Fall with Fleme

[Fleme]

Edit: The game is now live!

See 3rd page for details of the official launch.

Start screenshot:

Spoiler :

To commemorate my 1000th post I decided to go for something totally different. With our exhilarating FFH SG coming to a close within the next few weeks I decided what better way than to set up a new one - but this time with a twist.

This is no ordinary SG - I'm planning to host a grand adventure game set up on Erebus with quests, handmade events and myself as acting gamemaster coordinating all these events and acting as the deity of your selection.

Concept

The game will be played as a regular succession game and the decision why I wanted this to be under SGs rather than stories and tales is the fact that if I am to make quests, events and adventures by hand, there needs to be some sort of logical spots for me to do my "divine intervention", place quest markers, set up events and do other mischief. In short, you could think of it as an reverse divine intervention meets Fall from Heaven succession.

As a gamemaster I will merely set up logical paths for quests with a beginning and an end with the occasional opportunity for the quests to open up to a grand line which goes on through the entire game. Some quests are minor and will give you a simple benefit for completing it - you may choose to disregard them as you please unless the adverse effect is too much.

You will get custom heroes, up to a party of five heroes, which will be born through the natural progression of the game and will specialize in different categories, featuring mages, rogues, warriors, priests, paladins, death knights and the like - these will be created by me through the world builder and will be able to progress themselves through questing as well as regular methods of gaining experience. As not to influence the outcome of the game too much with powerful custom heroes, there will be limitations regarding their usage in combat versus the AI until a specific point in the game. It is key that these units do not turn the tide of the game by a margin too decisive. On this point, if you are becoming too strong as a nation there is the possibility of come cataclysmic event in form of a natural disaster, a rebellion or other such means to slow you down. However, the main goal is for the players to have fun and the events and occurences imposed will add to the game - never aim to destroy it.

The game

For the game I will need up to six players, some of which hopefully are familiar with Fall from Heaven. I would personally prefer to host this game with Fall Further as it would give me more options as game master to influence custom promotions and make the quests and custom events more immersive. This, however, is up for discussion and will be up to you.

Since the game will need some time for events and quests to have a meaning, it will be on Epic with a Large map as the chosen terrain. The suggested difficulty is Immortal but this is up for discussion. You are free to choose whatever civilization and once this and other issues are decided on, I will create a map and give an introduction to what is going on and how we proceed.

When saves are provided, I will take a look at them and do the changes I need to do after which you will be given a chance as a team to discuss decisions based on what I've done (quests asking you yes or no etc.) and I will then provide you with the save. I aim to use no more than 24 hours for each of these interventions of mine and hope that they won't slow the game down by too much.

Final words

I hope I've aroused your interest. I hope to hear any and all suggestions and questions regarding the topic and once we have a roster set up and have come to an agreement on this and that, the game will go live and this post will be edited to feature the starting save as well as the game introduction. Furthermore, I'd like to add that this is just a post to see whether or not there'd be interest in a game like this and on that topic I would appreciate any and all feedback. At any rate it would be my first time hosting a SG and this is a very specific variant at that so help from veterans would be most appreciated. What do you think about this overall?

Roster

Dungeon Master

Fleme

Players

1. lymond
2. Jarrema
3. Old_Lion
4. Dienekes_II/AntiTwelve
5. uberfish
6. Brian_Shanahan

Subs?

1.
2.

 

[lymond]

Sounds very cool. I'm game. Should be fun to be immersed in the imagination of Fleme. I played all the FFH scenarios a while back as well as some random games, and I've been getting back it to it lately.

I'm really surprised that you only have 1000 posts.

Shouldn't you be called Dungeon Master?

As for difficulty, I'm not really sure. I'm basically an IMM player on BTS, but I don't think I've tried harder levels on FFH so I really have no clue of the difficulty in comparison.

As for the mod, I would make sure we sink up on the versions. I believe I have the latest FFH installed, but although I tried Fall Further some time ago it is not currently installed.

Have you considered using Master of Mana. I've been playing around with it lately. It is a little more complex I guess, but I like that it has BUG incorporated.

 

[Fleme]

I haven't tried other FfH modmods than Fall Further and RifE and I personally prefer FF over other modmods - I am very open to looking into other mods however, if they are preferential to the players.

The difficulty is based on the ongoing High to Low game - we were able to tackle that so I'd imagine that people can tackle a "regular" game of sorts on that difficulty. This is not set in stone and we can change that as people prefer. I've been thinking of various quest lines already and various heroes and options for them to choose (ie. a "warrior" hero questing to become a death knight and gaining channeling + death 1 for skeletons as the first "prize" etc., stuff like this to create custom heroes and a sense of advancement)

At no rate do I plan for my storyline and quests to divert too much from the actual gameplay but merely to act as a driver to explore, try out new things and find new, unique combinations of things to go down. Ultimately, it is about winning the game and the extra content is there to create a sense of immersion.

Playing pious? Gain enough favor from your god Kilmorph and your mines will soon have precious metals in them. I plan to play an active role as the chosen deity and I have a good number of tricks related to religion up my sleeve as well.

Dungeon master it is then! Thanks for the signup, I'm really glad to have you on board. My schedule for this week is totally packed but I will look into the different FfH2 mods come next week to get some sort of cursory knowledge on them. In the meantime, feel free to give any input and nudges to the direction you'd like to see a game like this go down.

 

[lymond]

I bow before Fleme, the might dwarven God.

From my perspective, there is no hurry. A slow casual game is fine by me, since I'm involved in the current SGOTM and some others here. I like the casual pace of the games in this particular forum that I've only just recently discovered - and noticed that a lot of the old S&T regulars, like yourself, have been hiding over here as well.

I'd have to get my head a little more wrapped around the concept but everything you've mentioned sounds really cool. I guess an overall theme or variant attached to the game - something to strive for - and then quests and events that sort of match up to that goal would be cool. Of course, side-quests are always nice too.

Just kinda getting back into FFH, I noticed a new mod "Master of Mana" (used to be called Wild Mana). I have tried most of the others, probably liking Orbis the best but I think it is stalled and was a bit buggy. MoM adds a deeper layer to the spellcasting side of things with a sub-tech tree for magic that appears to be somewhat passive. Adds a few civs and many leaders and traits. Having BUG though is a big plus in my book.

 

[Fleme]

I was actually just poking around with FF to see what kind of promotions and everything it has available and it has everything I could ask for as far as customization goes. Towers and fortresses for quest giver locations, units of different civilizations to use as models for custom heroes, plenty of different options - the works. I'm so excited about this that I will probably get Master of Mana within the next few days to have a proper look and compare. I've heard good things about Wildmana and if it's based on that, I'm sure it's good.

But all in all even the stock FfH2 has so much content that we will be just fine with that if people are more willing to play on it. I had a 4 hour drive today and the idea for this game came to me during that and then I had the rest of the trip to think about all the cool things I could do and now I'm just so glad to see that the mod facilitates all that and way more.

I hope this isn't too specific for people to get interested in. The concept is still developing and feedback is needed!

Edit: I actually took a quick glance at the MoM site/forum. Just by reading through the features I think it's too complex as I probably wouldn't be able to make use of all the elements included in the mod to the fullest and I couldn't help but feeling that it would take away from the whole experience. Having compared FF and FfH I would prefer FF because it offers so many options but I'm not going to lobby that mod any further - it is ultimately the players' choice.

 

[admtanaka]

Just a suggestion from someone who plays a bit of FfH - MoM looks to be updating by the end of the month and Rife is in a constant state of change. What makes FF good for a SG is the fact that it's dead (no chance of a new version) and quite stable for a mod mod. The AI isn't as strong as base FfH, but then again Fleme has the WB at his command.

Not a signup btw, just a support post for FF. I'll lurk either way with interest.

 

[lymond]

Actually the imminent release of a big MoM update is kinda interesting really.

 

[Brian Shanahan]

If you're planning on getting this up and running before Ichabod's SG finishes, sign me up as an alternative/sub (atm I've 5 including the SGOTM). If you're going to wait a while I'll be able to join in fully from the start.

Either way this should be fun.

 

[Fleme]

I'm in no particular rush with the start of this game - my schedule will open up towards the end of next week and then I'll be free to be the game master pretty much every day, meaning I can check up on quests etc. The High to Low is progressing nicely towards its end and I don't see a reason to fully start this one before it is done, but I just wanted to be ready when that is over with!

I started writing down some notes for quest lines, rewards and stuff already and I'm having a lot of fun with it and really hope that this would translate to the actual game being fun for everyone. For now, I'm just coming up with ideas and refining the concept and I'm looking for feedback from everyone - even those who have no interest in actually playing.

Since the start isn't imminent, I'll just put you towards the end of the list for now - we can always change that as the situation changes. I posted a bait on the FfH2 forum as well to see if anyone over there is interested in a game like this as well.

 

[Brian Shanahan]

Cheers. If I'm towards the end I should be ok.

 

[Jusos2108]

I might be interested as well, since after our current SG I have nothing going on here.

 

[Jarrema]

I am really interested in joining...

But only vanilla FfH, FF, or Orbis. Not if you decuide for MoM or RifE.

I LOVE Orbis. Can we play Orbis, please please please?
(of course joking, but Orbis is really fun IMHO - maybe you can look at it?)

Difficulties in FfH are not heavier than in vanilla civ. I will like to play at immortal.

I also have one question: would quests and role-playing elements be fitted to chosen civilization? Should we espect different quests for Bannor than for Sheaim for example? If not, maybe you should suggest which civs would suit storyline the best

 

[Brian Shanahan]

Difficulties in FfH are not heavier than in vanilla civ. I will like to play at immortal.

From what I've been reading FfH difficulty is considered 2 steps lower than BtS equivalent, due to the understandable lack of AI programming.

And from what I've seen it is true (apart from the giant mega stacks the AI can sometimes have).

 

[Fleme]

Obviously the quests will be tailored specific for each civilization - however there is obviously the option to stray away from the "flavor" of each civilization at least to a degree but not to the point where you'd have Sheaim Paladins or the like. I personally don't have objections for any civilization as I have a pretty good understanding of all the civs and religions and the flavor they hold within them - meaning I can be the Octopus Overlords or I can represent Junil depending on the situation - odds are I will be representing all those deities in one way or another during the game.

And I'm more than happy to hear suggestions, ideas or even simple oneliners like "I'd like to see this and that" because simple ideas can develop into pretty interesting quest lines. I'm full of ideas and ready to implement them. My spring schedule is wide open all the way to may 15th (big trip then) and I need something to keep myself occupied and I'm hoping this would be it!

Thanks for the signup, I'll put you on the roster Jarrema. You guys are free to start discussing civilizations you'd like to play and perhaps other details if you wish to influence my decisionmaking. When you've reached a conclusion on the civ I'll start tinkering a map suitable for our needs and get cracking. I might be getting ahead of myself since we don't have a full roster yet, but discussion is always welcome!

 

[Jarrema]

From what I've been reading FfH difficulty is considered 2 steps lower than BtS equivalent, due to the understandable lack of AI programming.

And from what I've seen it is true (apart from the giant mega stacks the AI can sometimes have).

For the lot of time I didnt play vanilla FfH so I do not remember that exactly. But is not AI much better in recent patches?

IF Flame would decide for 'vanilla' FfH maybe lets play "more naval AI mod" in which most changes are AI tweaks

EDIT: Before we will start for real discussing civs, we would have to know which modmod we will play...
For example, would it be a modmod with Mechanos civilization? Or maybe with my favourite civilizations - Dao and Mazatl/Tlacatl?

 

[Fleme]

I'm personally rooting for FF because I'm familiar with all the content it offers and therefore would be up to speed on all the possible features I could implement and to what degree I could customize heroes. Stock FfH would mean the overall scheme of things to be simpler, and by simpler I mean stripped down from what could be different models for all heroes (ie. no overlapping with units that otherwise exist on map) and more promotion possibilities for hero development rewards. Obviously the added civs is a plus for this endeavor as well.

However, my preferences are abundantly clear and as stated, I will leave the ultimate decision to the players. Whatever modmod you decide (or stock), I will familiarize myself with and do my best to make the experience as enjoyable as I can.

But, if my vote does count, here's one for Fall Further (edit: Ver. 0.51c)

 

[Brian Shanahan]

For the lot of time I didnt play vanilla FfH so I do not remember that exactly. But is not AI much better in recent patches?

IF Flame would decide for 'vanilla' FfH maybe lets play "more naval AI mod" in which most changes are AI tweaks

EDIT: Before we will start for real discussing civs, we would have to know which modmod we will play...
For example, would it be a modmod with Mechanos civilization? Or maybe with my favourite civilizations - Dao and Mazatl/Tlacatl?

Firefox just crashed on me (due to Vista being such a power hog) so I lost a fairly extensive post on how even on patch "o" the Ai is very weedy compared to BtS AI.

As regards the game itself, I don't mind about any of the settings, but it may be better to try the first one on FfF2 rather than a modmod, just to be able to better work the premise.

 

[Jarrema]

of course I will do as you wish, but for me:
1. I would prefer FF
2. If not, then I like to once more suggest Tholal's modmod - More Naval AI. Here is a link - look there

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=357824

It makes AI better, and it makes naval warfare more interesting. IIRC the only changes besides AI, are ship upgrade paths and metal requirements for ships.

I would love to have continents on the map, so more naval AI is good way to go for me

 

[Jarrema]

As for mapscript... my suggestion would be: let's use Erebus Continents mapscript. It's climatic, customable, and do not have faults of Erebus mapscript.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=308590

 

[Fleme]

Yeah I already decided on Erebus Continent prior - it's a good script and I will modify the map as required. Let's wait for vranasm's (and the at least 2 more players') input on the mod(mod) to use and then decide - democracy rules for now! As said, I'm fine with whatever mod but it seems that I won't be able to look into More Naval AI at least until Ichabods SG is done because its incompatible.