SPEED and Balance Questions

[Kaenash]

The other day I Was sitting around pining for Masters of Magic. This was perhaps one of the greatest games of all time imho, it was so visionary. It was stable and it allowed you so many ways to play.

So much of FF is clearly inspired and expounds upon MoM that it really boggles my mind why I have waited this long to get into this mod.

My apologies for the detail of this question, if its too long just pass it on by, but if a thoughtful sage of FFfH can set me in the right path, much appreciate:

First the Criteria:
I typically enjoy in more vanilla flavored Civ Mods a sweeping and epic game. However, I tend to have a tough time finding a good mod that gives you enough time to play with your knights and catapults before you roll out steam units that at the same time is balanced so that if you go in the wrong tech direction, you don't get eaten alive by your opponents.

In other words: Let's say I go down the path of religion and culture and I skip a key tech, it maybe 50 turns before I can compete militarily with a foe.

Additionally, it maybe that before 100 AD most of the continent I started on is explored and wars have been fought all with spearmen/archers and most of the continent I started on is now under my control causing me to lose interest in just playing an escalated combat game because it will be 1000 years before a practical sea invasion of another large continent is realy
viable.

So it seems like maybe the balance isnt there, as just slowing the time it takes to do everything isn't always moving at the right scale, or AI empires grow so large early on that they bankrupt.

The Question:

What speed should this mod be played on ideally to meet my criteria above?

I have tried the Normal speed as the Bannor, after I got one food gathering tech then I ran hard for bronze working which gave me mining. Then I started to crank out axemen and quickly conquered hte nearby evil empires, leaving only good empires on my continent. As I tend to be a "RPer" in how I decide to do things, I decided to leave the good empires alone.

I did what was essentially a "Ax Rush" tactic and took down some orcs and what not nearby.

I got kind of bored though because I had vanquished the evil from the nearby world, and a little overwhelmed that there was so much to build and so *MANY* units and buildings that I could build that I decided to start specializing my cities a lot more than normal. (not complaining there, thats great!!!) but it seemed like new techs were coming so quick and it was adding so much to the game, once I got "Order" .

So I decided to try "Marathon", instead of the perfect world script I decided to use the Pangea map. Usually what I do is go into world builder and then Save the game as a scenario so that I can decide later to go back and play the same scenario as a different race. Wow, I almost posted this as a map for the game, it was just that good of a map.

For some reason it put this huge inland lake in the center of the continent, kind of like a donut world but more realistic looking. Then there was a couple small islands off the coast that looked ideal for remote Magi to build their tower on. Just for fun I added a small strip of hell terrain and a fire and chaos node to that island for some one to discover.

Anyway, to make a long story short I start building my empire and now the time is going just sooo slow that the AI is I think chugging along very poorly, two AI's get wiped out really early and I had to assume this was perhaps barbarians. Warriors just don't cut it for defense against most of whats out in the world for long.

Even though I did okay on this map, I resolved to think that Marathon was not the right speed.

Epic has never worked out quite right for me in more traditioal civs, but through process of elimination I think I may have to try. Its just an investment of time to find out "Hey, the end-game is ridiculous at that this speed" I think I'd like to avoid by asking more seasoned players their thoughts first.

So what should the speed be?

ALSO: has anyone ever thought about just making a "Balanced" speed for this mod and releasing it as is?

 

[Sureshot]

the general recommendation is Normal Speed but with 2 levels higher difficulty than you would play normal civ4, and use the option AI_No_Building_Requirements near the bottom of the options. thatll help the ai do better and make for a more interesting game.

 

[Kaenash]

the general recommendation is Normal Speed but with 2 levels higher difficulty than you would play normal civ4, and use the option AI_No_Building_Requirements near the bottom of the options. thatll help the ai do better and make for a more interesting game.

Hmm, on normal speed the game seemed to speed along. I have not moved the difficulty slider from 'noble' since I Got CIV IV, that always seems like such a comfortable difficulty for me in other mods.

In higher difficulties I hate to see my maceman face a spearman and get wiped out in a fair battle and it always seems like I have to have 2:1 to win on TOP of having a better military unit, so I have always been gunshy of higher difficulties.

However, what you are saying may actually be the right challenge level. Maybe I go up one difficulty and try that on normal speed to see what happens. In all of my tests, I have not made it more than 300 years into the game before giving up. Sort of like goldilocks looking for porridge.

I LOVE the map I started on in Marathon speed, does anyone know if I can use the map but change the speed and difficulty of the game?

 

[reverend oats]

Difficulty has absolutely no effect on combat results, despite the common misconceptions.

 

[A_Hamster]

I LOVE the map I started on in Marathon speed, does anyone know if I can use the map but change the speed and difficulty of the game?

Do you still have the first turn, before any units have moved? If so, save it in worldbuilder. Return to the main menu, choose "Custom Scenario", which will now let you change the game settings.

 

[Kaenash]

Do you still have the first turn, before any units have moved? If so, save it in worldbuilder. Return to the main menu, choose "Custom Scenario", which will now let you change the game settings.

Yah, I did figure that out, thank ya!

One reason I seem to gravitate towards Pangea is that I am not sure what kind of naval endgame there really is. However, at the same time I realize big single continent worlds tend to involve a lot of early wars for domination.


As far as the difficulty not affecting combat results, I guess its just me then or maybe an earlier version of Civ, but back in the "Day" I used to play Civ I on the highest possible difficulty setting. I recall really anachronistic results like arriving in the new world on a battleship because at the lower difficulties it was possible to really crank out tech.

So when I got CIV II, I got a little humbled as I found I could not play much higher than monarch and I'd see these results. I've played every iteration of CIV short of the PS2 version that came out and it seemed later versions I just ran into this problem where 'fair fights' between my maceman and their axemen ended in a win for the axemen everytime, but turn it around and their maceman destroyed my axeman. Maybe it was an earlier version I saw this happen and I've been gunshy since.

In any case, what I decided to do was play on a three continent map with 9 civs, thats 3 per Continent. I went into world builder before playing and just moved it around so there is at least 1 evil on every continent and 1 good on every continent. That way it can build up to an epic conclusion. I am doing it on one higher difficulty from noble and so far as the Bannor the early game is very, very, very interesting.

I decided to take a little break for lunch and see what was said in regards to the most balanced speed and to kind of get a sense for if others find that hemisphere or continents is a tough conquest end-game because of the difficultyi n moving troops long distances for any kind of serious conquest.

This is such an amazing mod. I got the slightly extended version that adds on some extra civs, the Mataztl and I have to admit they seem a little more over-powered than the bannor, but all in all in this is shaping up to be a good map/game I think/hope it will be the epic sweeping encounter it should be.

I will tell you this. If I did not know that FFfH was using the Civ Engine, and some one repackaged this for 49.99 and put it on a store shelf, I'd buy it as a wholly seperate game. Thats how in awe I am at it. The custom events alone make it amazing. I had a dwarven acoylte offer to transmute my gold to copper. What a genius set of events. I think what draws me to a game like this or Europa Universalis is the events that offer some sense of story or morality choices.

Burn the witch for +1 happiness? no...promote her to general of my armies and let her burn the peasents for daring to question a Witch!! I love this kind of thing. I wish I had the programming skill to add my own events like that.

I fell in love with the game by interplay "Castles I" due to the events. I could have cared less about the cheesy battles or castle building part. What I loved was seeing what happened to my son as he went to the crusades, or that oafish noble I replaced. I have probably been playing games ever since in search of this nirvana of game flavor. I would love to create a "Castles I" mod where the player is in Jolly Old England (I think they called it Albion) and some of the units represent characters that can spawn events and do my best homage to that classic game. Tell a real story with it while you tame Albion for King and Country.



Anyway, I've rambled enough and lunch is getting cold, I'll report back if one difficulty higher than my comfort zone was the sweet spot I was looking for (starting to wonder if that is what I should have been doing instead of marathon all along in more traditional civ).

 

[A_Hamster]

Oh, one more thing. If your original save had the "End of Winter" option, it will screw up the WB save. Apparently, the world will not thaw in 10-100 turns, but will remain that way for the duration of the game.

I will tell you this. If I did not know that FFfH was using the Civ Engine, and some one repackaged this for 49.99 and put it on a store shelf, I'd buy it as a wholly seperate game. Thats how in awe I am at it. The custom events alone make it amazing. I had a dwarven acoylte offer to transmute my gold to copper. What a genius set of events. I think what draws me to a game like this or Europa Universalis is the events that offer some sense of story or morality choices.

*Nod* I agree. I was looking for some variety since standard Civ was getting repetitive, and was looking at other computer games, both fantasy and SciFi. Finally, I decided I'd get BtS since it would allow me to play FfH II, and the disk has Final Frontier for the SciFi aspect, and I'd not have to learn yet another game system and user interface. It has been a good deal thanks to the scope and depth of FfH II. Team FfH has done a professional job with what is a labor of love.

(Final Frontier is fun, if a little thin. I think it has possibilities as a 4x if the basic framework is fleshed out more, and I see some people are working on Babylon 5 and Star Wars mods for it. I'll still buy GalCiv II at some point since it has gotten good reviews.)

It's also interesting to read that you do what I like to do: get a nice balance between good, evil, and neutral civs to try to get the "epic" endgame. After all, in fantasy, you have to have the armies of the West outside the Gates of Mordor for the climatic last battle.

Occasionally, I save my first turns in WB so I can play it from the other side as well. (Since I haven't been playing FfH for long, I haven't actually gone back and done it yet with any of the saves, but the option is open.)

As for the naval aspect: the basic AI is still the same as BtS, although the FfH civs seem to like Privateers a lot more than civs in the regular game. I've yet to see a serious naval invasion though. On the other hand, since I'm building larger navies to deal with the AI privateers, I've also been sinking any attempts at invasion well before they hit my coast, so I don't know what those four Calabim galleons with the three frigate escort were carrying (for example).

 

[Kaenash]

Oh, one more thing. If your original save had the "End of Winter" option, it will screw up the WB save. Apparently, the world will not thaw in 10-100 turns, but will remain that way for the duration of the game.).

How do I check for End of Winter option? The world I am in doesn't have much tundra at the start of the game.

 

[JayThomas]

It's a checkbox under the custom game options. Checking it on results in the game starting in a snow scape. It thaws to normal terrain as the game goes on.

If you game started with normal looking terrain, then probably the box wasn't checked.

 

[Blackmantle]

@ Kaenash: i for one have made the experience, that marathon is near unplayable in FFH2. (and i do like long games)

normal seems good for the average game (or an epic long drawn one on a huge map. which also works quite well to get a long game), quick seems good for multiplayer and epic if you really love long games (no matter which map size).
Tech-Speed is slower here and beelining is really gainful. So dont expect to see anything Tier 3 for some time when you beline a decent Tier 3 (like Rangers or Champions or Stygean Guards). If you Beeline the National ones the will indeed tower the battlefield for some time to come. Even if limited in Number.

One problem with epic is that the AI handles it way worse than normal though. (Someone once stated that in comparison FFH 2 Speeds are about one step slower than Vanilla-Speeds.)
On Quick the AI does a way better job but the game seems much more dull and rushed. And a builder-style play is less viable.

Oh and many people here whould join you in gladly buing games of the quality of FFH2 for full price in a store and not just once.
Sadly the industy can't deliver on that level consistently (and thats not because most games lack quality ).
That it comes "with" a nice history-strategy game "attatched" is a nice plus.
Must be one of, if not the! best game (refering to FFH2 as a mod whould be just a huge understatement as it dwarfes so many games which cost full-price out there... In fact sets the bar so high that it will be hard to get used to normal support and average-good quality games again.) in existence for many of its players.


Oh and putting the difficulty up is really required at that stage (may change later when the AI is reworked but now it just boils down to that can't really play the mod in a really meaningful matter) when you really start to grasp the mechanics. As the AI can't use most of them cleverly while the player very well can and hugely so.

 

[Kaenash]

Oh, one more thing. If your original save had the "End of Winter" option, it will screw up the WB save. Apparently, the world will not thaw in 10-100 turns, but will remain that way for the duration of the game.

*Nod* I agree. I was looking for some variety since standard Civ was getting repetitive, and was looking at other computer games, both fantasy and SciFi. Finally, I decided I'd get BtS since it would allow me to play FfH II, and the disk has Final Frontier for the SciFi aspect, and I'd not have to learn yet another game system and user interface. It has been a good deal thanks to the scope and depth of FfH II. Team FfH has done a professional job with what is a labor of love.
.

Yes, it is professional, perhaps better tested than many PC games I have bought in recent time. (not sure if that speaks well of the team or poorly of other developers) but in any case, crossing fingers no CTD, no silly AI actions.

The AI does really seem to gravitate towards evil versus good and usually both hating neutral.

I tend to be a "Role Player" so I think I am most drawn to the idea of so much upgrading of my troops and the events that are alignment based. I think even when my alignment is at 500 I still pick good options just because I like to play in character (If I am good).

so far I am loving playing the bannor. I think the next logical extension of FFfH is not neccesarily "more" tech, but if I had my wish list, this is it:

1- A new "End Game" era. This is the Age of the Apocolypse, here you are going to have to choose a side or be destroyed. To this extent once you are aligned Good or Evil nothing you can do can change you from Good or Evil in this age. The final techs will move your alignment in one direction or another and there would be a mutually exclusive good or evil line of final techs.

This would be the age of wonder, cloud cities and great works of wonder, this is the Age that will birth Atlantis and in several thousand years after the seas finally part, the recorded history of our civilization will begin.


2- A connected campaign that tells a story. It would be neat if your actions in scenario will affect you in subsequent scenarios. For instance, the first map may be at the scale of "Villages" in a single valley, but when you play the next scenario you control a single "City" and that "Valley" that was the entire map in the last campaign is one square in the new campaign.

Once you conquer the Island, you move on to an even bigger campaign. Works of Wonder and special heros or items transfer from one campaign to the next.

However, I think the way this will really shine is if there are specific story arc events that trigger to tell an epic saga. One that leads the player to believe there is something more than just a map and domination at play. One where the heroes themselves seem to talk to you through pop up messages and you can 'reward' them. I want to grant my favorite Axeman the "Rulership" of a Town and then build him a villa and see what that does to his loyalty. I want to see a romance or something blossom between heroes.

I want to see something where if I consistently have two heroes in the same square they get a "Ally" bonus when they are stacked. Stuff like this.

Thanks eveyone with your help, so far the campaign goes well. I have three continents so I may never see a full scale invasion/domination of the others, but I am excited to play this one through to the end even if I conquer all of my starting continent.

 

[A_Hamster]

I think the next logical extension of FFfH is not neccesarily "more" tech, but if I had my wish list, this is it:

1- A new "End Game" era. This is the Age of the Apocolypse, here you are going to have to choose a side or be destroyed. To this extent once you are aligned Good or Evil nothing you can do can change you from Good or Evil in this age. The final techs will move your alignment in one direction or another and there would be a mutually exclusive good or evil line of final techs.

This would be the age of wonder, cloud cities and great works of wonder, this is the Age that will birth Atlantis and in several thousand years after the seas finally part, the recorded history of our civilization will begin.


2- A connected campaign that tells a story. It would be neat if your actions in scenario will affect you in subsequent scenarios. Fo r instance, the first map may be at the scale of "Villages" in a single valley, but when you play the next scenario you control a single "City" and that "Valley" that was the entire map in the last campaign is one square in the new campaign.

Once you conquer the Island, you move on to an even bigger campaign. Works of Wonder and special heros or items transfer from one campaign to the next.

However, I think the way this will really shine is if there are specific story arc events that trigger to tell an epic saga. One that leads the player to believe there is something more than just a map and domination at play. One where the heroes themselves seem to talk to you through pop up messages and you can 'reward' them. I want to grant my favorite Axeman the "Rulership" of a Town and then build him a villa and see what that does to his loyalty. I want to see a romance or something blossom between heroes.

I want to see something where if I consistently have two heroes in the same square they get a "Ally" bonus when they are stacked. Stuff like this.

JayThomas has already answered the End of Winter question.

The above ideas of yours are good, but I don't know if the game engine can handle them. However, FfH is still a work in progress, and Team FfH hasn't finished the scenarios yet. Perhaps they will have an interconnected storyline, which will make for a more involving game play experience as opposed to just a tactical dilemma to resolve. Regardless of how the scenarios work, I'm confident in the team's ability to deliver a quality gaming experience.

 

[Kaenash]

I am happy to report after 388 turns, I had conquered my main continent and half of the second one, before I decided my score was so far higher than the others, it was merely a matter of going through the motions to finish the game, so I stopped and declared victory.

Interestingly the end-game spell, "Rally" having a full continent gave me a ton of lower level units. I think mid-game this would have been an amazing spell but I had saved it for a little too long for it to be useful.

Just trying to ferry all those people over to the other side. Yikes, what a tedious chore. Thats when I kind of said "Yah, I won". I can imagine however, how Brannor could pull this out when you come to invade them!!

As for Combat/difficulty level, what I did notice was it seemed a frigate could attack a caravel and lose almost everytime. Defense seems much higher than attack.


I think what I will do next is to pick an Evil Race, and delve into trying to actually increase crime for whatever nefarious purpose it seems one wants to do that, and then also pick maybe 7 Good races and one other evil ally. (I always like to have a trading partner).

Its a tough call though, maybe a game with smaller Islands and go with a Pirate motif, or pick Arrachnos or something. Tough call. All in all, I am not disappointed in the least, despite winning.

(Sometimes if the win is too easy its disappointing, but not this time).

I think what also made it a lot of fun was finally getting paladins and beating the dragon that had been burning my lands.

In any case, my final request based on all this advice is for the "Ultimate Map".

What I would like is a tactical challenge with a lot of flavor. I know there are a couple floating around and I am looking into those, if you however have one that is 9-14 races even that would be really interesting.

 

[Sureshot]

if youve got a high score and dont want to go conquering everyone, the Altar of Luonnator and the Tower of Mastery victory conditions are good alternatives to long drawn out wars when youve got the obvious technological and economical advantage.

 

[Ecofarm]

Quick speed is by far the best, if you plan any aggression whatsoever.

 

[MondSemmel]

I haven't read the thread, just wanted to answer to these two points:

As for Combat/difficulty level, what I did notice was it seemed a frigate could attack a caravel and lose almost everytime. Defense seems much higher than attack.

You should probably reread how combat works in Civ4. If you hold down alt while hovering over an opponent's unit, you will see your combat odds. They should be rather accurate (although I'm not sure about difficulty settings - I think at least the AI gets a bonus against barbarians (and therefore also your HN units, as far as I know); there might be other instances, too). Coast tiles give +10% (?) for the defender, I think.
The most counterintuitive thing is probably that going from even strength values (e.g. units with calculated strengths of 5 and 5 fighting each other) to even a very slight difference (e.g. 5 vs 4.9) can make a huge difference in combat odds. This is because combat in Civ4 is calculated in combat rounds - base damage is 20 for every won round (both the chance of winning a round and this damage are heavily influenced by the relative strength values), and every unit has 100 hp, meaning your unit would need to win 5 rounds to win the fight. If due to a slight difference in strength values your unit only deals 19 damage per won round, it suddenly needs to win 6 rounds whereas your opponent still only needs 5. Suddenly, your chances dropped from 50% (str 5 vs str 5) to e.g. ~35% (str 5 vs e.g. str 4.9).
These are not the actual numbers, just examples. But from my understanding, difficulty has no impact on combat odds except maybe against animals or barbarians.

I think what I will do next is to pick an Evil Race, and delve into trying to actually increase crime for whatever nefarious purpose it seems one wants to do that, and then also pick maybe 7 Good races and one other evil ally. (I always like to have a trading partner).

Crime rate doesn't have much to do with being evil; in fact, it doesn't do much at all right now (except of influencing a few events). The Armageddon Counter (the red number at the right bottom) is what you want to increase. I suggest to try the Sheaim as the Ashen Veil. With their Planar Gates, they get units automatically - and you get more and have a higher limit as the AC goes up. Besides, the Sheaim are thematically most appropriate to trigger Armageddon...

 

[Zechnophobe]

The real thing about combat odds that's weird, is that it's not an even distribution. As your comparative strength increases, the odds of you winning a round goes up, but whenever you make a big enough leap in strength, you'll have to win less total rounds. This means that those break points cause sudden jumps in the odds of victory. If you have to win one less round than the opponent, you'll jump up to about 73% odds of victory. 2 less? 88%.

 

[Fafnir13]

And even then I rarely feel secure in attacking unless I've got odds at 95% or higher. That's for units I don't want to lose. Now for world units, that jumps up into the 99.1, maybe as low as 97 if I'm feeling lucky. Call me paranoid, but I would swear that the combat odds don't work out to the percentages they advertise, math be darned

 

[Pyr0mancer]

And even then I rarely feel secure in attacking unless I've got odds at 95% or higher. That's for units I don't want to lose. Now for world units, that jumps up into the 99.1, maybe as low as 97 if I'm feeling lucky. Call me paranoid, but I would swear that the combat odds don't work out to the percentages they advertise, math be darned

Pfft, just save and load if you lose an important unit to something stupid.

That said, I usually don't risk important units at anything less than maybe 80%, unless of course it's Brigit, Losha Valas, or an Immortal. I just give them March and charge at the nearest enemy, combat odds be darned.

As for speed, I usually play at Prince, Epic, on Continents or Pangaea maps. I find that I reach endgame (T4 units) usually around turn 500-600, with my score in the top 2-3. However, 95% of the time I can declare war on the entire rest of the world and come out on top due to a far better infrastructure and more experienced troops.

The problem with score is that in FfH, maintenance is much higher and therefore the land portion of the score is highly overvalued. More often than not AIs with a large early/midgame score lead due to conquest/expansion wind up being conquered due to economic collapse. FfH is so much more focused on quality over quantity, in both cities and units, and score doesn't reflect that accurately.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

AI_No_Building_Requirements

This is getting less and less needed.

It was implemented as a stopgap solution to an AI problem that doesn't really happen anymore.