Orbis - the original thread

Just an irrelevant post, nevertheless Ahwaric I have started to play your mod (v0.11b) this Saturday. And it gives lot more flavour and in-depth to the already excellent FFH. Keep up the good work, and I am glad that you do not race down the path of simplification :goodjob:
 
Thanks for sharing your vision of FFH2 - thus I guess it's time to share some playtesting observations:

- Ljosalfar can't build a Ljosalfar Archery range (but a normal one)

- City states gives +20% culture in all cities - is this intended (instead of -20% culture) ?

- you can also build Hunters and Archers w/o the appropriate building: is this intended, too ? Feels kinda strange for FFH even though you "lose" 2 free exp when building a Lodge or Range
 
- Ljosalfar can't build a Ljosalfar Archery range (but a normal one)

Yup. My mistake. It was replacing training yard :blush: It will be fixed in the next patch.

- City states gives +20% culture in all cities - is this intended (instead of -20% culture) ?

Yes. It gives -10% to gold and +20% culture. Think of ancient greece. Athens, Corinth, Ephesus... All were city states.
On the other hand, city states may need weakening a bit. What do you think? I almost never use it, just go for god king and then republic. But I do not say it is optimal strategy...

- you can also build Hunters and Archers w/o the appropriate building: is this intended, too ? Feels kinda strange for FFH even though you "lose" 2 free exp when building a Lodge or Range

Also axeman/swordsman, horseman and almost all other units. In fact you only need buildings for some tier 4 units, not all though (if there are any units not following this rule, let me know as this is a bug)
Building requirements are pain for the AI unless you check the AI-no building requirement option. That is why this option is there.
Well, I do not like the prerequisites so I changed it. And also the buildings to make them really worth building. Even for AI. Also, some free xp is supposed to give you a few promos on the start in the late game. First, to specialize your units, second, to give them slight chance to fight this battle hardened 101+ xp units (by the way, that is the xp limit form barbarians here)
I try to keep true to FfH lore, not some decisions that the team makes. I know that they made the lore, too, but actual implementation can differ. And the pre-req buildings are just decision that some people like, but some do not. Not part of the lore.

@Swodhawk
You post is relevant. It feels good if you like the mod and let me know it. :)
 
Thanks alot for the clarification. I kinda missed the changelog, but found it myself in the editor-file now :)
A huuuge "thankyou" for marking all the changes in there :goodjob:

After playing a few more turns with the Ljosalfar (and researching FoL now) it seems that the "new" Ancient Forest graphics kinda looks like there are more isolated spots of forests instead of a huge carpet covering all.
Any chance to change that back to the old way where all your empire was forested (and looked that way) instead of having lots of A.F.tiles which all look isolated from each other ?
It's just a grafical issue, but it feels strange that even though Ancient forest is thicker and the trees are bigger there, normal forests just look "more forested"

Did you implement the Forrester improvement to encourage other civs to run FoL, too ?
Right now, it feels quite strong playing elves, especially as the food bonus on top of Ancient forests allows for an even easier SE-economy than running farms. (4/2/1 on normal plains , 3/3/1 on hills means food en masse for specialists and on top of that a great production to build SE-allowing buildings)
This is not meant to be some sort of critcism - I didn't play that much yet and perhaps the extrabonus form corporations will make farms (and mines) alot stronger than I can think of right now (due to being able to discover resources). I'm just wondering ... :)

(On a sidenote: Is this also the reason why you removed 1 prod from mines and also changed Arete's bonus from hammers to commerce ? Did you raise the chance to find extra-resources or just wanted to prevent too much production ? Thanks for your insight)


@City states:
I was kinda curious because alot of people think of City states already being very strong in vanilla FFH due to the quite high maintenance costs and you made it even stronger with that culture boost. For my part, I prefer god king with a builder style Civ, too. Gotta have to try City states with a warmongering Civ that conquers alot of cities.
Right now the highened chance to keep obelisks added with City states +20% culture seems to make warmongering alot easier than it already is - but I couldn't test yet and it's just one oponion anyways ;)
 
about the city states:
mabe not weaken these but tie the minister koun event to it
maybe 2-3 additional minister xys (if that´s possible) depending on map and civ size, to reflect the often changing alliances and agreements between the
citys
maybe they can reintegrate in your civ later (either by diplomacy or by an event)

i personallly nearly never use it prefering godking
and later aristocracy (bannor) and magocratie(amurite) (there must be some roleplaying flavor)
 
Hi!

Sry for asking, but i tortured my mind to get behind the meaning of the abbreviation of "SE"... "Sonic Election"? "Sinister Erection"? "Slow Extraction"?
...no, no, no!:mad:

thx Tenophis
 
Thanks alot for the clarification. I kinda missed the changelog, but found it myself in the editor-file now :)
A huuuge "thankyou" for marking all the changes in there :goodjob:

The changes are in documentation file - the pdf in the first post. I try to update it to every version. There is even detailed info of every improvement, including possible bonuses from techs and civs. Changelog here is in the second post just to inform what was changed with every patch.
And not every change was marked, of that I am sure. I try to, but it is impossible to not miss a one or two. Sometimes I forget to mark it, so be carefull... :blush:

After playing a few more turns with the Ljosalfar (and researching FoL now) it seems that the "new" Ancient Forest graphics kinda looks like there are more isolated spots of forests instead of a huge carpet covering all.
Well, I like the new graphics. It was made by seZereth and I think that it fits quite well. I did resized it down, though, to make things better visible. But I did some tests and if you set it to 0.95 it is quite alright - looks like continous cover while not obscuring view much more than now. I will do it in the next patch
I am aware this graphics not perfect, but the old one was worse. I even tried to just make a golden recoulour of the normal broadleaf forest, but decided that I like the atmosphere of seZereth's one too much.
If you want the old graphics, it just need to be changed in CIV4ArtDefines_Feature.xml to the old one. I may even release it as a separate file if you are interested.

Did you implement the Forrester improvement to encourage other civs to run FoL, too ?
Right now, it feels quite strong playing elves, especially as the food bonus on top of Ancient forests allows for an even easier SE-economy than running farms.
Foresters are meant as something that everyone can build in the ancient forest. In unmodded FfH you can build nothing unless you are playing elven civ. Now you can build foresters everywhere and mines on hills.
For elves it does not change that much, as forester is 1 food 2 commerce at best and farm is 2 food 1 commerce. There are civics bonuses, so you get +1 prod with GoN, but I think of it as a quite weak civic anyway.
Do you think it all would be better balanced if I remove one commerce from forester. Still, for SE farms are better IMHO. Aad you an build farms on hills here.
The arete change is meant to make followers of RoK less dependant on the surface world. Grassland hills mine now can support itself.
Mine production was lowered to compensate for allowing it to be build in forests. I also not like that you basicly use only mines+farms+town+ anything is needed to get that resource. I want some more diversity.
If you do not agree with my decisions, feel free to criticize them. I really want to balance it :)

@City states:
I was kinda curious because alot of people think of City states already being very strong in vanilla FFH due to the quite high maintenance costs and you made it even stronger with that culture boost. [...]
Right now the highened chance to keep obelisks...

The chance to keep obelisks is just the same as in basic FfH. I just increased the chance to keep forges, lighthouses etc. You can't keep barracks, courthouses and such on the other hand.
I tried to make all government civics worthwhile and city states were improved the least I think. On theocracy I still think of.
I personally never use it, but I am a builder mostly. I think it should be changed though, as it benefits warmongers the most and that seems counter-intuitive. I think Rawn's ideas fit well with city-states theme.
Warmongers should go for Theocracy, feudal contract or even magocracy in my opinion.
How do you like labor civics changes? I tried to make them different and emphasize different things. I am tempted to remove apprentienceship. It is a leftover from education civics and do not fit it really well. Apprentience is also quite connected with guilds in my mind. What do you think?

Edit: Another very long post. If you can't stand it I will break it in two the next time... ;)
 
Well after a lot more playtesting, and a tiny bit of modding, I got some more feedback. I modified swamps to give two food and work as source of freshwater. That worked out pretty nice, and feels thematic as well. This means that swamps less ideal for a settler rush strategy but still a handy source of extra food, especially if you start out in the tundra.

While I can sort of agree that Ancient Forests, odd name by the way, look pretty strange the new graphics are an improvement. I have no idea what they are supposed to look like though, since all forests in civ 4 are ancient by RL standards. Perhaps Ancient Forests might simply look like slightly larger and darker versions of the regular forests? I haven't learned enough about modding Civ 4 to try this myself. How do you change terrain graphics?

Speaking of graphics I sort of modded Flax out. It's a neat resource but looks really odd in game. I would gladly have a go at it in photoshop myself but again I couldn't figure out how.

Heh, I guess it's a good indication about how well the mod works that the only thing I can complain about is the terrain. :D
 
I modded swamps so that they do not give extra food on tundra, just additional hammer. I think that solves part of the problem
If they end on grassland the terrain changes to wetland. Wetlands have base 3 base food and -1 to hammers.
This makes swamps there not grant any additional hammers. The same applies to wetland forests, jungles, and some bonuses that grant hammers (i.e. metals and horses).
Note it does not apply to additional bonuses from improvements, including the extra yelds from resources.
The biggest problem is that swamp still provide additional food while on grassland, even while not drained yet, and then can drained for even more when improvements are build. It applies to a city center if the city is founded on swamp.
Do you think it is still too much?

As for the graphics problems, I will try to experiment a bit.
To change terrain/feature graphics you have to edit CIV4ArtDefines_Terrain.xml/CIV4ArtDefines_Feature.xml
But the toughest part is to edit the graphics itself. Forest is in fact 15 nifs, but they all use one dds, so it is not so hard to recolor.
As for the flax, by the odd look you mean the base of the resource that obscures all terrain below?
If so, I might have a fix. I will post in soon.
 
Ok, I did some changes. How do you like it now?

Added some real photos for comparision ;)
 

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Here comes the ancient forest.
I did some graphics tests and used the old golden ones again.
Here are the results.
From left to right: basic FfH, current seZereth's, enlarged seZereth's, broadleaf using seZereth's recolouring, my own copper & golden recoulours.

All screens taken in the same spot, no changes (on the last two added some broadleaf forest for comparision).
Improvements just can't be seen in the first three.

How do you like them. Which one should I use?
 

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Heh, you're like some kind of unstoppable... mod making person. That was fast! :clap:

The new Flax graphics looks just right. Exactly the change I was thinking of myself.

The new ancient forest graphics are a bit of a different beast, since I have no idea what they are supposed to look like. What colour does magic trees have? That said I really like the Creepy leaves.jpg (nr 4). The change is subtle but unmistakeable, and the darker shade makes resources and units stand out far better. The lime green version (nr 1) looks a bit too garish in my opinion, and sort of smothers all other details. The "gilded" versions (nr 5 & 6) both look interesting, and works the magic nature of the forests. But the contrast is a bit stark when compared to rest of the terrain.

Nr 2 and 3 sort of look more like plantations, with trees growing in neat squares. The curse of tile based graphics strikes again. ;)

Your changes to swamps and wetlands sound promising but I'd have to playtest the changes to tell for certain. It's a very tiny detail, and I think I've made too much ruckus about it already. The only real beef I had with 3 food swamps was that it felt odd that was just as productive as a farm on grassland. But variation is the spice of any game and it's nice to be able to grow large cities without bothering with agriculture. Last game I started out on a river, half the tiles swamp, other half forested hills. Went for mining, construction and feudalism. Mines on every hill and castles in every swamp. Best city ever.
 
i agree fully with Wauthan about the forests
the creepy leaves is a good solution (or making them a tiny bit taller? if thats possible?!? but not so much that you can´t recognize the underlying ress)
 
i agree fully with Wauthan about the forests
the creepy leaves is a good solution (or making them a tiny bit taller? if thats possible?!? but not so much that you can´t recognize the underlying ress)

except...he mentioned "Magic Trees" i don´t think an ancient forest is made up mainly out of magic trees it´s just veeeryveeery old ....b u t:
maybe you could add a new resource:Magic Wood or smt like that which only appear in ancient forests (either a weaker version of the Yggdrasil, or maybe
a Mithrill equivalent for Archers, or it just give some boni to shipbuilding polearms.... manymany uses...)

Edit: one more
maybe 3 different new woodres replacing the metal line for archers (maybe polearm too?!) or smth combined Metal/wood
...and this could be lead to a new forester guild for example...:)
 
I like the creepy leaves the best, too. So I will switch to it in 0.12. Unless there are people that strongly disagree...
Unfortunatelly currently I do not know how to make it both adjust to terrain & inprovements and be able to change it's size. It will have to stay this size for now :(

Ancient forest is just what the name says - ancient. There was a discussion if it should be more like Fangorn or Lorien form LotR, and most people (including myself) decided that it should be more like a fangorn.
There are ents in it, but it is not magical itself.

As for the wood resources, I am afraid that 3 different resources may be a bit too much.
Just one on the other side, a magical/special wood would be great. Something like marble is a special stone. Only this one would be harvested by forester/lumbermill :)
It can be made to provide a promotion to archery units. They already can use bronze & iron in orbi, so that would be a mithril replacement... I.e. +1 electrical combat strength ;)
What do you think?
 
A special wood resource would be great. I always wondered why the Civilization series as a whole never included something like an exotic wood resource. Guess they felt it was redundant.

Bowyers boosted by a rare wood resource sounds like a great idea. Yet another perk for the envorimentalists in FFH. But my own favorite would be a special rare wood that boosts ships. Throughout history the shipyards ate a whole lot of forests here in Sweden. Makes sense that cultivating a supernatural type of tree would in turn let you build an awesome fleet.

Really puts another spin on the Lanun. "We must save the forests!"
 
My first impression of this mod is quite good, all in all a great improvement for an already great module. Well done. :D

I do have some questions regarding the gameplay, though; firstly, are the swamps supposed to be that abundant? I understand that they can appear on grasslands and tundra, which is fine, but it seems to me that they (and kelp as well) are just too common.
Perhaps this is a result of the map script that I'm using, which leads me to my second question. Right now I'm using the tectonics map script with the flavourmod; which map script and settings do you generally get the best results with?
 
Yeah, magic wood resources that provide/allow promotions for ships and archers could be cool. For ships it could be nice to give a large withdrawal chance, while +1 range for archers with enchanted bows would be better than lightning damage imho.


I would say it should only be harvested with Lumbermills, except that the Elves might not be able to use their wood this way. Maybe the magic bow wood and the magic naval stores should be different resources requiring different improvements. You don't really have to cut down a tree to take a limb to carve a bow from, so a Forester could be fine for it while a lumbermills would be needed for making ships out of the wood.



The magical wood resources should probably have a change to expire. I'm also thining that there should be events that make Lumbermills cause deforestation, causing you to loose the (ancient) forests and the resource. (Planting a new forests would probably be once option of the event.)


Speaking of Foresters, I'm of the opinion that having them bost the food yields of forests is overpowered. I'd rather them have a more modest bonus, like improving health. (I could have sworn that there was a tag that let improvements boost health, but when I just checked the xml I see thay can only bost happiness. Hmm...)
 
Throughout history the shipyards ate a whole lot of forests here in Sweden. Makes sense that cultivating a supernatural type of tree would in turn let you build an awesome fleet.
Looks like we are making a little baltic-mod here :D Guess that is because I have included hansa...
I like the idea of special wood improving ships. But I still think it can be one kind of wood, just processed differently... I just do not want to add too much resources. I have yet to find some nice graphics, and that is always easier for one than two.
For ships it could be nice to give a large withdrawal chance, while +1 range for archers with enchanted bows would be better than lightning damage imho.
Yeah, even too good in my opinion ;) range 2 is currently reserved for man-o-war, dwarven cannon and mages (through spells). Other siege engines need to be high level to take increased range as a promotion - and you suggest to give it to archers almost for free.
I think it should rather increase strenght of the unit or make it attack better. Same applies to ships - withdrawal chance I would give for sails (clothhall free promotion perhaps?), but for the hull or mast...
Have to think about it, but all opinions are welcomed :)
As for the harvesting method, I do not agree with the chance to expire. Trees can be planted again, which can not be said about ores and marble. And even for ships you do not need to cut whole forest, just some fine trees. Unless you are building a great fleet at once and do not care for replanting.
The ancient forest thing is the reason I think it must be harvested by both lumbermill (because it makes sense) and forester (to be able to harvest it while in ancient forest). But forester should give lower yelds, i.e. to compensate the improved production of ancient forest.

I will think how to lower forester's usefulnes. The food will probably go, as currently it is +2 food form forester in ancient forest, the same as you can get from farm with sanitation. You are right that something has to be done.
it seems to me that swamps (and kelp as well) are just too common.

I plan to lower the appereance chance in the next version. Kelp already has really low, but I think that map scipts use it to improve starting locations and that is why there are places where it is all over the coast.
 
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