Ffhotm

[Vulcans]

i think a game of FFHOTM would be really interesting!

I’ve played a couple of games of civ4 GOTM, they were a lot of fun, as the maps were really well made requiring significant strategic decisions (thanks ainwood), often making the game more interesting then some randomly generated maps. And it is also a lot of fun of discussing it all with other people in the forums.

FFH leads itself much more to fantasy scenario creation, and with so many different ways to specialize it’d be perfect for a FFHOTM. There could be interesting heros quests, or unique barbarian units added in to add some extra spice. Then you could compare the results of different people, utilizing different religions/civics differently, choosing which magic spheres to specialize in, or perusing arcane/disciple/horseback/metalworking technology specialization etc. Some might play a good game while others turn evil. There are so many different ways to play each race that it’d be very interesting to compare and read everyone’s different experiences.

Each game could be with a different race, requiring a totally different style of game play. Players would have to adapt to different playing styles of different races.

I think that would add something to the FFH community, increasing ffh popularity, and would be a lot of fun.

Is there anyone in the FFH community that would be interested in setting up an FFHOTM? Or maybe every couple of months? There seems to be several map makers posting maps, it’d also require some configuration setting up the submission system, but then most of the work for that is already done as you could probably duplicate the civ4 GOTM submission system.

 

[seZereth]

I think i cant take part, but I hope to see this idea taking off, as I always love to read about ffh games

 

[Pandemonis]

Silly question, but ... what si an FFHOTM ?

Id love it if people would explain abbreviatiosn before using them, it would make reading so fluid and everything.

 

[Vulcans]

FFH=fall from heaven
GOTM=Game of the month.

Therefore
FFHOTM=Fall From Heaven Of The Month

GOTM is very popular in Civ 4
http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=165

One of the staff (often Ainwood) custom makes an interesting map, with specific civilizations, situations latent within the map.

Then everyone downloads an identical map (you can't use WB, or re-load to cheat) so the game is a mystery to everyone. then everyone discovers the map, and confronts the AI in the game, and discuss about it in the forums.

Everyone discusses the same game in the forums. and everyone discusses how they dealt with the same problem (**** Monty again).

There is normally a pre-game discussion, with a picture of the opening screen shot, people can discuss their plans of where to settle, initial tec plans etc.

Then a first spoiler (after a certain date). you can't look at it till you've reached that date (the game is more fun if you are honest and don't cheat, you're only spoiling your own surprise). this is a good point to compare games in the middle of the game, normally by this point you've discovered your starting continent so there are no secrets divulged in the thread. you can't discuss locations of future events eg where future resources are located etc.

Then a final spoiler at the end of the game when it is all completed you can't look at the final spoiler till you've completed the game (honesty). then everyone can talk openly about the entire game, show screen shots, get an idea of how others went etc.

Then the game is tallied, and results are provided with medals for the best victory of each victory condition.

There are also different difficulties, e.g. newer players can play a easier game on the same map by starting with a extra unit/tec.

Civ games are very map dependant, so it's normally hard to compare your games with other peoples games, by everyone having the same starting map, it's possible to compare the effect of different strategies on the same map/game conditions.

 

[Vulcans]

also having multiple players playing and reporting on a game on the same map would provide great testing tool, helping the feedback enabling the developers to test and balance the game better. we can better evaluate the balance between different units, different playing styles, different races etc.

maybe doing this with smarter orcs as standard could also be an idea, fixing some of the AI bugs, and the mass testing would bring out the true AI behaviour in different situations

 

[Pandemonis]

That sounds like great fun indeed !

How about first discussing the kins of features we'd like to see in the game ? (ie. Which speed, which civ., what type of map - flat/globe etc.) Or should it be kept secret and we just take what the designer offers us ?

Also, are there any events (Im especially thinking of creation of Barbarian heroes) who are quite random. Obviously playing with the Elves with Acheron spawning next to you isnt quite the same as if its spawn in a very different place...

How about balancing difficulty, too ? I personnaly play at Monarch/Emperor but I wouldnt like to see a game that is too easy or way too hard for me to handle.

Edit: Also, I suppose we dont wait for the Shadow version, do we ?

 

[Rex rgis of Ter]

Sounds fun! I wouldn't be able to play cause I suck at civ. I like the idea of new barbarian heroes.

 

[The Tyrant]

Count me in! I'm still new to FfH and am playing a different race each game to learn the details/strategies of each. Five more to go. I would welcome a chance to compare games and strategies in a FFHOTM format. So, Vulcan, are you volunteering to create the maps?

 

[Vulcans]

That sounds like great fun indeed !

How about first discussing the kins of features we'd like to see in the game ? (ie. Which speed, which civ., what type of map - flat/globe etc.) Or should it be kept secret and we just take what the designer offers us ?


How about balancing difficulty, too ? I personally play at Monarch/Emperor but I wouldn’t like to see a game that is too easy or way too hard for me to handle.

Edit: Also, I suppose we dont wait for the Shadow version, do we ?

I am thinking of it being similar to civ4 GOTM, so that each game will be with different settings. That way people get to play a variety of games. Games would be at different difficulties, so some months it might be harder then others, so different players at different skill levels can each get a good experience. Actually my civ4 play improved drastically through GOTM, especially when challenged by a GOTM that was at a much higher difficulty then I was used to. In some games I was just pleased to live through the game when playing at much harder difficulty.

I know ffh is currently much easier then civ4, (due to shortcomings in AI) meaning that the game can be played on a couple of levels difficulty then the standard civ4. I’m also thinking that a lot of people have busy lifestyles, so smaller maps would make for quicker games, at least I know personally with civ4 GOTM I never played maps larger then standard as I knew I wouldn’t have time to complete them in a month with my work commitments.

Yes, the spawning place of barbarians (Acheron, Orthus etc) has significant impact on the game, naturally there would be some randomness between the different games, but the randomness by Acheron spawning place etc would have significant affect on the game, so it’d be good to somehow script it to always spawn at a certain spot for all players of that game, that could be challenging to script, what about if someone builds a city there first etc? Maybe this could be solved by adding in Acheron and orthus into the saved game before start of play (and disable their spawning) so that they will be in the same location for all players.

The game can only really be even if we all play with the same mods. I know with civ4 GOTM they check submissions to see which mods it was played under, and submissions are only accepted when played with those pre-specified mods. They also check to see if the xml files have been tampered with.

It is important that we all play with the same version. I’m thinking of ffh 0.23. Do we want to play with smarter orcs mod? Are there any other mods we should have? We need a stable platform that everyone would agree to use.

Sounds fun! I wouldn't be able to play cause I suck at civ. I like the idea of new barbarian heroes.

It doesn’t matter what level people are at, as the idea is to have games at different difficulties, and also to learn from the forum discussions on the game, so you learn what works and what doesn’t, hence improving your game play.

Count me in! I'm still new to FfH and am playing a different race each game to learn the details/strategies of each. Five more to go. I would welcome a chance to compare games and strategies in a FFHOTM format. So, Vulcan, are you volunteering to create the maps?

I think that’s one of the best things about ffh, that each game is different with different races. I’d also like to test out some of the less known races. Each race has a different uniqueness, and we could make the maps in such a way that we have to utilize the uniqueness of the race to take full advantage of the map.

Ideally it’d be good if civ fanatics forums would take this idea, and setup the framework. They have ways of checking that the game hasn’t been re-loaded, or WB used etc, hence disqualifying cheaters. And they have a proper submission process.

That could take some time for it to be officially setup, but that doesn’t stop us from doing it unofficially in the forums, relying on peoples honesty not to re-load or open world builder. Then all we really need to do is open a couple of threads, and someone makes a novel map, uploads the save, we pay the game, post the spoilers, and then we could “submit” our games by posting the results/save. Or emailing it to someone.

The map makes a big difference to the game, If there is an experienced map maker then it’d make a more interesting game with more interesting scenarios. Maybe someone good at modifying the scripts to add in extra interesting little events in the game. This has to be a totally new map (not one of the already available ones) as it has to be new to everyone to keep the mystery.
Yes I would be happy to make a map if there aren’t any more experienced map makers wanting to create the scenario

 

[brainpan]

I wanna' play. Be home next Monday (finally).

 

[Vulcans]

how many people play with smarter orcs? Do we want to use smarter orcs for FFHGOTM?
everyone needs to have exactly the same mods for this to work. i know smarter orcs improves the AI gameplay, making a more interesting game, but then everyone would need to download and use the mod to be able to participate. we don't want to exclude people not using smarter orcs from participating in this.

 

[seZereth]

I suggest using Smarter Orcs, as Fire is not developed anymore from our site, Smarter Orcs is one of the most "recent" versions if you want to say it like this. And improved AI and better display of combat odds, make for a more interesting FFHotM game. The mod is small and easy to install.
I suggest using it

 

[Stephenc369]

I would very much like to join in.

The only concern I have about using Smarter Orcs (and why I haven't downloaded it) is that it reportedly slows down the game. I already don't really like playing FFH on maps bigger than standard because the speed is too slow: I don't want to slow down the game even further. However, I think xanaqui was working on speed issues, so if it's getting faster, it would be OK to use it.

 

[Vulcans]

I asked Kael about setting up some official FFHGOTM.
He seemed interested in having this set up officially after FFH2 is released.

At the moment the game is changing so much with each mod, making saves from one release useless in the next release, making such a system of keeping/evaluating FFHGOTM saves across all the development versions almost impossible.
I’d like to get FFHGOTM started before the official FFH2 release. So it looks like this will have to be done unofficially in the forums. That means that there will be no prizes besides your own satisfaction, and there will be no way of checking if someone has cheated by reloading or opening WB. So this will rely on each individuals honesty. And the only person you’re really cheating is yourself.


Rules as in civ4 GOTM: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=134980
Except what we are playing for fun and the enjoyment of the discussions, and so no prizes, and also relying on honesty to stop people from creating.

We could operate FFHOTM in the forums on a similar schedule as civ4 GOTM.
E.g.

A thread started around the 28th of the previous month titled pre-game discussion, posting the settings, and a screen shot of the coming map

A thread started around the 1st of the month titled “saves available” will provide the game saves. Once downloading the save you shouldn’t write in the pre-game discussion

A thread started around the 5th of each month titled first spoiler. You can only write in this thread once reaching the year 200. And only write about/ post screen shots for events happening before this date and on your home continent. No discussion about future resource locations (Mithril etc)

A thread started around the 20th of each month titled “final spoiler” will provide an opportunity to tell about your final game results.

A thread started titles “submissions” where you
-post the link to your save,
-the date of completion,
-victory condition and
-Score.
The first post of this thread will be edited after the 30th to provide a summary of all the results that were submitted before the 30th.



I wonder if we should ask civ fanatics to start a sub-forum for FFHGOTM, like civ4 GOTM sub-forum, that way we wouldn’t overload the main FFH forum with GOTM discussions.

Are there any other people who want to help in setting up this process?

 

[Nikis-Knight]

I would be happy to set up a map once in awhile. In fact, if you like, I could have one availible for this weekend. version 23, latest patch, standard size and speed, I think, unless there is desire for other settings.

Is the interest primarily in playing the same map and swaping stories, or in making it into a contest? I think it would be the former, and submissions wouldn't really be necessary.

 

[giddion]

I like the sound of the idea but would struggle with a map any larger then standard, especially with Smarter Orcs installed as it is quite slow.

Very large maps kill me as the game drags quite a lot, I like small-standard maps on Prince or Monarch with Epic turns.

 

[Vulcans]

yes, smarter orcs does slow it down. so that means playing on smaller maps, both for smarter orcs, and as the end game tends to drag on a bit at the end with larger maps.

so the games generally will be on smaller maps with FFH0.23c + smarter orcs 0.14

I have a map ready for september and will be posting the save on the 1st september.

 

[Grunthex]

Double-post. Sigh.

 

[Grunthex]

I really hope you meant 0.23c Looking forward to it -- it hurts to go back and play Vanilla, after all the WL/BTS improvements, but I'll do it for a FFHOTM.

In GOTM tradition, you should post a screenshot of the starting position so we can all deliberate endlessly about the starting strat.

 

[Vulcans]

I really hope you meant 0.23c Looking forward to it -- it hurts to go back and play Vanilla, after all the WL/BTS improvements, but I'll do it for a FFHOTM.

In GOTM tradition, you should post a screenshot of the starting position so we can all deliberate endlessly about the starting strat.

LOL, yes, i meant 0.23. I edited the post to correct it.

yes I’ll post a screenshot shortly, so you get a couple of days to think about the starting moves. the new month is coming soon, in the future i guess it'd be best to have a few more days to ponder over initial moves.

The new settler visibility range means that the starting screen shot says a lot more then civ4 GOTM.

one of the things i liked most about the pre-game discussion in civ4 GOTM was trying to peek under the corners of the tiles and make guesses about what resources you could discover by moving the initial scout one way or the other way.