What I think about Orbis

[Arhat42]

It would be wrong to say that I recently discovered Orbis. I got my hands on FFH about a year ago and orbis a couple of months later. I really liked the idea of a fantasy setting with heavy focus on the economy (as well as a solid lore). At this point I have completed it with almost every nation on deity difficulty (well, alright, I start on emperor and play with increasing difficulty, love that feature). I also think that, compared to many of the other mods out there, orbis is actually surprisingly balanced, all things considered. I do have a few issues I would like to address.

first, and this is actually more of a request for help or information, when I play multiplayer (yes, I have infected my friends with orbis as well) the game goes OOS after 150 turns, and even though we save and restart it goes OOS in a few turns again. We play both LAN and direct IP and the problem is the same either way. Is this a known issue? Is there a fix? can I do *anything* to avoid this?

secondly, while I agree with almost every change in 1.0, my game crashes after around 100 turns with the scions, I don't attach a save game because it has happend in 5+ games and it is always the same. Sometimes when I try to load an autosave before the crash, that autosave will crash before the load is complete. This really annoyed me and explains why I've played so many scion games lately... I just had to make it work. I didn't though. I do play on XP so that may be the issue, but I dunno.

Oh, one last thing. I was supposed to say something about how I'd like orbis to be even more balanced, but as I'm writing this I just cannot think of anything specific, so I guess all there's left to say is: I love this game, and everyone involved in it.

Thank you for this mod!

 

[Kalina]

first, and this is actually more of a request for help or information, when I play multiplayer (yes, I have infected my friends with orbis as well) the game goes OOS after 150 turns, and even though we save and restart it goes OOS in a few turns again. We play both LAN and direct IP and the problem is the same either way. Is this a known issue? Is there a fix? can I do *anything* to avoid this?

Didn't have much time to play this version of Orbis, but when I did I noticed that ranged attacks are still cause of many OoS. Also, we had lots of OoS when one of us was playing Scion (and it made out all-Scion civil war unplayable unfortunately )

 

[Arhat42]

Hmm, so it's the ranged attacks. Can it be turned off somehow?

 

[Kalina]

Hmm, so it's the ranged attacks. Can it be turned off somehow?

Yes, if you can modify XML.
Read about it here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=336972
Note that quickfix posted there wont work for current version and you have to do it manually.

 

[Arhat42]

perhaps disabled ranged attack could be implemented as a feature (on/off clickable in costume maps) in the next patch, because I failed miserably at fixing it manually.

 

[Valkrionn]

Better would be as a multiplayer option, that way you can balance around it for singleplayer but allow people to turn it off if they want to play multi.

 

[Arhat42]

Of course that is true

 

[Therlun]

What made me try out Orbis (a long time after last playing civ4/FFH) were two things.

First, there was any easy to find "most important changes" post I liked (I still have no idea what RIFE actually does, what or what it aims for for instance...).
I also had the impression (which was proven right) that the mod is not just about adding as many features as possible, but tries to change or even remove some things instead of just adding more.

After playing I really like some of the race changes, that give the civs more individual flavour, like the automatic terraforming for a few races, or unique improvement bonuses.
I don't know how much of that is exclusive to Orbis though, as the mods seem to work together closely feature-wise
The +3 food consumption instead of +2 really helps the pace of the game IMO.

I still think there are too many of a few things. Too many different resources for instance, which makes them individually much less important. Too many standard buildings and too many techs. That's personal preference though.

Balancing is not very good from my limited experience, but I don't actually mind that too much. FFH was always more of an singleplayer empire builder for me and less of a competitive strategy game. The AI was never able to utilize the unique features as far as I remember.


I also have a question not worth creating an own thread for:
Does dimensional 3 actually work? I got a caster with it and can give the teleportation promotion to units, but it doesn't actually seem to do anything.

 

[Humakty]

Having many different resources at least reactivates the point of having trade partners, so that you can 'collect them all' to unlock the Happy/health bonuses they give.

In Orbis there is actually a reason to have foreign trade routes and trade partners, that you could completely ignore in base FFH. it's a parallel Erebus !

 

[Skeet66]

I think this mod(doesn't deserve to be called modmod ) Is phenominal.

I played fall further and I loved It. Mainly because of detail, ex; seperate barb factions!
And I really had to stop hyborem and AC since demons kept pouring In!

Now that I found Orbis I like It's versility, for Instance newer features such as more units,
changes to races such as dovillio(sp?) can turn werewolfs! Makes calabim games more fun
as I have a rival. I had a bit of trouble figuring out every pro of this mod as It had A LOT!

For Instance the tech tree has been broken-down Into many more, so making a long term-
decision Is crucial If you want to survive! I like the new map features, such as ruins producing
undead If not cleansed. Making RP that more enjoyable as Elohim(sp) or any good race.

There's a ton more improvements on buildings and wonders. Now going with festivities and whatnot Isn't just for the lunatics, as It increases happiness by a bigger margine, but crime Is too.

Basicly I can go on for another hour or so. But for anyone new to Fall from heaven franchise download this! I'm still waiting for fall further update! I know you're reading this .

 

[Kalina]

I still think there are too many of a few things. Too many different resources for instance, which makes them individually much less important. Too many standard buildings and too many techs. That's personal preference though.

I agree about resources. They are too many of them, both kinds of resources and number. On most mapscripts you have 6+ in most cities' BFCs, so you don't need to trade/conquer more for more health/happiness. And some of them (Olives for example) are less useful then others.

I also have a question not worth creating an own thread for:
Does dimensional 3 actually work? I got a caster with it and can give the teleportation promotion to units, but it doesn't actually seem to do anything.

I believe it's broken Should add ability to airdrop units, but it doesn't.