(Sorry for long post, boring day at work)
Don’t get me wrong, I love the game and the mod. The level of complexity and addictions to original FF2 are just stunning. I believe that 90% of everything added is a top-notch quality, which is rarely a thing at any modding scene. What is more, those remaining 10% of content isn’t mostly bad, sometime of the art is amateurish, some music is cringe worthy and some civilizations need more love and balancing. These are things that everyone can handle and just enjoy the game.
Although among those 10% stuff, there are also hidden some small but crucial design flaws that have made some aspects of the gameplay severely broken, taking away a lot of fun that could possibly this mod give. They are all connected with themselves, so basically I am going to list them in only two points (as the whole mod is like one body with every organ influencing other body parts).
Of course you can disagree with everything below, as I am not going to post any bugs or technical issues, just stating my subjective opinion as the ‘new’ person, who played Wildmana few years back. My opinion is based on two 5.3 and a few 5.4 gameplays, all monarch to immortal difficulty, maps from small to medium (Erabus continent mostly), always different civs, normal gamespeed, half of my games were finished with eliminating all enemies. Oh, and I was frequently studying AI with worldbuilder to see how it copes with changing gameworld.
1.) Lack of resources. I was wondering how the AI is coping with relatively small amount of wood and stone. So quite often I checked worldbuilder and AI was mostly just producing more military units, as they does not require any wood or stone. Obviously a player is kind of forced to do the same, as you can’t build anything new in your cities or improve your tiles. And I know that I can build lumber mills and quarries, these are my most common improvements. All of my cities have at least one lbmill and quarry, bigger=more. And I know about buildings which increased those resources. And I know about spells to conjure some wood/stone. But IMO it’s still not enough even for small, developing civilization, pushing cities into idle stasis. Player is too often forced to do the same as the AI, which is pumping military to the limits+garnisonning some of them, and then, if still we can’t afford any new building, setting cities to research or gain wealth. It seems reasonable, taking into consideration how aggressive and strong are barbarians and how easily opponents are declaring wars (see point 2), especially on higher difficulties, but this absurdly slows down whole gameplay. A slow gameplay is not always a bad thing, but this clip wings of the whole game. Just answer a simple question: how technically advanced was your civ (and AI civs) when you finished your last games. Because mine were not even at the half of the techtree when I conquered all enemies. It’s like I haven’t discovered almost half of the game features. And it’s a huge waste. Obviously pumping military makes some victory conditions even harder to complete. So most of the time we are forced to fight with barbarians and then other AIs. And you, as the player, conquers some of the AIs underdevelopment cities (see lack of wood), and still cannot build anything on them in the next X turns (or just prefers to build sth in your old cities). So we are back into pumping the military to the limits. And AI is facing the same problems when they fight each other. And their solutions are similar.
2.) Strong barbarians/beasts/undead, etc. If I am not wrong goblins start in their forts since turn 1, numbered in 3 per fort. They are having a defense bonus and it’s practically impossible to destroy those forts at early turns, making exploration difficult. Also, they are breeding in forces, spreading small armies to nearest cities. A player should quickly recognize them as early but deadly danger, making all early cities fortified with palisades and a few defending units. It nicely fits with point one, making sense to defend your cities with warriors/archers because it is convenient to create then as you are limited in wood/stone. Finding new cities is more difficult as you have to create a small horde of units to cover the settler and defend your new city. On higher difficulties exploration is really pain in the ass, and you are forced to limit your early and even mid game expansion to minimum. If you are surrounded by other civilization you may consider yourself lucky, as you won’t be having waves of goblins, orcs and skeletons every third turn. Just look around turn 300 into the worldbuilder how enemy AIs are struggling to create new cities and how their civilizations are being plundered by overpowered barbarians. Of course the easiest way is to destroy the forts/lairs etc. But this requires an effort just not worthy for most of the time. But if you miss a right moment to destroy those lairs you are fudged as those units are going to quickly grow in power and in numbers. And then hits you that event in which you can sacrifice some units/gold or just face extra wave of units. This all requires from player another sacrifice – to stop develop your cities and invest in army and walls. So your cities have even more reasons to be idle (research/wealth) or build military stuff. And it’s not interesting enough, especially when you know, that you won’t be able to reach ¾ of the tech tree before turn 500. Oh, and one more thought connected to military and AI – look how it copes with barbarian invasion – it’s just free exp for enemy units, which are (believe me) going to attack you soon. Because why not – when you have a lot of units+some of them are levelled, you just attack the weakest. So if you are going for cultural, altar or science victory - you are screwed.
SUMMARY
I think that this mod can be vastly improved by changing two simple things: increasing the amount of wood+stone and decreasing the number of forts+starting units in them. I would love to try this mod with +40% of wood, +30% of stone, and -30% amount of enemy lairs+they start with one unit, slowly growing in numbers. This could enable early exploration, then some problems with barbarians and dealing with them, then reasonable development through whole game and what players like most – dealing with other civilizations in order to be victorious. This could speed up the gameplay to actually see and experience much more during one gameplay, while still being challenging and difficult. Because let’s be honest, conquering a rival city is much more rewarding that conquering a fort with 8+goblin archers. And the conquered city should be (preferably) a developed one, not only a ******** created to born new warriors to feed the war machine.
Two simple changes that affect so many aspects of the gameplay, it’s even hard to imagine.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the game and the mod. The level of complexity and addictions to original FF2 are just stunning. I believe that 90% of everything added is a top-notch quality, which is rarely a thing at any modding scene. What is more, those remaining 10% of content isn’t mostly bad, sometime of the art is amateurish, some music is cringe worthy and some civilizations need more love and balancing. These are things that everyone can handle and just enjoy the game.
Although among those 10% stuff, there are also hidden some small but crucial design flaws that have made some aspects of the gameplay severely broken, taking away a lot of fun that could possibly this mod give. They are all connected with themselves, so basically I am going to list them in only two points (as the whole mod is like one body with every organ influencing other body parts).
Of course you can disagree with everything below, as I am not going to post any bugs or technical issues, just stating my subjective opinion as the ‘new’ person, who played Wildmana few years back. My opinion is based on two 5.3 and a few 5.4 gameplays, all monarch to immortal difficulty, maps from small to medium (Erabus continent mostly), always different civs, normal gamespeed, half of my games were finished with eliminating all enemies. Oh, and I was frequently studying AI with worldbuilder to see how it copes with changing gameworld.
1.) Lack of resources. I was wondering how the AI is coping with relatively small amount of wood and stone. So quite often I checked worldbuilder and AI was mostly just producing more military units, as they does not require any wood or stone. Obviously a player is kind of forced to do the same, as you can’t build anything new in your cities or improve your tiles. And I know that I can build lumber mills and quarries, these are my most common improvements. All of my cities have at least one lbmill and quarry, bigger=more. And I know about buildings which increased those resources. And I know about spells to conjure some wood/stone. But IMO it’s still not enough even for small, developing civilization, pushing cities into idle stasis. Player is too often forced to do the same as the AI, which is pumping military to the limits+garnisonning some of them, and then, if still we can’t afford any new building, setting cities to research or gain wealth. It seems reasonable, taking into consideration how aggressive and strong are barbarians and how easily opponents are declaring wars (see point 2), especially on higher difficulties, but this absurdly slows down whole gameplay. A slow gameplay is not always a bad thing, but this clip wings of the whole game. Just answer a simple question: how technically advanced was your civ (and AI civs) when you finished your last games. Because mine were not even at the half of the techtree when I conquered all enemies. It’s like I haven’t discovered almost half of the game features. And it’s a huge waste. Obviously pumping military makes some victory conditions even harder to complete. So most of the time we are forced to fight with barbarians and then other AIs. And you, as the player, conquers some of the AIs underdevelopment cities (see lack of wood), and still cannot build anything on them in the next X turns (or just prefers to build sth in your old cities). So we are back into pumping the military to the limits. And AI is facing the same problems when they fight each other. And their solutions are similar.
2.) Strong barbarians/beasts/undead, etc. If I am not wrong goblins start in their forts since turn 1, numbered in 3 per fort. They are having a defense bonus and it’s practically impossible to destroy those forts at early turns, making exploration difficult. Also, they are breeding in forces, spreading small armies to nearest cities. A player should quickly recognize them as early but deadly danger, making all early cities fortified with palisades and a few defending units. It nicely fits with point one, making sense to defend your cities with warriors/archers because it is convenient to create then as you are limited in wood/stone. Finding new cities is more difficult as you have to create a small horde of units to cover the settler and defend your new city. On higher difficulties exploration is really pain in the ass, and you are forced to limit your early and even mid game expansion to minimum. If you are surrounded by other civilization you may consider yourself lucky, as you won’t be having waves of goblins, orcs and skeletons every third turn. Just look around turn 300 into the worldbuilder how enemy AIs are struggling to create new cities and how their civilizations are being plundered by overpowered barbarians. Of course the easiest way is to destroy the forts/lairs etc. But this requires an effort just not worthy for most of the time. But if you miss a right moment to destroy those lairs you are fudged as those units are going to quickly grow in power and in numbers. And then hits you that event in which you can sacrifice some units/gold or just face extra wave of units. This all requires from player another sacrifice – to stop develop your cities and invest in army and walls. So your cities have even more reasons to be idle (research/wealth) or build military stuff. And it’s not interesting enough, especially when you know, that you won’t be able to reach ¾ of the tech tree before turn 500. Oh, and one more thought connected to military and AI – look how it copes with barbarian invasion – it’s just free exp for enemy units, which are (believe me) going to attack you soon. Because why not – when you have a lot of units+some of them are levelled, you just attack the weakest. So if you are going for cultural, altar or science victory - you are screwed.
SUMMARY
I think that this mod can be vastly improved by changing two simple things: increasing the amount of wood+stone and decreasing the number of forts+starting units in them. I would love to try this mod with +40% of wood, +30% of stone, and -30% amount of enemy lairs+they start with one unit, slowly growing in numbers. This could enable early exploration, then some problems with barbarians and dealing with them, then reasonable development through whole game and what players like most – dealing with other civilizations in order to be victorious. This could speed up the gameplay to actually see and experience much more during one gameplay, while still being challenging and difficult. Because let’s be honest, conquering a rival city is much more rewarding that conquering a fort with 8+goblin archers. And the conquered city should be (preferably) a developed one, not only a ******** created to born new warriors to feed the war machine.
Two simple changes that affect so many aspects of the gameplay, it’s even hard to imagine.
