What improvements do YOU want for this mod?

[hiphopin]

As most of you know Fall From Heaven II is near the end of its development. And after Ice Phase is finished there most likely wont be any gamebreaking updates to the official game. So I decided to make a thread to see what people want to see happen to this mod before its done.

Please make sure that your request can ACTUALLY BE ADDED TO THE GAME, so make it realistic and provide details, also make sure that its balanced. Hopefully the developers will read this thread over and add some of your ideas to the game. And if not at least people can make Mod-mods with them.

Anyways all I really want at this moment in time is more and better magic. I want innovative spells not just summons, it would be awesome if there were two tier 3 spheres per spell sphere, each with a completely different spell. I kinda don't like how half of the damage spheres, actually more than half end with a summon, while the summons are fun and each different, it gets kind of old. So if by the final version the magic could be polished to perfection, I would be more than eternally gratefull.
Also please find a way to eliminate ALL summons upkeep cost, they cost additional coin to maintain and its really boring to delete your summons at the end of every turn. Do you need to feed a water elemental anyway?


Anyways what are YOUR ideas?

 

[avalonnn]

The mod is going in so many different directions that it would be nice to have more check box options. Is there any way to make it easier to manage modmods?

And of course the civopedia needs to be as great as it was.

 

[sputnik323]

can't say what I would like in the main game because a lot of new and fun content has been included in modmods... thanks to Ahwaric, Vehem, xeinwolf and others! If people haven't tried Orbis http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=282567 or Fall Further (comming soon) they definatly should! It seems that what people like in the modmods trickle down to vanillia FFH2 such as parts of Marnoks lairs modmod in .34. For example the new Orbis has made some really cool changes to the Doviello (animal totems, and shapeshifting) that would be cool in Vanillia FFH2.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Theres is a lot I'd like added, but I'd be ok with leaving most of it to modmods.


I'd like Jeckel's improvement improvements (culture from forts, distance prereqs between improvements, requiring preexisting improvments to build improvements, etc), or something similar, added. There is a lot from Dom Pedro II's Conquerer's Delights (mercenary trading, units having home cities and nationalities, naval movement modified by map size, etc) I'd like to have borrowed too.

A new mana system based on Grey Foc's Fuel modcomp would be nice.


TempTerrain-like TempFeatures and TempImprovement functions are needed. The TempTerrain function could use some tweaking too, so you can force it to revert early or stop it from reverting if the tile is terraformed, and maybe pause the countdown while Auric is in the game.


A few more Avatars could be nice, like Laroth Ascended.

I think we need to be able to free Odio.


Spells/promotions need to be able to alter plot counters without python. Evil units should increase the plot counter. Hell terrain's spread should be less tied to the owner's alignment.

Promotions should be able to give combat bonuses based on the plot counter and the amount of the owner's cultural influence on the tile.


The summons all need improving. They will be changed a lot in my modmod.

I'd like 2+ spells per sphere for all level 3 promotions, and several cross sphere spells.

Alignment needs to be an xml prereq for spells.

Different versions of spells of the same sphere based on alignment could be cool. For instance, evil spirit spells could be used to cause depression or panic (unhappiness/revolt) in rival cities.

Alignment, (unit) religion, civics, etc, need to be promotion prereqs (already the case in FF)



I'd like to have the Hinterlands and Morale mechanics added.


There should be more passive mana effects. I'd like negative healing to make a comeback, but probably with a limit of not weakening a unit to below ~20%.


I'd like espionage implemented, preferable split into Divination (mostly passive effects) and Subterfuge (mostly active, perhaps costing gold instead of points). Empyrean and OO should be really god at divination, and CoE at subterfuge.


I'd like some interesting guilds added.


I like letting Manes/Angels keep their religion from when they were alive, and giving some Mercurian/Infernal units the promotions needed for them to use the divine spells.


We should add more unique features like Finner's Tomb, the Bair of Lacuna, and the Palus.


There is a lot more, but I'm tired and need to study for a test tomorrow.

 

[Mailbox]

Theres is a lot I'd like added, but I'd be ok with leaving most of it to modmods.

This is pretty much my answer, leave the main mod to the dev team and let the modmodders have fun adding other things.

 

[Keeper_GFA]

1. Experience point changes.
1a. XP cap removed. You can always lose a combat, so logically you should always be able to get a reward for winning a combat.
1b. Grant XP to a unit which forces an opponent to withdraw. When a unit withdraws it gets an XP for losing and the winner gets nothing for winning.

2. Summoning changes.
2a. One (non-permanent) summoned critter per caster, tied to the caster.
2b. Non-permanent summons should give earned XP to the summoner, maybe half, maybe even a single point per win since there's no present danger to the summoner.
2c. A summoned critter would guard it's summoner against enemy Marksmen. I think this one may be very difficult to program though.

3. Adopt-an-animal (and beasts) promotions for units with the Subdue promotions. Most animals end up becoming insignificant in the later game, as do the Subdue promotions. This extends the usefulness of both. Although I guess it means we should lose the War Elephant unit. (see http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=295902 for some ideas.)

4. An "Avoid defending" spell/promotion combo (see http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7374891&postcount=648). Some people want to save their best units to attack. Sometimes a channeling unit can defend better than other units, but won't defend because of the Channeling promotions (for example, Disciples with City Defender promotions).

5. Magic Immunity not to prevent (at least some) beneficial effects, Loyalty and Courage especially.

6. Illian changes.
6a. Auric Ascended strength 60+20 Ice affinity. So if you have both Ice nodes, you have the strongest possible strength according to Magister Cultuum's tests).
6b. Auric ascending causes permanent snow terrain to spread. Get everyone to want to kill him. The snow can melt after he is killed but that's not really necessary as there are spells in place now to restore the terrain to something nice for everyone else.
6c. Summoning blizzards for the High Priests would make so much more sense than having to hunt them down first.
6d. Repeatable White Hand ritual, or just have the ritual allow the Illians to build Priests of Winter normally.

7. Increased tile yields for mana and mountains. Mana is oddly critical to own, but poor to work. And mountains are actually bad since they can spawn a volcano (do those do anything?) and act as a place to rest for enemy flying units.

8. Fix the ability to capture (command) units that you cannot build. Sometimes you can (Agnostics capturing Priests), sometimes you can't (Sheaim capturing Champions, and others).

9. Allow animals to spawn throughout the game. Animals are much more useful in FFH than in vanilla civ. In a game with Advanced Start, you can be hard pressed to find even a few animals.

 

[xienwolf]

Honestly, us Mod-modders probably shouldn't post here, might scare away the small fish with great ideas

However, my personal take is that I am pretty pleased with base FfH on the whole. There are tons of small tweaks which I think could be made, but most of those should be made while cleaning up the AI, or are personal decisions to keep them that way. Everything else is for the Mod-modding. And once base FfH is stable and closed, there aren't any more painful updates where you are forced to overhaul your code-base and re-evaluate features (though Vehem and I may begin to be responsible for making other people do the same eventually).


So, my only wish is that the AI gets refined. I am pleased as punch to tweak it here and there, but I would really rather not have to get elbow-deep in cleaning out all of the base Firaxis code to make it handle base FfH features. I'll jouyously improvise the AI to handle new things I make, but sifting through what it does now and attempting to account for all possible things that have been added since Fire.... no thanks

 

[Marnok]

2. Summoning changes.
2a. One (non-permanent) summoned critter per caster, tied to the caster.
2b. Non-permanent summons should give earned XP to the summoner, maybe half, maybe even a single point per win since there's no present danger to the summoner.
2c. A summoned critter would guard it's summoner against enemy Marksmen. I think this one may be very difficult to program though.

Actually one way to do this would be to tie the summons to the caster.
The caster unit would gain a promo for the summon, and the unit graphics would add the summoned item as another member of the unit.
If the unit "dies" for any reason, it just loses the Summoned unit promo and survives.
It would mean the summons would have limited ability to act independantly - you could attack with the pair, knowing that if you lose the caster will retreat (which sort of simulates sending the summons in to attack) but you couldn't send summons far away from their caster. This might be a seperate style or option for summoning if the current version is kept too - Bound Summons vs Controlled Summons.

3. Adopt-an-animal (and beasts) promotions for units with the Subdue promotions. Most animals end up becoming insignificant in the later game, as do the Subdue promotions. This extends the usefulness of both. Although I guess it means we should lose the War Elephant unit. (see http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=295902 for some ideas.)

If we get a function to add models to a unit (or have X spare slots on a unit which can be filled electively, as required for my summons idea) this would be great. I was thinking it could be interesting to have a Ranger who can add up to 3 animal followers, perhaps a levelled promo to say how many the unit can have (up to 4?) and then choose which animals they actually want. So you might choose to have 3 wolves or 3 bears or 2 lions, 1 spider and gain a certain abilities based on choices.

9. Allow animals to spawn throughout the game. Animals are much more useful in FFH than in vanilla civ. In a game with Advanced Start, you can be hard pressed to find even a few animals.

Making the dens permanent, and making dens for each animal type, would solve this. Allow animal-handling units to explore dens to find a pet; once hunting is developed any unit can hunt a den to extinction but may spawn an angry animal unit. (Copies of all animal units with non-animal AI would allow for Killer Bears for example, perhaps not attcking cities but still causing a hazard in your own lands)

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I posted a lot of ideas in a "wishlist" thread in the FF subforums , so I'll just link the thread here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=294584

many great suggestions in here btw. more spells would be great for example

 

[Kael]

Just a bit of feedback on this thread. I love hearing peoples ideas but the most helpful suggestions are specific. Its doesn't help me much to say things like "add more spells", "make spells more interesting", "add interesting guilds". Also adding SDK functions (like adding alignment prereqs to promotions and spells), though great for mod modders, doesnt help the mod at all. Saying to add more unique features doesnt do much unless you tell me what those new features would do.

Also just saying to add a mechanic isnt very helpful unless I understand what that mechanic is. I dont know what you mean when you say to add morale or hinterland mechanics.

So be as specific as possible. Keeper_gfa's post is the most helpful. And formt he OP its helpful to say that summons shouldnt require maintenance, but not helpful to say that we should add more spells.

 

[Mailbox]

Actually speaking of guilds, that does remind me of some things that I'd like in the main mod. A set of guilds that add more economic interplay and a reason to not go to war. I'd also like a set of builder buildings or wonders that enhance a builder's playstyle and don't lend themselves to warfare.

I'd actually like to see seven minor religions that act as guilds and do fun stuff, like the Emyrs for magical/research bonuses or the CotD returning as a semihostile guild that does give some bonuses to civilizations other than the Kuriotates/Sheaim. The Stewards of Inequity scream out for the corporation treatment, giving major bonuses to a few cities at the cost of huge penalties to the rest of the empire and other players. The CoE might even act better as a guild, since there is little reason to adopt it. There's so much in the lore that could be put into play.

Also for the Empyrean I'd like to see more peaceful bonuses, maybe GPP boosts and buildings that add to foreign trade. Right now it's a very powerful military religion and based on the lore it shouldn't be. I'd also like to see more religious buildings, especially those oriented towards peace and diplomacy.

And a couple specific things about the Illians. I'd like to see "The White Hand" ritual give the Illian player the ability to build Disciples of Winter. Then they could upgrade them to Priests of Winter at Priesthood (level 4), but still be unable to directly build PoW, then let them upgrade 4 HPoW at Religious Law.

I'd also like the Illians to have a way to convert or subvert other nations to the White Hand. It's not fun when your best friends is forced to go to war with you, even if the Draw is henious beyond words there should be some way to keep your friends beyond Vassaling/Allying with them. Even seeing the White Hand as a malicious guild that caused a Diplomatic bonus with the Illians and other white hand nations at the cost of your terrain devolving into snow/tundra and blizzards. Having it would allow some special White Hand units that would be weaker than the Illian versions (through Ice Affinity), but would let a nation wrecked by the White Hand mount at least some semblence of a army/nation.

Oh, and Bear Riders for the Illian mounted line

I'm way off base and just listing things I'd personally love at this point, but hey, maybe I'll spark a good idea.

 

[rezaf]

The Victory Conditions need to be rebalanced. Maybe some could be removed/reworked and/or some added, but assuming we stick with what we have, a lot has to be done to balance these out.
Non-military victory types should be a real option and the AI should try to go for them as well.

There should be a mechanic encouraging peaceful behavior.
Battles and promotions are where it's at, so players unwilling to steamroll their neighbors are missing out.
One option could be making warfare (building military units etc.) affect Great People generation. AFAIK warfare makes it more likely to get a Great General, which is fine, but there should be "rewards" to playing peacefully.
A simple possibility would be to add "Great-but-not-quite-THAT-great People" which are less powerful than real GP, but any city which hasn't produced military with the last x Hammers (tied to production capacity) will automatically generate one. Ideally, they could be used to get "Promotions" for your cities (think the Academy, just as a city "Skill"). So aggressive players would build Champions, give their neighbours a sound beating and get Flanking III, Melee II and March in the process, while a peaceful player would generate mini-GPs and would let them promote his cities to Urban Planning II, Cultural Domination IV and Breeding Grounds V.
This could also help with the victory conditions, as those promotions could potentially make it much easier (as in more realistic) to achieve them.
Philosophical Centre V would make it THAT much easier to field enough great prophets for the tower of Whatshisname, Cultural Domination X in your three best cities would finally bring a cultural victory within reach etc.

Ah well, sorry, wrote more on this than I intended to. I'll suggest no other things to stop this post from getting out of hand.

Edit: After posting this post didn't look that outrageously long after all, so I hope it's bearable. Another thing: Just generating "city XP" instead of the "Great-but-not-quite-THAT-great People" (which could be used on other cities) might be a better (or at least alternative) way to go. Dunno what's easier coding-wise.

Edit2: All of this was just an example, of course. My point was: Make non-violent gameplay more rewarding and I just came up with an example because Kael urged posters to be more specific.
_____
rezaf

 

[nealhunt]

I would like a pre-reqs for buildings creating a building "tree" in cities. The sheer volume of building options becomes annoying to wade through in the later game and many of the options are almost never chosen without the obvious pre-reqs anyway, either they aren't useful without the pre-req (e.g. Bowyers of little use without Archery Ranges) or the pre-reqs are more efficient with respect to hammers v effect (Herbalists v Infirmaries) or there is great synergy or other reasons (e.g. no one builds a Weaponsmith in a city that wasn't worth building a Forge in).

So, basically, building pre-reqs would ease game play without hampering strategy for the most part (it would have the occasional oddity like you want a Bowyer for Crossbowmen XP but you don't need an Archery Range).

Examples:

Palisade -> Walls
Archery Range -> Bowyer
Market -> Money Changer and Tax Office
Forge -> Weaponsmith
Stables -> Hippodrome
Library or Mage Guild -> Alchemist Lab
Inn -> Tavern
Herbalist -> Infirmary
Market -> Bazaar of Mammon
Mage Guild -> Arcane Tower (any)
Dungeon -> Pillar of Chains
Hippodrome -> Ride of the Nine Kings

Some buildings (including UBs) could have specific pre-reqs for flavor or balance that wouldn't necessarily be as "obvious" as the above:

Aqueduct or fresh water tile -> Public Baths
Forge -> Machinist Shop
Temple (any type) -> Reliquary
Elder Council -> Chancel of Guardians
Alchemy Lab -> Blasting workshop (if the move to Sorcery isn't enough of a nerf by itself, for example)

 

[Imuratep]

3 Points:
1. Some traits should get reworked (Creative, Expansive, Defender, Industrious), the reasons I stated in my threads and some new traits should be introduced (Pretender for Decius = Every time you get a vassal, you get a trait from him, Animal Scent = Animal don't attack you)
2. New Leaders for civilizations that only have one leader. I especially want a new Svartalfar leader. And for me Decius doesn't count as a civ specific leader so the Malakim need a new leader (Wasn't there the great Prophet Talia Gosam? She could be the Philosophical/Spiritual Combination). IMHO he should be selectable for all civilizations, because as I understand his lore he is a leader who has made a putsch for the throne
3. More civilizations. I think the creativity of the team and this whole community isn't exhausted by what we have right now (which is fantastic). But this is a sidenote, because FFH represent the fantasy mainstream.
4. Some existing civilizations should get reworked. The Bannor, the Elohim (In FF they are so stylish, but in FFH they are quite boring) and the Grigori. This is much more important to me than point 3.
4. Rezafs point: Peaceful play should be more rewarding
5. More ways to get in early game like in FF, because right now early economy can not be based on specialist economy
6. Espionage should get reworked, as all these action you can do with the espionage units can't be done in war, as your unit automatically attacks if you want to enter an enemy city. I don't want the BTS system, but the current system get extended.
7. The compassion civics should get reworked, because right now the differences are too low (except Sacrifice the Weak).

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I'll definitely second nealhunt's suggestions, it would make things less overwhelming on players while still keeping all the strategy intact imho.

 

[sailors dirge]

I would like to see mercenaries added to such as the "unique" mercenary mechanic that is in development in the Expanded Mercenaries MOD MOD.

 

[Nor'easter]

1) I agree with Keeper GFA on removing the XP cap.

2) On summons, here's what I would suggest:

2a) having all summons be permanent (I'm a big fan of combined arms); and

2b) as a consequence of summons being permanent, the Summoner trait would have to be changed, maybe by having units summoned by a leader with Summoner trait start with a free promotion or additional XP or something similar.

3) Late-game barbs within a player's territory:

3a) Barbarian undead popping up around your cities -- cities will have graveyards, morgues, cemeteries, so there should be the occasional undead rising;

3b) Barb creatures (hill giants, griffons) in mountains -- since mountains can never be improved, no matter how long they've been "civilized" by being in your territory, there should always be a chance that barb monsters will spawn in the mountains and come down from there.

Just a few minor ideas. If they don't make it into the game, that won't stop me from playing.

 

[GePap]

I would like to see a return of a late stage building that would protect all units in a city from Magic attacks.

 

[OzzyKP]

I'll contribute my input for not changing things. I don't think we should remove the XP cap.

Nor do I think we need more spells. Some spells can/should be tweaked and improved, but more is not better. If you want more and more sparkly things make a modmod. I think the main mod should try to reign in a lot of the ideas and make things more streamlined and playable. I was very glad to see the summoning and sorcery merger and the elimination of a lot of spells. I'm somewhat glad with the elimination of guilds too, but they never really got developed much in my opinion, so maybe they could have had potential, but if they aren't a priority anyhow. Cutcutcut.

My suggestions for changes aren't to add more explosions and vampires, but to make all the existing goodies work better.

The biggest thing to improve is the Civilopedia. Of course that is hard to do when things change all the time, but if we are closing in on an end to development, then please lets have an informative civilopedia so we actually know what all the existing bells & whistles are.

An improved AI that understands all these complex new additions may be too much to ask for, but any improvement is a good improvement.

An increase to performance.

I heard also, somewhere, that the game causes a lot of out of sync errors in Pitboss. Is that true? If so, getting that fixed should be a priority too. If possible.

 

[OzzyKP]

Another suggestion, not directly related to the mod, is for all the awesome new features of this mod to be released as stand-alone modcomps so other mod makers can use them elsewhere. There are so many radically innovative and fun ideas here that I'd love to see used in other mods.