Rebirth and Legend

Derf

Modular Mushroom
Joined
Jun 1, 2002
Messages
595
Location
UK
Update news:
Version 1.3 released!

Known Issues as of 07 April '17:
-CtD when attempting to load mod on Steam version of BtS - to solve, right-click Beyond the Sword in your Steam library, select Properties, then the Betas tab and opt in to the Original Release version.


Everything below in this post is from before I actually released the mod, because Posterity. Post 2 has the mod download, links to any hotfixes, and the installation instructions. Post 3 has the Changelog.

OK, here we go. As mentioned in my 'What would you like to see' thread, I am planning my own RiFE continuation, which will be named Rebirth and Legend. This will be based on the last released version of Rise From Erebus 1.4, so any and all bugs that have been fixed in Final Fixes, Final Fixes Reborn and Ashes of Erebus, will obviously need to be fixed again. But before that.

This is the first time I have taken on a project of this magnitude. RiFE itself is no small mod, and is a massive step up for me, someone who has previously been quite content to make modules. There are going to be false starts, unexpected pitfalls, issues and bugs galore, but I'm not going to let these things deter me. Above all, this is going to take time. I do (still) have a life outside of what I've been doing here, and as you would expect, that takes precedence. I won't hold myself to any release schedule, nor set deadlines, as much as these may help, because if I do I'll only end up having people expectantly awaiting what the schedule says should be there, and having to disappoint.

So, with that aside. This is my current 'to do' list:
-Set up a form of distribution. Dropbox is suitable for modules, but not for a mod.
-Decide on how to release the mod and updates. As it stands, this will be a patch applied (manually) on top of Rise From Erebus. This may later change.
-Bugs. Squashed, flattened, beaten and firmly shown the door. There are a lot of them to fix.
-Python and DLL source - not only do I have to learn to work with this on a level I haven't before, but I also have to figure out how to compile the source. As if that wasn't enough, I also have to do this on a non-Windows system. Fun!
-This list. There'll be things that will need to be added to this over time, and they'll be added as and when.

And this... is my vision for everything that is not a bug (they're features :lol:)

-Balanced. With the exception of game options saying otherwise, the AI should be able to do everything the player is, and vice versa. No civ should have any massive boon over any other that makes it overpowered, neither should there be a civ that is so drastically underpowered that they cannot hold their own.

-Compatible. I want existing modules for Rise From Erebus to continue to work with RaL. Some modules that have been made compatible with Ashes of Erebus will have to be tweaked due to changes made there that will not be reflected here.

-Lore-friendly. This point is mainly inspired by Max's Mekara Mod, which will not be merged (except for bug fixes) into RaL. As is seen in the thread for Max's Mekara Mod, Jherel... did not like the way it went away from the lore. Similarly, where I feel there have been unnecessary deviations from the lore, things will be realigned. Where changes have been necessary, the lore will be adapted to handle it, while at the same time trying not to have to rewrite too much.

-Modular. There are parts of RiFE that add very little and should be optional, if they are not already. One key example of this is Leaders - there are leaders which do not bring anything unique, or if they do it is very little, to the scene. Some may want to play with these leaders, so while they will be removed from RaL's core code, they will be made modular so people can continue to use them if they wish. This will extend to more than just leaders in the future.

-Reworked. Primarily focused on the Civs themselves, there are many things that need to be redone and reworked. In particular, as I become more adept with python and the DLL (and as others choose to assist) I would like to merge parts of, if not all of, such mods as BUG and More Naval AI.

-Community oriented. What you say will play a large part in what happens. At present I may well be the only one working on this, but that doesn't mean it will simply be what *I* think it should be - I will listen, and take on board what is said. Where something cannot be done or does not fit, I will explain why. Where things need to be reworked before they can be included, this too will be covered. When something is brought into RaL from the community, appropriate credit will be given (and if I forgot, poke me until I remember).

Understandably, you're going to want an idea of what I want to change. At the moment this is focused on Civilizations. Not all of them have tweaks I want to apply to them yet, but many will be touched on. So, in no particular order, and spoilered due to length...

Spoiler :
Mercurians
These will not be summonable any more. The Mercurian Gate wonder will be temporarily disabled until I figure out what to do with it. They will be selectable from that start, by AI and human players. Instead of being blocked from many units, they will have the Angel racial. This prevents them from using their own units as sacrificial lambs for more Angels (As in the units), which in turn prevents them from fielding their angelic upgrades in large numbers, forcing them to have a strategy similar to other Civs. Basium (the unit) will be tweaked to be buildable in the late-game to offset his power.

Infernals
Like the Mercurians, these will no longer appear with Infernal Pact, but will be selectable from the start. Hyborem will require tweaking similar to Basium (the units). While they will continue to gain Demonic Citizens in all cities, they will no longer gain free buildings. Further changes will need to be made to prevent them from being overpowered at the start.
This idea may not be possible, but I'd like to make Hell Terrain no longer spawn automatically in Infernal lands. An Infernal Civ should still have to research Infernal Pact, upon which a ritual becomes available that provides the initial Hell Terrain around the city completing the ritual. It will spread as normal from there.

Chislev
This civ needs a lot of work. As it stands, it doesn't have enough to make it stand out properly, and they appear to have only one theme: We Hate Orcs. The entire civ will be made into a module until such time as it stands out properly as a fully fledged Civilization, rather than the way it is now.

Clan of Embers
Goblin units will not be a part of the current Clan. There will be a new (or possibly changed) leader, which when played as will have primarily Goblin units, while the rest of the Clan leaders use Orcs, Lizardfolk, etc.

Cualli and Mazatl
The updated Lizard Art Fix module from my Ashes modules thread will be merged into the main code of RaL. There is the potential to merge the two civs themselves, and have the Cualli specific parts apply only when choosing a Cualli leader, and similarly for the Mazatl. However, until the game can be taught to choose the same civ randomly twice, and make one Cualli and one Mazatl, doing this will mean you will never see both of them in the same game unless you pick them yourselves.

Doviello
The Baron's Lycanthropic trait makes logical sense, but I think there's potential for a lot more. So (possibly by module, for those who don't want this) all his units will now also get the Werewolf promotion and be werewolves. They'll also skip the 'Ravenous Werewolf' stage.

Dural
The Dural function well as they are, perhaps a bit too well, so they may (I know, don't yell at me) get a slight nerf. They will not, however, be merged with the Grigori, despite their similarities.

Grigori
Following on from the above. Several Dural buildings will be made available to the Grigori due to their cosmopolitan attitude. If possible, I'd like to add unique buildings which exclude each other, which when built in a city apply a racial to them - allowing for a primarily Dwarven city, an Elven one, etc. In general though, the Grigori do need a few new mechanics.

Illians
Not technically Illians as such, but the Ice Touched trait will be removed. Auric will have a powerful favouring for the White Hand, which if done correctly should stop him even considering adopting other religions, and effectively do the same thing. The Frozen will be affected similarly (See their own entry further down)

Khazad
The Khazad: The Next Generation module will be merged into RaL with its various changes. The Luchuirp leaders will also be migrated to the Khazad, and allow for limited access to Golems, similar to the Luchuirp as they stand right now. See the Luchirp entry for more details.

Kuriotates
Orbis allowed their settlements to be more than just non-productive forts with names. This I'd also like to bring over to RaL. Like the Grigori though, they also require a bit more.

Ljosalfar and Svartalfar
See Cualli and Mazatl. While the Lizard Art Fix module has no bearing here, they again may be merged into one civ that plays differently depending on whether you choose a Ljosalfar or Svartalfar leader. Again, this will suffer from the same issue mentioned before.

Luchuirp
These are going to be replaced with an all-Golem civ lead by Barnaxus. The leaders will be moved to the Khazad, where they'll allow for access to Golems similar to how they handle right now. They'll have their own new mechanics and changes. For the current details, see my 'What would you like to see...' thread. This is a longer-term project, and so for a while these changes will not take place. They will not be going away straight away.

Mekara
As mentioned before, I side with Jherel on the changes brought about by Max's Mekara Mod. They'll receive bugfixes, but will remain true to Jherel's original vision of them.

Jotnar and Frozen
As I've been updating these modules for Ashes myself (Frozen with LPlate's help) I'll replace the outdated modules in RaL with these. They will not be merged back into the main mod as such, so you'll still be able to choose whether to use them or not.
The Frozen will be changed similarly to the Illians w.r.t the Ice Touched trait.
The Jotnar will benefit from my Giantkin Fix module being merged into RaL itself


Other changes:

The return of Kahd! Technically he never went away as such, just the civ (the Kahdi) did. He can occasionally pop up in games where the Amurites are, and if you play as them he may put in an appearance and try to take over one of your cities.
This will be changed. That event will no longer happen, and Kahd will be a playable Amurite leader from the start. He'll gain access to the Vault Gates he had with the Kahdi, and the Vault Gates will be affected by the Amurite buildings just as they were the Kahdi unique counterparts.

Several modules that are either made or updated by me will be merged into RaL itself, rather than being left modular (they'll still be available for Ashes of Erebus users). These are:
Advanced Workers
Khazad: The Next Generation
Fortifications
Giantkin Fix
Lizard Art Fix
More Arcane (After I take the WIP tag off it and handle remaining issues)
Scion Healthcare
Werepyre

The updated Jotnar and Frozen modules will also replace the outdated ones provided (which you knew if you'd read the civilizations spoiler).
 
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Installation

Important Note: When upgrading from version 1.2 or higher to a newer version, please move all modules except for Bannor Chain of Command, Black Duke and More Events into the Inactive Modules folder (you can put them back again afterwards, of course). This will ensure your modules are always up to date and prevents there being multiple copies or versions of modules.

Version 1.2+
1: Download from the Mediafire link
2: Extract to Beyond the Sword/Mods
3: Apply any hotfixes for the version you're running, listed below.

1.2 Infernal Worker hotfix: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=13946237&postcount=82
Rebirth and Legend will no longer overwrite Rise from Erebus installs. Please note that you will need to use 7-Zip (or an archiving tool that can understand 7z files) to extract.

Version 1.1
1: Download from the Mediafire link
2: Extract to Beyond the Sword/Mods
Note that this will overwrite any existing Rise from Erebus installation, as the mod's name has not yet been changed.

Old instructions for version 1.0:
Step 1: Download RiFE itself from the Download and Current Changelog thread. Soundtracks are obviously optional, all you actually need is the main download.

Step 2: Download snarko's patch from A wild patch appeared! and apply.

Step 3: Extract the archive linked to below and copy the files into the Assets folder within your Rise From Erebus folder, overwriting where prompted.

Optional step: Move the Jotnar and/or Frozen modules from the Inactive modules to the Modules/NormalModules folder - these two modules have been updated and will function now. There may still be a few lasting issues with Frozen however - report them please!

Step 4: Play.

While playing, take note of anything that needs changing, bugs that need fixing, broken things, ping blobbery due to missing art or incorrect art pointers. These are the things I need in order to take over the worl.... I mean fix the modmod. And possibly also my sense of humour :lol:

Downloads
Rebirth and Legend 1.3 (Mediafire)
Rebirth and Legend 1.2 (Mediafire)
Rebirth and Legend 1.1 (Mediafire)
Rebirth and Legends 1.0 (Dropbox
 
Changelog:

Important Note: If you are upgrading from 1.2, in order to avoid duplicate modules or conflicts, please move any modules you enabled (excepting Bannor Chain of Command, Black Duke and More Events) back to Inactive Modules first. Several modules have received fixes and tweaks.
Feel free to move them back again afterwards, of course. This just avoids confusion and mistakes.

Version 1.3:
-Maogata are now available to the AI. While they don't take full advantage of their capabilities, they're still capable rivals.
-Maogata can no longer build Temple of the Hand, in line with being unable to build other temples
-Grigori Sidequest now acts as Held instead of Lost, and can only be done once.
-Each tech founding a religion now increases the cost of each other such tech
-Each of the four techs granting access to Mana Nodes decrease the cost of the other three
-Hellify spell, available with Entropy I, now works (with one caveat, see below)
-Beeri Bawl now has Industrious instead of Defender, as Golems couldn't benefit from Defender
-Lore: Ljosalfar and Svartalfar Palaces are now known as the Summer and Winter Court respectively.
-Religious Fervor, the Malakim World Spell, now also handles White Hand appropriately
-Infernal cities now start at size 1 instead of size 3, in order to balance the next line
-Infernals now start with Infernal Pact, so they gain Manes from the start. This has the side effect of founding Ashen Veil on turn one if they are in game.
-Lizard Priests of Omorr and Kalshekk now found the Sacellums instead of the Temples.
-Climateforming for the Malakim and Lizard Civs, which was previously disabled, can be re-enabled by loading the appropriately named mini-modules.
-Muris Clan Goblin event should be far less common and annoying.
-Ice Touched has been restored and returned to Auric and Taranis, as it was causing a crash whenever they were in game.
-The Flames feature has had its size halved, in order to make it more computer-friendly
-Burning Sands now occasionally remove Flames from their tile. In order to keep with their original implementation, they now also have the requirement of Fire Resistance to enter, regardless of whether Flames are present.

Caveat for Hellify - for reasons I haven't been able to discover yet, this doesn't always work, and will never work on the first turn (which took me a while to find out). If you're playing the Infernals, simply building a Corrupted Pasture or snaring Bradeline's Well should be enough. This is something I'll be looking into.

Version 1.2:
-Mod's name is now officially Rebirth and Legend, meaning it no longer overwrites any Rise from Erebus installs you have. Thanks to Opera for pointing out the places I was missing.
-Auric and Taranis (Frozen Module) no longer have the Ice-Touched trait, which has been removed. They are now weighted to favour the White Hand, and to not pick any other religion even when available. Naturally, this is AI-only, and nothing stops you from doing differently.
-Jotnar plot radius is now +3 instead of +1
-The Dural and Hamstalfar modules are no longer loaded by default
-Three modules have been merged into the base code: Advanced Workers, Fortifications and Werepyre. See my AoE module thread for details on each.
-Six modules have been made available, but are not loaded by default. Move them into the appropriate folder to enable them (As the RiFE launcher doesn't seem to want to work). These are Khazad: TNG (Folder is named 'Dwarves'), Master of Mana Buildings, Maogata, More Arcane, Myu and Scion Healthcare.
-Known Issue: When Scion Healthcare module is loaded, the 'pedia does not display banner art for any non-module civilizations.
-Grigori Medics now have 'Can only Defend' set, per their lore.
-Corrupted Pastures are now available to the Infernals as well as the D'Teshi
-Infernals temporarily have their auto-hellification turned on due to issues with the way I was trying to make it work. An alternative solution is in the works.
-Lots of missing Text Keys have been added. Most of them just have placeholder text, but you should see much fewer TXT_KEY_SOMETHING occurances.
-Two text keys have been corrected from 'Tortoise' to 'Turtle' - Tortoises don't swim. Note that this is visual only; the actual keys still refer to Tortoise.
-The entries for Abashi, Demagogs and the Mercurian Gate have all been updated.

Previous Versions
Spoiler :

Version 1.1:
-Grigori: Temple of the Hand now blocked
-Grigori: Eidolon added to blocked units
-Mercurians: Basium no longer has his city stealing spell
-Mercurians: No longer a summonable Civ, can be selected from the start
-Mercurians: No longer have any blocked units
-Mercurians: Basium is now trainable at Righteousness, costs 1200 hammers and requires the Mercurian Gate in city
-Mercurians: Mercurian Gate is now a UB Wonder. Living units in the city may cast a spell that may kill them, but may apply the Angel Racial (If they die, they may come back as Angel units as usual)
-Infernals: No longer a summonable Civ, can be selected from the start
-Infernals: An Infernal city no longer gains any free buildings except for Demonic Citizens ('pedia has been updated to reflect this)
-Infernals: Hyborem trainable at Malevolent Designs, must have AV Religion, costs 1200 hammers.
-Doviello: Baron Duin Halfmorn's trait now grants the Werewolf promotion to all units.
-Mimics can no longer aquire Leash (and similar) promotions from combat (Python code contributed by Viatos)
-White Hand religion now properly disabled for Civ's that shouldn't be able to get it
-Ashes of Erebus style additions to all upgradable tile improvements except Cottages - each one now has (I), (II), (III) or (IV) appended to the end to make it easier to tell the ordering.
-Fixed missing text key for discovering the Ring of Striking
-LPlate's Frozen Souls python fix merged (From my Ashes Frozen module - Be warned this module still has issues)
-Jotnar: Start with only one Jotnar Citizen and Jotnar Warrior
-Barbarians should no longer be so barbaric. Most Barbarian spawning improvements should spawn less often. Scouts everywhere rejoice... and get killed from making too much noise.
-Climateform has been disabled everywhere except for White Hand, Frozen, Illians and D'Tesh.

All changes below here came from the Ashes of Erebus changelogs. Thanks go to them an all those who helped find and fix them.
-Lizard Racials now exclude Amphibious promotion, as the effects were in the racial already
-Humanist text keys have been fixed
-'pedia corrected for Orc Slaying
-And also for Eyes and Ears Network
-Mekara Sluga creation spells fixed to require their Mage Guild UB (Max's Mekara Mod)
-Battle Sluga creation spell now correctly requires Alteration (Max's Mekara Mod)
-Fixed Mekara Leaders being able to train each others units (Max's Mekara Mod)
-D'Teshi Fort Commander and Thanatos now start with the Flying promotion
-Taking the Flying Promotion now excludes the Amphibious promotion as the Ampib effect is contained in flying.
-Salt no longer provides a pointless health bonus by the D'Tesh Crypt
-Lichdom spell now requires the caster to be alive, and is hidden if not castable.
-D'Tesh Corrupted Pasture now requires Animal Husbandry. Fixes it deleting resources if the tech is not researched.
-Dwarven Mines can now be built on Peaks
-D'Tesh no longer have access to Wells, Public Baths or Sewers as there was no use for them.
-D'Tesh Crypts no longer provide a bonus for Patrian Artifacts, which they could not see or use
-D'Tesh now start with a Vessel of D'Tesh, not a Settler
-Dural can no longer access the Temple of the Hand
-Dural no longer access the default White Hand disciple units
-Dural now have School and Student of Winter (XML entries for them were copied from AoE)
-Mechanos now start the game using the Nationhood Civic, which is also used during Anarchy
-Farms no longer work Banana resources. Plantations only.

Version 1.0:
-Contents of the 'Lizard Art Fix' module have been merged into core code. Cualli and Mazatl should no longer have any units with the Lizard racial but non-lizard art.
-Outdated Jotnar module has been replaced with my overhauled one, tweaked to make it compatible with RaL. Additionally, the python code that spawns Jotnar Citizens has been disabled, as it is not needed with this updated Jotnar module. Note that Jotnar is *not* loaded by default.
-Jotnar Warriors (Formerly Thrall Militia) now properly gain the Giantkin Racial
-Outdated Frozen module has been replaced with my updated one, tweaked to make it compatible with RaL. Taranis also gains the Ice Touched trait, which he does not have in the AoE compatible module. This module is also not loaded by default, and there may be lasting issues with python - report them, please!
-The return of Kahd! Kahd is now a selectable Amurite leader. The event that normally triggers which may cause him to take control of an Amurite city in-game no longer occurs.
-When playing as Kahd, the Vault Gate is buildable. The 'pedia entry has been updated to reflect this.
-Missing artwork for Veraato and Cuai-Ixl has been added.
-Giantkin God was improperly named
-Giantkin Seasonsed no longer depends on two applications of the Giantkin racial, which could never happen.
-Fixed a missing text key for Explore City spell.
 
I see we have a full outbreak on our hands, then. ;)

Will be interesting to see how you progress on this one. My time is a bit more limited these days than it used to be, back when we were making RifE, but I can probably help out a bit, if you like (with planning, lore and concepts, if nothing else). I should be around on #erebus most of the time.
 
Seriously, you guys were a bad influence on me. I was up all night with plans.
Added a quick bit about the Doviello for the Baron. When I first saw his Lycanthropic trait, knowing him, I knew what I expected, and was disappointed when it wasn't. So I'm making it a reality instead.

Anyway, from my perspective, I think it's better to not set deadlines etc and work at your own pace then feel beholden to work quickly and get things done. The help is certainly appreciated, particularly from someone who made RiFE itself, but like I said - IRL takes precedence. If work goes a bit slower, then it goes slower.
 
A couple of points:

1. The best part of all you said (IMHO) was the bit about ai being able to use new abilities. This site is filled with many wonderful mods (ff2 specific RIFE, MOM, Orbis) and many others. Basically all of them have the same weakness. While they add fantastic mechanics, units, techs and other goodies, the advantage that a human has over the ai gets larger and larger. Case in point. In the original ff2, while the ai was far from perfect, it could still mount a series challenge, even on monarch level. I remember games where 150 pyre zombies came over the hill and really tested me. Now, we have ashes of erbrus, a fantastic mod which I am enjoying immensely, but which I am playing on deity level, and am still not being truly challenged. While its not as fun to say, "I have been working on my mod for 6 months, there is zero knew content, but the ai is better" its really what we need.

2. I noticed in your list of civ changes that the calabim did not get a mention :sad:, perhaps a bit of trueblood to spice them up!!

Regardless, its great to see people still interest, because there is definatly still interst in these games. Good luck mate.
 
The true blood that you mentioned in my module thread? That would definitely be a great addition to them. I'd like to say I'll merge it in, but at the moment merging anything in is going to wait until I've got myself sorted out with a place to tinker with things, some kind of version control for easier management and such.
If you can make a module for it that works, then once I get to the part of bringing in changes I'll be sure to take a look at it and see about merging it in.
I admit to some bias in having the capability to make my own modules a part of the main game, though I'll try and keep that within reason. But I think this approach works better, make it work as a module, de-bug it a bit (if it needs it) and provide balance, then consider making it a part of the game.

The main reason not all civs have anything listed yet is because I haven't actually thought of anything yet. There'll be something for everyone eventually, I hope. Just let me get RiFE set up and working and go through the 'pedia and I'll end up with this long list of things to fix, change and more...

Oh gods, how did I get into this... :p
 
No worries. It working in my own game already. Initially, I tied the starting promotion 'true blood' with vampirism, so any unit that could get vampirism would also get the true blood chain. However, upon reflection, I wanted it to be a bit special, so instead gave the promotion to selected units (ie vamp, vamp lord, bruja, vamp hero) otherwise, with some careful human play, the calibrim could have super mages, or super anything living for that matter. Anyway, when you're ready I can supply what I've got.
 
I like that bit of balancing there, makes perfect sense.
I might be a while, since I've got to go through and do a whole slew of bug fixing, for which I'll be running through both the Final Fixes threads to get a head-start on the little critters. Then despite the hints from anw and Jherel that I'd end up developing more than playing, I'm going to play a few games to find more (it does count, I tell you!) and any other things I think need rebalancing.

And then I'll start merging modules and making tweaks. What I'd suggest in the meantime is making your module available to everyone here - just start a thread and post it. As it's based on a WM module though, you'll want to make sure you've got the permission of the original author, just to make sure (s)he doesn't object.
And that way, once I get to the point of modular mergers, I can just pop a note in your modules thread letting you know, add it in, do a few checks to make sure I didn't break anything (It happens. Sometimes. A bit. Often.) it'll be there for everyone.
 
thanks for your futur work.

2 things in mind :
-please help the archers !
(do not use my modmodmod... as I'm not happy with the balance: as in too strogn) but do something for them : they suck ! a unit that is focused on defense suck in FFH where xp is earned on attack. (in Rife they are good due to ranged attacks... but not balanced as no risk on ranged attack)

and archers where not really defenders... but skirmishers / room-warmers (to get the ennemy in the mood) / harrasser / and lately defense.)

-I liked chislev : if only for the tribal structure and the active warlords. In lore they might lack fluff, and they could get some more uniqueness... but they are interesting : the 1 tribal council per 3 (4?) tribal elder is nice, ... etc. (they are iirc the only civ that uses this principle.)
 
O_o
Are you feeling alright there Cal?
 
Rebirth and Legend 1.0 is now live! This version doesn't change much as yet, but it's a start, and it works. At least on my end. As you'd expect, please report any issues encountered, complaints to be made, etc.

Download is found in the second post along with installation instructions. As yet, this is simply installed on top of Rise from Erebus, and does not change the mod's name yet.
Changelog is found in the third post.

Enjoy!
 
Here's a small change that I mentioned in the Ashes thread, I think, that I don't know if it ever made it in or not:

postcombatMimic said:
iLeashAch = getInfoType('PROMOTION_ACHERON_LEASHED')
iLeashCommand = getInfoType('PROMOTION_INFLUENCE')
iLeashMana = getInfoType('PROMOTION_MANA_GUARDIAN')
iLeashMin1 = getInfoType('PROMOTION_MINOTAUR_LEASH1')
iLeashMin2 = getInfoType('PROMOTION_MINOTAUR_LEASH2')
iLeashMin3 = getInfoType('PROMOTION_MINOTAUR_LEASH3')
iLeashMin4 = getInfoType('PROMOTION_MINOTAUR_LEASH4')
iLeashPristin = getInfoType('PROMOTION_PRISTIN_LEASH')
iLeash0 = getInfoType('PROMOTION_LEASH_0')
iLeash1 = getInfoType('PROMOTION_LEASH_1')
iLeashLich = getInfoType('PROMOTION_LICH_DURATION')

These are restrictions added so that Mimics cannot pick up a leash or the promotion on Lich skeletons that kills them in 3 rounds. As it stands these are huge hazards for units meant to go traipsing around gathering up promotions, prevents them from attacking Fort Commanders or Acheron, et cetera - and not in the intentional sense that you have to avoid Weak or Diseased.

Also, and I don't know when or why it happened, but in my game Mazatl Wyverns were like 12 strength, had the dragon spells, and the AI spams them. This is...difficult to respond to. If the single lizard civilization can get assassin-priests and the hero, maybe drop the Wyverns altogether.

My suggestion for Mazatl/Cualli would be to set three temples, the two Mazatl get and a third for Cualli dedicated to their Agruonn-equivalent, and give each unique priests, a mid-tier priest hero in the same style as the Cualli (guardian, scholar, assassin, all upgrade-only) but toned down from Mizlqurirliteatteitei whatever, and a Wonder to make up for the loss of Holy Cities and make all three paths mutually exclusive. Maybe the first temple is a National Wonder in the same style as the Master Smith/etc buildings, unlocking the ability to make more temples once you choose it. Coatlann remains a late-game option for everyone; without wyverns, a more reasonable mid-tier hero (the Cualli default is so strong because he's essentially 100% of their offense by himself) and perhaps relegating wyvern guardians to the Kilmorph/defender path, they should stay relatively balanced.

EDIT: Another small change - the Grigori could use some NEW mechanics, but here's an old one that has trouble: their Fort Commanders allow units on the same tile to Sidequest, which gives them Lost and lets them gain XP for a while. This is a cute idea, but the fact that you can build a fort somewhere completely safe and then sidequest all your units - workers to warriors to adepts - infinitely is like giving everyone a high-speed version of the Hero promotion. Actual heroes get crazy. Definitely needs some sanity limits and maybe a risk, in the same way Balseraphs have to find a balance when it comes to freak-spam and the Arena.
 
Interesting stuff. A few quick thoughts:

-- I don't really have strong feelings about merging the Cualli and Mazatl into a single civ. It's been a long time since I played either one, so don't really remember details of how they differ, other than alignment.

-- I would recommend keeping the Ljosalfar and Svartalfar as separate civs. The idea of light elves and dark elves dates back centuries in Norse mythology and has been taken up in all kinds of fantasy, including, of course, D&D. It just seems to really fit the FfH2 setting.

-- I thought the Kahdi in Fall Further were kind of fun, but my recollection is that the RifE team got rid of them as a separate civ because, among other things, their Vault Gate mechanism resembled the Sheaim Planar Gate, and they didn't want to repeat that. Up to you, obviously, but I thought that Kahd as an Amurite-only event worked pretty well.

-- There have been many many threads discussing the Doviello, as I'm sure you know, so you might find some interesting ideas if you poke around a bit. Some years back Xienwolf had some interesting suggestions here and here, especially his idea of a flat yield per tile for the Doviello, irrespective of terrain.
 
Request: For whatever reason, changing the file name to Ashes of Erebus is essential to getting Ashes of Erebus to run. Currently your stuff is compatible; until you've got whatever you're taking from their bugfixes etc. ported over, it would be appreciated if it stays that way for maximum stuff-works-edness.

Bug in 1.0: Your SpellInfo for the Jotnar references BUILDING_THE_DRAGONS_HOARD, which seems fine, except that the actual building Acheron creates is MISspelled - it's horde, believe it or not.
 
@Derf : I feel right.
it just that archers need love :D
I feel :
-that there role as designed in FFH does not correspond to real archer's/ranged roles..
-that without even speaking of role, they usually suck in FFH as they have few ways to gain xp. (xp is double when attacking + attacking allows you to chose if you want to attack with the unit at 80 odds instead of the unit at 99 odds... (the 80% gaining more xp!) ) and in FFH and modmods, xp is SO important.
-then speaking about their role : there role in FFH is mostly useless, as FFH is mostly a game of positioning, and archers are defense only, (wait-till-someone-attacks) units.
 
OK, let's see. I can't do any dev work today due to irl concerns (Yes, I still have that mysterious thing called 'life') but I'll make sure I've got these things noted down.

Firstly, @Viatos: This is not based on Ashes of Erebus in the slightest. It runs on top of RiFE itself. At present it doesn't change the name of RiFE, though it will in future versions once I track down an annoying error it keeps throwing and shouldn't.
Once the name-change happens and you can have the Rebirth and Legends folder in your mods folder alongside an unmodified Rise from Erebus, I plan to be able to distribute the entire thing stand-alone - that is, you have one download which just needs to be extracted and placed in the Mods folder, then load up the Rebirth and Legend mod.
(I hope that's clear. I'm not entirely sure.)

Mimics: I'll have to check to see if that's there, but if it was added in Ashes then the chances are I need to add it - Rebirth and Legend is not based on Ashes of Erebus.

Will look into the Wyvern Spam. There should only be 12 iirc (national unit limit). Might be a case of having to trick the AI into using them differently for the moment.

Not sure if I can make one building exclude the others. I know Master of Mana has that functionality, but I don't recall seeing it anywhere in RiFE. As I discovered recently though, there's functions in the XML that never got used, so it might just be waiting to be used. If that's the case, three mutually exclusive routes seems like a solid option. I'll add these to the stuff I've already got planned for the Lizardfolk.

On Grigori and sidequesting: Adding a risk is fairly easy. While questing, there's a chance to randomly apply a promotion that will deal 100% damage when it expires, as is done in the Werepyre module. From there, it just needs tweaking so that each unit can only go questing once. If that's still slightly overpowered, I can nerf the XP rewards a bit.

From what I've read, the Kahdi were so similar to the Amurites that they were removed, and Kahd relegated to his random event appearance. All I've done is make him a selectable Amurite leader, so you can use him from the start. Granted this also means that Kahd players will get the Vault Gate, which brings up the Amurites with Sheiam mechanics issue again, but without it the only flavouring is the Kahd Hero unit, and the subsequent choice he has to make (Note: That choice may not be working at present, the code for it might still be looking for the Kahdi Civ, not Kahd as a leader).

The Doviello: They have a considerable amount of flavouring already, in no small part provided by what was once Fall Further's Doviello+ mod. I hadn't (yet) planned to do anything big on them, though again I'm taking notes so I can come back to this later. The only real change I wanted to do was to see what happened if the good Baron's units were all werewolves.

Dragon's hoard(e): That.... shouldn't happen. Unless you're using the Jotnar module for Ashes of Erebus (Which isn't compatible anyway) the one provided in the Rebirth and Legends download should correctly point to the right XML reference. My local files reflect that the names match, and there is no XML error thrown.
If you mean a spelling issue in the text shown in game... yeah, the typoes and such are on my lengthy todo list. But at the moment I'm working on, well, getting it working first. Proper spelling is important, but if you can't see it because it doesn't work, it kinda loses its relevance.

Lastly, Archers: My usual in-game solution to this is simple. Get a city and load it with the Fletcher, Archery range, etc - all the buildings that train them up a bit. Station your archers there for a few turns. If you have the gold and a Master Fletcher, boost them with some equipment. It won't make them powerful, but it'll make them tougher to kill, and tougher when killing
On the offensive... they're not really meant to *be* offensive. They're defender units. The Marksman is really the closest I can think of to an offensive archer unit, and then only because of the Marksman promotion.
But nevertheless, I'll take a look and see if there's anything I can do for them. Perhaps something like the ship crews - two formations that can be switched between at will, Offensive Formation and Defensive Formation. One is the defenders we're used to, the other weakens them defensively but make them more offence-oriented.

Right, that's all. As an idea of what I'm planning for the next version:

-Bugs. New bugs that somehow crept in, old ones that managed to evade notice
-Bugfixes. I'm going to be scanning through the Final Fixes and Final Fixes Reborn threads to help with this.
-The Baron - we'll be testing the idea of 'everyone is a werewolf'.
-Modules: The Chislev, until such time as they gain some more mechanics, will be turned into a module. Unlike the RiFE team and the Jotnar and Frozen modules, I will continue to provide updates for it, it simply will not be loaded by default.
-More Modules: Many of the non-historical leaders simply don't bring enough uniqueness to the scene. As with the Chislev, they'll be modularised. The current list, which may be expanded, consists of: Capt. Blackheart, Furia the Mad, Lorelie Coral, Weevil, Pickle and Hyde.
-No more summonable Infernals and Mercurians. They'll be a from the start Civ like everyone else, but tweaked. Hell Terrain will still be spread by Hyborem until I can make that work they way I want to (see below). The potential is here for additional leaders for these two civs now, including those that were only before seen in the FfH Scenarios. Naturally, this also means the Mercurian Gate needs to be disabled pending a rework to fit these circumstances.

My plans for Hell Terrain: I want this to be done by ritual. You must have the Ashen Veil religion to do the ritual, and if the Infernals are in-game, they will gain the Hyborem Hero unit when its completed. If you are the Infernals, Hyborem will appear in the city completing the ritual.
Whichever city completes the ritual will have the first ring around it and the plot it stands on turned to Hell Terrain, from which it will spread as usual.
This will allow for Gone To Hell victories without even having the Infernals around in the first place. The ritual may even be made repeatable, so that you can spread it from multiple cities much quicker, or accelerate it's growth in a city already surrounded by Hell Terrain.
 
Some additions and corrections to the above post.

Mimcs: Checked and found the relevant code. Those lines need to be added, will be in the next release.

Buildings excluding each other: Doesn't seem to be a way in the current XML schema, might be a way in python. Will look into it.

Mercurians and Infernals: The Mercurian Gate is not going to be disabled - it will still be available and still provide all its benefits, but it will not summon the Mercurians any more, and Basium's spell for taking the city will no longer be present. Instead it will be a UB for the Mercurians which gives them access to a new spell.
Mercurians will no longer have any blocked units, save only those which have angelic replacements. Once a Mercurian non-Angel unit reaches level 4 or higher, is considered alive, and is in the city containing the Mercurian Gate, it will be able to cast the Ascend spell.
This will give it a three-turn promotion that holds it there, preventing it from acting. During this time, there is a random chance for a secondary promotion to be applied, which will kill the unit. If however it survives, it will be granted the Angel racial, and be given access to the normally Angel-only upgrades.
Lore-wise, this works like this: The unit goes through the Mercurian Gate to Basium's base camp on the other side, where the war against the Infernals is going on, and takes part. He might get killed in the fighting (which may raise him as an Angel unit) or he may survive and come home as an Angel (the racial) as a reward.
Coming back this way means the unit's type, class and promotions are all preserved, but if he's killed you get the compensation of a regular Angel.

In addition to all this. Basium will be trainable in the city containing the Mercurian Gate (you ask him to come through and lead his people on Erebus, leaving a Trusted Lieutenant in command of the base camp). As before, if he's killed you lose your leader traits.

Similarly, Hyborem can also be trained (The act and cost of training reflecting the creation and opening of a portal to Hell to bring him to Erebus). He comes in at Malevolent Designs, costs the same as the Meshabber of Dis, and you must have AV State Religion (and in the city too).
The Infernals will gain no free buildings when building or capturing a city except for Demonic Citizens, and for obvious reasons are no longer summoned with Infernal Pact.
At present, they will still have automatic Hell Terrain however.

Hell Terrain. The plans for this have changed since the previous post. This is the new plan:
Infernal Pact grants the ability to build Sacrificial Altars. When built, these will (if code permits) trigger an effect similar to the way the Temple of the Hand worked in vanilla FfH, only instead of spreading snow, they spread Hell Terrain.
The Infernals will no longer automatically generate Hell Terrain in their lands. They too must build Sacrificial Altars. Hell Terrain spread in this way should spread as per usual, following all the usual rules.
 
Firstly, @Viatos: This is not based on Ashes of Erebus in the slightest. I

You were clear; I was not, my apologies. I am merely requesting that the name-change be held off until your mod is farther along in bug-fixes. Ashes of Erebus did some stuff that you probably don't/won't agree with, but they also fixed a *ton* of bugs, and so right now I am using some of your stuff and editing theirs to allow for it rather than running everything on top of RIFE.

Will look into the Wyvern Spam. There should only be 12 iirc (national unit limit). Might be a case of having to trick the AI into using them differently for the moment.

The issue is the strength of the unit - aside from being a 12-strength flying unit, they're all Dragon racial, which means they can all breathe fire and summon meteors. Which is like a hero mage with Twincast spamming Fireball and Maelstrom...you can beat them with highly-promoted recon, but most notably other AI civs don't understand what needs to happen there. The Mazatl already have one of the most powerful defensive setups in the game, and while using that to buy time for Coatlann is kinda boring, so is building a mid-game fleet of super-powered dragons that make him irrelevant.


On Grigori and sidequesting: Adding a risk is fairly easy. While questing, there's a chance to randomly apply a promotion that will deal 100% damage when it expires, as is done in the Werepyre module. From there, it just needs tweaking so that each unit can only go questing once. If that's still slightly overpowered, I can nerf the XP rewards a bit.

The biggest part is just the spam; gaining the XP once in exchange for the small hassle of placement and the larger hassle of time spent seems reasonable in exchange for risking the unit.


Dragon's hoard(e): That.... shouldn't happen. Unless you're using the Jotnar module for Ashes of Erebus (Which isn't compatible anyway) the one provided in the Rebirth and Legends download should correctly point to the right XML reference. My local files reflect that the names match, and there is no XML error thrown.

Yep, my bad. Fixed it.

-More Modules: Many of the non-historical leaders simply don't bring enough uniqueness to the scene. As with the Chislev, they'll be modularised. The current list, which may be expanded, consists of: Capt. Blackheart, Furia the Mad, Lorelie Coral, Weevil, Pickle and Hyde.

Furia's my favorite carnie. :( When you say uniqueness, do you mean lore or differentiating mechanics or both? I'd be willing to write/code either in the interest of keeping some of these guys around.

JOTNAR: Possibly consider limiting them to one Warrior, one Citizen rather than two of each at the start? Makes them work a little harder earlier and enforces their scarcity theme. Having a near-invulnerable scout and two workers to start you off gives them a pretty good headstart that playtesting a handful of games suggests they don't really need.
 
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