If Fall from Heaven were a standalone game ...

[DirtyFinger]

... and free from the limitations of the Civilization engine -

What would/should be made differently?

 

[cyther]

I would hope for multi-core support and to be able to handle switching between maps.

 

[Bill Bisco]

Coded so that the game distinguishes Player (which doesn't change) and Civilization (what the player is currently controlling), so that there's no more OOSes in MP for switching Civs.

 

[Mailbox]

Modular Python and Modular SDK would definitely be nice.

 

[roger_wilco]

I would like to see two different areas fixed where I imagine the civ engine to be a hindrance. First is minor annoyances in connection with magic, such as e.g. mages losing focus after moving, or having to reselect a unit that had Haste cast on it. The second area is stuff from Master of Magic I would like to see in FfH. Prime among that: the underworld where some civs would start in MoM and where there were more lucrative but also more dangerous places to explore. MoM's tactical combat would also be fun.

 

[Gooblah]

Modular Python and Modular SDK would definitely be nice.

How would modular SDK even work?

 

[Kael]

How would modular SDK even work?

Thats essentially what python is for the SDK. An attempt to make it modular by calling out to an external script to run.

Interestingly Firaxis (Jon Shafer) wanted to make python modular in BtS but I argued that modular XML would be more valuable (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=192744). ImpalerWRG figured out how to make it all work and did such an amazing job that Firaxis hired him for a while to help with Colonization.

 

[xienwolf]

You could allow Modular DLLs to work in much the way that many commercial applications support plugins. There is a folder in which you place a completely new DLL and there are protocols for how they get activated and interact with the main exe which the writers know and utilize. I've never written any, but I have shuffled DLLs around trying to get plugins set up.

 

[Grey Fox]

Which would be awesome if each player could have a different AI module running.

Btw, Python already was pretty modular. You could run several different GameEventManagers, etc. Which was useful for combining modcomps. I think someone wrote an interface to make this simpler.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

i would want spell tagets to be able to selected by the player.

 

[far_wanderer]

... to be able to handle switching between maps.

This

i would want spell tagets to be able to selected by the player.

and also this are by far the two most important things I would want.

I would also like:
- Canals between two corner-adjacent water tiles.
- Rivers that are as easy to work with as other terrain and exist in tiles rather than between them.
- The ability to make different types of city
- The ability to trade food/production/commerce between cities.
- The ability to open up a detailed information view for an individual unit.

 

[Grey Fox]

- Rivers that are as easy to work with as other terrain and exist in tiles rather than between them.

You're gonna lose so much by that. How are you going to effectively represent bridges? Combat over rivers, etc?

 

[far_wanderer]

You're gonna lose so much by that. How are you going to effectively represent bridges? Combat over rivers, etc?

Bridges: a road built in the tile.
Combat: a penalty then attacking into or out of a tile with a river.

Civ2 did it that way, it's not that hard.

 

[Grey Fox]

Yeah but I don't see why that would be better. The current system seems optimal.

 

[far_wanderer]

Yeah but I don't see why that would be better. The current system seems optimal.

I want it because you could make spells that affect rivers, make different types of river, and allow ships to travel up rivers.

 

[cephalo]

I want it because you could make spells that affect rivers, make different types of river, and allow ships to travel up rivers.

Yeah that's the big one in my mind. Using rivers as transport.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Ai which really knows how to use the gamemechanics. For instance Magic

 

[TC01]

i would want spell tagets to be able to selected by the player.

Actually, this is doable currently. It would take some work, but it would be pretty simple to do (it would be all done through python). I did it for python action buttons, so I could probably do it for FFH 2 spells.


Personally, I would want multiple maps, as someone above said.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

Actually, this is doable currently. It would take some work, but it would be pretty simple to do (it would be all done through python). I did it for python action buttons, so I could probably do it for FFH 2 spells.

then why havent you made a modmod for this yet?!?!

 

[TC01]

then why havent you made a modmod for this yet?!?!

I wasn't quite sure it was necessary, not to mention I'm pretty busy otherwise. Which spells need to be targeted? The ones like fireball (instead of summoning a fireball) or the ones like Bless (instead of touching all units on the plot)?

There's a limitation to what could be done, though. You can't target individual units, you would be picking plots. So for something like fireball, this works, although you might want to make some kind of animation representing the fireball moving towards the targeted plot. Which I lack the capability or time to try and do. (EDIT: That's the animation, not the spell). Or maybe you could make a fireball appear and then instantly move to the targeted plot.

So for a spell like Slow, let's say, you could target a plot and cast Slow on all units there. You couldn't target a specific unit. (Although you could allow a spell to only target one unit on the plot instead of all of them).