Where did the Fun go?

[AndarielHalo]

I agree with original poster...

Until I get deep into the game and start playing.


My loss of fun, though, occurs with the passage of time. Time is the one thing I complain about loudest in these threads, and which I've made hell of with the likes of Afforess.

I'm obsessed with time, and with the years matching up events. I can accept the Zulu tribe founding Buddhism in 200 BC, yet I got utterly crazy when Zoroastrianism is founded in 5000 BC and Judaism in 25 AD and Islam in 1500 AD. Sometimes it can get to a point where I'm having a blast in 230 BC, and suddenly someone founds Christianity. It's like having my face smacked into the desk and drawn back, and told my income taxes are due tomorrow.



My next big problem is things that I feel are changes just for the sake of change, such as changing the bonuses certain buildings give, or making certain buildings cause maintenance costs (like temples) or adding new buildings (like Village centers or Town halls) which are fun to add free specialists, but ultimately take up time to be built.



Those I can live with (except the time bit; I never stop complaining there) but what really ends up killing my game early is the load times.

I've just entered the Medieval era, and it's already about 1-2 minute load times between turns on a Large map, where I foolishly decided to allow Revolutions to happen, so now there are some 50 civilizations.


It's just one of those things the Russians have a word for: Nichevo. In this context; "Cannot be helped"

 

[Fanghorn]

You need a roadmap. You NEED a roadmap. Not just "I like this idea of having sports matter" but how does it matter, and more importantly, how does it improve gameplay? If it doesn't improve gameplay, excise it or modularize it so that its not part of the core install but people can add it if they like it. Sports is a great example of this. I like the martial arts tech and buildings but pretty much nothing else.

I like the modularisation tactic. All the player needs to do is find his favourite moduln and activate them. And i also agree that the RoM Core needs to have a clear definition or roadmap. But in case of AND i have to say that im happy that alot of ideas and moduln never got implemented because were either silly or gamebreaking. Yet, sometimes i fear that all these things might not form a complete body. It still feels as if something is missing to make the whole thing complete. Like the never defined end Goal you mentioned.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I still enjoy playing, but most of my playing is testing new mods these days. I like the content to be optional so I can play with a feature on for awhile and so test if its fun out. This is why I put up a new mod and two new wonders yesterday. The goody islands mod loos like it will be fun for a fer games but not in the longer term. Whereas the usable mountain mod was uninteresting to start with but after tweeking by Afforess is now essential for my games. This mod alone is enough for me to install AND.

So I still have fun because I pick and choose what bits I will play with. I don't just go for the lot.

The same can be said for my mods - I think they will be fun, or someone requests them, and then I play with them for awhile and find that they aren't fun or don't add to the game eg the "Warriors of God" mod which just doesn't add anything to play IMHO.

 

[Cor'e =)]

Hmmm, where was AND v1.55 over at SF in the files section?...

 

[Afforess]

They are at the old download host: http://code.google.com/p/afforess/d...=Filename+Summary+Uploaded+Size+DownloadCount. 1.55 was a patch to 1.53.

 

[CiverDan]

My suggestions for buildings that need to go..

1. Buildings dependant on rare resources w/very small benefit. i.e. Parrot Aviary in Domestic Animal Mod.

2. Repetive buildings. Wrote about this in another thread.

Food...this has always been a balancing act. Certain combos resulted in too rapid growth early in the Game. See Pyramids+Flood Plain plains+agr civs.

 

[Maniac]

Sure they do; I'd take that back before you get the whole forum attacking you.

NEVEEEEEEEAAAARGH!

 

[Psyringe]

NEVEEEEEEEAAAARGH!

Okay, may we attack him now, Afforess? I suggest a stoning with kitchen sinks, for poetic justice.

 

[os79]

Okay, may we attack him now, Afforess? I suggest a stoning with kitchen sinks, for poetic justice.

Going ahead preemptively .

:throwing kitchen sinks:

 

[Afforess]

NEVEEEEEEEAAAARGH!

Maniac, isn't Planetfall a kitchen-sink mod? After all, you did overhaul everything in the game, correct?

 

[dudeSDCA]

I agree wholeheartedly with several comments made about the buildings. I think the upgrade chains was a step in the right direction, but in some places (religion, science), there's too many "trade-offs" and from an overall strategy perspective I get completely bogged down. They do a better job at achieving overall game balance, but at the cost of requiring a lot of micro-managing on my part (and not the kind I like!)

For instance, I frequently find myself debating if I should or shouldn't build the Academy...and then if it's the right city for it, and so on...ends up feeling very tedious since I don't know that this decision is even that big a deal...but it's a decision I keep being faced with. Similarly with Universities...I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to track which cities are my top science producers to build the next University in when it comes available...again, very tedious.

And there's something bugged with the religion temple paths...I've built the same temple of Aman (sp) in the same city several times...but somehow it disappears or gets upgraded in a way I don't understand, and I find I can build it again.

99.9% of the stuff is AMAZING (which is why I've been quiet since 1.74 came out--I've been playing!), but there's something about some of the micro-manging thats gone from being a fun strategy game to...well...feeling like work

 

[jacktannery]

Amazingly, I also find myself agreeing with JosephII - what's going on.

The Total Realism mod has just been updated to BtS - its only a beta and you have to download the SVN but it works a treat (http://www.civ4.houmie.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=1) and I have started a game and got to the classical era. Gameplay is superb, and it's really reminded me of what the best bits of CIV are:
- TR is really hard. You need to fight to establish every city because of the barbs.
- There are a lot less buildings than in RoM, so it feels like less of a grind
- and of course the novely value of playing a new MOD.
Both TR and RoM:AND are excellent mods, and I don't think that one is better than the other, they are both different. TR does however feel more streamlined and compact, and I recommend that other posters who agree with Joseph II try out TR in order to get good ideas to improve RoM AND even more.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Amazingly, I also find myself agreeing with JosephII - what's going on.

The Total Realism mod has just been updated to BtS - its only a beta and you have to download the SVN but it works a treat (http://www.civ4.houmie.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=1) and I have started a game and got to the classical era. Gameplay is superb, and it's really reminded me of what the best bits of CIV are:
- TR is really hard. You need to fight to establish every city because of the barbs.
- There are a lot less buildings than in RoM, so it feels like less of a grind
- and of course the novely value of playing a new MOD.
Both TR and RoM:AND are excellent mods, and I don't think that one is better than the other, they are both different. TR does however feel more streamlined and compact, and I recommend that other posters who agree with Joseph II try out TR in order to get good ideas to improve RoM AND even more.

If I remember rightly in TR it is easier to attach other civs than the barbs

 

[Sonereal]

Maniac, isn't Planetfall a kitchen-sink mod? After all, you did overhaul everything in the game, correct?

Fall from Heaven is a kitchen sink mod as well if you think about it.

 

[Cor'e =)]

From the POV of a new RoM:AND player, i love the Ancient Age, i look forward to all the new resources and i think the creativity of the early content is rather needed to give a great feeling there.

There's so much going on that raises RoM:AND above BTS that it makes a whole new game out of RoM:AND, it's now an extension of Civ4 basics that players will never turn back from. To name a few OMG! surprises and delights: ♥ Archers! ♥ Barbs to Tribes to Civs! ♥ Early Religions! ♥ Early Techtree! ♥ UI changes! ♥ Resources ♥ Javelins ♥ etc. etc. etc.

So okay, i play the hugest maps with the snail-like pace, but it's so i can ~enjoy~ all the content you mod makers put into RoM and AND, if it needs bug fixing or balance tweaking then by all means do those things to perfection!

But since i have just barely left the Ancient Age i cannot know how the complaint of not being "fun" applies just yet, so i'm having fun. =)

 

[RobO]

RoM/AND have too many buildings, units, techs, resources and so on. Lack of simplicity is a kind of natural result. Time to clean?

Indeed it is.
I gave up on RoM/AND a while ago because it got cluttered. As you say, Afforess, it suffered from a lack of vision and direction.
I had a break and now picked up on FfH.

Go ahead and clean it up, and I might come back

 

[Maniac]

Maniac, isn't Planetfall a kitchen-sink mod? After all, you did overhaul everything in the game, correct?

Um I'm not sure if you're being serious now, but according to how I see it, a "kitchen sink mod" isn't a mod that overhauls everything in the game. It's a mod that adds lots of stuff in terms of quantity without looking if it fits with the whole, with a planned vision and direction (quality). So Planetfall isn't a kitchen sink mod at all. It has les techs, less buildings, less units... than unmodded Civ4.

 

[Afforess]

Um I'm not sure if you're being serious now, but according to how I see it, a "kitchen sink mod" isn't a mod that overhauls everything in the game. It's a mod that adds lots of stuff in terms of quantity without looking if it fits with the whole, with a planned vision and direction (quality).

According to that definition, ROM and AND aren't Kitchen Sink mods at all. I've cut plenty of content for quality reasons in the past.

 

[os79]

Besides, joking aside, calling names rarely, if ever, wins a debate .

However, if one was to set up a name and give it a determined definition, then say "Bingo, your (fill in the blank) is (name defined so)." Then after that it would had been a rational debate.

But like I said in the first sentence, I'm assuming everyone is joking around except for criticisms of A New Dawn as it is now.

 

[Arkatakor]

Personally, the only thing that irks me about the latest version(s) are the numerous buildings that have been modified to add extra maintenance costs for cities. The decision to do this has not taken into account the fact corporations add a lot of base maintenance costs which are now multiplied by the aforementioned percentages.

Once you get to implementing your corporations this becomes a particularly heavy burden, even with both "corporate" and "corporatist" civics active. Yes, I plan ahead enough to make it a point to found all corps in the same city, which has the wall street + central bank. Even with the aforementioned strategy, once I get passed 2-3 corps per city I often find my research slider at 50-60%, again thanks to all the compounding maintenance costs associated with numerous buildings.

Another thing that particularly gets to me is why can't I build a Cloning Lab in the same city as an Accelerator Research Complex? I mean seriously WHAT the F*** do those 2 buildings have to do with each other that would make building both in the same city unrealistic?