Elemental, or Fall from Heaven 2?

Quoting Mtn_Man,

Quoting pexx421, reply 4I never did like the fact though, that in fall from heaven two, your stacks square off, and randomly chooses which unit of yours fights which of theirs, and you lose your nursed heroes and powerful units without having much say so.

That sounds frustrating enough to suck the fun right out of the game.

And also so wrong. The pick is not random. It will always will take the best unit with the highest chance of survival for the defense job. But certain Abilities can modify that certain units have precedence. So if you bother you can easily cover your heroes...

Also the game experience can differ a lot depending whether you play FFH2 or FFH2 FallFurther, FFH FF+, Wildmana, Orbis... There so many submods and alternative version catering for quite different tastes as the basic version is so modding friendly.

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Quoting greywar,

reply 23

There is always Dwarf Fortress as well! Sorry, I am an ASCII whore.

Technically it's not an ASCII game

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Elemental is amazing dude, get it!

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I was thinking about FFH2 today, and all the negativity surrounding the Elemental release. perhaps it is because of my experiences with FFH2 and its modmods (RiFE and Wildmana) that the bugs in Elemental really don't seem that bad. the OOM CTD errors that Elemental has have been a staple of civ4 mods for years. people who played mods that added content beyond stock civ4 and its xpacks learned to deal with it.

FFH2 is fairly stable now, in its "final" build, but it took years to get there, and the modmods are still rather unstable (though they are improving). Granted, it was a free mod made by a team of hobby modders in their free time, but i think if that community can be patient with them, than this community should have at least SOME patience for Stardock on this one.

all that said, FFH2 is a fantastic mod that i highly recommend, but i don't think it will take long for Elemental to eclipse it. Elemental's AI, even in its current state already outstrips FFH2's, in my opinion at least.

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Werewindlefr

Join Date 03/2007

+28

Maybe you should also mention that FfH 2 is free, is a mod and thus not a professional product. So the expectations are different than if, say, I bought FfH2.

As it is? Play FfH2. The graphics aren't as good. but the gameplay is much better at making sense. Also, it's free. Come back to Elemental in 6 months.

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Honestly. Jump into Fall from Heaven. It'll definitely be well rewording. Although I love Elemental.

Elemental is great but you'll have a more satisfying Long game experience from Fall from Heaven.*if you love multi hour 3+ long games* If you want a shorter game go ahead and get elemental now.

Otherwise get elemental in 2 monthes+mods and it'll be a better choice.

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Quoting Werewindlefr,

reply 30

Maybe you should also mention that FfH 2 is free, is a mod and thus not a professional product. So the expectations are different than if, say, I bought FfH2.

As it is? Play FfH2. The graphics aren't as good. but the gameplay is much better at making sense. Also, it's free. Come back to Elemental in 6 months.

technicaly, FFH2 is only free if you already own civ4 + xpacks. you can get it all for like $19.99, so its cheaper than elemental, but its still not free.

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Alstein

Join Date 07/2004

+55

FFH2 has horrible AI. Other then that, it's great.

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I just started playing FFH 2 (the basic version) and I think it's a lot of fun even if there are a few issues. It just does a great job of creating that epic fantasy feel of giant armies of crazy fantasy troops doing battle with each other while being supported by spells.

It's true there is no tacticial combat, but sometimes it feels like there is, or at least that there is more so then in Civ. The traditional stack of doom is much more interesting with different unit types working together to do battle. A recent battle featured armies of dwarven iron golems and crusaders marching against a heavily fortified beast man city. My dwarves were supported by catapults and cannons who would bombard the enemy, dwarven mages who would use spells to repair the golems and war machines and other spells to enhance units, and priests who would heal and bless friendly living units. The enemy city was supported by shaman who would heal their troops and blast my clustered armies with fire and hordes of wolves. You could say that there was no tactical combat because when every unit attacked it just fought a single other unit, but it certainly felt somewhat tactical and it took quite a few turns to take over that city.

I did however find that the AI turns started take awhile late in the game, like around 30 seconds to a minute per end turn. Given how many times you have to hit the end turn button in a game like this, it was certainly annoying.

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If you wanted a game where you full rush everyone, play a RTS.

If an AI is only decent or challenging if you play the way the AI expects you to play, then the AI is "not so good". A diverse, strong AI is crucial for a game that focuses on single player. Otherwise, you might just play against other people and not bother with playing against the machine at all. I haven't played too much yet, so I don't have an Elemental specific opinion about the AI so far. Just wanted to comment on the quoted bit.

I saw that someone mentioned AI Wars. I haven't played it yet, but the developer seems really friendly and is super active on their boards. Many similarities to Stardock, in terms of community work. (I bought their excellent puzzle game, Tidalis.) It's one of the games on my list, but I also have to yet to play the GalCiv2 expansions (played the original game a lot).

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Gal Civ II had issues at launch but was still a ton of fun to play. It got much better very fast.

Elemental is the same way, has some issues but is still fun to play, and is getting better all the time. I wouldn't delay.

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Well they are different enough in terms of mechanics / Gameplay that you really need to know what games you'd rather like.
There are big pros and cons for both games.
I'll list a few having had extensive experience with FFH2.

FFH2 pros:

21 Factions most of which play in a vastly different way. Easily 15+ different playstyles catered to (and the diversity is staggering and fundamental not just a footnote). Its up here because it really is the core of the experience. FFH2 basically plays like 10+ different tbs games all interwoven into one neat package of nigh endless gameplay.

Also 7 Religions further deeply impact gamplay for most of the factions multiplying the 10+ games by another factor of 3 to 5.

Willingness to go without perfect balance in favor of diversity (which means replayability is sky high.).

Features random events.

Very deep lore which also impacts gameplay (most factions really play according to lore and there is more than a year! of gaming and storyline to explore if you go for it all). Quite polished given that its a mod (also since its already a bit older modmods are out there to expand on it.)

Lots of micromanagement

Different mapscripts which are mostly balanced and play very differently.

Mostly complete / polished, lots of nice minigames / good library of existing modmods ect.

Very solid documentation and fan-made manual available.

Unlike some others here mentioned plays alot unlike regular bts if you are willing to dig deep into it.

Labor of love.

FFH2 cons:

No tactical combat in a real sense (spells and a few abilities make some kind of tactical maneuvering possible but its not the norm. That you have no control over combat order and results is wrong though (and far from random...). If you know what you are doing you won't usually lose your highly promoted units out of the blue. A bit of luck is still in it though)

A mod albeit a very professional one (lots of professional games in its genre are worse... So this is not about quality of the game!) with a very driven project lead and team. Meaning some issues take time / won't be resolved (and there is no official platform for multiplayer ect. All is fan driven. Not bad but a bit more to shoulder from the user end).

Extremely steep learning curve (extreme depth has its price after all.)

Balance is less than perfect. (And is not the games main focus.)

Lots of micromanagement

Civ-4 engine is a resource hog (FFH2 Team has done alot to smooth things over but you can't ignore the engine).

Insane addiction / time sink level if you are going to like it. (yea most people would see this one as a big pro. But you grow older and RL comes in, bla bla bla... )

Later on stacks grow quite big means games take way longer especially on large maps and empire-management becomes a headace..

AI can't handle all maps (And AI probably will never get fully polished unlike the treat elemental is going to get. Sea Warfare is still something AI has to learn... After 2 Years+)

Elemental pros:

Tactical combat (AI might be utterly quite inadequate in tactical yet. But that is bound to change in a few months.) More streamlined gameplay and thus much less of a steep learning curve (after playing FFH2 intensively you really don't need documentation in Elemental to at least cope...).

Quick combat resolution as an option (so no moving 100+ units by hand to attack). Meaning fights can be done as you like them (fast or intense. At least in theory as soon as AI tactical is up to par)

Quest concept/system allows deeper more involving tasks than via the event system FF2 comes with (not much in yet but bound to improve).

AI is better able to cope without cheating overall minus tactical combats (FFH2 is using the standard CIV method of strong player / AI handicap). This is bound to vastly improve given Stardocks record...

Professional game with all things attached to it (Multiplayer and Modsharing platforms officially supported not just on a fansite. More accessible ect.)

Extremely quick team response times (kudos to stardock and frogboy for that one. Must be a rough time for you right now. And go get some sleep for once. Might even help to get things done better. ). Can't expect a mid-night response from a mod team really (Kael and team have done a few times but still not the norm and could never be...)

Less of a hassle in endgame with lots of units / cities to administer (city-spam might still be viable but even after doing so takes less time to manage).

Dynasty / Diplomacy system looks very promising (not yet fully fleshed out but large potential.)

New and fresh platform for modders and professionals alike. Some good things are bound to come from it.

Modding seems easier and has better accessibility.

Much less micromanagement.

Art-Style is less demanding on hardware and a bold statement against graphics to the hilt and bling before gameplay. Much kudos to Stardock for that one... + an option to run on low-end machines with cloth-map.

Labor of love

Elemental cons:

Documentation! (This one is a big turnoff for some I am sure. I am sure this will become way better soon. nonetheless by and far the biggest place for improvement.)

Maps are not that diverse (yet! Bound to change when modders come in. Maybe more to come officially. Might take a while to change it though. @ Stardock: Hope you can woo cephalo to do a few mapscripts for you. That guy is a genius regarding that. )

Still quite rough and prone to bugs (bound to change soon.)

Less diversity (so far, Might go up by a bit but will probably never reach FFH2s level and doesn't need to really). It is after all just 2 games or perhaps 3 tops (empires and kingdoms seem different enough to actually play differently. FFH does this for basically every single faction plus more with religions added into the mix). Mods will probably fix that one day...

Much less content (more is to come for sure)

No meaningful random events (yet!, Quests could take that place if done well...)

Much less micromanagement.

Statements of Stardock regarding multiplayer. Hope we can still woo them to at least allow full-feature coop or multifaction (not all people gunning for multiplayer like competitive and it shouldn't be the only focus really) and not just reduced, streamlined and balanced experience for competitive multiplayer. Still hoping to one day get it at least as an option. (Need not be the main focus though. Fully fine with the option to play in normal mode.)
FFH2 also had single-player focus and didn't try to tell the players how to do multiplayer. Really it's all about options.

My general recommendation for fans of fantasy tbs would be to try FFH 2 now (especially if you already have bts. Worst thing that can happen to you then would be that you don't like it) and return to elemental when a few patches and time have passed. Then it should be a solid experience all round. Missing out either would be a loss for most people who like fantasy tbs.

For me the bugs and incompleteness of Elemental are not such big of a deal (lack of content in a few areas more so but that will be fixed soon enough.) since I quite like testing rough diamonds and Elemental sure is one.
Some other peoples preferences might vastly differ though and if you like polished and bug-free games elemental is not for you (again yet! Wait a month, that should be enough given Stardocks extreme efforts at least on those two fronts. AI might take a while longer).
Oh and tell all your tbs-minded friends about elemental. By the time they come here the game will be quite a gem. The bigger the community the better elemental is going to get.

As you can see most of the cons I listed for elemental are very likely temporary ones. Courtesy of it being a professional game..

Edit: now with tabs and paragraphs should be possible to read this post...

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Fall from Heaven 2 is not the only alternative to Elemental. There is also the Fairy Tale mod for Civilization IV:

http://www.moddb.com/mods/fairy-tale

Here is a list of some features I pulled from their website:

20 very different Fairy Tale nations; all with their own different style and theme. Everything from dark nations of demons and trolls to civilizations of the undead where the warriors are skeletons to hot-babe valkyrie matriarchies to nations of proud knights with fluttering banners and shining armour. All civs demand different playstyles and approaches, and all come complete with own flags and symbols, leaders as well as national history and style.
Masses of new units and buildings with fantasy and fairy tale themes, where some of the units were tailored and made specifically for this mod. Build your Royal Family by deploying the King, the Queen and the Princess and watch them do their duty on the battlefield. Each nation also has a special national hero; like the Count, the Huntress, the Underworld Lord and so on, heroes that can travel the world and find adventure. Deploy massive formations of shining, noble knights or charge into battle with the impregnable legions of evil demonic infantry.
All Fairy Tale and Fantasy clichés are catered for. Deploy strong dragons to bring fast terror deep behind enemy lines, create a wave of Wolfpacks and unleash them on your unsuspecting rivals, preying on soft targets like settlers and workers without your rival ever knowing who sent the menace, or have witches explore enemy territory and investigate and sabotage their cities and improvements. Create Magicians to unleash their spells of destruction on enemy fortifications and city walls.
Fairy Tale and Fantasy type buildings and World Wonders are in place. Erect the Fairy Tale Palace, Forest King's castle or Dome of Prophecy, build the Purple Tower to unite the land under your Imperial rule. All buildings in true fantasy style and design and all nationns have several unique buildings; like the specific Elven Granary and Library and the Collective Hives and Warfactories and the Viking Valkyrie Academy.
Play on the great 125x100 detailed map of the Fairy Tale world with 18 civs or play one of the smaller scenarios. You can also play randomly generated maps through some of the map scripts supplied with this mod; PlanetGenerator for instance, which creates a really interesting world with masses of creation process choices! Also included are maps of Tamriel from the Elder Scrolls Series as well as a map of Tolkien's Middle Earth, making those two fantasy lands playable with the Fairy Tale civs!
The monumental Imperial War Scenario will let you play the noble Empire as it strives to save the civilized world from the destruction of evil the Demon King himself wants to impose on it, or you can take the other side and lead the Legions of Darkness to world conquest and once and for all destroy Civilization with fire and iron.
Unique Fairy Tale music composed by Zero-Project. To set the stage, all National anthems are suitably taken from some of the greatest composers of the 19th century; like Sibelius, Chopin, Tchaikovsky and Wagner.
Merged with BUG, giving the player more control over what is happening in the Fairy Tale Kingdom in better report screens and cool graphical functions. The mod is also merged with Better BtS AI, making the AI-led opponent Kingdoms more of a challenge. Now they actually think!

Of particular note is that this mod also makes use of the better AI mod, but last time I played Fairty Tale -- half a year ago? -- the AI was not challenging (then again, that's normal in most TBS games).

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FFH2 is free and has been in development for years so there is your answer

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I would recommend FFH2 in the immediate sense, and Elemental in the eventual sense. FFH2 has not been in development in years, it will not get better than it is. Elemental, on the other hand, has only just been released, and will only keep getting better.

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Personally, I find it exciting to participate in the evolution of a game. Elemental is new and fresh, and there are almost daily patches and improvements. The community is very active and there is a lot to discover. This is probably a turn-off for people who don't want to get frequent patches and changes, and don't really want to find solutions for possible issues. Still, I really like how vibrant everything about Elemental is right now, and that is, was and would be enough for me to pick up the game right now.

But that's just me, YMMV.

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It seems like it must be really hard to get a solid AI working on a civ mod. I mean the base AI in Civ 4 is pretty solid and can provide a strong challenge and frequently kick my butt, at least at my skill level. But it's obviously not set up to make good use of whatever crazy mod people throw in. I thought the AI was decent in FFH2, but certainly not as hard as Civ would be at a comparable difficulty level. Of course I can always turn the difficulty up too. And it's worth noting that I was playing on a map with very little in the way of oceans which I guess is a good thing from what I've heard about the AI and oceans (but it does make sea based civilizations and technologies kind of pointless).

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Quoting Mtn_Man,

reply 21

Quoting pexx421, reply 4I never did like the fact though, that in fall from heaven two, your stacks square off, and randomly chooses which unit of yours fights which of theirs, and you lose your nursed heroes and powerful units without having much say so.

That sounds frustrating enough to suck the fun right out of the game.

it's not accurate, though. You can choose what units to attack with in what order, just like in regular cIV.

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I think this game will ultimately be better than FFH2, but right now I'd say that that mod is one of the best games in this Genre by leaps and bounds. The only one I can compare to is Age of Wonders 2, which is also good but much older, and, of course, the Masterful Master of Magic. If you already have Civ 4 and all the expansions get it (since it's free). Otherwise, wait until they make a new fantasy mod for Civ 5

The best part of FFH2 imo is that they do really make the different factions unique to play, with different graphics and everything, and that they do an excellent job with atmosphere and making the world feel dangerous and scary. My biggest complaints about it are the very flat unit tree coupled with the victory-or-death combat. Essentially, you are supposed to make your units better by leveling them, but if they or any of your heroes lose a combat, and in Civ 4 they often will, they instantly die and you lose everything. But no game's perfect, and FFH2 really is one of the best.

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the thing you have to keep in mind is this: FFH2 is no longer being worked on, it was developed over the course of years and is now in its "final" state. Elemental is brand spanking new with years of development ahead of it. Right now, FFH2 may be more stable on some systems, have deeper gameplay ect. ect. ect. but it got that way through developer commitment and community feedback and support. FFH2 is a great game, but its static. if there is something you don't like about it (and there are plenty of things not to like about it) then it isn't going to change. Elemental is just starting its journey, and I for one am excited to be along for the ride

the best thing about FFH2 is that its races are unique, but then thats something that SD has said they want to do with Elemental. its something they accomplished fairly well with GalCiv2, and im sure they will get it done here, just takes time. FFH2 didn't hit the mod scene fully formed and bug free, it took years to get it to the level its final build is at.

ps: people need to stop saying FFH2 is free. its not. at some point to have to have bought or buy Civ + warlords + BTS. if you are like me and you bought them all new, then it cost something like $90 total. you can get it cheaper now, but its not free. stop saying it is.

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Quoting brass1983,

reply 45

but its not free. stop saying it is.

OP implied he has cIV, at least

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James009D

Join Date 01/2005

+67

Get both! Fall from Heaven 2 is FREE!

I must say, I'm a huge fan of Fall from Heaven 2, however, despite that game's amazingness it is missing a LOT of features that Elemental has. I like creating my sovereign, I like my heroes, I like the RPG elements of Elemental, I like equipping my characters with equipment, and, best of all, I like creating my own armies. Can't do ANY of that in FFH2 which is why I got tired of it.

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Quoting brass1983,

reply 45

the thing you have to keep in mind is this: FFH2 is no longer being worked on, it was developed over the course of years and is now in its "final" state. Elemental is brand spanking new with years of development ahead of it. Right now, FFH2 may be more stable on some systems, have deeper gameplay ect. ect. ect. but it got that way through developer commitment and community feedback and support. FFH2 is a great game, but its static. if there is something you don't like about it (and there are plenty of things not to like about it) then it isn't going to change. Elemental is just starting its journey, and I for one am excited to be along for the ride

Well they are actually still patching it, there was a new bug patch less then a week ago. And there is still plenty of new content being developed for it by others in the mod community. But I suspect when Civ 5 comes along a lot of the interest in doing that will diminish. And certainly we can expect elemental to show much more improvement just because there is so much room for it.

Regarding elemental, I guess it's one of those things that will differ between different people. When I get a game I usually play it for awhile, rarely more then a month, and then I shelve it. I may return later but it's more then likely that I will not. So it's important that the time I spend playing it be the best quality possible. So if I have a month to play with elemental, I'd much rather it be with the eventual finished version then the current version.

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FfH2.

You may come back for Elemental in 6 months but today there's no doubt. FfH2 is fun and can be challenging, has great lore. Elemental crashes and offers zero challenge, and zero immersion right now.

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Tridus

Join Date 03/2008

+110

Quoting Simsum,

reply 20

The AI isn't very intelligent yet. GalCiv2's is the second best (AI Wars is even better, but that's a very different kind of strategy game) I've seen in a strategy game, though, and I'm confident Brad will keep working on it until it's even better than GalCiv2's.

@ Phazonfreak: I'm unaware to what extent the core mechanics are modable, but I wouldn't expect Stardock to fix them. Why? Because since the earliest days of the beta lots of people have written at length and in great detail on why the current mechanics can't produce balanced & interesting gameplay, and Stardock has at no point shown any interest in or receptiveness to that kind of criticism. So why would they now, when the game has reached a point where it is a hundred times as complicated to redesign them?

I'd hope because there's no way to avoid it. Some of the mechanics don't work well. You're right, there were pages of posts about it in the past, but there never was a real gameplay beta where it could be seen so clearly.

Now it's obvious just which mechanics don't work very well. It might be harder to change them, but it's far from impossible. If they ultimately want to make the game a "classic", that's where they'll have to go at some point.

To the OP - Since you already seem to have Civ 4, grab FFH. It won't cost you anything. Pop back in a month and no doubt you'll see a much improved Elemental.

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