CS to try to provoke the player. They'd have verbal responses similar to the "sorry about that spy" when they got caught or killed. Just a thought. I think it would be cool if the Orc Civ sent out a patrol of a couple of raiders that attacked "good aligned" units on sight and then the Orc leader came back and tried to "deny" it. If they could have diplomatic immunity (cross borders) and/or a be able to pillage tiles or steal from trade routes, or build a "fort-like" building on a tile that spawns hostile units (which are then unattached to their native Civ, as a variation of barbarians (as raiders or bandits for example, so the Civ's leader can then come back and use plausable denial) until it is destroyed, I think that it would be quite interesting in how it plays out (you would of course limit how many they can have active) and it adds just one more dimension to your otherwise awesome scenario. War is great, but I think this adds a layer of conflict that would be well received if you could pull it off.
BTW: I ran the game (after the aforementioned "just one more turn") to turn 212 with no glitches, hiccups or problems that I could see. I was running your scenario, playing as the Purple Dragon Civ.
EDIT: I had not realized it until I went back to start a new game, but I had a few of my standard Mods running, in my excitement to get started I failed to back up and uninstall them. If these were the cause of any of the aforementioned questions my apologies. They were:
Really Advanced Setup
Steve's Simple Clock
Wondor Race
Barbarian - Unlimited Exp
War - Less Damaged Units
EDIT2: I tried to go back into a save game and get more detail relative to the above, but none of the save games will load. I will guess that is do to a non-compatability with one of those mods. I should have paid more attention to that when I loaded the initial game. Do you know if any of those cannot be used (or if any of those can), though I am going to guess that the RAS is the culprit. I ran another game last night without the Mods (except Steve's clock - without which I tend to play for far too long), but only got to turn 42 before it got too late and have not tried to reload that save game yet as I had to go to work.
EDIT3 Cannot load save game again - this time from the new start - no other mods running. Can start and load other mods. The screen freezes during load. I also noted someone else report this a page ago, so it may not have been related to those mods.
As I said, CUDO's to all you've done and I hope you continue your work. I know the fantasy realm not your thing but trust me A LOT of people need someone like you to fulfill our dreams of a game JUST like what you've done. If you ever need someone for storyline, text or description work, continuity and balance research, playtesting or just constructive criticism please feel free to ask I'd be more than happy to do what I can.
I apologize for not following your no-mod instructions. Excitement bred lack of attention.
I look forward to your feedback. This is a really fantastically fun Mod and I cannot wait to get back to it. I apologize for all the text here, but as you can see it inspired a passionate response. I searched for something to answer the questions but it appeared that you mentioned you deleted the now outdated guide.
I also searched for the V12 in Steam and did not see it - are you updating that version there soon?
Treehawk
First off I want to say that your work is outstanding (i used several of your mods before trying this one and really appreciate all your laborous effort and dedication) and the mod is not only a statement to your creativity, but your attention to detail. It is simply amazing. My comments are based on V11 and I saw you updated to V12 just the other day (my steam account did not catch the update so I missed it I guess) so some of these may already be addressed and I apologize if this is so. I read through the forum here and did not see anything that related so I thought I'd ask.
Religion (unit): I see the "remove heresey" comment in the unit's description box but cannot activate it.
Domination Victory: I won this after defeating the capital of the undead Civ (sorry I forgot their name). It was the ONLY city I conquered and as soon as I did it ended the game. I thought that was rather odd and had to select the "just one more turn" to keep playing. I had thought that it should have taken more than a single vanquished CIV capital to gain that victory.
Tech Finishers: I was able to research these (I did the Dritz one) at what I thought was a much too early stage of the game and wondered if that was purposeful. I felt that they were given too soon for a finisher, but that was just my own opinion and wondered your reasoning. Yes, I forgo some other techs to get it, but it still seemed like I should have had to have had a few more prerequisites to honestly qualify for it.
Dritz Do'urden: While I was thrilled to see you use these (unique Hero) types of figures, I was a little disappointed when the unit wielded an axe (or maybe it was a hammer) instead of sword(s). I realize (I did modding for the OLD NWN game) the difficulty you have with modeling, but had hoped to at least see the figure with the appropriate weapons. This was a unit that I could not wait to build and when it went to combat I have to admit it was a little dissappointing.
Wheat tile: I could not seem to figure out how to develop these - what tech was I missing?
Underdark Portals Are these still in the game or did I miss something reading through the convo's here and they were subsequently removed in one of your later versions (G&K).?. I looked for something in the two games I played that would fit this description in the hope of entering the Underdark, found a couple of "secret passage" tiles near vanquished NPC's, but never located anything I could interact with (i paid attention to your earlier comments on who could and could not use them). Was this just my oversight (if so how do I find/use them) and bad luck and I never found them, or was this dual-map feature removed. Just curious.
In-game notation on +1/+2 weapons, armor, etc. : based on what the text said (something like (map shows +1 bows - I forget the exact wording so I hope you can figure this out) I spent a lot of time early in the game scanning the map for the locations of these, thinking I needed to either farm them or locate and capture them. The way it is worded it is a little confusing as (I think I understand this now) they are available for development after researching the tech based on a new building which then provides the resource and has nothing to do with the actual map.
Alignment, Hostility & War I was also wondering if you'd considered upping the hostility of counter-aligned Civs. It seemed to me that the "Evil" Civs should have become hostile and more aggressive once I researched my alignment and increasing the further along that path I went. I even thought that the nearer ones might opt to go to war (OK, I actually hoped that they would) when I hit the tech finisher for the alignment, but they never did. Is that something that you can or would even consider ramping up, or if possible, having as an option at start up for the player to choose to initiate. I think that it would increase the interaction of the opposed AI Civs in a logical way.
As a secondary thought for you, if not outright declaring War (and something I think would be more interesting) would be to allow them to "Raid" outlying settlements, isolated units or allied CS to try to provoke the player. They'd have verbal responses similar to the "sorry about that spy" when they got caught or killed. Just a thought. I think it would be cool if the Orc Civ sent out a patrol of a couple of raiders that attacked "good aligned" units on sight and then the Orc leader came back and tried to "deny" it. If they could have diplomatic immunity (cross borders) and/or a be able to pillage tiles or steal from trade routes, or build a "fort-like" building on a tile that spawns hostile units (which are then unattached to their native Civ, as a variation of barbarians (as raiders or bandits for example, so the Civ's leader can then come back and use plausable denial) until it is destroyed, I think that it would be quite interesting in how it plays out (you would of course limit how many they can have active) and it adds just one more dimension to your otherwise awesome scenario. War is great, but I think this adds a layer of conflict that would be well received if you could pull it off.
BTW: I ran the game (after the aforementioned "just one more turn") to turn 212 with no glitches, hiccups or problems that I could see. I was running your scenario, playing as the Purple Dragon Civ.
EDIT: I had not realized it until I went back to start a new game, but I had a few of my standard Mods running, in my excitement to get started I failed to back up and uninstall them. If these were the cause of any of the aforementioned questions my apologies. They were:
Really Advanced Setup
Steve's Simple Clock
Wondor Race
Barbarian - Unlimited Exp
War - Less Damaged Units
EDIT2: I tried to go back into a save game and get more detail relative to the above, but none of the save games will load. I will guess that is do to a non-compatability with one of those mods. I should have paid more attention to that when I loaded the initial game. Do you know if any of those cannot be used (or if any of those can), though I am going to guess that the RAS is the culprit. I ran another game last night without the Mods (except Steve's clock - without which I tend to play for far too long), but only got to turn 42 before it got too late and have not tried to reload that save game yet as I had to go to work.
EDIT3 Cannot load save game again - this time from the new start - no other mods running. Can start and load other mods. The screen freezes during load. I also noted someone else report this a page ago, so it may not have been related to those mods.
As I said, CUDO's to all you've done and I hope you continue your work. I know the fantasy realm not your thing but trust me A LOT of people need someone like you to fulfill our dreams of a game JUST like what you've done. If you ever need someone for storyline, text or description work, continuity and balance research, playtesting or just constructive criticism please feel free to ask I'd be more than happy to do what I can.
I apologize for not following your no-mod instructions. Excitement bred lack of attention.
I look forward to your feedback. This is a really fantastically fun Mod and I cannot wait to get back to it. I apologize for all the text here, but as you can see it inspired a passionate response. I searched for something to answer the questions but it appeared that you mentioned you deleted the now outdated guide.
I also searched for the V12 in Steam and did not see it - are you updating that version there soon?
Treehawk