FfH2 0.25 Changelog

I'm really looking forward to playing this version. No, that is a massive understatement.

Love the new unique features, i loved them in SMAC. Also really glad to see the Grigori heroes now have single unit graphics. That may be a minor change but it really feels much cooler.

Two questions...

1 - Has there been any more success getting the AI to use targeted spells? I'm thinking specifically things like fireball and flamestrike.

2 - It may be too early to know yet but any idea if this version of FfH2 will work with pitboss? I'm dying for this option as it is the only workable way for me to play multiplayer.

- feydras

feydras said:

I'm really looking forward to playing this version. No, that is a massive understatement.

Love the new unique features, i loved them in SMAC. Also really glad to see the Grigori heroes now have single unit graphics. That may be a minor change but it really feels much cooler.

Two questions...

1 - Has there been any more success getting the AI to use targeted spells? I'm thinking specifically things like fireball and flamestrike.

2 - It may be too early to know yet but any idea if this version of FfH2 will work with pitboss? I'm dying for this option as it is the only workable way for me to play multiplayer.

- feydras

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To the first question, yes the AI is MUCH better at using spells. If the AI wasn't able to understand the spell then the spell was written to work in a way the AI understand.

For example, there are no targeted spells in 0.25. Instead every spell either auto-targets (Pillar of Fire automatically strikes the biggest stack of enemy units in range without a neutral unit in it, domination targets the most powerful enemy unit with a reasonable chance of success, several spells are now area of effect instead of targeted).

I may create 2 interfaces for spells like Pillar of Flames, so the AI uses the existing auto-target and human players can pick a target, but right now I wanted them both int he same codepath. Mostly because it helps me see exactly how the ai uses spells so I can tweak them and get them working correctly.

As to the 2nd question I know there is going to be problems in multiplayer with 0.25. Im going to put out some special patches for Sureshot to try to get them isolated and fixed right away (doing things like allowing worldbuilder in multiplayer so Sureshot can try to isolate for me).

But I dont have any access to the networking/pitboss code. Hoepfully thats better because I know it was updated by BtS, but it isn't anything that I can effect.

Patch is now up on auto update 3.03

ya, looking to test multiplayer out as soon as patch3.13 and ffh2 0.25 are out heh

maybe the gunpowder resource could switch to being a quarry resource, or perhaps let quarries be buildable on any deserts and hills for +1 production / +1 commerce / -1 food, with the chance to find marble. That general system was a lot of fun when I tried it out (allowed for a lot more variation of types of improvements used). Gives slavery a slight boost as well.

vorshlumpf said:

If you're suggesting changing it to +1 happiness for cities with breweries, that means that cities that aren't next to a river will get nothing from wine, right?


With BtS, the best solution, in my opinion, is to reduce the minimum experience reward to 0 (this is configurable in the ini file, if I remember correctly). That means your fully-promoted hero's battles against wimpy units will get him/her nothing in return. And this works for all game speeds.

Really, what skills would a Combat 5 Maceman improve from slaughtering a goblin unit? He'd probably get tennis elbow, or something...

Taking this further, the silly exp limit on barbarians and animals can be removed. And Valor and the Raider trait would add 50% exp (75% if used together), rounded down (so those formerly 1 XP battles would still get your hero nothing).

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I'm not sure that a 0 experience reward is the best solution, because the real problem is how fast you can get experience on a marathon game, one fight at 50% chance and your unit can easily access 2 promotions which have doubled effect compared to vanilla game.
A "vanilla like" combat experience reward would make fight a lot more dangerous, less 99% fights and heroes a lot more balanced at marathon speed.
Consider also that Hero promotion would be really buffed by that change because earning experience points will be harder, so heroes will be a lot weakened but at the same time the Hero Promotion will grant them a big advantage over normal units.
Even the cap to barbarians will be less meanigful, because it would be harder to get 100xp from barbs and you can farm experience from them rarely.
For these reasons i think that an implementation like that would be really wise.

marioflag said:

I'm not sure that a 0 experience reward is the best solution, because the real problem is how fast you can get experience on a marathon game, one fight at 50% chance and your unit can easily access 2 promotions which have doubled effect compared to vanilla game.

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While play-testing BtS, I tried this out and it worked great. I had many battles with highly promoted units where they didn't get any XP, simply because there was little to no risk for them.

As for your 50% example, I don't see anything wrong with getting a large amount of XP for winning a 50% battle. After all, there is a 50% chance the unit will end up dead!

Perhaps part of the problem is that I like the XP gains in FfH (apart from the minimum of 1, that is) - it's part of what hooked me on the game. And, no matter how powerful a unit is, bad luck can still strike.

So we're just waiting for patch v3.13 from BtS to be released (which should be today?) and patch 025 for FfH (which should be waiting shortly after?) now ?

vorshlumpf said:

While play-testing BtS, I tried this out and it worked great. I had many battles with highly promoted units where they didn't get any XP, simply because there was little to no risk for them.

As for your 50% example, I don't see anything wrong with getting a large amount of XP for winning a 50% battle. After all, there is a 50% chance the unit will end up dead!

Perhaps part of the problem is that I like the XP gains in FfH (apart from the minimum of 1, that is) - it's part of what hooked me on the game. And, no matter how powerful a unit is, bad luck can still strike.

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I think that what you suggest would also make Marathon speed more balanced but didn't this implementation introduced some SMALLER unbalancement to heroes:
-heroes probably too much nerfed because often heroes have >90% chance to win a combat(not that i like combats with a such great chance of success), it would mean that hero wouldn't get any experience from a greater part of combats.
-hero promotion really overpowered, because after 100 turns, heroes have already 100xp which means that often you have 99,9% combat success unless you are attacking a city with garrisoned archers.It makes hero experience relying too much on that promotion, and makes combat experience for heroes negligible.

Pandemonis said:

So we're just waiting for patch v3.13 from BtS to be released (which should be today?) and patch 025 for FfH (which should be waiting shortly after?) now ?

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Yeap. 0.25 is all ready to go, just waiting for 3.13 to be released. I played a game last night as the Elohim (was testing the ability to see the unique features) on gigantic map size with Blessings of Amathaon (double bonues), Living World (double events), Labruscum (barbarians start the game with a few cities), Aggresive AI and Wildlands (double animals) set. It was a good game and the gamespeed wasn't hit as heavily by the new map size as I thought it would be.

Couldn't you release 0.25 already, so people can start downloading? Or do you need some official files to compile the patch to release it?

JDexter said:

Couldn't you release 0.25 already, so people can start downloading? Or do you need some official files to compile the patch to release it?

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Im using the time until 3.13 comes out fixing stuff and putting new things in. Its not like its sitting on the shelf. So it kinda sucks that its delayed waiting for 3.13, but on the other hand it has a lot more stuff in it than I was expecting to include.

Yeap. 0.25 is all ready to go, just waiting for 3.13 to be released. I played a game last night as the Elohim (was testing the ability to see the unique features) on gigantic map size with Blessings of Amathaon (double bonues), Living World (double events), ...

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Are there any events in yet, other than trait changes?

edit: Nevermind, just saw the first post. So you were able to move them in okay, good.

52. Added over 100 events from BtS (all the disaster events prereq a minimum Armageddon level before they will trigger).

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I can't express how much I love events. This will be really great addition, as Armageddon counter increases we get more and more floods, fires, tornadoes...

Sureshot said:

maybe the gunpowder resource could switch to being a quarry resource, or perhaps let quarries be buildable on any deserts and hills for +1 production / +1 commerce / -1 food, with the chance to find marble. That general system was a lot of fun when I tried it out (allowed for a lot more variation of types of improvements used). Gives slavery a slight boost as well.

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I concur.

I would really like the ability to also build quarries/mines on peaks, but as much as I've tried I can't find a way to let anything be built here, or to let a city work the tile anyway. (I was hoping there was some way to give the dwarves the ability to work peaks, perhaps through a unique building. If they could build anything there anyway I would make dwarven workers able to move though impassible terrain, and possibly give solders of kilmorph that ability plus the ability to build mines too)

49. Added the Gulagarm bonus (hell resource).
50. Added the Razorweed bonus (hell resource, reduces the heal rate of enemy units).

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Anything special with first? And does second mimic entropy mana?

TheJopa said:

Anything special with first? And does second mimic entropy mana?

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Nothing special about Gulagarm to this point. Its a hell fruit that is supposed to doom those that eat it from ever leaving hell. I was thinking about doing an improvement upgrade on it (like how a cottage upgrades to a hamlet after some time) to change it from a normal Gulagarm to a ripe Gulagarm. Then a living unit on a ripe Gulagarm could eat it (dropping it back to a normal Gulagarm) for a mixed benifit (maybe it heals but makes the unit unable to travel on non-hell terrain). Nothing implemented right now though.

Razorweed reduces enemy heal rate by -1% per razorweed resource you have. It is cumulative with Entropy mana (which is -3% per entropy). Razorweed also gives a decent trade bonus which is probably more significant than the healing modifier.

That reminds me; can we please teach the AI to handle negative healing, and then allow it again.


Also, there hasn't been any response on my last two bugs from the Beta thread yet:
1. destroy undead has no effect on undead units

2. summons can be gifted, losing the limits on their duration in the process.

Just a question about Unique features.
Will these unique features be represented on the map:
for example if in a tile there is Yggdrasil will i see that huge tree, if on another tile there is Tomb of Sucellus, will i see on that tile the Tomb of Sucellus "building"?



Edit: About the Gigantic Map, how is its area compared to a huge one?And will it be playable on rigs which are not the best on the market?In my case i have an AMD3500+, ati X800XT, 2GB RAM ddr1

MagisterCultuum said:

That reminds me; can we please teach the AI to handle negative healing, and then allow it again.

Also, there hasn't been any response on my last two bugs from the Beta thread yet:
1. destroy undead has no effect on undead units

2. summons can be gifted, losing the limits on their duration in the process.

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I dont believe either are the case anymore. If they still exist in 0.25 let me know and I'll get them fixed. So much has changed since the last version of 0.24 that issue reports on it aren't that valuable anymore.

That reminds me; can we please teach the AI to handle negative healing, and then allow it again

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You could see if Jon Shaffer did anything special with the AI in Final Frontier, with regards to tiles taht damage units.