Emperor of the Fading Suns Discussion thread

[MetalCraze]

But they don't even try to kill your noble guys on Byzantium. And they should.

 

[Trash]

Seeing the thread the OP linked to it does seem like that mod quietly died out. Not that it fixed the core issues. Just added some units, used the 'fixed' exe from another mod and had some tweaked values.

Oh well, time to reconcile myself to the fact that this game never will live up to its potential.

 

[kyrub]

The Symbiots - what's the bug? Should they attack you with ships or should they produce units in other places than hives? Or both?

They should attack you with everything they have at planets you own

This could solve that, they should now behave like anybody else (without producing units). I tried to test it, but since Symbiots are blocked somewhere, I leave it untested. http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?krhb3dap5r85gxx

--------------

If there is someone willing to continue to work on the EFS exe, here is an IDA file (i64 more specifically), where all the principal routines during the NEXT turn are specified.
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?n50dmpl4dtoxg6y

Disassembling with IDA is not hard, if you are into numbers, logic, math. I learned it using a small assembly tutorial from the net. (warning: it is also more enjoyable and satisfying than playing the games themselves).

 

[AzraelCC]

If there is someone willing to continue to work on the EFS exe, here is an IDA file (i64 more specifically), where all the principal routines during the NEXT turn are specified.
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?n50dmpl4dtoxg6y

Disassembling with IDA is not hard, if you are into numbers, logic, math. I learned it using a small assembly tutorial from the net. (warning: it is also more enjoyable and satisfying than playing the games themselves).

Hmm, given your sig, I think I might try my hand at modifying the files this weekend. Especially if you mentioned that the comments from beta clearly show which areas of the code does what.

The game never was about running a dozen of heavily populated planets. It's not MOO, expansion matters very little in EFS. It's all about being elected a regent and surviving 10 turns on Byzantium having declared yourself emperor. You don't need to micromanage half a galaxy for that, all you need is a sand planet for trace and a couple gem-harvesting mines for singularities. And if you decide to play it against an unknown universe rather than against the obvious opposition, well, it's not the game which is broken, it's your approach to it

True, and unfortunately this makes the game too easy given the retarded AI. I think even the vanilla game creates no impetus to colonize planets except for resources (which are pretty easy to get anyway).

Maybe Trash is right--this game never will live up to its potential. The concepts in the game suggest a game of multiple layers and epic proportions, but in practice it boils down to having enough tech and units to defend the position of Emperor.

 

[Malakal]

But they don't even try to kill your noble guys on Byzantium. And they should.

AI is also quite passive with it spectres so its even easier to just steal all votes for Yourself and become the de facto ruler of the empire...

 

[Kalin]

Emperor of the Fading Suns - Emperor Wars

I am not sure if it has been brought up (search function didn't imply it) so I thought I would mention that some kind and devoted soul has produced two excellent mod, Reality and its continuation Emperor Wars, adding and tweaking a whole lot of content for the purpose of improving the game and better emulating the dark ages of an empire in decline. Both mods make it much more difficult to expand with some severe restrictions on engineers and city construction (preventing the city-bloom and micromanagement hell of late-game sessions), add a whole lot of new technologies and units based on the Fading Suns setting (featuring unused art and images borrowed from Fading Suns manuals) and vastly improve the non-player factions.

I have been playing Emperor Wars for the past week and I absolutely love the new features. Its default scenario features a kind of accelerated start as per the map above with all factions having several planets, cities and forces at their command. The Universal Church of the Celestial Sun now controls all churches on all planets and is really quite powerful, particularly as they have Brother Battle units, both on De Moley and elsewhere. The Church also controls all of the monasteries, which are heavily defended but also lucrative to pillage in case you would actually go to war with Mother Church.

The League has been similarly beefed up, with trading posts on all planets and several cities/production centres of their own. It is now also possible to hire transport ships from the Charioteers and quite powerful mercenary companies from the Muster (you can even hire alien mercenaries if you have the appropriate technology), all directly from your starports. These units generally do not cost resources but rather have huge maintenance costs in firebirds.

Research has been slowed down considerably and expanded with a host of new technologies allowing for several new and improved units to be constructed. Speaking of which, only factories, forts, starports and palaces can now build units, so gone are the days of farms, mines and so forth producing hordes of cheap fodder. Most units are also unavailable at the beginning of the game, requiring plenty of technology to be unlocked, so the initial forces are very precious indeed.

One new unit I have become quite fond of is the knight, which combines the qualities of rather powerful infantry with the leadership bonuses of officers and also comes with negative maintenance to simulate income from land ownership. Others include new and improved noble retinues with possible specialisation, you can for example train psyker nobles, or ones heavily enhanced with cyberware (and unlike the nobles of olde they are much tougher to kill, making it very much viable to use them in battle). Brand new nobles can also be trained, though it takes 18 years to construct them.

The AI is still sub-optimal, of course, though now interesting things happen like the Symbiots truly assaulting (and sometimes breaking through!) Stigmata, and the Church and the League going to war with Noble Houses and, occasionally, even each other. The Imperial Fleet is perhaps a tad too powerful as it now comes with additional forces on Tethys. Fortunately, the increased threat from the Symbiots require most of its ship to guard Stigmata. Starting positions do differ somewhat based on the game lore, so House Decados starts with more stealth units and so forth, though no faction appears to be unreasonably overpowered. All in all, it would seem that Emperor Wars would be particularly well-suited for multiplayer games.

Here are the links if you are interested in grabbing the mods or just want to read more specific information about them:

Emperor Wars mod: https://sites.google.com/site/emperorwarsfadingsuns/home

Reality mod: https://sites.google.com/site/efsreality/

 

[Sranchammer]

I was just going to delve into this but the game seems to have a ridiculously high CPU usage. I had a similar problem with Sid Meir's Gettysburg.

 

[index.php]

Holistic Design's Emperor of the Fading Suns is a classic 4X strategy game, released in 1997. The team is working on a dramatic new patch to celebrate the game's 25th anniversary. Join us for a look at the patch and a discussion of the patch process.

 

[Tanaka]

Holistic Design's Emperor of the Fading Suns is a classic 4X strategy game, released in 1997. The team is working on a dramatic new patch to celebrate the game's 25th anniversary. Join us for a look at the patch and a discussion of the patch process.

Whoah are these the original game designers updating the game again?

 

[Space Satan]

I liked some mod that fixed the AI and made economy actually worth it. Pre-mod, you never run out of firebirds, but after it was hard to get. Plus, enemy actually started to defend their cities and no more orbital bobbardment of everything as Ai started to build PTA guns. Still, Inquisition never worked sadly, as you can prevent them from entering your labs.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

I just want someone to make EoFS 2.

 

[index.php]

Emperor of the Fading Suns 1.5 is out!

https://af.gog.com/game/emperor_of_the_fading_suns?as=1649904300

Now available as Emperor of the Fading Suns Enhanced!

Emperor of the Fading Suns has continued to inspire players not just because of the game itself, but because of the many great mods fans made for the game. The focus of the 1.5 patch is to greatly enhance modding capabilities. Expect many more great mods for the game.

One of the most dramatic changes is one of the least seen. The game was initially built using the Watcom development environment, and one of the first things we had to do was migrate it to Visual Studio. Additionally, the 1.5 patch adds:

• Significantly enhanced and added significant modding capabilities. This allows modders to add dramatically more units, technologies, and worlds, and even change game facets like excommunication, sect abilities, ruins, and much more;
• Significant enhancements to the map editor;
• Enhanced role of religious sects, impacting your unit abilities and population loyalties;
• Enhanced player information on unit and city screens;
• Added House strength as a factor in diplomacy;
• Streamlined some interface elements; and
• Fixed a wide variety of bugs.

You can find the full changelog here.

 

[zapotec]

Is the alien never attacking fixed?

 

[zapotec]

Is the alien never attacking fixed?

Yes now the Symbiots can produce ships!

 

[fax_]

Not only that. The entire religion system is now implemented! Diplomacy with the different sects (now represented by different patriarch portraits) now works and has a real gameplay impact - you can support the sect that gives you the bonuses and proscription preferences you need, or conversely the less favourable sect for your opponents.

Looking at the new dat files I’m a bit unclear how detailed the patriarch preferences are (regarding which technologies they are more or less likely to proscribe) but even some basic preferences in terms of technology hawkishness is a huge improvement.

 

[Malakal]

Any idea how AI was improved? Will it at least try to protect its scepters and shit?

 

[Norfleet]

So where's the patch? Does it work with the original game?

 

[fax_]

So where's the patch? Does it work with the original game?

Big revamp, you can't just drop a patch file on to update. You'll need to purchase the enhanced edition on GOG

Any idea how AI was improved? Will it at least try to protect its scepters and shit?

There are some improvements apparently - looking at the changelog, they are more aggressive when choosing a ministry, some changes to unit construction behaviour, ranged space targeting, partisans, diplomacy... they still city spam, so suggest updating unit.dat so engineers can only be produced in certain cities. Unclear on anything else, would need to pay for longer to determine.

There's also a huge new galaxy map adding in more canonical systems (more than 2x the original...) - I'm wondering if the AI/game wouldnt just grind to a halt with so many planets though...

 

[mondblut]

Holy mother of god. Now that was unexpected. How fidgety does it run on modern systems now? I remember having a fair share of issues with DXWnd before, as I didn't want neither to play in a postal stamp-sized window nor with stretched aspect ratio.

There are some improvements apparently - looking at the changelog, they are more aggressive when choosing a ministry, some changes to unit construction behaviour, ranged space targeting, partisans, diplomacy... they still city spam, so suggest updating unit.dat so engineers can only be produced in certain cities. Unclear on anything else, would need to pay for longer to determine.

City spam was not much of an issue. Each of those cities spamming 20 pieces of WW1-era ATY as a garrison, on the other hand...

 

[Gaznak]

It's a pity that WinXP compatibility has been broken now, quite predictably however.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

I just received an automatic update for my copy of Fading Suns from GOG to the Enhanced version.

 

[Gostak]

[...]
There are some improvements apparently - looking at the changelog, they are more aggressive when choosing a ministry, some changes to unit construction behaviour, ranged space targeting, partisans, diplomacy... they still city spam, so suggest updating unit.dat so engineers can only be produced in certain cities. Unclear on anything else, would need to pay for longer to determine.

There's also a huge new galaxy map adding in more canonical systems (more than 2x the original...) - I'm wondering if the AI/game wouldnt just grind to a halt with so many planets though...

Can you please show the edits you do to combat city spam (I have not looked into the file(s) myself, yet)?

 

[Tanaka]

Another new patch coming:

https://youtu.be/fDHIOGRarTI

 

[Malakal]

Anyone can tell me if this is now enjoyable in SP? I won't even dream of playing it MP.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Its pretty good, but you need to get used to the controls - those didnt age that well.