So what is the deal about FFH II?

[Wolfshanze]

Sorry... double-post.

[Ming]

Wolfshanze...

Thanks for posting a link to your mod on Apolyton

[Murg]

Originally posted by AllRoundGoodEgg
Sounds like a really well made mod. Has anyone done a thorough mod that 'individualizes' civs with different tech trees, units, buildings etc but for the normal 'real world civs' rather than fantasy ones? I'd really like something to add a new layer to the interest factor once you know all the civs and their features (after all, in Civ IV there are only a few variables - two leader traits, one unit, one building and the starting techs), or even just to add/change around the civs you can play and play against?

And I'd really like it to be a mod that people rave about - so I know implicitly that it's well balanced!

There are some inherent challenges bringing that level of diversity to a real world mod. The biggest is that throughout the reign of human history different civilizations aren't really all that fundamentaly different than each other. Leaders draw different priorities between external (war) and internal (growth) functions, but they all essentially want the strongest state possible. Buildings fulfill the same basic functions around the world (education, shelter, health, production).

So trying to create civilizations that are fundamentally different and still match the historical setting is a challenge. FfH worked from the other way, made the different civilization mechanics, then created the world around them (more or less). Thats the advantage of a non-fixed world.

Though the trick of fundamentally different factions doesn't have to just rely on a fantasy setting. Blizzard lead the way by showing it to us in StarCraft. I'd love to see a post-apocalyptic mod that featured civilizations that diverged from a mechanic's standpoint as much as FfH does.

But thats just one guys opinion.

[AllRoundGoodEgg]

That looks good - I'm just checking it out now. Having said that, FFH looks good too (if my fiancee will be willing to try it).

That's a beautiful painting of the battleships you have for your main image Wolfshanze - who's your artist, if I may ask?

[wodan11]

I'll jump on the Wolfshanze bandwagon. Anyone who hasn't tried it yet... you're missing out.

[wodan11]

Originally posted by Murg

The biggest is that throughout the reign of human history different civilizations aren't really all that fundamentaly different than each other.

Actually your statement IMO is only true where there was contact. There's always a lot of technological and cultural "bleed through" as a result of trading, immigration back and forth, and what have you.

Consider for example the "new world" civs. Until discovered by the Europeans, there were quite different. The Incas for example were in fact pretty advanced in a LOT of areas, more advanced than would be readily apparent (in fact, than WAS readily apparent to the European explorers... they thought them all savages with few redeeming qualities). Consider areas of medicine, biology, farming/irrigation, and religion, plus others.

For my dime I'd love to see CiV or a mod which makes the same tech tree available to all civs, but makes it a lot more wide open. Frankly, there are some REALLY dubious prereqs in the CIV tech tree. All I can figure is that their purpose is to FORCE a particular conformation to history... making people research Music before they can get some key military techs, etc. This actually makes most CIV games somewhat alike to each other, reduces player creativity, and reduces repeat gameplay enjoyment of the game as a whole.

There's no reason to have it that way (except to avoid the effort to design and balance a more flexible game system) and plenty to gain by making this sort of "alternate history" possible. By allowing a civ to research down paths that didn't quite happen in history. What if, for example, the Europeans never did discover and colonize the new world? What would the Incas be like today? Or the Aztecs?

Or, what if a civ took a particular discipline much farther and much earlier than happened in history? Say, steam-driven pneumatics? Or, animal husbandry--consider if aurochs were not made extinct in the early middle ages, and a civ domesticated and bred them for different qualities (as we do with horses and cattle etc... one set of cows for flavor and quantity of meat, another set of cows for flavor and quantity of milk)... these aurochs could completely replace locomotives. What would that civ society be like?

My ten cents.

[Murg]

Originally posted by wodan11


Actually your statement IMO is only true where there was contact. There's always a lot of technological and cultural "bleed through" as a result of trading, immigration back and forth, and what have you.

Consider for example the "new world" civs. Until discovered by the Europeans, there were quite different. The Incas for example were in fact pretty advanced in a LOT of areas, more advanced than would be readily apparent (in fact, than WAS readily apparent to the European explorers... they thought them all savages with few redeeming qualities). Consider areas of medicine, biology, farming/irrigation, and religion, plus others.

For my dime I'd love to see CiV or a mod which makes the same tech tree available to all civs, but makes it a lot more wide open. Frankly, there are some REALLY dubious prereqs in the CIV tech tree. All I can figure is that their purpose is to FORCE a particular conformation to history... making people research Music before they can get some key military techs, etc. This actually makes most CIV games somewhat alike to each other, reduces player creativity, and reduces repeat gameplay benefit.

There's no reason and plenty to gain by making this sort of "alternate history" possible. By allowing a civ to research down paths that didn't quite happen in history. What if, for example, the Europeans never did discover and colonize the new world? What would the Incas be like today? Or the Aztecs?

Or, what if a civ took a particular discipline much farther and much earlier than happened in history? Say, steam-driven pneumatics? Or, animal husbandry--consider if aurochs were not made extinct in the early middle ages, and a civ domesticated and bred them for different qualities (as we do with horses and cattle etc... one set of cows for flavor and quantity of meat, another set of cows for flavor and quantity of milk)... these aurochs could completely replace locomotives. What would that civ society be like?

My ten cents.

That would be cool. To really work (in a mechanically differentiated model) I think you would need to push the leaders toward their ideological extremes (ie: Alpha Centauri) and be willing to throw out historical accuracy for some extreme "what if" scenarios. Most notably dismissing cultural sharing impact of communication as you mention.

For example, imagining the aztecs as a modern civilization unified by human sacrifice. There would need to be a mechanic in place to encourage this, a benifit of a player sacrificng his own units or population. Maybe sacrificing a population in a city to a unit allows that unit to select one of several special promotions.

Maybe the American indians are unable to ever build improvements on plots. Instead they gain a base yield from all plots regardless of their configuration and automatically hook-up bonuses. This would make them very strong in the early game (especially if their base yield was slightly higher than normal) but weak int he later game as other civs industrialized their lands.

Maybe China has bonuses growth in every city (so they are always growing) but suffer a penalty if their population ever starves. So the player is sitting on top a pretty substantial bonus if he can keep it under control.

Those are just ideas, Im sure there are much better ones out there. The point being that making civ's play significantly different than each other (more than a UU or UB) pretty much mandates a break from reality.

[wodan11]

Originally posted by Murg

That would be cool. To really work (in a mechanically differentiated model) I think you would need to push the leaders toward their ideological extremes (ie: Alpha Centauri) and be willing to throw out historical accuracy for some extreme "what if" scenarios. Most notably dismissing cultural sharing impact of communication as you mention.

Not sure I agree. You're making two points here...

(1) I don't think we need to "throw out" historical accuracy. As long as it is possible (perhaps even probable) for the game to play out as history did, then we have historical accuracy. That does not preclude the game (or a civ within a game) from playing out differently than history.

(2) Actually I think the game should have more of the "sharing impact". Right now, it has no mechanism for this to happen, not really. Other than the stilted/forced tech tree, and the discount off research beaker requirements based on what techs other civs know.

What I imagine would be a mechamism whereby the closer you are to another civ, the more sharing there is. Maybe get rid of the beaker discounts, and have an actual beaker research applied. e.g., no matter what your research is, you get beakers for all techs known to all civs you have contact with, and more for proximity. Whether you want the beakers or not. And, eventually, you'll get the tech without researching it AT ALL.

Maybe the American indians are unable to ever build improvements on plots.

I personally do not like prohibitions as game mechanics. Instead, let's give a bonus for NOT doing whatever it is (or for doing OTHER things).

The Amerinds didn't really have a concept of land ownership, other than perhaps by the tribe as a whole. That concept is what I would build on. There are negatives for land ownership, such as promoting suburban sprawl (even in colonial times... you see plantations and manor houses spreading out). So the analagous situation would be to provide a benefit for concentration of population (surrounded by communal farmland / grazing / forest). Maybe cheaper cost of governance (less civic maintenance), cheaper transportation costs, etc.

Instead they gain a base yield from all plots regardless of their configuration and automatically hook-up bonuses. This would make them very strong in the early game (especially if their base yield was slightly higher than normal) but weak in the later game as other civs industrialized their lands.

That could work. I can think of other possibilities as well (keying off what I said above... civic costs etc.).

Those are just ideas, Im sure there are much better ones out there. The point being that making civ's play significantly different than each other (more than a UU or UB) pretty much mandates a break from reality.

Still not sure I agree with that. And, I wouldn't necessarily tie things to specific civs. What's the "Chinese" civ mean? Not a thing. It's just a label. What if, instead, I build my own civ based upon the techs I research and the civics I adopt? What if my "UU" and "UB" are determined by that, rather than a preset mandate? Maybe I can even pick my Traits, or evolve them during the game. (Or, they're picked for me, depending on what I do in the game.)

Just thinking out loud here.

[wodan11]

Originally posted by wodan11

Maybe cheaper cost of governance (less civic maintenance), cheaper transportation costs, etc.

Another thought... this actually would be a huge benefit in the modern times. Having your entire population living in hi-rises with little to no suburbs would drastically cut down on energy transmission costs (the electric "grid"), transportation (small, concentrated light rail), heating is much less.... A civ built along these lines would have an incredible amount of benefits.

In the U.S. about 40% of our energy consumption is for building operations costs (heating, mostly, and electric transmission). If all buildings are next to one another or on top of one another (separate floors of hi-rises), and the power plant is literally right next door (don't need to send electricity in a web across the whole countryside... wow. It would be huge.

[Murg]

Originally posted by wodan11

Not sure I agree. You're making two points here...

(1) I don't think we need to "throw out" historical accuracy. As long as it is possible (perhaps even probable) for the game to play out as history did, then we have historical accuracy. That does not preclude the game (or a civ within a game) from playing out differently than history.

The assumption was: If you were to design a game with funadamentally different factions, ie: they play significantly different than each other (this is the basis of FfH) and base it in a historical setting. My point being that it isnt really possible without making each faction into a extreme ideological representation of itself.

The devil is in the details here. There is a huge game play difference between a mechanic that grants +1 commerce for plots with 2 or more commerce, and one that has every cities productivity based on the amount of gold in the players treasury. One rewards certain behavior, the other forces the player to rethink and adopt new strategies to be successful in the game. Those are the sorts of changes Im talking about.

(2) Actually I think the game should have more of the "sharing impact". Right now, it has no mechanism for this to happen, not really. Other than the stilted/forced tech tree, and the discount off research beaker requirements based on what techs other civs know.

What I imagine would be a mechamism whereby the closer you are to another civ, the more sharing there is. Maybe get rid of the beaker discounts, and have an actual beaker research applied. e.g., no matter what your research is, you get beakers for all techs known to all civs you have contact with, and more for proximity. Whether you want the beakers or not. And, eventually, you'll get the tech without researching it AT ALL.

That would be fine, but its a very different mandate than the assumption from above (creating a historical game where each civ plays significantly different than every other). Not that its a bad idea, just that the mod has to determine what sort of game it is trying to be and embrace mechanics that lead toward that vision.

Maybe the American indians are unable to ever build improvements on plots.

I personally do not like prohibitions as game mechanics. Instead, let's give a bonus for NOT doing whatever it is (or for doing OTHER things).

A game is as much determined but what it allows as what it doesnt allow. If your goal is to create significantly different factions, then removing some civs abilities to do certain base thigns is a powerful weapons (in FfH the Khazad cant create mages or archmages, the Ljosalfar cant create siege weapons, etc).

Still not sure I agree with that. And, I wouldn't necessarily tie things to specific civs. What's the "Chinese" civ mean? Not a thing. It's just a label. What if, instead, I build my own civ based upon the techs I research and the civics I adopt? What if my "UU" and "UB" are determined by that, rather than a preset mandate? Maybe I can even pick my Traits, or evolve them during the game. (Or, they're picked for me, depending on what I do in the game.)

In this context "chinese" means the civ that plays through its unique game play mechanics. You seem to be weighing it toward the opposite (make all mechanics available to everyone, selected through civics or such). In that all civs are largely the same and the players decisions control the mechanics. There is nothing wrong with that but it leads to players adopting a single strategy and it limits replay value. Since there isnt much difference between the factions. Players fall into a pattern of certain choices at different stages and follow that trend.

With fixed mechanics the players have to deal with the advantages and disadvantages of those mechanics. As a designer your also able to include early and late game strengths because of it (which you cant do if the players can choose to trade in options that arent good in late game).

[wodan11]

Originally posted by Murg

There is a huge game play difference between a mechanic that grants +1 commerce for plots with 2 or more commerce, and one that has every cities productivity based on the amount of gold in the players treasury. One rewards certain behavior, the other forces the player to rethink and adopt new strategies to be successful in the game. Those are the sorts of changes Im talking about.

I agree, but that's not what we're talking about. At least, not what I think we're talking about.

Two different things: what form and scope the mechanic takes, and how it is delivered / made available to the player.

Your comments above talk about form and scope. I don't disagree and in fact I think there's a lot more flavor and interest in such bigger / sweeping mechanics than the prototypical "+1 commerce". FFH and Starcraft both do these types of things, while CIV does not. I absolutely would be an advocate of such.

However, what FFH does, and Starcraft, is take that mechanic and both force it on the player while making it limited. It's forced in the sense that if you pick civ X (whether that be elves, protoss, or whatever), then you are forced to have the mechanic and you are prohibited from using the mechanic available to other civs.

CIV does this too but CIV probably has greater flexibility of in-game strategy... i.e., the player probably has a little greater freedom to pick his game strategy.

What I would prefer is to have the mechanic used and benefits gained evolve through my gameplay. As I research techs, my civ gets different benfits, which in aggregate would amount to the mechanics we're talking about. But much greater flexibility, and much greater opportunity to mix and match. A LOT greater breadth of strategic options available.

Now, devil's advocate, it's true that I can pick my mechanic in FFH simply by choosing what civ I play, at game start.

That would be fine, but its a very different mandate than the assumption from above (creating a historical game where each civ plays significantly different than every other). Not that its a bad idea, just that the mod has to determine what sort of game it is trying to be and embrace mechanics that lead toward that vision.

Not necessarily. Even in history, civs have made a pointed decision to "tech" in certain directions, despite what all the other civs were doing. For example, China at points in history turned isolationist and focused in internal improvements and economics, rather than trade and seafaring. Yes, China neverthless had contact and learned about advanced sailing techniques from other civs. They just chose not to use them and they "spent their beaker research in other areas". The mechanic as I described, note, would not give a huge amount of free beakers, especially on newer techs. You would always lag behind, possibly quite a bit behind, depending on how much contact, how briefly you've "not known" the tech, etc.

A game is as much determined but what it allows as what it doesnt allow. If your goal is to create significantly different factions, then removing some civs abilities to do certain base thigns is a powerful weapons (in FfH the Khazad cant create mages or archmages, the Ljosalfar cant create siege weapons, etc).

Well my goal is not to create significantly different predefined factions. It is to create significantly different dynamically player-defined factions.

In this context "chinese" means the civ that plays through its unique game play mechanics. You seem to be weighing it toward the opposite (make all mechanics available to everyone, selected through civics or such). In that all civs are largely the same and the players decisions control the mechanics. There is nothing wrong with that but it leads to players adopting a single strategy and it limits replay value.

Even in CIV players get stuck in a rut and play the same game strategy all the time, sometimes with different civs even. I daresay that's true in FFH as well... players have a "favorite" and play that faction all the time or the overwhelming proportion of the time. Even when a player switches, I think they end up following the same in-game strategies, even though it may be suboptimal for the new faction.

The challenge there, whether we're talking about CIV, FFH, or a hypothetical mod / CiV, is to encourage the player to experiment and branch out. Lots of ways to do that. One is by making very powerful but distinct gameplay available. Whether that gameplay is delivered through a faction (e.g., FFH) or though focus upon a particular tech branch (e.g., what I've been suggesting), the result would be the same.

Since there isnt much difference between the factions.

Whoa, what makes you think there would not be much difference between the factions?

Consider SMAC. SMAC has both leaders/factions PLUS a very diverse and quite open tech tree. You can tech along the military tree, or the economic tree, or the planet/Xeno tree, etc., regardless of what leader/faction you are. Your civ will be defined by your tech progress and what techs you know. And they will be VERY different from a civ which followed a different tech path.

With fixed mechanics the players have to deal with the advantages and disadvantages of those mechanics. As a designer your also able to include early and late game strengths because of it (which you cant do if the players can choose to trade in options that arent good in late game).

"Trade in"? You mean choose not to use, and then to go back and research the alternatives? Sure, but that's starting from scratch. Instead of continuing to push and get advanced techs along one path, you stop and go back to begin with the basic techs along a different path. It'll take a while before you get to even nearly the same benefit level, during which you'll fall behind in competition with other civs.

[LDiCesare]

Dynamic evolution is something that would be great. FfH does have some options: If you pick one civ, you can choose a religion which will make you play a very different game from another one. But then some religions fit better with some races.
I would rather have atech tree that both opens up as you discover new techs and closes some other techs along the way (incompatible techs) to have some evolving game, but am too lazy to code such a mod.

[Murg]

Originally posted by wodan11
Well my goal is not to create significantly different predefined factions. It is to create significantly different dynamically player-defined factions.

Yeap, which is why we are talking about 2 conflicting game designs. Neither is better or worse than the other and both have pros and cons (and each would appeal to different sorts of players).

Your's is much closer to the original Civ design, where you create the empire you want throughout the game. And FfH falls on the opposite end of the spectrum. Something like:

differentiated factions - StarCraft - FfH2 - Alpha Centauri - Civ4 - Your mod - dynamic factions

For what you are talking about I would be looking at mechanics like dynamic traits (traits arent preset but earned through the players actions, to be Spiritual you must maintain a percentage of temples in your cities, to be Aggressive you must initiate battles). UU and UB assignment through randomization, civic choices, first to techs, or event choices (say the player can only have on UU, but is offered the choice to earn one at each step, but once he chooses one he cant pick another).

I have a design around here somewhere that did this. It used a sliding scale to allow the factions to move along three aspects:

Military / Pacifist
Economic / Green
Religious / Scientific

The players actions move them along those scales. Creating more libraries and schools moves you toward Scientific, Temples moves you toward Religious, etc. AI players like other players with similar "values" and the players get different rewards for different settings. Some buildings or civics may require a certain level on those lines before they can be used. Certain options may have a reduced cost, or no cost at different levels (drafting my be cheaper and cheaper the more military the player is).

Different leaders could have different starting values on these scales, but be free to move anywhere form that point on.

Though those are all interesting ideas for a game they are very different than what FfH offers. And you may be right that they are probably better suited for a historical game (to really open up the "what if" options).

Example:

So in a game Montezuma could happen to build a lot of temples early on, making him spiritual, driving the AI into more religion spread activites which gives him good relations with everyone, which drops his likelyhood of war, incents him against military functions or units, opens him up to a religions based UB and a world with Montezuma as the religious center.

That is until a rival religious leader starts causing strife with Montezuma. That strife turns into a religious war. Montezuma begins capturing cities, techs more towards military goals and producing a significant armies. As cities are captured the percentage of temples per city drops below the required amount and Montezuma loses Spiritual and gains Aggressive form the successful warfare. By the time the war is over Montezuma has used his UU for a unit in that era, and has gone through a significant transformation (that impacts game play mechanics) from a diplomatic religious civilization to a military one.

[Dale]

In my opinion, FFH2 is a great mod. Would be third best mod for me after RtW and RFC.

[Blaupanzer]

Originally posted by wodan11
Another thought... this actually would be a huge benefit in the modern times. Having your entire population living in hi-rises with little to no suburbs would drastically cut down on energy transmission costs (the electric "grid"), transportation (small, concentrated light rail), heating is much less.... A civ built along these lines would have an incredible amount of benefits. If all buildings are next to one another or on top of one another (separate floors of hi-rises), and the power plant is literally right next door (don't need to send electricity in a web across the whole countryside... wow. It would be huge.

The disadvantage of this arrangement comes during warfare. Big bombs make big damage/disruption effects in a Manhatten-type environment but considerably less effect in an LA-type environment. This means recovery is quicker in non-stacked places. Likewise, natural disasters have the potential for greater effects in concentrated population areas. That's why LA is built the way it is in the first place.

Power from geothermal, damns, and tides would still need to go over grids of some sort. Also, you might not want to build your powerplant right next door if it is nuclear or even coal with all that stinky smoke.