Orbis - the original thread

Ran into some strange happenings, that I'll report here since it's what I'm playing. But I doubt it is an Orbi problem that causes it. When using Alazkan's Black Mirror to create his illusionary image, a couple of odd things occur: sometimes the image simply refuses to attack an opponent (one that Alazkan himself will attack). This seems to happen when attacking on a diagonal against an opponent on a hill. And when Alazkan and the illusion are on the same space and attack an animal (both have Subdue), the illusion will not kill the animal and Alazkan will. This is normal, but it leaves the subdued animal on the same space as the image, and when the image disappears so does the animal. And finally, when Alazkhan and illusion use their one-two punch to move onto a Lair, and the Lair happens to spawn before the next turn, Alazkan gets kicked back to just outside the border of the nearest City!

Now that patch "B" is out, I'm gonna sit down for a long game. Everything's looking great so far minus a small red blob problem with diseased corpses for the Sheaim. I tried exiting the game & loading the save game fresh but they're still there. I can send you the save if it'd be helpful.

Much appreciate the effort Ahwaric.

anti-blobs solution:
unpack diseased corpse.zip to \Beyond the Sword\Mods\Fall from Heaven 2 033\Assets\Art\Units



For Ahwaric:
dark harvester.zip is my rapid mod for Infernal Assassin, try it

Much appreciate that fix Rishardas, it did the trick.

I am starting to get some CTD's in this last version. I'll see if they're reproduceable and link a save.

Thanks again all.

Rishardas said:

anti-blobs solution:
unpack diseased corpse.zip to \Beyond the Sword\Mods\Fall from Heaven 2 033\Assets\Art\Units

Click to expand...

Thanks for help Rishardas and sorry to be late with the fix. I will post mine anyway (attached below), as your version still has three identical units. That is my fault and it is the hight time I fix it (it is a leftover from my try to include Scions of Patria in Orbi. It is currently on hold, especially that I need to get Tarquelne's approval first).
The fixes are compatibile, no matter what order do you apply them, and does not require each other. Just unpack mine to main orbi directory.

I quite like the infernall assasin. I would prefer something more demonic in appereance (succubus with a whip? ... ehem ... or daggers ), but I will get it into the next version But I will try to play a bit with succubus in the future

I do not see a point in another major update before friday, but if you find any bugs I will appreciate if you post them here. All other opinions are welcomed as well, i.e. did anyone check the main menu theme?

Well... the Orbis theme is a bit odd. The music fits the setting well, sounding almost like a requiem, but I don't feel like it fits the image. The image itself is nice but what's the connection to "orbis"? I'm a dofus when it comes to expectations but my minds eye sees a planet when I picture OrbiMod. Possibly a planet suffering under the siege of misfit gods.

Also you're too humble. Everyone that will ever see that theme already know that Orbis is a mod for FFH2. Time to go nuts and create a better tagline. I assume you prefer a quote in latin:

- ORBIS -

A posse ad esse (From possibility to actuality)

Pactum serva (Keep the faith)

Osculare pultem meam! (Kiss my grits!)

Omnia mutantur nos et mutamur in illis (All things change, and we change with them)

Id est mihi, id non est tibi! (It is mine, not yours!)

Post tenebras lux (After the darkness, light)

Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit (To boldly go where no man has gone before)

Potestatem obscuri lateris nescis (You don't know the power of the dark side)

Stercus accidit (. .. .. .. . happens)

Theatrum mundi (The theatre of the world)

I'm sure they're correct 'cause I found 'em on the interwebs. Go here -> http://www.yuni.com/library/latin.html

As for bugs I've just encountered minor ones. Somethings weird with the flames graphic but I'm not sure that's because of Orbi. The text in the Agriculture civic "pop-up" is missing, the one that appears when the civic becomes available. I've encountered a few other bugs but those two are the only repeat offenders.

Are you going to work on the soundsets for the units? With all the changes in graphics some units have ended up with unexpected sounds. Most noticeably are the mannish grunts of elven females, but other oddities occur here and there.

I am glad that you like the music - I have been thinking of changing it. The art is quite close to what I had in mind - a powerfull city during trade activities/siege. It is close but not perfect, so I will keep looking for another art then, especially since you do not like it.

The connection to Orbis is a distant one. I picture Orbis as a mod that gets some more of the real medieval world into the fantasy world of Erebus (FfH world). So, calling it Orbis was a bit of a joke, as I think it is a common agreement that Erebus is flat... So, I have a picture of a city - in fact, it is a real city, Constantinople - the Vasileuousa Polis (Queen of Cities) or "City of the World's Desire".

The name Orbi/Orbis was just a working title... If I would call it today it might be i.e. Theatrum Mundi, but for clarity I will probably keep the old name. No matter how it is called, it just should work.
But I will replace the description in the next version. Thanks for the advice.

I have found some more bugs and decided to put them in another patch, the last one for 0.33 I hope. It does not break anything and you can get it at the usual place (I just replace the file every time I release new patch)

Ahwaric said:

The art is quite close to what I had in mind - a powerfull city during trade activities/siege. It is close but not perfect, so I will keep looking for another art then, especially since you do not like it.

Click to expand...

Aw-shucks, man. I didn't say I didn't like it, didn't I? The picture looks fine, if a bit unexpected by yours truly.

Remember that there's no person on this whole planet that play Orbis as much as you do. This means that the main concern is that you feel comfortable with your own mod. You're putting a lot of hours into this, and the work needs to be fun. The second hand enjoyment remains much appreciated though.

I think I may have figured out my CTD's. I think I missed installing the "g" patch from the original FFH. I couldn't remember so I reinstalled that then reinstalled your mod mod and patches. The CTD's disappeared. Don't know if it's coincidence but I'll take what I can get.

As far as the menu theme, I really like the artwork you've chosen. It has a "feel" to it, hard to describe but sets the mood. Just like Wauthan points out, your enjoyment is the main thing. It's impossible to cater to everyone's sense of style, they vary too much.

I'm just real appreciative I have some Orbi I can tab too in-between studies. I'm starting to look like I've been studying so much heh.

Ahwaric, there are red blobs instead of flames... in CIV4ArtDefines_Feature.xml the right fscale is 45 and the right ModelFile is "Art/Terrain/Features/Flames/tribalvillage.nif".

Thanks again for the best mod of FFH2

Wauthan said:

Aw-shucks, man. I didn't say I didn't like it, didn't I? The picture looks fine, if a bit unexpected by yours truly.

Remember that there's no person on this whole planet that play Orbis as much as you do. This means that the main concern is that you feel comfortable with your own mod.

Click to expand...

No you did not. But I really do want other people to like the changes i do - that is why I released it in the first place. And I really hope that there are people that play Orbi more than I do, as I did have time to play only one full game and a few part ones in recent months... But that has finally changed
So, if you have any opinions, I really appreciate them and try to accomodate - if I feel comfortable with it
I probably need to talk more about orbi in the main FfH forum, as there are not many suggestions on the proposed changes here. So, the more I try to take care of the ones I get from you.

I found the flame graphics problem - I did not change it while updating to 0.33... It will be fixed in the next version.
I hope to find a cause for the graphics meltdown, as there are big changes to city art in the new FfH, and I am going to revise unit art one by one.
I really want to update sounds of the units and try to do it, but I will have to seek good soundsets first, as I got the grunts from unmodded FfH...
By the way, do you think I should use different soundsets for different civs? FfH uses arabic most of the time, but I made them unique. So the ljosalfar speak "celtic" and svartalfar speak french

If any of you want to have the right flames model before 0.34, here it is:
Edit: (I had the wrong file for a few minutes so if you got it then, get it again)

D'oh!
Svartalfar Beastmaster have the same model of the Ranger.
So this is a little fix, just a fast work with NifSkope & PSP9.

Waiting seZ's art

nice model, you should try posting it in the main FFH forums as well

[to_xp]Gekko;7348590 said:

nice model, you should try posting it in the main FFH forums as well

Click to expand...

I agree. The model is really nice and I do not think Kael visits this thread...
I have already added it and it will be included in the next version.

Talking of which, I have finished updating to 0.34. Or to be more precise, rebuild it from scratch basing on 0.34 files. I fixed some bugs and such on the way, but it surely needs testing if I did not forgot to include something.
Currently, I am adding new stuff (changelog is in the second post). I will probably post a new version in 2 or 3 days.

[to_xp]Gekko;7348590 said:

nice model, you should try posting it in the main FFH forums as well

Click to expand...

I need more time.... ranger and beastmaster are a lot alike, too much for me.
seZ is the Messiah, but his masterpieces need time to born, so I'll update my temporary pack for Svartalfar.

PS: thank you Ahwaric, Orbi rocks!!!

Im way excited for the new version!
Any chance of making orbi a modmodmod of FF in the future? totally understand if its too much work. Both modmods are awsome and its hard to choose which one to play.

I second sputnik, I'd love to see these two masterpieces merged

I still think of merging with FF, but it is a lot of work. I also did not play it for a long time, so it will be hard for me to balance.
To tell the truth, I would probably also disable some civs for my own use - as I have said before, not all are for my taste.

What are the main features you miss in Orbi that are in FF? I am going to keep stealing nice things from other mods, so who knows

I have almost finished the 0.14 version of Orbi. I still have some stuff to change (mostly cosmetic, but not only), hopefully patch g will be released tomorrow so I can update to it.

The detailed changelog is in the second post. If you have any comments, let me know, I might be able to include them before releasing.

the additional civs are all good imho and there's a game option for disabling each one of them so it's not an issue

Civ4lerts is great.

and then of course all the other FF additions... I especially love ranged attack for archers and siege.

btw, FF's XML files are a lot easier to deal with than FFH's and there a lot of additional stuff for modders to play with

The things I like about FF are the new civs (especailly some of the civs comming in the next version that I have playtested), and rituals... and odds and ends like caster range attacks, and teleportation, different spell spheres. As for general combat, techs and map terrain I like the way orbi does things - (although I would like to see horses flanking boosted a bit)
However, if I had to pick between which mods to merge, I would rather orbi merge jeckels fort mod over FF, so I dont know.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=243427 - latest version
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=181921 info on what the mod does
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=169009 more info

as much as I love FF, orbi has stolen my heart... it is really fun to play.

way excited for tomorrow if patch g and orbi .14 comes out!

@gekko - you haven't tried orbi? there are ranged attacks as well - definately worth a download!