FFH2- suggestion thread.

[driekan]

I believe programming so that the armageddon clock automatically adjusts itself to your game based on:

Map size
Time type (Quick, normal, marathon, etc.)
Number of civs in map
Barbarian presence (Raging, normal, none)

Is too much work for a single feature. Personally, I think it is not worth it. Of course, it is still a problem that needs fixing, so the solution I propose is to have the armageddon clock be something that can be chosen while creating the game - just like you choose the map size, the starting age, etc.

So you could have the armageddon clock set to Very Fast, Fast, Normal, Slow, Very Slow. People could set them to fit the way they want to play. If you want to play a desperate (Losing?) battle against evil, you could play a good civ and set the clock to Very Fast no matter what the size, time, etc. is. You want to calmly build up your empire, set it to Very Slow, etc.

I believe this adds less complexity programming-wise and creates new possibilities for diversity and for creating specific scenarios. And from what I have been playing, the biggest fun in FFH is really the huge amount of difference there can be between any two times you play it.

Just my (Not-so) humble oppinion, though

 

[Kael]

I believe programming so that the armageddon clock automatically adjusts itself to your game based on:

Map size
Time type (Quick, normal, marathon, etc.)
Number of civs in map
Barbarian presence (Raging, normal, none)

Is too much work for a single feature. Personally, I think it is not worth it. Of course, it is still a problem that needs fixing, so the solution I propose is to have the armageddon clock be something that can be chosen while creating the game - just like you choose the map size, the starting age, etc.

So you could have the armageddon clock set to Very Fast, Fast, Normal, Slow, Very Slow. People could set them to fit the way they want to play. If you want to play a desperate (Losing?) battle against evil, you could play a good civ and set the clock to Very Fast no matter what the size, time, etc. is. You want to calmly build up your empire, set it to Very Slow, etc.

I believe this adds less complexity programming-wise and creates new possibilities for diversity and for creating specific scenarios. And from what I have been playing, the biggest fun in FFH is really the huge amount of difference there can be between any two times you play it.

Just my (Not-so) humble oppinion, though

I think thats a really good idea. Unfortunatly I have no idea how to do it. That menu where you select your game options isn't really moddable. Hmm..

 

[driekan]

Now, for actual suggestions.
1-Maybe religions could have another building (Other than the temple) which grants special abilities to units built in the city. For example an Octopus Overlords monastery grants an ability to every unit where they gain combat bonuses for one turn, but are dead the next one. These buildings could also have secondary effects for the city too (More gold from Kilmorph, etc.). That would give the religions even more flavor and create more choices for the players.

2- Add more text explaining what each civ is about in the civ selection screen. The first time I played in Light I was totally lost and just chose a civilization based on the leader's traits (Which dont always give you a good vision of how it will be like to play him)

3- Create Dungeons which work similar to Barrows (Creates barbs) but are also always guarded by moderately powerful barbs. Destroying these give you special benefits (Extra experience for the unit who does it, gold)

4- Crazy idea I had just the other day. Have a religion which is always founded by barbarians, in a barbarian city. Not one which is bad to your civ (Like the Cult of the Dragon), but just a simple religion with no special traits (primitive Nature Cults or something). Since this religion will be founded early, it will be preety widespread by the middle-game, and then that barbarian city becomes a real prize in everyone's eye. Race to take it and build the Holy City for lots of gold per turn! (Or maybe even some unusual bonuses granted by this special city) Of course, it should be speciallly well-defended for a Barbarian City.

5- Flying units which can move in any tile (Even over peaks, over water, etc.) but with a working more similar to helicopters in Vanilla Civ. Some civs could get them as early-game scouts/harassers.

6- Growing dragons. Hero dragon units which start out young but grow in power over time. This could have mechanics like... You have a Wyrmling dragon. For it to grow further it needs a lair, so you need to build this national wonder (Dragon Lair) in some city. This national wonder COSTS gold per turn. Once in a city with a Dragon Lair your Wyrmling can be upgraded to a more mature form. Maybe your now Young dragon needs to be level 6 before he can mature further, so you train him on barbs or enemy civs. Once he is, you take him back to the lair, he matures further into an Adult dragon. Now it needs lvl 10 and maybe a larger lair (Which drains more gold?) to become fully grown, etc. Maybe this could be even applied to the dragon heroes already available in the game (Eurabatres, for example?) and make them available earlier on technology-wise. Having the larger lair types be available only with more tech is a good mechanic for limiting how powerful the dragon can become at any one time (So it wont be easily exploitable)

That's it for now, I think

 

[Mesix]

i think the hippus should have roaming cities...they'd act like cities, but would be able to move like ordinary units.

That sounds like a great idea. I second the motion.

 

[cbdude]

6- Growing dragons. Hero dragon units which start out young but grow in power over time. This could have mechanics like... You have a Wyrmling dragon. For it to grow further it needs a lair, so you need to build this national wonder (Dragon Lair) in some city. This national wonder COSTS gold per turn. Once in a city with a Dragon Lair your Wyrmling can be upgraded to a more mature form. Maybe your now Young dragon needs to be level 6 before he can mature further, so you train him on barbs or enemy civs. Once he is, you take him back to the lair, he matures further into an Adult dragon. Now it needs lvl 10 and maybe a larger lair (Which drains more gold?) to become fully grown, etc. Maybe this could be even applied to the dragon heroes already available in the game (Eurabatres, for example?) and make them available earlier on technology-wise. Having the larger lair types be available only with more tech is a good mechanic for limiting how powerful the dragon can become at any one time (So it wont be easily exploitable)


i think that's an awesome idea! would love to see that one get in!

 

[Brisingamen]

shouldn't the armageddon counter increase slowly over time - like 1 per 10 turns - just because of the increasing inherent corruptness of the world as time goes on?

 

[sixs_monkey]

That presupposes that the unremovable taint is growing. I didn't see that in the backstory, but I'm fresh to this and may have missed it. Or did you mean that there's a net vileness to the sum of mortal actions? If so, ~that~ is not a certain thing.

 

[Silverkiss]

I don't think it is needed. No flavour that requires it, and the counter alredy skyrocket in some conditions, so no need to actually make it faster.

 

[thomas.berubeg]

Reading the armegedon counter's popup at forty, i was reminded of some thing i'd read on the plagues in the middle ages: "the living would come to envy the dead." that got me thinking... (for once) At Armegeddon count 30, that popup would appear, and in a random city on the map, a plague would start. it would slowly decrease population of the city, until either complete distruction of the city, or some other random event... this plague would spread to other cities connected to the first by trade routes, and, of course there would be way to counter the...

if this is ever implemented, why not have typhiod mary spawn as a barbarian unit that would spread the plaguel a bi like Loki saps culture.

sincerely
thomas

 

[Samuelson]

The Hyborem should have some way of crossing the ocean when they first enter the game and do not have a settlement yet. Right now if they come in and are on a continent which has no free land they are forced to declare war. Maybe they should have some kind of hellish war barge that they start out with.

Another idea of mine is having a naval hero. It would be great if their was a hero who was a captain with a very powerful fleet. He would be able to give other ships on the same tile as him a movement bonus. He could be a Lanun hero or maybe just a hero that anyone gets by researching sailing or astronomy. I definitely think a ship hero would be a nice addition to the ocean side of Fall From Heaven.

 

[Sarisin]

Has anyone been able to win the game or at least make it to yr 1000 under the following conditions:

Huge map, Marathon, Raging Barbs/Aggressive AI.

I won't add the difficulty, but I tried at Emperor, Monarch and Prince and got killed in each.

As mentioned, in Marathon games, especially with raging barbs, expansion is slow as you are in defend mode. Techs, buildings, wonders, etc. all take a longer time.

It seems to me as if Fire was developed for the player who plays a Normal time game with no raging barbs.

For example, I started 6 games with the specs listed above.

Two were over quickly. The first I had two Skeletons show up in yr 18 and only one Warrior defender. Game Over.

I won the second as the barbs wiped out everyone but me - no civs with the BAR trait.

In the other four, I just gave up as the counter hit 60 before yr. 750 in each. I had Tier 2 defenders - archers, axemen, hunters. In one game I had the Three Stooges, but they were no match for the Horsemen. I had units with 300+ XP gained in fighting the raging barbs mowed down by the first two Horsemen.

In one game, I had a good defense set up of my 3 cities, but had not yet got an adept with Courage, so the Second Horseman could not even be fought with FEAR.

Any other ways to fight him without Courage?

My point is that the game was over with more than 1,000 turns left.

My 7th game I played without raging barbs, but still Marathon on the huge map. The counter did not hit 60 until nearly 1,000. It is still too early IMO, with 800 turns left, but at least I have Rangers, a few heroes and the great equalizer, Werewolves.

So, please, if you can, please have some sort of modifying that can slow the Counter down if you are playing Marathon and maybe even Epic. Also, it would be great if at least you could modify the counter to at least not increment it when you take out barb cities - that would help greatly in raging barb games as one of the best strategies there is to take out barb cities that get settled close to your border. With the barb cities re-spawning like weeds that counter can move towards 60 damn fast.

Thank you.

 

[Mesix]

Has anyone been able to win the game or at least make it to yr 1000 under the following conditions:

Huge map, Marathon, Raging Barbs/Aggressive AI.

I will give it a try and let you know how it turns out.

 

[Brisingamen]

That presupposes that the unremovable taint is growing. I didn't see that in the backstory, but I'm fresh to this and may have missed it. Or did you mean that there's a net vileness to the sum of mortal actions? If so, ~that~ is not a certain thing.

As population grows, so does the amount of "evil" people...and probably the relative percentage of "evil" people as well...isn't humanity evil by nature (according to zoroaster)

 

[sixs_monkey]

More than one philosophy speaks of all mortals as inherently "corrupted", "flawed" or "fallen" beings, but not all. Masses plainly are less clever and more instinctual than individuals, and this will often lead to them choosing the obvious easy and unwise course, but more people also means more individuals who might choose wisely enough to make up for, or even out-do the mob. THe Jury is still out, is what I'm saying.
Perhaps you can see now that I'm not a Hyborem player.

 

[aku]

Few ideas about the armageddon counter.

I believe programming so that the armageddon clock automatically adjusts itself to your game based on:

Map size
Time type (Quick, normal, marathon, etc.)
Number of civs in map
Barbarian presence (Raging, normal, none)

I think it could be done by simply applying the apropriate multiplier to each increase of the counter based on above settings (or maybe some other too). Then applying floor function or something like that so it shows ony full numbers and here you go. For example normal should be 1, marathon 0.7, epic 0.4, quick 1.3 etc. As for other settings maybe add/subtract from the multiplayer, like -0.2 for raging barbs, +0.2 for none etc. These numbers are just examples. The exact numbers should be of course discussed and playtested to get the most balanced gameplay. That way it could be done without modding game options.

As for the other idea, how about to give a mouseover tip when hovering over the counter, telling the player when the next "armageddon event" will happen and what it would be. Or maybe even make it clickable, which would then display a popup window listing all armageddon events and their numbers.
Or better, make both tip and clickable popup

 

[marioflag]

I'm really enjoying the feature of OO and slavery civic to enslave enemy units so an idea stroke my mind about the use of slaves.
What about an improvement or a "national wonder" which is available only to OO civs which adopted slavery civic?
This improvement would be called "Forced Labour Camps" and it gives 1% bonus to production in the city it is built for every slave captured and used in the improvement.The improvement can have a max of 100 slaves for a total bonus of 100% to city production.
The National Wonder has also a side effect because for every slave captured there is a chance of 0,01% or 0,02% per turn(it depends what is more balanced) that the slaves revolts and form "Slave Legions" or "Barbarian Legions", so if you have 100 slaves there is a 2% per turn that you see Barbarian legions in a tile adjacent to your city.
Number of Slaves Legions would be total number of slaves in Forced Labour Camps :5 so 100:5=20 legions.The total number of legions could be also modified based on how much garrisons are in the city so if you have 7 units and 100 slaves it would be 100:5=20 -7=13 Slaves Legions.
If your city is very well garrisoned clearly a Save revolt would be a lot weakened.
Type of units which are available to slaves would be random, among warriors,axemen,archer, longbowman.If in the city there is also an asylum Lunatic could be also available to "Slave Legions".
Slaves Legions would act as Barbarian so they will try to take one of your cities destroying all the improvements inside and bringing population to just 1, or simply raze cities.Considering that these slaves want freedom as soon as this event is triggered a popup with 2 choices apeears......"crush them" or bribe them "guarantee them freedom and pay them 5000 money" so they will disappear.


Edit: To make it more balanced perhaps the money to bribe them could be X number of Slaves legions x 250 gold.After a revolt also your forced labour camp (if your city is not captured) could have a number of slaves which is previous number - number of slave legions x5.So if you had 100 slaves and 12 Slaves legions appear and you crush them after the revolt you have 100 slaves-12x5 slaves= 100-60=40 slaves after revolt

 

[TreeCounter]

I find the Lanun fun to play with - the black wind is cool, and the way boarding parites work is fun. Maybe Guybrush Threepwood could be made into more of a pirate. Perhaps give him an advantage when attacking from a ship, and a defense penalty on land?

Also, when a boarding party captures a city with ships in the harbor, maybe there should be a chance that some of them are captured.

 

[Mesix]

Has anyone been able to win the game or at least make it to yr 1000 under the following conditions:

Huge map, Marathon, Raging Barbs/Aggressive AI.

Okay...I played for a LONG time last night.

I am playing the elves and I am doing very well so far. The difficulty level is only set for Prince. It was very difficult from about turn 100 until about turn 400 as I had to defend from hundreds of barbarian units who were attacking my lands. The onslaut helped me to have several of my warriors (later upgraded to archers and swordsmen) to level up quite a bit. My military is the strongest military in the game now by far.

It is about turn 650 now and the counter just passed 40. I hate the Blight that happens at turn 40. I got off to a fast start from a lot of goodie huts and founding (and spreading) the Fellowship of the Leaves.

I am allied with the Bannor and the two of us are neck and neck for the lead in score. We have kept the Armegeddon Counter low by beating up on the evil civs.

I don't think it will be too dificult to reach turn 1,000. I can see how the counter could go up very fast though if the barbarians were more successful at razing cities or if there had been a few more wars early on. If the four horesemen were to appear, all I have is macemen to defend my lands with.

Overall, I think that the slower paced game is boring. I prefer the standard speed. When the game is set to marathon, a few powerful units early on can really unbalance the game. I haven't gotten the Baron yet, but when I do, the other civs won't stand a chance.

 

[driekan]

Idea came up on another thread, but it probably belongs here (Or at least deserves a mention)

Faithlessness should also have a power of it's own. Cassiel has great powers that make up for his lack of a State religion (Adventurers? Need anything else? Heh) but nothing that actually makes it feel like he activelly opposes religion, which he seems to from his dialogue and the like.

Maybe there should be some options for antitheists - people who refuse religions through choice. If you can crusade for The Order, why not for a humanity free of outsider influence, or something of the like? Sounds like the ultimate Neutral cause to me.

So, enough babbling. I think there should be some abilities/units/buildings/etc. for civs that dont take any state religion by choice (That means, one which has no state religion even in the mid-late game). Probably some of these abilities should not be accessible by the Grigori (They already have great stuff to make up for the lack of religion, so they probably should only get the mainly flavor stuff) but still, having No State Religion could be made into a choice, rather than a temporary state until you set up a religion.

And yes, I am selling this idea to you guys because I dig playing atheists in games (All hail the Athar!)

 

[marioflag]

Has anyone been able to win the game or at least make it to yr 1000 under the following conditions:

Huge map, Marathon, Raging Barbs/Aggressive AI.

I won't add the difficulty, but I tried at Emperor, Monarch and Prince and got killed in each.

As mentioned, in Marathon games, especially with raging barbs, expansion is slow as you are in defend mode. Techs, buildings, wonders, etc. all take a longer time.

It seems to me as if Fire was developed for the player who plays a Normal time game with no raging barbs.

For example, I started 6 games with the specs listed above.

Two were over quickly. The first I had two Skeletons show up in yr 18 and only one Warrior defender. Game Over.

I won the second as the barbs wiped out everyone but me - no civs with the BAR trait.

In the other four, I just gave up as the counter hit 60 before yr. 750 in each. I had Tier 2 defenders - archers, axemen, hunters. In one game I had the Three Stooges, but they were no match for the Horsemen. I had units with 300+ XP gained in fighting the raging barbs mowed down by the first two Horsemen.

In one game, I had a good defense set up of my 3 cities, but had not yet got an adept with Courage, so the Second Horseman could not even be fought with FEAR.

Any other ways to fight him without Courage?

My point is that the game was over with more than 1,000 turns left.

My 7th game I played without raging barbs, but still Marathon on the huge map. The counter did not hit 60 until nearly 1,000. It is still too early IMO, with 800 turns left, but at least I have Rangers, a few heroes and the great equalizer, Werewolves.

So, please, if you can, please have some sort of modifying that can slow the Counter down if you are playing Marathon and maybe even Epic. Also, it would be great if at least you could modify the counter to at least not increment it when you take out barb cities - that would help greatly in raging barb games as one of the best strategies there is to take out barb cities that get settled close to your border. With the barb cities re-spawning like weeds that counter can move towards 60 damn fast.

Thank you.

Sarisin i always play with your settings, in Light games were really easy on Monarch difficulty, now i'm playing on Fire and i have to say games are a bit harder due to the riders of apocalypse.Marathon at least favours a lot the player over AI because if you build one or two hero you can totally destroy the balance in your favour.Probably one of your problem is that you had too much civs in the map which easily make AC skyrocketing (like in my first Fire games i had AC going up to 60-70 on turn 500-600)
I'm now playing on Emperor, Huge, No Raging Barbs, 12 civs and No Aggressive AI and the game is a bit harder while the AC is a lot slower.
Try to play with less civs in the game, i would also advise to play without raging barbs turned on in Marathon, so some of the side effects like having superexperienced units will have less effect in your games for a better and balanced gaming experience.