FFH2 version with best MP stability and AI at the moment?

[ArkhanTheBlack]

Took a break from FFH2 for some time (Mainly playing DOTA...).
Now I'm in the mood for a more slow paced game again?

However, I don't know how the mod progressed so far.
I know that Kael is working on FFH as a stand-alone game, which is a great thing.
However, FFH2 development is mostly stopped if I heard right.
That's not really a problem since it's pretty much a finished product.

However, my last experiences with the new AI algos in patch I (if I remember right) were mixed. Better defense against rushes, but no aggression at all.

I got the best results with my MP group (cooperative against AI) with patch 'D' and later 'G'.

We also tried Fall Further, but although it had some great new features it went out of sync too often. Same with ROE.

Wildmana sounded good, but the odd interface was an immediate turn off.
Though, if it's the best in AI and stability at the moment we might give it a try.

However, I don't know the changes in the latest FFH2 patches.
Stability in vanilla FFH2 was always the best, just the latest AI changes were a bit so so.

Is FFH2 patch 'G' still the best compromise in stability and entertaining AI?!

 

[cabbagemeister]

Wildmana is tremendous fun, but it also has OOS issues (or it did before the recent 9.0 beta release).

I've played 7-10 MP games on FFH2 patch n, and OOS is minimal (maybe 2 in a 400 turn game). As for aggression, I've not had a big issue with AI passiveness in SP, but I've always felt that coop MP (i.e. playing on a team) reduces AI aggression levels because they're scared to declare against your combined power rating. In my experience, this has been pretty constant in all FFH2 versions. So, I'd recommend the latest patch for its stability.

 

[Acheron143]

First of all you need to ditch Savaltfar, and anyone else that gets hidden nationality... When they cast their world spell it goes OOS like mad. Probably due to how things stack at times with hidden nationality.

Acheron since they added sons of inferno is really oos heavy too. not sure why. really not, considering I used to love him just as a name sake.

Also if a barbarian faction is in the lead and suddenly loses barbarian allied trait things go oos at times.

Lastly the AI will always be passive if your allied with someone. Not sure why, but its how it works. My group plays FFA. then in the end game when we've researched alliances we do that when the game is almost over. I run the newest patch at all times. Just with acheron and make sure no savaltfar is ai controlled.

 

[ArkhanTheBlack]

Actually, we usually play FFA mode, but then cooperatively play against the other AI's.
We don't like the shared research that much.

We had OOS issues mostly with FFH2 submods, not with FFH2 vanilla itself.
The problem with FFH2 since patch I was that the AIs were not aggressive enough and there economic development in the later stages of the game was not as good as before.
(especially Balseraph were real badasses in patch D - G).
However, we usually play small maps with quick tech which probably isn't the intended default setting.

 

[Acheron143]

I'm usually in the Large/Marathon slot.

small and quick doesn't favour a lot of the AIs I don't think.

 

[Lorak]

The latest stable version for multiplayer with almost zero OOS is FFH Vanilla patch "d". I may be able to send you a copy of it if you want. In my opinion if you like playing multiplayer with large maps/lots of players, it's worth playing that version.

 

[Emptiness]

There are now links to all patches A-O in the first post of the FfH2 Bug Thread, so there's no need for special arrangements if you want to try out various patches to see which works best for your purposes.

 

[deanej]

Well, the current full download is for patch n (unless Kael updated it to o or reverted it back to pre-patch .41) so I don't know what happens if you try to run an older patch over a new one.

 

[Emptiness]

Applying an earlier patch over a newer one (including a patch wrapped up with the base installer, as is currently the case with Patch N) will successfully revert your install to the older version. In some cases you will end up with "extra" files (such as unit art, for example) that are from a newer patch that are still in your FfH2 folder/subfolders, but the references to those files will have been overwritten and so they will not cause any problems.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

That is generally true, but on rare occasions a newer patch might contain a file with the same name as a file which the old patch did not explicitly contain but used anyway. For example, there could be art with the same name as somehting in the .PAK file which would override the original, or Kael might have included a file that had been unmodified from vanilla civ.

Generally this won't matter, but it might still be able to cause problems in multiplayer games.