What do you want to see in RiFE or Ashes?

My single greatest complaint with the Luchuirp has always been that for such a cool idea - steampunk magitech golem-making dwarven enchanters - their playstyle SUCKS.

Every game: Rush for Way of the Earthmother. Construction, farm Barnaxus to Combat V and then never move him from your capital again - because he's (for SOME REASON) not a Hero and can't do anything and if he dies your whole army loses 50% strength. Make Iron Golems, Fireball, win. Or lose if you didn't start near enough commerce to get Way of the Earthmother ahead of another player and you didn't get to iron golems before they got Korinna the Red or Corgayle or Mimics or whatever.

Every time. A lot of civilizations are pigeonholed, but none of them feel quite as *flat* as the Luchuirp do, so I guess that'd be my request/suggestion for a golem civilization: give them stuff to do that doesn't involve that same completely identical strategy over and over because they don't have the tools to do anything ELSE.

Ηere is an Idea for those who miss the Airforce from vanilla BTS.Of course i am not suggesting the addition of Jet fighters and Stelth bombers,but the use of Hippogryphes/Drakes/Manticores/Wyverns that can do the functions of Airforce

Quests.
Travelling traders.
Planes. (A few portals and importing the Master of Magic terrain sets might work.)
More resources. One each (maybe two for cottages->towns) produceable and discoverable by improvements that don't have them now. Restore Whales but remove Silk from the map; Animals and Archos are sufficient sources.
More leaders. (I'm hoping the AoE people are following up the Emergent leaders stuff, in which case more is probably better.)
More bug fixing.
...

OK, I don't mean to sound contrary here, just sensible.

Bugfixes are on the way in Rebirth and Legend, with the aid of the Final Fixes Reborn changelogs. I'm working my way through them.

More Leaders: The issues here are art, and uniqueness. Are they going to bring something new to the scene? I'm already making several leaders into modules keeping them available but not in the core game for that reason.

Resources: with 21 kinds of mana, even maps with high amounts of seas are already fairly overloaded on resources. If there's a suitable reason, through lore or appropriate mechanics, for one, I'll consider it. Similarly, Whales isn't necessary. There are four sea resources, one only visible to the Lanun.

Planes: You mean the mapscript? It could be done, but there's a shortage of terrain in RiFE, and those available from the mod aren't particularly useful without that mapscript. Even if the terrains and art were pulled in, they'd look out of place up against the RiFE ones, and replacement of all the terrain artwork isn't something I plan to do.

Travelling traders can be done as a series of events. There are already a few where they offer to sell one of the potions or an enchanted blade to a unit by random event. Others can be made if there's the items to trade.

Master of Mana is out, but what about WildMana? I've never muched cared for MoM, myself.

There's a modular mod for WildMana 8.34 that I quite like that I would love to see in a RiFE-based game: Keepers of the Holy Places. It brings the Elohim a little closer to the lore through founding Monastic Orders. The pilgrimage mechanic makes the Elohim a bit strong now in RiFE/AoE, though.

Also in WildMana, there are additional "shops" for units based on civ alignment and what buildings are in the city. For instance, a Paladin in a Bannor city with a library (I think) can purchase a medallion that provides a +1 Holy attack. It would be a nice expansion to the existing engineering buildings.

Similarly, mana guardians in WildMana drop spellbooks that can be activated to provide a random level 1/2/3 spell. Considering the bonuses that archmages can receive from mastery in RiFE, these could be a beneficial addition.

Edit: Oh, and one more thing, I hate the addition of healers to the Great Person list. I understand the reasons for the change that led to their subsequent addition, but they are a constant destroyer of GP strategies.

WildMana is the direct predecessor to Master of Mana, and given by the number of threads and times people have had to ask, it also isn't so easily obtained.

That being said. While it does take it's own path, that doesn't mean things can't be brought over - though obtain the permission of the original module dev first to be safe. At a glance I'd say most of it can be done, but it also has some crossover with More Events, which means that if any Elohim unit goes to one of the unique features they trigger an event.
What I'd do is play an Elohim game on RiFE, Ashes of Erebus, or Rebirth and Legend, and see what events pop up at each unique feature. Go through what Keepers of the Holy Places also does, and find the crossover.
I'd like to be able to say that I'll be able to work on making this a compatible module, but truth be told between maintaining my Ashes modules, working on Rebirth and Legend, and various non-civ (and even away from the computer) commitments I just don't have the time to dedicate to it.

Now for the other two parts. Shops: The buyable equips are simply promotions that require a unit to be in a city with the appropriate building(s) built in. If that qualification is met, you can spend gold to give that unit the promo, so this is simple. As with the above, do see what's already there in buyable promotions, as I believe the Paladin equip you mention is already available if you're good and have a good-aligned temple present. It doesn't even depend on any of the Master buildings.

Mana Guardians. This should also be simple in concept. Make a promotion that's similar to the Pieces of Barnaxus, which is auto-applied to Mana Guardians (Little note on this in a sec). When the guardian is slain, the promo is dropped as a Treasure Chest, just like other equips. Pick it up and it allows you to cast a spell, which in turn grants your promos. Exactly the same, no python needed unless you need that randomness.
Now here's the note for it I mentioned. Firstly, you need to set these equips *not* to be lost when the requirements are no longer met, otherwise you'll lose it once you pick it up. Second, you may need multiple of these - one for each type of guardian, and a check on them to make it so that only that guardian gets it.
Why one for each? So when you kill, say, an Ice Golem guardian (that might not be the one, I don't recall) you learn an Ice spell - which makes sense. It cuts down on the randomness a bit, but it does make sense.

For both of these ideas though, I'm afraid it's currently a case of me being able to offer advice and inputs, but I don't have the time to develop them myself.
If the compatible modules were made though, I'd be willing to consider either making them included with Rebirth and Legend (as modules) or possibly incorporating them directly into it.

what do you want in WM ?
I still have a few instals of it. (7z or exe), before it went MoM.
maybe even some modules :/
"ask and I shall search..."
however I won't be able to search or upload this weekend.


well, for WM guardians, there were 4 tomes (1per school) and the guardians each had a tome of the school they depended on.
--> so only 4 items... and as the guardians are "unique units", with name.. you don't need auto-acquire promotion...with risques of losing it afterwards ... only "X unitstarts with X equipement".
there was one bug in that "un-equip the book" spell for one specific school could trigger the one for another specific school, thereby when you had (say Element's book, i don't remember) you could unequip it to have a divination-school book... without losing the element's book...
was fun :/

I'm not sure how much work this would take, I always felt that what the Amurites had going for them wasn't enough to make them a truly magic oriented civilization. It felt too random the Wizard hall and the Gonnovan's school. What I would like to see instead is the Amurites receive mages earlier but in limited capacity. For example, at Elementalism, the Amurites would have a special UB called the Elementalist school, that allows them to build pyromancers, mages who started with fire two and could not branch out to the other spell spheres, and along with the pyromancers , geomancers with access to earth 2 could be built, and then hydromancers with access to water 2... you see where I'm going with this.
Of course this would require a investment in the form of a building and the mages, as well as require the Amurites to have earth mana before they build the geomancer etc. but it would allow for easier specialization and means that when Gonnovan comes along he can open up other spell spheres for these specialist like giving earth 1 to the pyromancers so they can access stone skin at Earth 2 etc. Then at sorcery they could receive the generalists school which builds regular mages except these have twincast or something to make building them desirable.
I'm not sure if this is too overpowered but it would definitely give the Amurites an advantage in magic.

that could be fun.. but would need 21 UU !! one per spell sphere.
however the idea is good: UU : ChanI/ chanII, starts with "Sphere I", unit is not of adept unit_class (so cannot get all other node promotions).
then upgrades to wizard.

other way :
have 4 UU: 1 per school.
allowed at each "school" tech.(or at the adept tech + something?)
-Elementalist : non-adept unit_class, starts with chan1, chan2, and : each tier 1 of elementalism school that you have access to. : cannot get any new spell sphere.--> upgrades to wizard
(so if you only have water mana, the elementalist gets water1, if you have water and earth he gets water1 and earth 1: --> python check on unit creation for those UU)... so early one enable quick level 2...while late one get more spells.
-deviner:
-Necromancer:
-Alterer:

those no-adept unitclass units would need some way to gain xp.

Personally, I tend to think that the whole set of Apprentice upgrades handles the "magic oriented civilization" concept in a good way. At least in a thematic way. Beyond that, their Adept line is also better at actual fighting than those of other civs, so overall I don't think they particularly need more uniques.

Having said that, I was never a fan of randomness in games like this, and the whole Cave of Ancestors/Wizard's Hall mechanic never sat right with me. Intermediate mages might work out as a good alternative (if it doesn't get too powerful, you could also have them start out with promotions that make them better at their particular school as well, like Necromancers having better summons and so on, that could stay with them as they upgrade.), though I would definately go with Calavente's school-based model - way too much unit clutter otherwise.

I would definately make it a replacement of the existing random spell mechanic though, rather than just adding it (and even then, it'll likely still make the Amurites overpowered).

How exactly are apprentices stronger than regular adepts? They have the same base strength unless you play as Naxus. Is there something I'm not aware of going on here?

They can upgrade into any of the basic unit classes. So you can have spellcasting... anything, pretty much. If I remember correctly, you can also get any of those units up to Channeling 2 later on because of a carryover promo, but that might not be in anymore.

EDIT: According to the civilopedia it's still there - once you get to Sorcery, any unit upgraded from Apprentice can get Channeling II at level 4

When I spoke of intermediate mages I meant for them to replace the random spell granting system if I didn't make that clear.
Anyways, for the experience gaining mechanic, how about these UU start out with a spell called learn, that can be cast in any city with their UB. It would give a fixed amount of experience/x amount of times used, to kind of emphasize the school aspect of the Amurite magical system. Afterall, the more you study, the more filled your brain is and less space for learning. After a certain point the spell will become useless and the elementalists/ whatever UU you will use, (though mainly I will be using the elementalists if such a system was in place because fire 2 is just that powerful), will need to gain experience through combat.
Anyways I don't how balanced you can make it, but I would definitely play the Amurites more often and definitely get this mod. And thank you Jheral for pointing out that Apprentices can upgrade to any unit type. And really those units can get channeling 2? That certainly makes the Amurites more powerful in my eyes.

I always wanted to see an Emperor's Gift religion added for the Scions, something I can force my slaves vassal states to adopt when I'm playing Risen Emperor. I can see how it'd be difficult to make sure it's founded only by the Scions instead of, say, the Elohim, though, which brings me to my second suggestion...

Another thing I've wanted to be added since the original FFH2 was some sort of restriction on who could found what religion and when. It's annoying to hear that the Runes of Kilmorph, Empyrean and Octopus Overlords have all been founded, then a few hundred turns later find that they all share Evermore for a holy city. If I knew anything about coding that didn't inevitably devolve into SHODAN emerging from my monitor to defenestrate me I'd set things up so that each religion requires one of two additional prereq techs: either a starting technology given to certain factions, OR a tech from later in the tech tree, say Theology or Fanaticism.

So for example the White Hand technology would require Priesthood and then either Theology or a tech that the Doviello and Illians start with that no one else can get. That way every religion can still get founded during the game even if their lore-specific civs aren't on the map, but a single powerful civ can't found every single religion in the game before anyone else had a try. It could also open the doors to civ-specific religions like The Gift. I can see how that would probably be complex and bulky though.

Some scenarios would be nice.

jackelgull said:

And thank you Jheral for pointing out that Apprentices can upgrade to any unit type. And really those units can get channeling 2? That certainly makes the Amurites more powerful in my eyes.

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It definatly makes them more powerful, yeah. It's part of why I consider them one of the better civs, and not really in that great a need of more power.

Still, like I said before, the idea of intermediate mages is a good one - as a magic-centric civ, having their mages more accessible doesn't sound unreasonable at all. The prevalence of magic in their civilization also makes specialization more likely to happen, so if it can be coupled with sphere-specific bonuses that carry over as you upgrade them, that would also be thematically appropriate.

Gafgar said:

I always wanted to see an Emperor's Gift religion added for the Scions, something I can force my slaves vassal states to adopt when I'm playing Risen Emperor. I can see how it'd be difficult to make sure it's founded only by the Scions instead of, say, the Elohim, though, which brings me to my second suggestion...

Another thing I've wanted to be added since the original FFH2 was some sort of restriction on who could found what religion and when. It's annoying to hear that the Runes of Kilmorph, Empyrean and Octopus Overlords have all been founded, then a few hundred turns later find that they all share Evermore for a holy city. If I knew anything about coding that didn't inevitably devolve into SHODAN emerging from my monitor to defenestrate me I'd set things up so that each religion requires one of two additional prereq techs: either a starting technology given to certain factions, OR a tech from later in the tech tree, say Theology or Fanaticism.

So for example the White Hand technology would require Priesthood and then either Theology or a tech that the Doviello and Illians start with that no one else can get. That way every religion can still get founded during the game even if their lore-specific civs aren't on the map, but a single powerful civ can't found every single religion in the game before anyone else had a try. It could also open the doors to civ-specific religions like The Gift. I can see how that would probably be complex and bulky though.

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I think there was talk at one point of resurrecting the old Cults (as the corporation-equivalents for RifE), but I don't think we ever discussed making it a real religion. I think the final word on that was that it was too niche, but then that argument would kind of remove the White Hand as well.

Re: Religions, iirc there are tags to make techs cost more if you have a specific tech already. I don't think it would be unreasonable to attach a heavy cost to researching more than one of the religion techs, to make it a bit harder to hoard them.

I've always been partial to the Luchuirp as both dwarven and golem makers… So I wouldn't mess with that dynamic too much. You could handle a golem civ in the same way Kahd is implemented: Through a civilization specific event which enables the golem civ to come into the game.

Or, alternatively, you don't have to get rid of the Luchuirp to have a golem civ. If I understand my history correctly, it is possible to have had both civs have a common origin, develop in isolation, and meet each other during the present age. In fact, that would have an interesting dynamic where Barnaxus has to choose between his family (golem civ) and his friends (Lunchurip). More interestingly is that the golem civ would benefit greatly from stealing Barnaxus and rebuilding him for their own purposes.

On the Mechanos…

This is my favorite civ by far, but they need some work for sure. If nobody else is interested, I might devote my efforts to a Mechanos Plus module?

OK, I haven't said much here lately. Rest assured I am still knocking about and reading.

On Barnaxus and the Luchuirp - the Luchuirp themselves, as it stands right now (which is in planning, with no code) aren't technically going away - if you were to load up the Khazad and pick a (former) Luchuirp leader, you'll effectively have the Luchirp, sans Barnaxus.
On the other hand, I like the idea of some competition between them and the Golem Civ for it. The only issue is that as I plan for Barnaxus to be the leader for the Golems, this either means I need a different Golem Hero to fill in for him, or a Golem leader who shares Barnaxus' intelligence to lead them.
No hurry to provide either though, I'm still working on bug fixes and such for Rebirth.

A Mechanos Plus module? I'm curious, what would it add/change/remove? I've always thought they were rather well rounded out compared to some of the alternative civilizations.

The Amurites. I've had a module in planning for Ashes that, due to my choice to create and maintain Rebirth and Legend, never actually got implemented. It would have taken some inspiration from the Fall Under module (Search this subforum, it should show up) which gives all manner of interesting upgrades for them. I never completely decided on what exactly I was going to work with from the module, or what I'd do, but there were plans for Amurite improvements that I might add in to Rebirth.
Like various other major things I've got on the cards, unless it involves too many core mechanics (such as my plans for Hell Terrain) it'll be done via module so if it doesn't work, people can just leave it out, then later when completed and balanced, merged into main code.

Minor Religions - Looking into some of the sound assets, the 'pedia and other places, it looks like there's resources for at least two niche religions - the Cult of the Dragon (as seen in Orbis) and Ordo Machinarium (The Mechanos worship of the Machine Spirits).
I'm not familiar enough with the former, but the latter I can see some possibility to with the Luchuirp and Khazad to some degree.
As for the Gift, I think it's a nice concept. For one thing it'd allow Doomsayers/Givers to found the Temple of the Gift in non-Scion cities, which could (if I can figure out how) grant Scion players bonuses. It might also provide penalties to those civs, but ideally I don't want to make it too much of a pain to deal with in such circumstances.

I envisioned Barnaxus being one of several sentient golems. Where in the golem civ, the most powerful sentients became the leaders and several other battle hardened sentient golems were the ruling elite. The golem civ would have a similar dynamic to the Scions in this respect (the dark council), but each battle hardened golem could bestow a single promotion to all other golems. Barnaxus, if captured and rebuilt by the Golem civ, would function normally to provide empowerment to all golems.

Mechanos Plus:

The Mechanos ARE a rather well rounded civ. However, the port to RiFE never seemed complete to me, given that Orbis had its own unique tech tree. At the very least, there are certain discontinuities that should be addressed/polished. The abrupt jump from clubs/axes to firearms; from fishing boats to mechanical flying machines. Witch Hunters have nothing to upgrade into (a "Hellsung" to replace the Shadow seems appropriate). Furthermore, in the years since the Mechanos were first created, there have been several art assets created by the community which are screaming to be added (Da Vinci machines, the cloud cruiser, an actual train for their tracks, etc.).

As far as backstory and culture, the Mechanos and the Dural are two sides of the same coin. Both pursue science and education as a means to an end. However, Dural are bound by ethics and honor, whereas the Mechanos are bound by ambition and creed. A Mechanos Plus would slightly blend these civilizations to better pronounce their similarities and uniqueness. For example, Professors would be a standard unit built with scholarship (all civilizations), the Mechanos would have an Excelsior UU and the Dural might have a Principle UU

Finally, I would universalize certain aspects of the game for the sake of more interesting game play. For example, the Air Ship should be something everybody has access to. Obviously, the Kuriotates would have their own unique version of the Air Ship (Maybe a "Sky King"). Mechanos would have Dirigibles and the most powerful Cloud Cruiser.

I never really liked the mechanos. Are they powerful, yes, but there is too much overlap between them and the Khazad. Both have improved siege though in this case the mechanos win in that category- with just 5 warriors and 5 organ guns I conquered the banner who had axe men and both have production bonuses but the Khazad have a hard cap of a 90% bonus while the mechanos are only limited by the amounts of mana nodes they can find, which in a huge map like I play can often outstrip the khazads bonuses. Now I suppose you can argue that there are different requirements, but both civilizations require hoarding for production. I suppose my point with this long rant is, please emphasize the differences between the two civilizations, focus more on the improved archery line for the mechanos with their gunpowder units and leave the improved siege to the Khazad.