Version 11 playtest feedback

[Aeon221]

Like the streamlined tech tree. Enjoyed seeing characters like Tank Girl.

Civics are a tad bland, could use some serious work from vanilla. Really an opportunity to go wild with them, considering the source material.

edit: Might want to cut down on the number of factions and make the remainder more distinct, with individual features. All these different ones are confusing, especially to newer players. Fewer, more interesting traits rather than vanilla.

eg:
Lord Humongous, Raider, two caravans pop instead of just one.

 

[Aeon221]

Kay, having played some more, the game is very interesting. AI seems to have a lot of trouble expanding with raging barbs on. Lack of early offensive units made it easy for me to camp a civ into their capital city, which opened up some early expansion opportunities. After I got my second city up, Fireball popped and I used him to slaughter two civs. He's a little strong.

Barbarians seem to be the primary foe, and in the mid/late game, with only two AI left out of eight (only a few of them nailed by me), I started getting overrun. Fireball got slaughtered in the former capital of Halloween Jack, along with a number of my troopers. A few bad RNGs later and my road warrior army was out of gas. With a stack of barbs en route. GG, ALT-F4.

So, overall, I'm pretty happy with the experience.

Again, civics were dull. AI might need some help on start up. A few more types of barb would be fun. And definitely more changes to differentiate the civs.

 

[davidlallen]

Thanks for the feedback. I agree that the barbs and animals are supposed to be a significant threat, even without raging barbs. I also agree the leaders and factions are not so different from each other. In vanilla civ, each faction has a UU and a UB, which is some small differentiation. In some games like FFH, each faction has significantly different rules and a different playstyle. It takes a lot of work to change the game to add so many different playstyles. At some point, I will add a UU and UB for each faction. There is a thread here which collects the various UU/UB ideas.

Do you have some specific ideas for civics?

 

[Aeon221]

It's definitely difficult to give civs personality, which is why I'd encourage consolidating some of the similar ones. For instance, I like both the Aquarians and Hopeville, but I'd be hard pressed to say what makes one different from the other.


As to Civics, well, stuff like Vassalage and Serfdom seems a wee bit out of place. And Environmentalism? That's just cruel. Also drafting appears dead.

Of the Legal Civics, Vassalage, Free Speech and Bureaucracy are all very useful in their own ways. You could easily rename Free Speech to Defensive Doctrine, Vassalage to Offensive Doctrine and Bureaucracy to Economic Doctrine. Related bonuses, buildings or units.

With the Economic Civics, Caste System could be folded into Mercantilism, which could be changed to Closed Economy. Free Market could be changed to Open Economy, and perhaps also increase the rate of spawn from ruins. State Property could be changed to Communal Ownership, and might also see all new vehicles getting the Less Fuel I promotion for free.

As you may have noticed, I'm terrible with names -- definitely go with catchier stuff. I'm also not so great with total novelty, and I haven't played nearly enough of this mod to feel comfortable suggesting anything significant -- tough to get a feel for balance with a sample size of two.


I very much like what you've done with the tech tree. There's much better differentiation between the various branches than you'd see in many mods, or in Vanilla. It's a clear recognition of the functionally RPG nature of building a Civ. I'm even more impressed by the complete lack of filler techs -- an abomination certain modders seem to favor.


If you're really in the mood, adding in BULL would be a huge favor to all of humanity -- unless you've done some major dicking around with .dlls, it should only be a minor hassle implementing it. It might also be worth your time to add in one of the fine mods related to barbarians rising up and forming their own civilizations. After all, the map tends to get a tad empty after they've sacked a few empires, and it'd be nice if they took the trouble to rebuild the opponent base a little.

As a side thing, utes seem a little underpowered, for all that they're nifty as hell. It's extremely inconvenient gaining experience with them, as nigh on everything can rip them a new a-hole. Perhaps giving them a larger bonus against barbarians would help get them started? It'd be nice if they had some kind of niche, as opposed to now, where they're mostly an expensive scout.

 

[Zharkov]

Very nice mod, indeed. I loved the Mad Max movies, although I cannot remember any Giant Mutant Spiders...^^

 

[davidlallen]

Thanks! I am sure that they did not have the special effects budget in the 1980's to do this, but they would definitely have giant spiders today!

 

[Zharkov]

K, now that I played the mod for a few hours I have more sophisticated feedback available:

I haven't found any bugs so far, that alone is very impressive.

Keep the Ute in service: I agree that the Ute is too stylish to become obsolete. That could be prevented by making Ute give a movement bonus to accompanying infantry.

I like the wastland towns and villages. Reminds me of Moderator Action: *snip* ! Perhaps you could add apples and dogs as resources?^^ Also, you could add the possibility to sink wells in towns to improve health and provide irrigation.

Then, I noticed that mines can only be built on resources. That makes sense somehow - why drill holes in a hill when there is nothing to exploit. But infrastructure building is a bit dull in your mod. I would suggest to bring mines back to service on hills, but with a lower prod. bonus, or add more common minerals as resources to provide more oppertunity for mining. Furthermore, salvage centers could also provide a small caps ...err... gold bonus (and a lower prod. bonus), as rummaging through ruins should bring forth some fancies to cash in. And, junkyards would be only placeable in the vicinity of ruins (to drag the larger spoils there for disassembly), or on a special scrap resource, as a junkyard without junk is bit out of place.
Additionally, oldfashioned wind wheels could be placed on hills with water towers for irrigation and give a small food bonus to close-by farms (but now I am starting to spin out of control).

Why do those punks get along with the Giant Mutant Spiders so well?

 

[davidlallen]

Thanks for the ideas! The ute has a number of superior promotions, some of which are unlocked along the tech tree. A high level ute is one of the best units. I agree there are a number of resources which could be added; there are several threads in the sub-forum related to this. Once Civ 5 comes out and we understand which bits (if any) of Civ 4 mods can be re-used in Civ 5, I may work on a new, improved version for Civ 5.

 

[wolfigor]

Like the streamlined tech tree. Enjoyed seeing characters like Tank Girl.
edit: Might want to cut down on the number of factions and make the remainder more distinct, with individual features. All these different ones are confusing, especially to newer players. Fewer, more interesting traits rather than vanilla.

eg:
Lord Humongous, Raider, two caravans pop instead of just one.

Completely agree.
There is very little differentiation between faction, and it doesn't really matter which one to take.
It will be nice to have different starting bonuses as Aeon221 suggested, and maybe some UU and/or UB.
One Civ may have bonuses in the desert (like +1 food, +1 hammer) to specialise to it.
An other Civ may have a UU that replace the standard (and rather useless) Ute, so they can have early fast units for raids.
One Civ may have a chance to convert barbarian after a successful combat.
Another Civ (if possible to code in the SDK) could be highway patrols: attacking anybody on highways and rebuilding them : It should fit in the Mad Max scene.

AI seems to have a lot of trouble expanding with raging barbs on. Lack of early offensive units made it easy for me to camp a civ into their capital city, which opened up some early expansion opportunities. After I got my second city up, Fireball popped and I used him to slaughter two civs. He's a little strong.

Life without Ammunition Factory is really tough (the defenders are the main unit for early/mid game with enough strength to deal with any enemy).
Any civ that doesn't build enough of them early on is as good as dead.

Fireball is really a badass in the early game and if the other Civ is not too far he can be the spearhead of a very successful invasion.
However it's not really overpowered... with a strength of 10 he can be easily disposed by a couple of guardians (str. 12).
Yes, Fireball is superstrong if your neighbors do not have any good units to counter it (early in the game).

...however if you get Fireball and Tank gal one after the other... then there is little to stop you.

Eagle is not very strong, the same for Ghost.
I used them for exploration and fog busting.

Barbarians seem to be the primary foe, and in the mid/late game,

Even if there are several AI remaining the primary foe of the mid/late game is the barbarians.
All your borders are under constant pressure, and the large areas of unexplored wasteland ensure hordes of them harassing you.
The human player can deal with them quite ok (sometime can be challenging) but it's really hard for the AI.

In general the mod gives a great feeling of a survivors' society trying to survive in a very hostile environment: it fits with the background that hostile barbarian and limited development are the main enemies.

It's really fun to play... you don't have hundreds of units.
Just a few, and all of them count.
I enjoyed organising expeditions to clean up a small region from barbarians, build a new city and connect a road to another civ (my vassal).

It's definitely difficult to give civs personality, which is why I'd encourage consolidating some of the similar ones. For instance, I like both the Aquarians and Hopeville, but I'd be hard pressed to say what makes one different from the other.


As to Civics, well, stuff like Vassalage and Serfdom seems a wee bit out of place. And Environmentalism? That's just cruel. Also drafting appears dead.

Of the Legal Civics, Vassalage, Free Speech and Bureaucracy are all very useful in their own ways. You could easily rename Free Speech to Defensive Doctrine, Vassalage to Offensive Doctrine and Bureaucracy to Economic Doctrine. Related bonuses, buildings or units.

<... snip...>

I agree on most of the suggestions... I didn't play enough to suggest anything specific myself.
One small thing, computers should come later, maybe after some tech to get electric power first.
Not only because computers need their juice, but also because you can too easily beeline to rockets and get free rockets from the ruins... this include nuclear missiles.




One last thing, please, add a Drive-In: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090915/
If you didn't watch the movie, it's supposed to be in a collapsing Australia (not after nuclear war like in Mad max, but it has a similar feeling): drive-in theatres are turned into concentration camps for the undesirable and unemployed. The prisoners don't really care to escape because they are fed and they have a place to live which is, in most cases, probably better than the outside. Crabs and his girlfriend Carmen are put into the camp and all Crabs wants to do is escape.

Drive-In world wonder, no angry in the town.

 

[davidlallen]

It will be nice to have different starting bonuses as Aeon221 suggested, and maybe some UU and/or UB.

Thanks for the feedback! I agree. If I come back to do more development on Fury Road (43 days till Civ V comes out!) one of the first things I will do is add civ-specific abilities and UU and UB. There are many ideas in the sub-forum.

An other Civ may have a UU that replace the standard (and rather useless) Ute

Several people have commented about the Ute being weak. In my opinion, a high level Ute with good promotions is one of the deadliest units. Rather than upgrading, it gets significant bonuses from its specialized promotions. Do you agree?

One small thing, computers should come later, maybe after some tech to get electric power first. Not only because computers need their juice, but also because you can too easily beeline to rockets and get free rockets from the ruins... this include nuclear missiles.

The "back door" to nuclear missiles is intentional. In fact this is one of the only reasons to research down this branch. It is an attempt to make the choices of techs less obvious. In general, all the branches of the tech tree could stand to be expanded with more techs; I agree it would make sense for this branch too.

One last thing, please, add a Drive-In: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090915/

Thanks for the idea! If I can find an active artist to create the building, it would be an excellent addition.

 

[wolfigor]

Several people have commented about the Ute being weak. In my opinion, a high level Ute with good promotions is one of the deadliest units. Rather than upgrading, it gets significant bonuses from its specialized promotions. Do you agree?

Yes, effectively it's a very interesting idea (evolving via powerful promotions instead of spending gold for upgrades).
The main problem is that they are very weak in the beginning.
Later in the game UTEs are really in big trouble with more powerful "barbarians"... they rarely survive long enough to get experience.

Their production cost is comparable to a jeep, so with few towns and limited production most of the time one prefers to produce something with a longer life expectancy.

Maybe, if they had some extra change to retreat from a fight, they would survive longer in the earlies.

The "back door" to nuclear missiles is intentional.

I see it now.
I didn't check the code, but I guess you receive one nuclear missile when you re-build the silos and then only guided missiles will be spawn.
Unfortunately the other civs are not that much scared by your missile (they should be more, especially in this mod)... however that's mostly a problem with Civ IV.

Thanks for the idea! If I can find an active artist to create the building, it would be an excellent addition.

I think it fits perfectly in the scenario... doesn't matter what's the bonus of the wonder, it's fun to build it.

Something else I notice is that teching is rather slow (as it should be in this scenario), and great people are the best way to tech-up.
I got a few great engineers, and they all contributed to my research efforts.

It could be fun to have events that force you to go to a specific ruin to save a scientist/engineer/etc.
The events will trigger more frequently after you discover Radio (make sense, isn't it?).

Given the amount of dangerous barbarians in the world, it will be interesting to mount an expedition with plenty of military units to save the dude (and gain techs).


I should have "discovered" this mod earlier... now with CIVV coming nobody is going to put any energy into it.

 

[davidlallen]

Later in the game UTEs are really in big trouble with more powerful "barbarians"... they rarely survive long enough to get experience.

In the late game, it is true that I would rather have rebuilt tanks compared to utes. But in the early and midgame, promoted utes are very helpful. I like to build some extra utes and send them out exploring, to get those first few levels when they can find weaker animals. But, a lot of them get killed. That is actually the effect I *want* from the mod; exploring should be dangerous.

I should have "discovered" this mod earlier... now with CIVV coming nobody is going to put any energy into it.

It is too soon to tell what will happen when Civ 5 is released. It is pretty well understood that none of the existing python or sdk code will be useful at all in Civ 5. I don't personally know whether the art will be useful. It could be that Civ 5 will come out, and nobody will view it as a huge improvement over Civ 4; then people will stay with Civ 4. It could be that the art can be easily transferred and the "new" sdk and lua code will be easy to pick up. Then many Civ 4 mods may be rewritten on Civ 5. We will see in ... 42 days.