FfH2 Civilopedia Online

T

Taels

Chieftain
Joined
Jan 12, 2008
Messages
68
Hello. I've never posted here before, but I've enjoyed FfH2 for years, and after the unfortunate loss of the wiki, I think I might be able to contribute. I've often wished the FfH2 Civilopedia were available online, so:

Introducing:

http://phrasr.com/ffh/pedia.php

Everything you see there is parsed automatically, directly from the XML files, and I think it might even be possible to make the Civilopedia into a mini-wiki, edit the entries online, and export XML files for inclusion in new releases. If everything is based on the in-game Civilopedia, no documentation should ever be lost again.

I hope you like it (and I hope it works in IE6, which I can't try anymore). I've been working on it for a couple days, and it's far from finished, but I'd prefer to find out what you all think before I spend a lot more time on it.

Update:

1/12/2008 - original release with civilizations, leaders, guilds, religions, terrain, resources, and technologies
1/14/2008 - completed the units
1/15/2008 - completed spells, abilities, and world spells

Still to do: promotions, civics, buildings, improvements, events, game concepts, difficulty settings, Overcouncil/Undercouncil actions
 
Thank you. I usually just look in the xml itself when I'm not in the game, but this looks much easier to read.
 
The pictures of the leaders on the front page are massive. Each picture is around 180 - 220k, meaning the front page is over 6Mb, which is an awfull lot for a web page.

I suggest resaving them as jpg's, at medium quality (or 8 if you have photoshop). You can cut the size of those pictures to just a quarter of what they are and retain the quality.

Don't get me wrong, It's great that you've taken the time to make the pedia available online, but people will be put off from using it if their connection struggles with it.
 
clut said:
The pictures of the leaders on the front page are massive. Each picture is around 180 - 220k, meaning the front page is over 6Mb, which is an awfull lot for a web page.

I suggest resaving them as jpg's, at medium quality (or 8 if you have photoshop). You can cut the size of those pictures to just a quarter of what they are and retain the quality.

Don't get me wrong, It's great that you've taken the time to make the pedia available online, but people will be put off from using it if their connection struggles with it.
Click to expand...

You're absolutely right. I was just being lazy, and forgot to fix that.

I've created actual thumbnails as JPG's, about 20K each.

Edit: The front page is still almost 1MB. Perhaps I should reconsider displaying all the leader's portraits.
 
Taels said:
Edit: The front page is still almost 1MB. Perhaps I should reconsider displaying all the leader's portraits.
Click to expand...

I think 1MB is probably ok. Granted it is a lot for a single page, but the fact that each image is only 20k means they will be popping up pretty swiftly.

What alarmed me before was mainly the amount of time it took for each image to show.

If people see a web page with lots of images theyexpect it to take a while to display them all, but as long as it tackles each picture fairly quickly people are ok with it.
 
I'm thinking that there should be a link to this in Grey Fox's next version of the FfH manual.
 
Wow, thats awsome. Some notes, I think you should add the heroes as a seperate page and if (eventualy) you would be able to put thumnails for all text boxes that would be awsome. Granted if that might only be practical in a wiki format, and how you have it now is very, very nice.
 
Looking at the civilipedia again, I think mabey you should take away the far left "Tales from Erebus" colum, make the text smaller and change it to times roman. It would take away from the ambiance but add tons to the ease of scrolling through units and other long lists. Again, keep up the good work.
 
3141592 said:
Wow, thats awsome. Some notes, I think you should add the heroes as a seperate page and if (eventualy) you would be able to put thumnails for all text boxes that would be awsome. Granted if that might only be practical in a wiki format, and how you have it now is very, very nice.
Click to expand...

Thanks, to everyone :)

1) I'd like to separate the heroes, but I'm not sure what distinguishes them in the XML. Perhaps the hero promotion, or being a world unit with a limit of 1 in existence?

2) I do have the code to add thumbnails on every page, but actually doing so will be a lot of work! (Unless I can figure out how to convert all the DDS files in one huge batch...)

3) I hope to improve the fonts and layout, someday. Maybe I could open that up for everyone to contribute too: I could use templates for the layout, which anyone could create, and let everyone choose their favorite. The most popular choice could automatically become the default.

I've been working on parsing the unit XML files for about three hours, and I'm only half-way done. If I'd considered how many options exist in Fall From Heaven, I might not have started this project.

There are so many cool features to add, but I'll be slogging through the XML for another week, unless I stop after finishing the units; leave buildings, civics, spells, promotions, and improvements unfinished; and work on more wiki features.
 
I believe that any unit with a world limit (no matter what that limit it) classifies as a hero (of course, there are currently no world units with a limit other than 1)

Even though the civilopedia doesn't, it might be nice if your online civilopedia also separated the national units
 
If I'd considered how many options exist in Fall From Heaven, I might not have started this project.
Click to expand...

Well, than, thank god you didn't think about it ;)
 
3141592 said:
Well, than, thank god you didn't think about it ;)
Click to expand...

:lol:

I originally thought I might finish this in a day.

Fortunately, I've nearly finished the units; I hope those were the worst (with almost 100 settings to figure out).

But I'm missing a few. Does anyone know:

1) What's the difference between bSuicidal and bExplodeInCombat?

2) What setting means "Cannot be built"?

3) What setting means "Not alive"?

4) Are the Gypsy Wagon and Inquisitors special abilities set in the XML?

5) Why does a fireball say "Can bombard city defenses (-15%/turn)" in the game, when iBombardRate = 10 in the XML?
 
1) bSuicidal means the unit dies after combat. bExplodeInCombat means you'll get an explosion where the unit was when it died (if in combat).

2) Cost at negative number.

3) Some promotions.

4) Inquisitors ability to remove religions is a spell. Gypsy wagons are handled in python (CvEventManager.py)

5) Don't know.
 
2) particularly applies to great peoples, mages/conjurers, archmages/summoners, inquisitors/priests, immortals ... and maybe some more (mercenaries, slaves ?). (units that can only be gained through event or bought or through upgrade)
I think this setting is specifically/manually inserted for each of those units by inserting a negative hammer requirement in the xml.

3) promotions giving the "not-alive" setting are : "golem" "angel" "demon" "undead" and .. the one for siege weapons.
 
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