More?

from Elemental Forums

I have not played this game for probably a year.  Getting into Civ IV again, and bought Civ V on sale (still think Civ IV is a better game; though I like Civ V, it feels less "grand" and much more "general public" friendly), so I decided to fire this up again.

First, WHERE IS JANUSK???  The advice button option is nowhere, he never shows up.

Secondly, and this is really the first point of the thread (just wondering on the "Janusk" thing), is there anyone who has made a mod to make this game "MORE"?  What I mean by that is, I told my kingdom to research a spell today, and it told me 50 turns.  This is with the FAST setting.  Frankly, there is not enough to do with 50 turns of time for ONE SPELL to be completed.

This game is on the edge of awesomeness, but then falls flat.  There is just not enough.  Is there a way to make fast = fast?  50 turns for one spell is just insanely boring and ridiculous.  No, I do not want to/have time to/have patience to mod everything in this game I want changed.

To be honest, what I want is a CIV game with Dungeons and Dragons roots.  This game has some of it.  I still cannot justify having to wait 50 turns for one "Familiar Summon" spell.  Does this mean a fireball is going to be another 50 turns?  or even 150 turns?  100 turns for 2 spells?  There is NOT ENOUGH TO DO in the game for 100 turns for 2 spells to be completed.  I know...raise mana production, etc., but cannot this game be made to be fun?

I want Fireballs.  I want orcs, giants, ghouls to fight.  I want enemy kingdoms...the art work is THE BEST I HAVE EXPERIENCED in this kind of game, I love it.

I still cannot get over that it takes 50 tuns to get one spell.  How in the world is that fun?  I think that is where this game misses; lots of great ideas, lots of great implementation, cool things, but the fun element dwindles almost immediately.  Shouldn't fast = fast?  It does not, fast would be a spell in 2 or 3 turns, not 50.

I think I liked the overall game better right at the start (minus the bugs/crashes; the format was better...I still cannot make anyone else a spellcaster, even though I have enough mana, it just simply won't work, so I am stuck with one spellcaster every game...yes, for 50 turns!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

You could raise/lower land, make spellcaster, a whole bunch of stuff in the beginning that is not there now (though you can lower land at least).  That was an awesome set of features, made you feel powerful and potent...now I have to wait 50 turns to summon a familiar!?!

I just want fun when I play this, it has so much right, but when I played today I literally thought "I'd be having a lot more interest/fun if this time was being spent playing CIV."  I don't mean that as an insult, but it is a truthful observation.  I want CIVungeons and Dragons (get it, combing CIV and DUNGEONS?  okay, it was dumb, but that is what I want).  This game does so much right on that track...but then loses it when it comes to fun.

Is there any one who can have mercy and mod this thing so

1)Speed is much faster

2)More of everything(monsters, treasures, quests, dangers, etc.) minus an abundance of more or other civilizations to compete with.  I think that part is pretty good in gameplay/balance/fun.

3)Things like random events, scripted events (though this #3 is really more optionsal; the first 2...I MUST HAVE...I just really WANT to like this game).

 

PS- to my long ramble (but please take it seriously, and please help)...JANUSK???

elemental
4,452 views 1 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

 

I sympathise with you I really do. The game has always been quite bad at giving you cool stuff to play with from the start, the kind of immediate rewards that you come to expect in most games. Part of this i think comes from the post-apocalyptic schtick, but a lot is just poor pacing. I’m just glad we got the basic unit size up so we didn’t have to look at individual guys looking lonely in their squares for half the game.

As for the spell research times, I think they went up because we had a situation where people were getting most of the spells they wanted by half way through the game, and then getting bored and annoyed having to choose all of the others every couple of turns when they’d already lost interest. I can see why this happened, but imo just increasing the times misses the point.

First there just aren’t enough spells that you might want. All I generally research is two or three direct damage spells, that one that freezes people so they lose a turn, teleport, a couple of summons, the terramorphing ones for utility and maybe curgen’s inferno just for fun in the late game. Game really needs more spells. If nothing else there needs to be more powerful direct damage in the later game.

But really, so long as people are able to pick individual spells like they are they are always going to make very cold choices and say “sounds alright, but i’d rather just cast 2 fireballs for the same mana.” Personally I’d 1: add a lot more spells 2: make people research books of three or four spells (including greater fire, greater water etc) 3: merge those books with magic tech research using the current spell research buildings.

Really, neither spell research or magic research are particularly grabbing at the moment. They’d be better simply consolidated. It would remove micro and allow us to do all the same things we can at the moment.