Confused with mod compatability

[Furien]

I played FFH quite a bit when it was first released and following a series of computer disasters I eventually forgot I even owned Civ4, and I only uncovered it just recently, and...man there's a lot more ModMods out there.

The mods/maps I'm trying to use:

PerfectWorld 2
Erebus Continents
Orbis
WildMana
Mana Flares
Leaders Enhanced

My last attempt ended up with me just wiping my assets clean and putting in my thankfully (sooooooo thankfully) backed-up Assets folder in its place. I had booted up Orbis and got screamed at by a bunch of XML errors so I'm pretty sure I was Doing It Wrong.

Now, the question is, is it possible for me to Do It Right and get all these things to work together? And if so, how? I figured out I can just copy the maps in between the mods with little difficulty, but since WildMana is a mod of its own and so is Orbis I can only load one without the other, and a game without meeting the Mechanos or Scions of Patria or the M-whatsits-lizards just doesn't seem as authentic. However, WildMana has the magic-related stuff I want along with the AI tweaks. I can't even remember if ErebusContinents is going to take Orbis's new terrain into consideration either, gah.

Any advice?

 

[Valkrionn]

Pretty sure you mean Sephi's WildMana mod? LeadersEnhanced actually has something like the options that give the mod it's name... Albeit more primitive. My initial work on wild mana was vastly improved by Sephi...

As for what you want, the maps should work with any mod, although some of the Orbis features won't show up... Kelp, most notably. Mana Flares SHOULD be mergeable with any other mod, as it's just python/xml... Not too much work if you know what you're doing.

Wild Mana and Orbis, however, won't work together at all. You'd have to root around in the DLL, and even then, some of the changes would probably contradict each other... You'd have to have a very good idea of what you're doing. Pretty much going to have to choose, better magic or more civs.

 

[AlexandrJJ]

Here's the basics: You can use any pre-genned maps or map-generation scripts, obviously only one at a time. You can use any of the base mods or their modmods that are based solely off of them and have modified a specific .dll version. Orbis is one of the major mods. FFH2 is the base, FF and Orbis are the two major forks. There are modmods that go off of FFH2 that are great, like Wild Mana, and there are great modmodMODS that go off of FF and Orbis that are great. You can't cross-pollute them, though. You can't use any parts of any of these together. You are using only one mod or modmod, whatever you choose. Wild Mana or Orbis or Fall Further Plus or whatever your choice is. That's it. It's because the .dll file is what's getting modified heavily and you can't merge changes there. The main maintainers have to collaborate between projects and implement the changes from the lesser project into the larger. Hopefully, some day, we'll simply have Fall From Heaven 2 with 500,000 optional game settings that will satisfy everyone. Until then, this is what you gotta work with.

Here's the specifics:

PerfectWorld2 is a piece of crap and I have never seen it generate an even remotely usable map for Fall From Heaven 2/Fall Further/Orbis without major tweaks to its XML files. Erebus Continents is kinda new, I ain't tried it because Erebus was a crappy script that was just a renamed really horrible script previously. I hear good things about Erebus Continents, though. Mana Flares and Minor Leaders make too few changes for me to consider them, and they're Fall From Heaven 2. I won't go back to it from Fall Further after my positive experiences. I moved away from FFH2 a year and a half ago or so and haven't looked back, as I enjoy too many of the content additions FF made. But Wild Mana is STELLAR. Use it. Use it if you play Fall From Heaven 2 and don't want to make the jump to Fall Further.

 

[AlexandrJJ]

Pretty sure you mean Sephi's WildMana mod? LeadersEnhanced actually has something like the options that give the mod it's name... Albeit more primitive. My initial work on wild mana was vastly improved by Sephi...

As for what you want, the maps should work with any mod, although some of the Orbis features won't show up... Kelp, most notably. Mana Flares SHOULD be mergeable with any other mod, as it's just python/xml... Not too much work if you know what you're doing.

Wild Mana and Orbis, however, won't work together at all. You'd have to root around in the DLL, and even then, some of the changes would probably contradict each other... You'd have to have a very good idea of what you're doing. Pretty much going to have to choose, better magic or more civs.

Valk, what about you? Can YOU try to collaborate with Sephi and see about merging in everything from Wild Mana, including those BEAUTIFUL AI changes, into Fall Further Plus?

 

[Opera]

Merging Sephi's WM will be a tough task, either for FF(+) or Orbis. But more for Orbis, I guess. Many things are changed in those modmods and the needs and priorities are really different. Some technologies aren't the same or are placed differently (that goes mostly for Orbis), for example. The civics are wildly different, etc.

It doesn't really matter if you do it right in the DLL because you would use values depending on XML tags rather than hardcoding specific things. However, in python it's a bit different. Take Turinturimbar AI's mod for example; it's only python and it's hardcoded, like "if I can use City States, use it!" but what if the mod isn't allowing city states at all?

Anyway, merging is hard, tedious and not fun.

And you can't merge each author's mind and wants. It could be great to merge Orbis and FF but it won't happen, I think. Not the same thing, not the same players.
I think you'd have to choose between all of those (well, LeadersEnhanced works with Orbis).

As an aside, it's true that merging SWM and Mana Flares in Orbis would be cool

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

what exactly is wrong with Perfectworld2, Alexandr? although I do agree that it's not good for FFH yet, just like any continents map, calling it crap seems way too much

right now, ErebusContinent is hands down the best for FFH.

 

[Onionsoilder]

what exactly is wrong with Perfectworld2, Alexandr? although I do agree that it's not good for FFH yet, just like any continents map, calling it crap seems way too much

right now, ErebusContinent is hands down the best for FFH.

It generates extra land(leaving large swaths in the middle open, favoring REXing civs) and places most players on the ocean, despite the fact only Lanun are really utilize it. Great for normal Civ, sucks for FFH.

The problem I have with Erebus Continent is the excessively abundant resources it places. If it has normal resource placement I would like it a lot more, and might be inclined to agree with you. As it stands, Tectonics is my favorite FFH map.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

well it does generate extra land, but that's just to make up for the fact that it has lots of desert. and it places civs on the ocean just because most of the good terrain is there. you can just switch the CoastalBonus value to 1.2 from 1.3 and it should be a lot better.

Erebus Continent does start you with tons of resources, made worse if you're also using flavourmod. if that's the case, you can turn flavourful normalization to False in Assets/python/entrypointsCvflavourinterface and it will be a lot better. Tectonics is good too, of course, especially lakes for FFH