FFH + Vanilla?

[pappyball]

Hi, I love FFH2, you guys really are amazing and its kind of sad that you don't get paid like the "real" developers do, because your work is just as impressive.

I just was wondering, after reading through a bunch of this forum---if there is anyone out there who would like to see a mod where FFH2 is combined with the vanilla BtS? What I mean is...
1) having FFH2 for the first 1,000 turns or something, and then entering a new era where you are allowed to build more of the vanilla units and wonders
2) decreasing the level of the vanilla units so they don't overpower the FFH2 (tanks could be a 15, modern armor a 30?

I know this is probably way more complicated than it sounds and I could ever imagine.. but after playing FFH2 a few times, I can't help but want it to keep progressing past units with a strength of 12...

Anyone else feel this way?

 

[Emptiness]

A "magic evolving to tech" mod would be an interesting idea, but not just tacked on to FfH2. It should be designed from the ground up, with careful consideration of what magic and what tech to include and how to structure the tech tree.

Personally, I find the FfH2 experience adequate - by which I mean that I don't find myself craving tanks or helicopters to finish off my opponents. Then end-game units and magic in FfH2 feel appropriately powerful and serve their intended functions well.

 

[Hawkwood]

Anyone else feel this way?

No and I would mod it out if they included it. One thing that has always bothered me about games like Civilization is that they give a shallow depiction of multiple ages instead of a deep depiction of a single age. How many games have you played where they included the enormous economic and social improvements that happened during the middle ages, instead of just showing it as a dark age where people where stupid and thought the earth was flat (They actually knew that the earth was round before Columbus set out, or the nobles did at least).

 

[zup]

The problem is, compressing thousands of years of human history into a playable package. You cannot go into enough detail. If you used 10 times the turns of marathon, that'd still be too fast, yet who would ever finish it? Even assuming their hardware could handle it.

 

[Brugarin]

Yeah, and then you get games like Medieval Total War or such, that are extremely BORING and TEDIOUS. I ahte it when people seek more 'REALISM' in games. Games are GAMES and should be fun and entertainig. And civ is a pretty damn entertaining game.

And for a one-historic-period experience go for the mods or scenarios. Nothing complicated, just look at the mods that come with BTS: Charlemagne and Crossroads of the World, for example.

I sometimes wish I could remain in the renaissance era or in the industrial era, but I guess that's mainly because the game is so dynamic.

 

[Hawkwood]

The problem is, compressing thousands of years of human history into a playable package. You cannot go into enough detail. If you used 10 times the turns of marathon, that'd still be too fast, yet who would ever finish it? Even assuming their hardware could handle it.

I know that, but it doesn't stop it from annoying me. That is also why I usually limit what ages the game goes through (I really liked how you select both start and end age in Rise of Nations).

Also it's not like I think it make them worse games, it just annoys me.

On topic: It would be too large a change in gameplay and shift in genre to occur so late in the process.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

Yeah, and then you get games like Medieval Total War or such, that are extremely BORING and TEDIOUS. I ahte it when people seek more 'REALISM' in games. Games are GAMES and should be fun and entertainig. And civ is a pretty damn entertaining game.

I do not see why realism, fun and entertaintment can not go together?
The main reason realism is so often, ehm, hurt, is that it is too complicated, most of the times.

Besides, complaining has to do with games trying to pass their "inaccuracies" as a historical fact. IMO, when the game designers decide to, e.g., Put horned helms on vickings, should state somewhere that this is done for fun and it is not a historical fact.

 

[pappyball]

On topic: It would be too large a change in gameplay and shift in genre to occur so late in the process.

ok, fair enough... but i guess i just always end up wishing there was another phase of the game. in vanilla this was especially the case, as after 1,000 turns everyone basically has modern armor and it takes a huge amount of tediousness to try and kill them off. with FFH2, the thing i love is that i'm still finding shipwrecks and ruins when i'm 1,000 turns into the game. but then after a certain point, i go around with my level 20 hero of strength 13 and it just feels like a next phase would extend the game so nicely. and maybe it wouldn't be where you have a shift at a certain point in the game, but perhaps someone could morph the 2 game styles together??? damn it i would KILL for that!!!

 

[Ribusprissin]

Did you try the Endwar mod in BtS? You can play a game of Civ with additional techs and units at the end. Play Gandhi building mechs and cyborgs!

 

[FireBlaze]

I believe that there is a mod that extends FFH into industrial, and adds a steampunk civ, but you would have to search in the modmod section to find it.

 

[WarKirby]

Yeah, and then you get games like Medieval Total War or such, that are extremely BORING and TEDIOUS.

Where did you get this notion from?

I find MTW extremely entertaining. There's nothing tedious about firing a cannon into an infantry formation, and watching them all fly. Or setting up nice tactics and crushing the enemy. I loved that game.

 

[Iceciro]

Empire: Total War is pretty fun too.
In any case, I think the same level of love/effort would have to be put into a mod like this to not make it seem tacked-on... and Fall is still being modded in all sorts of ways, so there's hope. Just unlikely hope.

 

[Deon]

The main reason it won't be done: the FFH2 and vanilla are totally different games.

1) Gameplay. FFH has no espionage, has mana, spells, gods and is centered around magic, mosters and religion.
2) Lore. FFH was created in a specific way and all the nations cannot simply "evolve in realtime nations", one of the main factors is alignment, there's no evil/good civ. in the real world.
3) The pace of the game. As it was mentioned, the FFH offers you a very detailed interpretation of fantasy middle-ages. If you manage to include this in the "vanilla", then you should make other eras of the same detail level to compete with the game speed/feel. So you'll end up with an endless game which cannot be normally "played through" (4gb ram won't be enough, and think about time).
4) No point. Yeah, there's no real point in doing so. FFH is unique and looks like it happens on another planet in another dimension. I don't see why should we mix it with "earth matters" and the like.
5) No modder to do it. It will need a helload of time to merge 2 different dlls, setup functions properly etc. It will take even more to make it "balanced" so you will be ok taking different tech paths (remember, vanilla has quite simple techtree in comparison to FFH). Noone will spend such a helload of time, it's easier to make 2 mods for vanilla especially.
6) It won't work. Yeah, if you merge FFH2 and vanilla and make everything right it won't be FFH2+vanilla anymore, because the "vanilla" part should go raped, torn and remade to fit the game pace/theme/everything written above. So it's just easier to "expand FFH2 in future" which I am sure can be quite possibly done in future as a modmod.

 

[pappyball]

The main reason it won't be done: the FFH2 and vanilla are totally different games.

1) Gameplay. FFH has no espionage, has mana, spells, gods and is centered around magic, mosters and religion.
2) Lore. FFH was created in a specific way and all the nations cannot simply "evolve in realtime nations", one of the main factors is alignment, there's no evil/good civ. in the real world.
3) The pace of the game. As it was mentioned, the FFH offers you a very detailed interpretation of fantasy middle-ages. If you manage to include this in the "vanilla", then you should make other eras of the same detail level to compete with the game speed/feel. So you'll end up with an endless game which cannot be normally "played through" (4gb ram won't be enough, and think about time).
4) No point. Yeah, there's no real point in doing so. FFH is unique and looks like it happens on another planet in another dimension. I don't see why should we mix it with "earth matters" and the like.
5) No modder to do it. It will need a helload of time to merge 2 different dlls, setup functions properly etc. It will take even more to make it "balanced" so you will be ok taking different tech paths (remember, vanilla has quite simple techtree in comparison to FFH). Noone will spend such a helload of time, it's easier to make 2 mods for vanilla especially.
6) It won't work. Yeah, if you merge FFH2 and vanilla and make everything right it won't be FFH2+vanilla anymore, because the "vanilla" part should go raped, torn and remade to fit the game pace/theme/everything written above. So it's just easier to "expand FFH2 in future" which I am sure can be quite possibly done in future as a modmod.

ok you make a few excellent points, a few not so excellent... but how about just adding in the units from vanilla?

 

[Deon]

Under which techs? Again, which units? There're already warriors and archers and catapults and more from vanilla. Please be more specific .

 

[pappyball]

Under which techs? Again, which units? There're already warriors and archers and catapults and more from vanilla. Please be more specific .

you mentioned 3 units from vanilla. i was hoping to see something more like 25 later game units.
the main problem is that when i'm playing FFH2 and get into the ~1000 turn late game, i find myself having the option to create 1 of 4 units, all of which i was able to build since turn 500. there isn't a real progression in the same way of vanilla.. and believe me, this is one of the ONLY times where i think vanilla is better.

 

[Jabie]

Orbis mod includes a Steampunk Civ, the Mechanos. You might want to give that one a try.

 

[pappyball]

Orbis mod includes a Steampunk Civ, the Mechanos. You might want to give that one a try.

ok cool, thanks for all the input guys.. just wanted to see how much interest there was in adding some later-game units to FFH2

 

[Brugarin]

Where did you get this notion from?

I find MTW extremely entertaining. There's nothing tedious about firing a cannon into an infantry formation, and watching them all fly. Or setting up nice tactics and crushing the enemy. I loved that game.

Maybe you're right... Perhaps I feel this way 'cause I suck at it.

 

[Emptiness]

If you've researched all the techs by turn 500 of a Marathon game then maybe it's time to think about playing at a higher difficulty level.