SPEED and Balance Questions

[Svantotvit]

Ah, yes, that was something I wondered about... So the AI is better with regard to building those buildings the higher tier units require now? I read in the patch description that this was fixed now but I haven't tried it out so far...

 

[feydras]

Kaenash,

I think we have similar tastes in what we are looking for and enjoy. I too loved the first Castles game for the same reason. Have you ever played SMAC (Sid Meyer's Alpha Centauri)? Great flavor in that game probably the best of any video game so far, even, dare i say FfH. Similar to your village > city > valley game idea i used to play Civ III, then continue with the same civ name into SMAC and finally same civ into Masters of Orion II to get epic storygame without having to restart techs everytime.

From reading the whole thread i'd have to say your biggest mistake was stopping for lunch. The human body can go for days without food or sleep but be sure to drink some water at least once a day

Personally i've found Epic on one or two difficulties higher than i can play on BtS vanilla to be the right balance for me. I also use the 'AI requires no building reqs' mentioned and turn on 'Slower XP gain'. The later because although i love high power heroes the AI just can't use them as effectively as a human and so the slower your game speed the more this can become a human advantage.

I understand the game is balanced best at Normal but once i get into a great game i don't want it to advance as fast as Normal speed advances. I need more time to fawn over my creations before they are obsolete.

One other factor that plays a bigger role in effecting game speed than i would have guessed is tech trading. Setting the game to 'no tech brokering' will slow down the effective game speed slightly while 'no tech trading' will slow it down considerably. For me this makes Normal game speed feel like an Epic game and creates its own interesting challenges. With 'no tech trading' you don't have as many options clogging your build que because you don't pick up side techs you don't really want. I also find myself going back to pick up minor techs i usually get in trade later in game because i find i unexpectedly need them. Of course how much this effects your game will depend on how many civs you are used to playing with and how much you usually tech trade. I can't seem to stop myself when i have the option.

 

[DuckAndCower]

I would also recommend avoid the ol' "reload autosave if anything bad happens" addiction. Once I stopped doing that, (yes, even if my hero dies with 99.9% chance of win), the game became a lot more fun. It confuses me that people will complain about the AI being too easy, but also use save/reload. I mean, I agree that the AI needs work (I think it really, really needs to know how to use heroes and high-level units properly), but make sure you're not making things worse by unintentionally "cheating".

 

[Arilian]

"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."

Yeah, most of us - just do not tell to Kael

 

[DuckAndCower]

It was stable and it allowed you so many ways to play.

Were you playing the same Masters of Magic that I was. It's a great game, but good god it was a bugfest. I don't think I made it through a single game without running into a game-stopping bug. Good game, but FfH definitely has it beat on the stability front

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.

Actually, the best way to avoid this is to play on faster settings. See, no matter what speed the game is set to, all units move at the same speed. So, if you play on marathon or epic, your scouts can tend to do tons of exploring and your warriors tons of fighting before you make any real progress down the tech tree. On the plus side, this gives you more time to play with each discovery before it's rendered obsolete.

As a side note, I believe the AI plays better at faster speeds as well.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Hi, welcome! Here's my thoughts on the thread:
[tab]I play normal almost always, and pangea because I too find ferrying units annoying. Checking "natural" shoreline tends to give more interesting maps, imo. Do try the no tech brokering option, I like it alot myself. Speed of techs is a little less important here, because a well promoted unit will stand up to more powerful units, because promotions are stronger. So you have some leeway.
[tab]I think you will see the ai improving, Kael has looked at it quite a bit only recently, as we get most of the features finished.

1- A new "End Game" era.

We don't really do much with the eras, exactly, but the end game was the focus of the second development phase. The armeggeddon counter is a means to get things kinda crazy late game and throw in some monkey wrenches to create openings you can exploit. Some civs do better than others with a high counter, but all ai's will grow more aggressive as well.

2- A connected campaign that tells a story.

This will be the focus of the next (and final) design phase. If you click the "espionage" button in the upper right you can see the scenario teasers. There will be a conected storyline, but only a limited number of features that carry through, for specfic choices made. These will function as an introduction and expanding the FfH storyline.

 

[Medicine_Man_55]

Welcome to non-lurkerdom on the forums.

I've found that my sweet spot for settings on FfH2 is Epic-timescale, No AI building requirements, No Tech Brokering, Wildlands, Raging Barbarians. I also edit gamespeedinfo.xml to make training and construction times 67% (rather than 150%) for epic-timescale. The AI repulses barbarian hordes and responds to attacks much easier when unit build times are short.

For the most part, I play on Nikis-Knight's huge map, though I switch things around every 1-2 games, depending on what type of challenge I want. My current game as the Kuriotates has 2x Clan of Embers, 4 Civs removed, and raging barbarians.

PS: I should probably add that I never rush in my games. Most of my early war efforts tend to be defensive or elaborate power projection operations designed to influence wars between AIs. In the Kuriotate game I mention above, I have a small stack of centaurs sitting in Malakim territory to help thwart repeated Calabim invasions. My long term goal is to win a religious victory, so I'm zealously aiding other Empyrean nations.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

I've found that my sweet spot for settings on FfH2 is Epic-timescale, No AI building requirements, No Tech Brokering, Wildlands, Raging Barbarians. I also edit gamespeedinfo.xml to make training and construction times 67% (rather than 150%) for epic-timescale. The AI repulses barbarian hordes and responds to attacks much easier when unit build times are short.

How long does a game like that tend to last? When I accidently set it to epic or marathon speed, it takes too long for me. ~20 hours for a hard fought domination victory was the game I finished today, and that was about right; by then I want to try another civ or new map or such.

 

[DuckAndCower]

If you're going for domination victory, the epic timescale with build times changed to 67% shouldn't affect your playtime, I don't think. Your units still move at the same speed as on normal, so you can conquer just as quickly. The only thing that would really be slowed down is population growth and research.

 

[Medicine_Man_55]

How long does a game like that tend to last? When I accidently set it to epic or marathon speed, it takes too long for me. ~20 hours for a hard fought domination victory was the game I finished today, and that was about right; by then I want to try another civ or new map or such.

About the same, ~20 hours. My games tend to take a little longer than that because I play a more forgiving builder-style game, but a more aggressive player would likely be done in < 20.

I agree that Marathon is too sluggish, especially the game economy, but epic seems about right. It extends the military epochs, so to speak, and the modded build times allow reasonable period armies to be built up. The AI also builds stacks of troops early on. I saw some pretty impressive Calabim vs Malakim wars early on. Stacks of bloodpets and scouts banging into stacks of warriors, scouts, and lightbringers. Alexis is damned aggressive.

I plan on turning off Aggressive AI for my next game, to see if it speeds things up a bit. I'm also switching my construction mods to put construction times at 100%.

 

[Pyr0mancer]

I usually play Epic, with games running 7-10 hours on Monarch. Normal flies through the eras too fast for me, while Marathon just has a painfully slow early game. Oh, and I play mostly a builder playstyle, but usually win via Domination with occasional Altar and Tower victories.