Final Frontier Impressions

Hamarabi, you're welcome to use this information. You've probably already found all these things anyway.
Thanks a lot, PieceOfMind! No, I did not have this information, which meant I had to re-write some of the work I had already done! :lol:

I wrote about 4 thousand words last night and spent just as long formatting, spell checking, and proof reading it today. Anyway, I almost have the work I did yesterday ready to post, but it's kind of embarassing that I have not gotten very far into the game, yet. I can't believe it takes so long! If it takes 3 hours to play the game, it shouldn't take 20 to do a write-up, that's for sure! LOL

I am actually getting a bit worried that I misunderstood what you were asking the other day. It sounds to me like you know a bit more about the game than I thought you did, especially since you knew about the planet yields and I did not. It doesn't matter, because I really don't mind. Hopefully, this guide will help someone out and even if it doesn't, I still feel good about the effort.

Cheers!

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OOPS! It wasn't you that asked about the game, it was stwils! I am very sorry for the mistake! :(
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Thanks for the feedback. :)

Jon
You are very welcome, Jon! You have accomplished an amazing feat with this module and I commend you. Frankly, I never thought I would ever see anything as extreme of a Civ4 make-over as what you have just shown the community and the rest of the world. Fantastic work! I have played Galactic Civilization in the past, but I was bored with the game-play after only a few days. I always knew Civilization IV was the superior product and found myself wishing that someone would make a Space Theme strategy game with as much quality and depth. Your module is the closest I have seen and I know it will only get better as time passes. Good luck with Final Frontier, we are all rooting for you and your efforts!

For everyone else, I just finished the first two sections of my Final Frontier Walkthrough and I hope someone finds it useful. I know it is not as advanced as some of you may have been expecting and for that I apologize. I never claimed to be an expert, not even with the regular civilization game, I just saw that someone was asking for help and I was compelled to do what I could to assist him. I plan to add several more sections to the guide, on which I will work daily, detailing my understanding of the game mechanics all the way to the end game. If it helps you, great. If it doesn't, please do not give me any grief about it, because I put a lot of work into it and the documentation is for free. If I made any errors or crude uneducated assumptions, I would really appreciate some constructive feedback, because it will help everyone.

On a side note, you are probably wondering why I did not post the guide on this forum, so I will try to answer that question as best I can. I spent nearly 12 hours on this project, while writing, spell checking, proof reading, taking screenshots, resizing images for thumbnails, programming XHTML, validating that XHTML to the 1.0 Transitional standard, etc., and the work is my own. I used to post game reviews on Gamespot, until one day the rhetorical question dawned on me. "Why should I be working so hard on these reviews and just giving it away to a company that does not need my help?" I answered that question by purchasing a domain and uploaded the reviews to my own website. I don't do them often, but when I do, I would rather not see them buried under a sea of other reviews.

Cheers!

Hamarabi

P.S. I am going to post this as another thread, since this is an announcement of the walkthrough and not merely my impression of the module.
 
I enjoy the mod very much even in just demo mode and enjoyed it even more in full. But despite its uniqueness and its fun factor it is not a very deep game. It needs far more to make it like a full civ game. Jon did a great job on it, yet it needs much more. Regardless I may play this far more than the epic game until such time as some patches are released.
 
Good work Hamarabi :goodjob:

I then chose Hector Alvarez as my leader head, because his starting system is "New Earth" and for no other reason. From what I could tell none of the civilizations have any benefits over the other, so just pick one.
It's not quite true, they have different traits even if it's not so sophisticated (no UU, UB), like in Civ4.
I look forward reading the follow ups.
 
Hello, regarding Beyond The Sword, Final Frontier Mod, can i hurry production using credits?
 
I am very disappointed by the lack of a proper story ending of the Final Frontier. I researched all the techs to get all the backstory, but there are still unanswered questions. What happened to Earth? Did opening up the Astral Plane invoke some kind of a disaster?

I mean WTF. Where is the time of Alpha Centauri which had an excellent story to go with the game.
 
I am very disappointed by the lack of a proper story ending of the Final Frontier. I researched all the techs to get all the backstory, but there are still unanswered questions. What happened to Earth? Did opening up the Astral Plane invoke some kind of a disaster?

I mean WTF. Where is the time of Alpha Centauri which had an excellent story to go with the game.
It's supposed to be somewhat ambiguous, but if it really, really bothers you I suppose I can provide this. ;)

Jon
 

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Hello, regarding Beyond The Sword, Final Frontier Mod, can i hurry production using credits?
Not at the moment, but it's something I will be fixing. :) I got a little over-zealous when taking buttons out of the city screen. ;)

Jon
 
Jon, did you never had the desire to add a Final Frontier type of game into the epic Civ 4 game itself, similar to Next War?

We Could then have a Space map of our own Solar System, and a race between civs for satellites, space stations, space mining and colonization of the Solar System planets. First when a proper Solar System colonization is completed, the Alpha Centauri interstellar ship would be possible.

If it was optional, so those that dislike sci-fi elements could avoid it, I think it could be awesome!
 
Jon, did you never had the desire to add a Final Frontier type of game into the epic Civ 4 game itself, similar to Next War?

We Could then have a Space map of our own Solar System, and a race between civs for satellites, space stations, space mining and colonization of the Solar System planets. First when a proper Solar System colonization is completed, the Alpha Centauri interstellar ship would be possible.

If it was optional, so those that dislike sci-fi elements could avoid it, I think it could be awesome!
I considered this, but there are a number of difficulties with it.

There's a lot more "new" stuff in Final Frontier than Next War, so getting the epic game and the mod to play nice together would have been difficult and taken quite a bit of time (which meant that the standard version of the Final Frontier mod would get less time). Transitioning from the normal land map to the space map would have been rather challenging.

The biggest issue was design-side though. Final Frontier is designed very similarly to the epic game in that each player begins with very little and builds up from there. How do you translate what goes on in an Earth map to the space map? Is there just some point at which all civs "move over"? Does everyone start with the same stuff, or does it vary? If so, how do you determine who gets what? Where does everyone start? (You can't have everyone start in the same Star System). There were just a lot of problems that would have been very hard to figure out a good solution for. I opted to just make the two completely separate.

Extending the game (possibly into space) was actually something that was considered as a major standard game feature early on, but we decided to do other things (e.g. Espionage, Corporations, Apostolic Palace, etc.).

Jon
 
I considered this, but there are a number of difficulties with it.

There's a lot more "new" stuff in Final Frontier than Next War, so getting the epic game and the mod to play nice together would have been difficult and taken quite a bit of time (which meant that the standard version of the Final Frontier mod would get less time). Transitioning from the normal land map to the space map would have been rather challenging.

The biggest issue was design-side though. Final Frontier is designed very similarly to the epic game in that each player begins with very little and builds up from there. How do you translate what goes on in an Earth map to the space map? Is there just some point at which all civs "move over"? Does everyone start with the same stuff, or does it vary? If so, how do you determine who gets what? Where does everyone start? (You can't have everyone start in the same Star System). There were just a lot of problems that would have been very hard to figure out a good solution for. I opted to just make the two completely separate.

Extending the game (possibly into space) was actually something that was considered as a major standard game feature early on, but we decided to do other things (e.g. Espionage, Corporations, Apostolic Palace, etc.).

Jon

Thanks for your reply!

Well, in my view the standard Civilization map and the new space map would not be mutually exclusive.

You would still manage your Earth empire as before, but when you zoom out, you would first see your satellites orbiting the Earth, then as you zoom further out (further than you are able to now), you would be out in space, and would in fact be looking at the (new) space map instead.

Then there would be no need to assign arbitrary points for civs where to start, since they still manage their Civ empire on Earth just as before, but with the added benefit of an additional space race.


:scan:
 
Not at the moment, but it's something I will be fixing. :) I got a little over-zealous when taking buttons out of the city screen. ;)

So wait, is that to say there will be updates forthcoming to the Final Frontier mod? I don't want to go spend a lot of time modding it if it's going to get expanded already :).

And, btw, on the subject of missing buttons... Avoid Growth? 8).
 
I'd love to see updates to this mod, as others said, it has great potential and most of the work has already been done. It's already very impressive.
 
Thanks for your reply!

Well, in my view the standard Civilization map and the new space map would not be mutually exclusive.

You would still manage your Earth empire as before, but when you zoom out, you would first see your satellites orbiting the Earth, then as you zoom further out (further than you are able to now), you would be out in space, and would in fact be looking at the (new) space map instead.

Then there would be no need to assign arbitrary points for civs where to start, since they still manage their Civ empire on Earth just as before, but with the added benefit of an additional space race.

:scan:
It's a neat idea, but I'm afraid what you're talking about goes a bit beyond what's capable in a simple mod. ;) :) This would require a lot of programming changes.

Jon
 
Yes, there will be future updates to Final Frontier. I can't promise too much (like making a new tech tree twice as long as what there is now, new civs, etc.), but I will be working on improving a number of interface issues (e.g. a screen which shows you planetary composition and yield when you click on a star system on the main map) and fixing bugs.

Jon
 
I really love the Final Frontier mod. It is both different from regular civ and yet similar enough to be interesting. It is just great.

I do think it could use a couple of changes. It seems to me the the rate at which one techs up is a little too fast relative to build times. Since one is often having the build the same building over and over again in the same system it can take quite a bit of time to develop a system. Ussally though I find myself flying through the tech tree faster then I can "keep" up with the improvements.

I'd also suggest adding in more wonders. They don't need to be anything creative, I would suggest just adding the national wonders from regular civ that translate, Wall Street, Oxford, Ironworks, etc. It would help to further seperate one system of the empire from another.

I'd also suggest adding a "spy" ship to preform mission. Espionage seems a bit half hearted without it.
 
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