Fantastic Ancients mod

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Spoiler The new Raider units--mine vs. barbarian :

Spoiler My Scouts vs. Barbarian Scouts :

Spoiler Forts and Scouts :

Spoiler Barbarian and Civ Scouts :

My new and largest mod yet, Fantastic Ancients, makes the Ancient Era faster and more lively from the start.

Available on Steam here, along with several related threads:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2827097612&searchtext=


Or download the zip file below.



Biggest Changes in Fantastic Ancients

Early units are a lot cheaper

Barbarians spawn faster, but mostly with weaker units

More happiness in general, particularly in the form of Houses

Forts are very fast to build, and they, Motte and baileys, fortresses, and citadels all protect and expand your territory and do damage to adjacent enemies.

Cities are easier to build and less penalizing, but start off weaker

Basic diplomatic options are now available from the start

Plus a number of changes to some of the most clunky and annoying game mechanics



For full details of changes in FA, look in the Mod Details thread on the Steam page.



Description

This is my largest mod yet, combining most mods I've created to date, and altering much of the Ancient Era. I mostly tested it on Marathon speed--if you play on Quick or Standard speed there will be changes, but not as noticeably. Although I've added new content, I was more interested in trying to remake the game closer to the way I would have wanted Civilization 5 to be from day one.

This mod took about a month and a half of building and testing, in addition to the time I spent on the contributory mods. Yet I have a far, far larger mod than Fantastic Ancients in mind for the future. Before I get into that project though, I first want to know how many people really are that interested in this 12 year old game, and in the sort of modifications I have in mind.

Please note that if you decide you like some, but not all, of FA's changes, you can also look through my other mods, as many parts are available individually.

Finally, if you have questions or something to say about my mod, I invite you to first take a look at the threads on Fantastic Ancient's Steam page.





Plans for the Future
I'm interested in any feedback you might have for this mod. In particular, the aspect of FA I'm most uncertain about is the Houses. How do you feel about the happiness they provide, and their costs? Do they give too much happiness? Too little? Just right? I would appreciate testers for the whole game, but especially the Houses.

The other thing is that I'd like the AI to really understand how to function well with everything this mod brings to the table. In particular, I'd like it to have some idea of how to use fortifications effectively--but I only do modding in xml, not sql or lua, so I don't think this problem is something I could fix myself. Perhaps other modders would be able to help? Or someone knows of an existing mod that could help?

If you have Suggestions for FA, please visit the Suggestions thread on the Steam page.



Beyond this, I consider FA to be something of an appetizer for the main course I'd like to get to someday, a much larger mod I want to make. You can read more about it in "My Future Mod" thread on the Steam page. But in short, I'm not sure I want to put a ton of energy into another big mod if players aren't really that interested.

If you like FA and the ideas behind it please do comment below. And in particular, I'm hoping to join forces with modders and artists out there--again, please let me know if you might be interested. Tthe more interest there is, the faster I hope to get my mod built.





Credits
yabetehtin: Hex Conquer and Release

Keukotis: Speedy Starting Settler

preffect: Fortress Borders

TofuSojo: Better City Defenses

BlouBlou: Terrain--Motte-and-bailey Fort

And LeeS, whoward69, and anyone else I'm forgetting.



Mod Package Size
19,534 bytes

Previously my largest mod package was my Fortifications mod, at 3,617 bytes. Fantastic Ancients is 5x larger and took about a month and a half to build and test, not counting time spent on smaller mods that contributed to it.

View attachment 633060

 

[ghost toast]

I enjoyed what i have played of it so far.

I like the faster unit promotions that was a nice touch. makes you feel like you can form a skilled and elite ancient army. of coarse they need to be hardened veterans, with Battles under their belt as one would expect.
the city defenses seem high at first glance but level up a few catapults real quick and that might change your mind. and they level up pretty quick.

I really like the faster forts.
have you ever played Rome and tried to build a fort in enemy territory and end conquering the city well before its completion?
that completely defeats the roman tactic of infiltrating territory and just posting up a in a fort like they did in history.
which is what i think civ had in mind when giving roman legions the ability to make forts but they took to long to be used well or used in a historically accurate way.

war wise i like it. it makes having an experienced army achievable early on but also necessary to complete certain military objectives and capture certain places.
i like that it really rewards you for war in a way when so many things in civilization penalize you in civilization for warring.

for example i conquered the Zulus and there army was a challenge i let them go for a while before doing so to let them build up a good army to be a little bit of a fun challenge.
I actually had to go out of my way to war with some one else just to level up my army because the Zulu city defenses where really high compared to me and all other ai's.
i thought it was necessary for me to make a good attempt at getting my army as experienced as his and experienced enough at taking cities due to him immediately building all the defenses he could in all cities and his exp boost to units.
that made the ancient and classical era warfare seem more realistic in a way.
in order to have an elite army i had to do battle and train it. and it didn't take like 3 eras to feel like i got a few levels on a unit like civilization normally does. by that time your producing units of the same or higher level anyway with military buildings built.

Elite battle hardened armies should really feel like it makes all the difference that's how it worked in ancient times and today even. the better prepared army, the more experienced army is usually the superior army. i feel like you mod took that into consideration at least in the early game where i think civilization fell short.
small, but extremely experienced armies have done great things in history when thrown against very large armies made up of people who for the first time have just picked up a sword or spear.

one thing i noticed is that i didn't see any ai's building your raiders, they go obsolete fairly quickly and they start with warriors (on the emperor level i played on at least) so i see why they wouldn't need to build them at all.

 

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I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it. The things you pointed out are some of the very things I wanted to fix with Civ 5--the huge amounts of time to do just about anything. The game just always felt much too slow to me.

Regarding Raiders: what speed were you playing on? Come to think of it, when testing the mod I don't recall too many AI's building the Raiders. But the Barbarians certainly did. I do get the feeling that the AI's generally prefer to build buildings over units though.