Tips for making games more exciting?

[Akbarthegreat]

This might sound like a strange question, but I am a kind of a peaceful person and quite faithful to lore. Hence I find it weird to just attack people as a good civ. Because of this, my games tend to be a little uninteresting. Also the long awaited Hyborem - Basium battle never comes, since even the Sheaim are very slow in doing Infernal Pact. So does anyone here have any tips for making the later part of the game a little hot, other than by scaling up my difficulty?

 

[akatosh]

What mod and difficulty do you play? What civs do you like to play?

 

[Bad Player]

Lots of civs seem to go for Infernal Pact when I'm playing More Naval AI modmod at least...

And I would recommend MNAI for the AI improvements at least (it doesn't really change the game of FFH2 unlike other modmods, just bug fixes etc).

 

[Akbarthegreat]

I play either Magister's Modmod or MNAI. Earlier I used to play prince, but now since its been a long time I play warlord or noble.
What I would love to see is huge late game empires and wars, which I have seen in many stories around here but I can't seem to get my games to be like that.
I mostly like all civs, not biased to any in particular.
EDIT: Could the IP prob be related to the fact that it costs 666 in MC's modmod?

 

[akatosh]

IP does cost a lot in MM, but the production speed can be boosted by various mana sources.

Some ideas:
- For late game chaos, consider playing larger maps. Low sea level can also give AI players more room to expand.
- Have a balance of good and evil civs in the game. As the AC rises, good and evil civs are more likely to declare war. You can also use the game option to double AC changes.
- Include both Ljos and Svarts in the game. As we learned in our culture SG, apparently there is a high likelihood that they will declare on each other at AC 20 (elven civil war.)
- Overcouncil can also be used to start large-scale wars.

The AI becomes increasingly warlike on higher difficulties in MNAI. As soon as you think you are ready to make the jump, you should.

 

[Qgqqqqq]

I know I keep on advertising this script, but another benefit of the Torusland script is you can get some very large and interesting maps AND have the mapsize independant of tile number (which means big maps aren't crippled by research costs). I dialled up a 90x108 Inland Seas map with every civ (and a few personal modifications, for example removing the free promotions and dramatically increasing barb/animal spawns) and got a really interesting game, which is still getting land settled when people are running around with Eidilons.
Apart from that, consider later era starts and/or advanced start. I too am a fan of the late game rather then the early, and have tried a bunch of things to simulate that, such as giving each civ 10 settlers, 20 archers and 20 workers using Full_of_Resources.
If you want to, you can try loading a late game WB save, adding the option Permanent War or Peace, and then making everyone at war with one another. I agree with higher difficulties though.

 

[akatosh]

Q, can you say a little more about the personal modifications? What do you mean by removing free promotions?

 

[Qgqqqqq]

Q, can you say a little more about the personal modifications? What do you mean by removing free promotions?

Basically I just made a few changes in XML, specifically in the handicap file (can’t remember the name). All done under Deity difficulty BTW. The first thing was to remove the free xp the AIs get – it’s not free promotions per se, but each AI or barb unit in Deity starts with 8xp, which I feel is very unfun, so I changed that to 1. Because this would make it significantly easier, and because I’m playing EitB, I also increased the AI bonuses with regard to production and economy (as part of this, I SHOULD’ve tried to merge the multiple production module, but I didn’t think of it :/). Because I was mucking about in the file I also changed most of the tiles per unit barb values, downsizing them dramatically and reducing the number of turns before they start spawning (in particular I went for 60->15tpu for barb water units, and maybe 5tpu for animals and 15tpu for barb cities? All just off memory). I then added 100g per player at start (because otherwise events are annoying) and about halfway through I opened it again to reduce the unit cost for humans (because I was considering removing it entirely but remembered the importance to the late game economy).
I also switched on Raging Barbs and Wildlands. The combination of which meant that when Jonas fired his WS maybe 20t into the game, he promptly circumnavigated
Edit: This is the first game I’ve used them in, so there will be changes. For example, Acheron appeared REALLY early, and the civ nearby was absolutely crippled. Also, the swarm at the start was massive, and bear lairs meant that they dominated the animal spawns (though I managed to get the Grand Menagerie! Spotted a gorilla with a boat and turned back instantly to pick up some hunters). Bear dominance might be affected by the terrain of Torusland, which meant there were very few, for example, lions because of little desert or Gorrillas/tigers because of the jungle lack. Also commerce was horrible early game, with a dye at the cap but nothing else for 20ish squares, so I’d likely alter that.
I have other ideas for gameplay changes, but I don’t have much coding skill or time to implement them in.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

nice thought Q, I agree that AI handicaps need to be re-evaluated now that MNAI made them a hell of a lot smarter than FFH. all that free XP was a crutch when they were completely braindead, but now they're somewhat competent

 

[Akbarthegreat]

Thanks for the ideas.
I had the habit of balancing good and evil civs in FFH2, but Magister's modmod seems to have removed the ability to choose good/neutral/evil civ in custom game. And I don't like to specifically choose civs at the start of the game.
I would love to play larger maps, but the waiting time gets a little too much for me later due to a slow PC.
And I surely will try that map script out.

 

[Qgqqqqq]

For me its even more then that. Yeah the xp is a crutch, which it may well have needed, but it completely changes the face of warfare. Suddenly high promo units are a necessity not something that is a advantage to farm. That’s ok in the mid-late game, or basically as soon as you have collateral and decent units, but for the first 150 odd turns it’s crippling, as the enemy is getting a flat 40% strength increase on every unit, as well as getting way more. We could play a game where the AI economy gets little-no help and each unit start with 15xp, but you can’t do both.
Yeah, waiting times can be horrible. Try this as a game idea: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=489751