I really don't know why I'm writing this post except that I really felt like it.
Basically I'm going to describe the way that I play FFH with my good friend Pascal, basically the guy I play practically all multiplayer games with. I'm not saying that this way is better or worse than any other way. I'm just saying this is the way that turned out to be most fun for us. Basically I'd like to invite constructive feedback on what we're doing, and if we can win someone over to the dark side, even better.
We're currently playing FFH 2030h. First of all, I'd like to address the OOS Issues. It's true that the game goes OOS every now and then; this has been true for us for a long time now. Since it doesn't happen more than once an hour and since a quick save/load resolves the issue, we don't mind very much.
The big thing I guess is fair combat, my propagandistic name for what is essentially a change in the way combat works. We make combat much more predictable, tuning down the element of randomness. A 4.0 vs 3.5 combat will always ALMOST result in a win for the 4.0 unit. I've hacked fair combat into 2030h in an ugly way, through xml and python changes. It works, as far as I can tell, but the percentile displays are off (you'll always get 0%), and there's always a chance I forgot some spell hidden deep in the python. But basically this is the core of our changes: we don't play without fair combat anymore. The randomness in a game where power is concentrated in so few units is too frustrating.
Second, we like resource heavy maps. We really do. We also don't like having to use ships to get to your enemy. Hence we are playing with a version of Smart Map which I heavily modified. I used the latest version from the VISA team and started hacking in a whole bunch of changes. Essentially I ripped out everything I didn't need and locked the map script in a mode where it generates something like a lakes map. I've fine-tuned plains vs grass vs desert and forestation, and then I went into CIV4BonusInfo and REALLY changed stuff around. The map format we use is "cylinder", that is y-wrap (you can keep going north or south and return to where you started) with the equator in the horizontal middle (the equator is a vertical line). I've separated bonuses much more than was the case (so if you want all happiness bonuses, you really have to have cities from one of the poles to the equator) and generally rebalanced their densities. I've also REALLY turned up the amount of bonuses generated. Depending on map size and number of players, you can get very resource heavy maps. This is the way we like to play the game.
Finally, I've applied some soft balancing aftertouches. Most importantly, I've heavily nerfed Valin and Rosier. It got to the point where our games were races to one of those heroes and unless the other player got the other hero out in time, it was game over. To some degree this is connected to the fair combat changes: with guaranteed wins the heroes are even more fearsome. The counter to that is to wear the hero down with many units (where many may be 4 or 5). This doesn't work on a 3 movement hero. He sweeps in, kills something, and disappears again. There is nothing you can do against that. The nerf I've applied was to simply change them to movement 1 heroes. It works wonderfully. They're still very powerful, but if you don't bring an army to protect them, you will lose them.
We've also dialed down the effectiveness of the academy as we found that almost all our games became techraces due to the 50% science bonus of an academy that you can get seriously early in FFH. The academy now gives a 10% research bonus; still something useful to get in late game, but no longer the "you MUST use your first GS for this or else you lose" feature it used to be.
In terms of AI adjustments, the only thing I've ported to Shadow so far from Smarter Orcs is the simple block on magic techs. The AI will never research down the magic branch. This in itself is an astonishing boost to the AI's performance.
We tend to play 1v1 on Duel/Small maps or FFA (Free For All) on Standard maps with about 5-6 AI civs.
Other settings we use are: No Barbarians, Quick game speed, non-simultaneous rounds (because they become a hectic click-fest in mp), no AI building reqs (cause the AI is too weak without this setting), Last Days, Living World, All Victories enabled, No Tech Trading, Permanent Alliances.
I wonder if anyone would like to play with us with those settings
Basically I'm going to describe the way that I play FFH with my good friend Pascal, basically the guy I play practically all multiplayer games with. I'm not saying that this way is better or worse than any other way. I'm just saying this is the way that turned out to be most fun for us. Basically I'd like to invite constructive feedback on what we're doing, and if we can win someone over to the dark side, even better.
We're currently playing FFH 2030h. First of all, I'd like to address the OOS Issues. It's true that the game goes OOS every now and then; this has been true for us for a long time now. Since it doesn't happen more than once an hour and since a quick save/load resolves the issue, we don't mind very much.
The big thing I guess is fair combat, my propagandistic name for what is essentially a change in the way combat works. We make combat much more predictable, tuning down the element of randomness. A 4.0 vs 3.5 combat will always ALMOST result in a win for the 4.0 unit. I've hacked fair combat into 2030h in an ugly way, through xml and python changes. It works, as far as I can tell, but the percentile displays are off (you'll always get 0%), and there's always a chance I forgot some spell hidden deep in the python. But basically this is the core of our changes: we don't play without fair combat anymore. The randomness in a game where power is concentrated in so few units is too frustrating.
Second, we like resource heavy maps. We really do. We also don't like having to use ships to get to your enemy. Hence we are playing with a version of Smart Map which I heavily modified. I used the latest version from the VISA team and started hacking in a whole bunch of changes. Essentially I ripped out everything I didn't need and locked the map script in a mode where it generates something like a lakes map. I've fine-tuned plains vs grass vs desert and forestation, and then I went into CIV4BonusInfo and REALLY changed stuff around. The map format we use is "cylinder", that is y-wrap (you can keep going north or south and return to where you started) with the equator in the horizontal middle (the equator is a vertical line). I've separated bonuses much more than was the case (so if you want all happiness bonuses, you really have to have cities from one of the poles to the equator) and generally rebalanced their densities. I've also REALLY turned up the amount of bonuses generated. Depending on map size and number of players, you can get very resource heavy maps. This is the way we like to play the game.
Finally, I've applied some soft balancing aftertouches. Most importantly, I've heavily nerfed Valin and Rosier. It got to the point where our games were races to one of those heroes and unless the other player got the other hero out in time, it was game over. To some degree this is connected to the fair combat changes: with guaranteed wins the heroes are even more fearsome. The counter to that is to wear the hero down with many units (where many may be 4 or 5). This doesn't work on a 3 movement hero. He sweeps in, kills something, and disappears again. There is nothing you can do against that. The nerf I've applied was to simply change them to movement 1 heroes. It works wonderfully. They're still very powerful, but if you don't bring an army to protect them, you will lose them.
We've also dialed down the effectiveness of the academy as we found that almost all our games became techraces due to the 50% science bonus of an academy that you can get seriously early in FFH. The academy now gives a 10% research bonus; still something useful to get in late game, but no longer the "you MUST use your first GS for this or else you lose" feature it used to be.
In terms of AI adjustments, the only thing I've ported to Shadow so far from Smarter Orcs is the simple block on magic techs. The AI will never research down the magic branch. This in itself is an astonishing boost to the AI's performance.
We tend to play 1v1 on Duel/Small maps or FFA (Free For All) on Standard maps with about 5-6 AI civs.
Other settings we use are: No Barbarians, Quick game speed, non-simultaneous rounds (because they become a hectic click-fest in mp), no AI building reqs (cause the AI is too weak without this setting), Last Days, Living World, All Victories enabled, No Tech Trading, Permanent Alliances.
I wonder if anyone would like to play with us with those settings
Of course you can play Straciatella with any map script, but the CIV4BonusInfos.xml is really made for use with this map.
