FFH 2 and Civ 5

[Emptiness]

It seems in order to streamline the game they may be restricting the mod community from adding complex game mechanics. I hope they just aren't holding these back to sell add-ons e.g. Civ 5 - The religions (see borderlands).

That made me laugh. Much of what I'm hearing about CiV and the design philosophy behind it sounds bad. If it sucks, and there's limited potential for modding, why would I buy it? Maybe Sid doesn't realize that CiV will be in competition with FfH2. CiV needs to be an improvement over Civ IV + FfH2, and I don't mean nicer graphics.

 

[Valkrionn]

Honestly, I really doubt there would be any kind of restrictions on the mod community. It's bad for their business at this point, as one of the first things people think when they hear "Civilization" is mods.

 

[Abremms]

That made me laugh. Much of what I'm hearing about CiV and the design philosophy behind it sounds bad. If it sucks, and there's limited potential for modding, why would I buy it? Maybe Sid doesn't realize that CiV will be in competition with FfH2. CiV needs to be an improvement over Civ IV + FfH2 can't, and I don't mean nicer graphics.

you clearly haven't been hearing enough then, even in this very thread it is stated that firaxis has gone on record saying civ5 will be even more moddable than civ IV.

Spoiler :

Well, Civ 5 has been described as MORE moddable than Civ 4, and the C++ is confirmed as a return (All the tools have been taken to a whole new level, so the more you know about XML and programmable DLL, the more you'll be able to achieve with the game.), so honestly, Religions can be readded.

Correction: WILL be readded. It's inevitable; They may want to avoid it for the base game for the sake of being PC, but any conversion mod would likely want to use it. Hell, a mod like Rise of Mankind would want to use it, it's a major part of our history.

for what its worth, as amazing as FfH2 truly is, its not in competition with civ5. the vast majority (millions of copies sold vs. a few hundered thousand that downloaded FfH2) of people who bought civ4 never downloaded a single mod, and the same could be true of civ5 depending on how well they execute the in-game mod-browser. Don't get me wrong, i love FfH2 and its modmod offspring, but saying it is in competition with civ5 is just delusional.

just look at how much of a departure from Civ4 FfH2 is. if you had given me a list of FfH2's features back before i discovered modding and was just playing base civ4, i would not have believed it. I have no doubt that the modding community will be able to work the same magic on civ5.

when it comes down to it, we don't know much about civ5 yet. but the biggest thing we DO know is that the lead designer came from the modding community and seems fully commited to delivering a game with unprecidented moddability.

 

[Emptiness]

you clearly haven't been hearing enough then, even in this very thread it is stated that firaxis has gone on record saying civ5 will be even more moddable than civ IV.

Maybe I've been listening to the wrong people, then. I certain hope you are right.

for what its worth, as amazing as FfH2 truly is, its not in competition with civ5. the vast majority (millions of copies sold vs. a few hundered thousand that downloaded FfH2) of people who bought civ4 never downloaded a single mod, and the same could be true of civ5 depending on how well they execute the in-game mod-browser. Don't get me wrong, i love FfH2 and its modmod offspring, but saying it is in competition with civ5 is just delusional.

I understand that only fraction of Civ IV players have downloaded a mod, but they all have the potential to do so. I guess I should have said "in competition among those Civ players who know about mods". My point was that, for those people who have bought Civ IV the cost to play FfH2 (or any other mod) is effectively 0. If the choice is to download a quality Civ IV mod for free or shell out cash for a bad CiV I would think that many mod-savvy players would save their money.

 

[Valkrionn]

Or buy a bad civ5 and work on a mod which makes it good.

 

[Deon]

Or... don't let me say this, it's not appropriate for official forums .

I try not to be happy too much before the game is released to avoid disappointment, but the fact that they continue to work on the series is good. If something goes wrong with Civ5, mods and Civ6 will always solve it .

 

[Colin]

I'm still waiting for the big feature announcement that makes me start to count down the days until civ5 is released. While hexes and no stacks are certainly welcome additions, I've yet to see anything which really makes me think 'wow, I can never go back to civ4 now'. If civ5 really offers more potential for realising the vision the FFH team had in mind then of course a sequel would be very exciting. Personally though, I think FFH seems complete - I can't think of anything that really stands out as lacking due to the platform it was developed on. Now if the FFH boys were to go off and develop an independent game from scratch based on FFH, that would make me sit up and take notice!

 

[Kranden]

INow if the FFH boys were to go off and develop an independent game from scratch based on FFH, that would make me sit up and take notice!

Yes!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Lord Alvon]

They'd have to change the "one unit per tile" thing.
Otherwise, assassins would suck...
And, how could the archmages summon anything?

 

[cyther]

Archmages could have some sort of summon range where they could select the tile. or possibly the summon could appear near the summoner. I think that assassins would be able to walk though enemy lines, maybe they could start out with invisibility.

 

[deanej]

Or you could just allow summons to coexist with other units (which we know is possible; you can have one civilian and one military unit on a tile). The assassin mechanic would have to be changed but I'm sure they could stay in.

 

[Quetz]

I will point out this quote from the Civ 5 website's Features list:

With unprecedented modding tools, players will have unlimited options for modifying Civ 5 in any way they like.

Sounds good to me.

 

[deanej]

That's also marketing speak. We don't know what it translates to in RL.

 

[JonathanStrange]

Well, I'm waiting for the AI to launch a over-sea invasion and if it takes Civ V to do it, then I'll be there!

 

[Valkrionn]

You can actually get that in FfH; Hell, just by tweaking the existing naval units to serve clear roles (reduce the overabundance of assigned AI's, add some NotUnitAI's, change upgrade paths/cargo/strength) you can get a decent naval AI. Without python. Though python helps, at least in getting the AI to go for the proper techs.

I've put off my changes for now (later patch, for a reason I can't go into detail about) but with about 4 minutes of XML work I had civs settling on other islands. It took a while for them to get the techs, but they DID do it.

The barbs used it the most, though... Completely outrageous, in fact. Took out 3 civs after they'd pacified their islands, were some very concerted attacks. Each barb city did nothing but produce ships for the barbs to crew and raid from. Was awesome.