Where is FF going?

[Inquizitor]

I've recently started playnig the Fall Further Modmod and I'm really enjoying it. I have been playing Fall from heaven for the past several weeks now and FF really adds some interesting features. Of course I have run aross some annoying bugs and the AI seems to have been lombotomized somehow but I am tempered by the fact that this is still in teh Beta stages.

That leads me to my question. What is the final vision for Fall Further. I did a cursory glance through some of the FAQ's and such but didn't really se a final design goal. What I did find was a list that seemed to include some stuff that is in FFH2 anyway.

I'm really enjoying this mod but I would be interested in knowing where else The designer is intending to take it before we get into the realm of just fixing bugs. Are any other features/civs/whatnot planned? One of the things I was led to beleive when I was introduced to this mod was that the tech tree gets you up to Steampunk levels of technnology. I was imagining railroads and possibly magitech type stuff. Is this somethign that is still planned?

 

[WarKirby]

I hope it's going to wander aimlessly in the direction of ust adding more and more cool stuff, and not see a definite end.

As near as I can tell, FF seems to be a repository for all the cool concepts that people wish were in FFH, but kael just isn't willing to add any more.

 

[xienwolf]

We have tons of ideas we want to do, but with all the MAFs and other things starting to crop up it is becoming obvious that we are smacking up against the barrier of what Civ IV can handle. It'd be nice if Civ V happened to suddenly appear in our laps and be capable of more (and still be at least AS moddable) to be honest.

As for a specific end-goal... I think it might be as loose as "an enjoyable, but complex, game" I know that my favorite game is just seeing if I can get the code to accomplish my latest "crazy idea" so the rest of the team works to keep me in check most of the time


But seriously... these MAFs just freaking blow. As well as the continually expanding between-turn time. So the rate of "new toys" is quite likely to be fairly slow while we try to make room for them.

 

[WarKirby]

Aren't the MAF errors caused by savefiles becoming too big?

Why not try putting some hard caps on how many units the AI can build, and how big their stacks can be. I always find myself horribly outnumbered by AI troops, though I tend to win through tactics.

Maybe; totalmaxunits = (x * numberofcities) multiplied by a unique multiplier for difficulty level.

Giving them some more free promotions to make up for less units could help to balance things, perhaps. But there's got to be a reason why most other strategy games in the world have unit limits.

 

[Vehem]

That leads me to my question. What is the final vision for Fall Further. I did a cursory glance through some of the FAQ's and such but didn't really se a final design goal. What I did find was a list that seemed to include some stuff that is in FFH2 anyway.

That much is true - but it wasn't necessarily in FfH2 when it was first added to Fall Further. That's pretty much the direction we're going - finding the features that are often requested on these forums, working out how they would interact with existing features, then trying to implement it.

The "multiple barb civilizations" concept was born on the forums several months ago for instance and always seemed a decent idea. Likewise with the lair exploration - Marnok's mod was the first to attempt what had been suggested elsewhere on the forum and then FF adopted an early version of it. FfH picked up that idea later on and refined it further (hence it appearing in both versions, but in different forms).

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At the moment however, our goal is "stability". As Xienwolf said, we're running into some fundamental limits of what we can do with the Civ4 engine, but still want to ensure that the mod is stable for as many people as possible. Patch Week is always heavy on bug fixes - this one even more so than usual due to the fact we have had 4 people all working on projects and the amount of new content far exceeds the early versions where I was working alone.

 

[Inquizitor]

Well I'm really enjoying the mod as I said. I was just wanting to get a feel for how things were progressing. Our group has kinda pulled back to core FFH2 though for the time being since the AI just isn't providing a challenge in your mod at teh moment. Defending with scouts and so forth. I know it is an issue you are working on and you intend to fix it.



I have no idea what a MAF is. I'm piecing together from some of the replies that it has something to do with a maximum unit limit?

I really don't know much about Modding let alone moding a mod. I wouldn't even know where to begin as far as implementation. I was toying around with possibly getting together with my group and trying to piece together an expanded tech tree that would take FF into the aformentioned realm of steampunk and Magitech type systems. Would such an endevour be welcome? If so could you offer some guidance as to what kind of limitations you are running into?

 

[Jabie]

I have no idea what a MAF is. I'm piecing together from some of the replies that it has something to do with a maximum unit limit?

I think a MAF is a Memory Allocation Failure.

 

[kobaaron]

Just for sake of my two cents:

Thanks for working on the stability part of things. This is quite a grand project you have here and the list of features will be wonderful if you can manage to have it all work within the now becoming outdated scope of Civ IV.

I've been quietly following FF, especially, for quite some time now. Keep up the great work!

 

[Iceciro]

Silly accidental doublepost... >_>

 

[Iceciro]

I'm part of Inquisitor's little playgroup and I do want to add in thanks for making Fall Further. I appreciate what Kaels doing and as a leader of a few mod teams in my time I appreciate that at some point you do have to have a featurelock and call it done.

But of course, I appreciate Fall Further's work to sate my attempt for more: more units, more civilizations, more diverse ways to play this game. Once the AI gets over the "Scouts make excellent defensive units, and I have no need to research things." bug I think we'll all be back to Fall a little bit Further.

 

[Jabie]

Aren't the Jotnar and an update to the Dural slated for some time in the future.

 

[Vehem]

Aren't the Jotnar and an update to the Dural slated for some time in the future.

Yup. Dural, Archos and Chislev should be getting some attention shortly - Jotnar largely depends on when Arctic Circle is happy with them.

 

[Invoke_Shadows]

Civ 5 is in works right now. you all will just wait for a release date