Balance Feedback

[Valkrionn]

Yes, as soon as a few health resources are connected, growing new cities isn't much of a problem anymore, but you need tons of workers in the early game for connecting said resources in a resonable timeframe

Regarding the awesomeness of a aqueducts, with effectively +6 now they should probably get a nerf.

Buildspeeds may be adjusted, we're discussing it.

And aqueducts only grant +6 health for cities that do not have fresh water already. Otherwise they only grant +2. Only thing I'd change would be the production cost, and even then only maybe.

 

[OpheliaImmortal]

Aqueducts giving +6 only in cities with fresh water is counterproductive, as the cities which truly need it, will not be able to take advantage of it. Perhaps the health issue wouldn't be so brutal, if the starting generator had been modified to take it into account. I play on the higher difficulties, and was screaming in rage when I had a Sidar (whose new mechanics I wanted to try) capital settled on a river in floodplains, starving from size two. Otherwise it was a beautiful start. No health resources in the BFT, but some nearby. Gold, Incense, Reagents. Thought I was set... However now any floodplain city is completely and utterly unplayable for an civilization other then the Malakim. Perhaps. I haven't even tried the Malakim yet, but they've always had health issues to begin with.

 

[Valkrionn]

Aqueducts giving +6 only in cities with fresh water is counterproductive, as the cities which truly need it, will not be able to take advantage of it. Perhaps the health issue wouldn't be so brutal, if the starting generator had been modified to take it into account. I play on the higher difficulties, and was screaming in rage when I had a Sidar (whose new mechanics I wanted to try) capital settled on a river in floodplains, starving from size two. Otherwise it was a beautiful start. No health resources in the BFT, but some nearby. Gold, Incense, Reagents. Thought I was set... However now any floodplain city is completely and utterly unplayable for an civilization other then the Malakim. Perhaps. I haven't even tried the Malakim yet, but they've always had health issues to begin with.

They only give +6 health as they grant the freshwater bonus. Which accounts for 4 of that health. If you already have freshwater, you don't need that bonus.

Flood Plains likely need to have their unhealth reduced, honestly.

 

[Grey Fox]

What it does is provide +2 health AND Freshwater, which is worth +4 health.

 

[isthmus]

Floodplain unhealth should probably be turned down, although the malakim are doing fine with their civtrait currently preventing any big issues of health I think.
The health issues that arise from pop are far bigger than that of the floodplains. The max a malakim city can get from flood plains is 21x0.2=4.2 unhealth, which is big in supercity 1.23 but trivial in 1.3. That's only 2 population points and no city will have every tile as floodplain anyways.

 

[Valkrionn]

Floodplain unhealth should probably be turned down, although the malakim are doing fine with their civtrait currently preventing any big issues of health I think.
The health issues that arise from pop are far bigger than that of the floodplains. The max a malakim city can get from flood plains is 21x0.2=4.2 unhealth, which is big in supercity 1.23 but trivial in 1.3. That's only 2 population points and no city will have every tile as floodplain anyways.

Pretty much, yes. I'm not too worried about the Malakim, especially as they can generate an Oasis for each city. At least not as far as floodplains go.

Honestly though, I am thinking of halving the floodplain unhealth (for the Malakim as well). This is mostly for the other civs, which would have 8.4 unhealth.

 

[Sarisin]

First off, kudos to the developing team and testers!

I'm about 300 turns into my first game and enjoying it very much.

One balance issue is if you play the Balseraphs. I built Loki and he was able to slide in and pop every lair/ruin/dungeon with the bad guys leashed or hanging around.

I got three Mimics, two Mages, a load of GPs, Golden Ages, etc.

Also, around turn 200 I got 3 Ogre Warchiefs. At strength 14, they seemed to come early.

Loki used to be one of the weakest civ heroes, but in 1.3 he is pretty awesome if not changed.

 

[Segolenus]

It seems to me that the new health changes have dramatically reduced the impact of terrain on health. Whereas previously 2 forests = 1 health, now 8 forests = 2 health. Similarly, whereas previously 2.5 floodplains = -1 health, now 5 floodplains = -2 health. Only the existence of fresh water has been made more important. I'm not sure if this is necessarily a good idea, since it takes away from some of the consideration of where to settle.

I also echo others' request that worker buildtimes be reduced. Either that, or make workers cheaper.

 

[Jarwy]

For my feedback for 1.3, I'd like to praise amazingly stable gameplay compared to 1.23 and the tame wildlife that has yet to tramble my empire back to stoneage. While the boar sitting on top of the mountain near the starting location came me chills, it failed to invade and was made into BBQ. Most important thing however is that the game has not yet crashed, so overall; a grand success! \o/

Starcraft 2 is out and Rife is back in.

 

[inuyashasama]

I agree . The unhealth took a little bit of getting used to, early game, but later on, it's too weak, if anything . The purpose is to cut city size IIRC, and my cities are ballooning .

 

[Valkrionn]

First off, kudos to the developing team and testers!

I'm about 300 turns into my first game and enjoying it very much.

One balance issue is if you play the Balseraphs. I built Loki and he was able to slide in and pop every lair/ruin/dungeon with the bad guys leashed or hanging around.

I got three Mimics, two Mages, a load of GPs, Golden Ages, etc.

Also, around turn 200 I got 3 Ogre Warchiefs. At strength 14, they seemed to come early.

Loki used to be one of the weakest civ heroes, but in 1.3 he is pretty awesome if not changed.

Loki should be set to be unable to explore, I think.

It seems to me that the new health changes have dramatically reduced the impact of terrain on health. Whereas previously 2 forests = 1 health, now 8 forests = 2 health. Similarly, whereas previously 2.5 floodplains = -1 health, now 5 floodplains = -2 health. Only the existence of fresh water has been made more important. I'm not sure if this is necessarily a good idea, since it takes away from some of the consideration of where to settle.

I also echo others' request that worker buildtimes be reduced. Either that, or make workers cheaper.

Hmm... This is actually a good point, and one I had not considered much. There is still the yield consideration, but health was important as well...

I do know that resources will become much more vital, due to the buildings they will allow those cities within range to build. We can try and think of something interesting for features as well.

For my feedback for 1.3, I'd like to praise amazingly stable gameplay compared to 1.23 and the tame wildlife that has yet to tramble my empire back to stoneage. While the boar sitting on top of the mountain near the starting location came me chills, it failed to invade and was made into BBQ. Most important thing however is that the game has not yet crashed, so overall; a grand success! \o/

Starcraft 2 is out and Rife is back in.

Glad to hear it's stable.

 

[Valkrionn]

I agree . The unhealth took a little bit of getting used to, early game, but later on, it's too weak, if anything . The purpose is to cut city size IIRC, and my cities are ballooning .

Well, not so much cut city size (limit is still, and shall remain, happiness), but to cut the speed with which you can reach said size.

 

[Grey Fox]

Well, not so much cut city size (limit is still, and shall remain, happiness), but to cut the speed with which you can reach said size.

And especially in the early game.

 

[Milaga]

A few comments after finishing up my turns for the night.

I started 4 games as the Grigori. The first I abandoned because I missed some of the fundamental changes and wanted a fresh start. I sort of expected that. The second I abandoned when it dawned on me that I really wanted homesteads, and that starting plot with only hills riverside wasn't looking as nice as it did before. The third I abandoned on turn 11 when a S16 Stoneskin Ogre that someone must have popped from a lair walked up to my city and threw a rock on Cassiel's head. I'm about 250 turns into my fourth game.

• Cyklops, like Giants, are not leashed. I am more concerned with them because they seem to be much more plentiful. If you are unlucky enough to have two of these lairs nearby your starting city, you can forget about building workers, since they will hide in the city most of the time. I really do not like the 2 movement on either of these units. Nor do I like that they seem to start assailing your lands a few turns after the game starts. Judging by the maps that the AI has traded with me in my current game, a few of these lairs nearby the starting city does a good job of keeping that civ down.
• I like the health change. I might have to play with it more before I can comment on the other suggestions made to change it, but I think it's too early to ask for something drastic to be done. It's just very different. I don't think I like the +2 health on the palace idea. Perhaps just adding or increasing health bonuses to some of the early health buildings. Double the health bonuses on the Herbalist. Increase the bonuses for forest and reduce them for floodplains.
• I like the increased build time for improvements. It slows things down and makes pillaging devastating. When a barbarian archer pillaged my pasture that was only 2 turns away from becoming a homestead I screamed at my computer. Especially because it was my only pig, and the city now had too much unhealth and not enough food to sustain it's population, and shrank the next turn. That's just awesome. Gone are the days of turtling in the cities and then quickly rebuilding improvements once the stack has crashed against your city walls. But the AI might need to build more workers. They don't seem to have many improvements that are not connecting resources.
• Way too much kelp and reefs. Also, I am not sure I like kelp growing, but then again, I don't like forests/jungles growing either. I do not think reefs should spread at all. It can turn a nice ship producing city into ship shredder. After all, isn't kelp the forest of the sea and reef the hills? Do hills spread on land?
• I don't like settled great people granting great people points. Not at all. As Grigori I got a great prophet from a lair and settled him in my capital. Despite running four other specialists, guess what my next 3 great people were? You shouldn't be penalized at all for settling a great person.
• All Grigori combat units can undergo Side Quests? Unfortunately, XP means a lot more to some units than others. Arcane units really benefit from side questing, perhaps too much so. Great Commanders should *definitely* not be able to quest. This really encourages warmongering for the Grigori. Pick a fight, pop a great commander, have him pop a fort and then quest. In 20 turns he will be turn your band of weak axemen into killing and xping machines. Although with the fort, your axemen don't need a commander to xp.
• The special effects from side questing are very annoying. I don't need two sounds, two red icons and two red messages in my log every turn that one of my units is on a quest, especially if it's safely within my own lands. I also don't need that unit to be woken up every turn. Fortified units should stay fortified, and I think a different effect apart from "lost" needs to be applied, one that is much quieter. If I want to help steer my questing unit away from danger I won't fortify them.
• The leashing is cool. Though I have to admit I yelled at my computer a second time, more loudly and more explicitly, when Acheron reach out and touched my Aeron's Chosen. In the same turn a minotaur attacked and killed my first 100+ xp hero who was uninjured in what must have been obscenely lucky rolls. Also, my second hero popped a S16 stoneskin ogre when digging deeper in a lair. Not a good turn for me.
• Units with ranged attacks only seem to shoot. That S16 stoneskin ogre? He just threw rocks at my hero. So I checked the game I abandoned and played another 20 turns of it. All the ogre did was march up to my capital and hurl boulders at it. Even units who wandered outside the city weren't attacked (except for the hurled boulders.) When I first saw gorillas doing this, it was kind of cool. It made them really annoying, following my scouts through the jungle and pelting them with rocks. Or feces, or bananas, or whatever. But that ogre had a 99.9% chance of destroying my civilization, and he should have done so. Just as the ogre should have eaten my hero.
• I'll have to play around with them a little more but I think some of the blood promotions are a bit much. Autopillaging with boar blood? Kind of harsh when you couple it with griffin blood. Add in March Wine and mobility 2 ... you can probably undo 150 turns worth of work just by walking across the map. It's not that any one of the bloods are too powerful, it's just that it really isn't that hard to get several of them.

Oh yeah, one more thing. Definitely much more stable and much faster than 1.23. I did have 1 CTD between turns but reloading the game it didn't come up again so I'm not concerned. And the time between turns is much faster. Strangely enough, it takes me longer to read a Rifipedia entry than it does to wait between turns. Not sure why the Rifipedia has become so much slower.

 

[Valkrionn]

A few comments after finishing up my turns for the night.

I started 4 games as the Grigori. The first I abandoned because I missed some of the fundamental changes and wanted a fresh start. I sort of expected that. The second I abandoned when it dawned on me that I really wanted homesteads, and that starting plot with only hills riverside wasn't looking as nice as it did before. The third I abandoned on turn 11 when a S16 Stoneskin Ogre that someone must have popped from a lair walked up to my city and threw a rock on Cassiel's head. I'm about 250 turns into my fourth game.

Ouch. Yeah, the lair results are a bit rough right now. Will be adjusted soon.

• Cyklops, like Giants, are not leashed. I am more concerned with them because they seem to be much more plentiful. If you are unlucky enough to have two of these lairs nearby your starting city, you can forget about building workers, since they will hide in the city most of the time. I really do not like the 2 movement on either of these units. Nor do I like that they seem to start assailing your lands a few turns after the game starts. Judging by the maps that the AI has traded with me in my current game, a few of these lairs nearby the starting city does a good job of keeping that civ down.

All three will be lair guardians, honestly, so that situation won't last much longer.

• I like the health change. I might have to play with it more before I can comment on the other suggestions made to change it, but I think it's too early to ask for something drastic to be done. It's just very different. I don't think I like the +2 health on the palace idea. Perhaps just adding or increasing health bonuses to some of the early health buildings. Double the health bonuses on the Herbalist. Increase the bonuses for forest and reduce them for floodplains.

Glad to hear it.

The main change we are making to counter unhealth is actually going to be in new buildings, using the VicinityBonus system (which will have to be merged or rewritten). Basically: If a building requires a vicinity bonus, that means the specified resource must be within working range of the city.

In this case, it will mean that settling near a resource like Corn allows you to construct a building granting more health; Simply connecting it isn't enough.

• I like the increased build time for improvements. It slows things down and makes pillaging devastating. When a barbarian archer pillaged my pasture that was only 2 turns away from becoming a homestead I screamed at my computer. Especially because it was my only pig, and the city now had too much unhealth and not enough food to sustain it's population, and shrank the next turn. That's just awesome. Gone are the days of turtling in the cities and then quickly rebuilding improvements once the stack has crashed against your city walls. But the AI might need to build more workers. They don't seem to have many improvements that are not connecting resources.

I do too, though I think they might have got a bit too far. And it will be taught to the AI.

• Way too much kelp and reefs. Also, I am not sure I like kelp growing, but then again, I don't like forests/jungles growing either. I do not think reefs should spread at all. It can turn a nice ship producing city into ship shredder. After all, isn't kelp the forest of the sea and reef the hills? Do hills spread on land?

Agreed. Kelp is now at half the rate of the forests, and reefs no longer grow.

• I don't like settled great people granting great people points. Not at all. As Grigori I got a great prophet from a lair and settled him in my capital. Despite running four other specialists, guess what my next 3 great people were? You shouldn't be penalized at all for settling a great person.

Odd... We saw it the exact other way. It is generally better to utilize a Great Person's special, rather than settle him; It was added as a boost, to make settling desirable.

• All Grigori combat units can undergo Side Quests? Unfortunately, XP means a lot more to some units than others. Arcane units really benefit from side questing, perhaps too much so. Great Commanders should *definitely* not be able to quest. This really encourages warmongering for the Grigori. Pick a fight, pop a great commander, have him pop a fort and then quest. In 20 turns he will be turn your band of weak axemen into killing and xping machines. Although with the fort, your axemen don't need a commander to xp.
• The special effects from side questing are very annoying. I don't need two sounds, two red icons and two red messages in my log every turn that one of my units is on a quest, especially if it's safely within my own lands. I also don't need that unit to be woken up every turn. Fortified units should stay fortified, and I think a different effect apart from "lost" needs to be applied, one that is much quieter. If I want to help steer my questing unit away from danger I won't fortify them.

Honestly? Sidequest is going to be removed.

• The leashing is cool. Though I have to admit I yelled at my computer a second time, more loudly and more explicitly, when Acheron reach out and touched my Aeron's Chosen. In the same turn a minotaur attacked and killed my first 100+ xp hero who was uninjured in what must have been obscenely lucky rolls. Also, my second hero popped a S16 stoneskin ogre when digging deeper in a lair. Not a good turn for me.

Heh. Acheron is a bad one. His leash varies between 0 and 5, so he may be stuck on his city (or moving towards it, at least), or he may be able to attack up to 6 tiles away from it. You never know, and it changes every turn.

• Units with ranged attacks only seem to shoot. That S16 stoneskin ogre? He just threw rocks at my hero. So I checked the game I abandoned and played another 20 turns of it. All the ogre did was march up to my capital and hurl boulders at it. Even units who wandered outside the city weren't attacked (except for the hurled boulders.) When I first saw gorillas doing this, it was kind of cool. It made them really annoying, following my scouts through the jungle and pelting them with rocks. Or feces, or bananas, or whatever. But that ogre had a 99.9% chance of destroying my civilization, and he should have done so. Just as the ogre should have eaten my hero.

We'll have to fix that.

And I prefer to think they throw barrels...

• I'll have to play around with them a little more but I think some of the blood promotions are a bit much. Autopillaging with boar blood? Kind of harsh when you couple it with griffin blood. Add in March Wine and mobility 2 ... you can probably undo 150 turns worth of work just by walking across the map. It's not that any one of the bloods are too powerful, it's just that it really isn't that hard to get several of them.

Well, that's mostly because I didn't have time to change their acquisition method.

Next patch, you will only get it on one unit, and each unit can only have one Blood promo.

Oh yeah, one more thing. Definitely much more stable and much faster than 1.23. I did have 1 CTD between turns but reloading the game it didn't come up again so I'm not concerned. And the time between turns is much faster. Strangely enough, it takes me longer to read a Rifipedia entry than it does to wait between turns. Not sure why the Rifipedia has become so much slower.

Glad to hear it's stable, we worked hard on that aspect.

Not sure why the pedia would take longer; I know the initial loading does because of the sort functions, but otherwise nothing I know of would cause a slow down.

 

[Milaga]

The main change we are making to counter unhealth is actually going to be in new buildings, using the VicinityBonus system (which will have to be merged or rewritten). Basically: If a building requires a vicinity bonus, that means the specified resource must be within working range of the city.

In this case, it will mean that settling near a resource like Corn allows you to construct a building granting more health; Simply connecting it isn't enough.

Buildings countering the health problem of a city is a good idea. If you are going to build a city in an unhealthy place, you should have to spend time building up the infrastructure in order to make it prosper.

Odd... We saw it the exact other way. It is generally better to utilize a Great Person's special, rather than settle him; It was added as a boost, to make settling desirable.

I can see this going both ways. I think this is only a big problem for the Grigori because great prophets are almost useless for them. But a settled great prophet is probably the best settled unit, especially early game. 1 hammer is big, 5 gold is literally your entire economy, and the 2 health is now pure gold. Of course, were I playing Elohim and trying to spam religions, I would certainly like a GPP from my settled prophet.

Honestly? Sidequest is going to be removed.

I don't think it will be missed. Did I mention it was noisy?

Heh. Acheron is a bad one. His leash varies between 0 and 5, so he may be stuck on his city (or moving towards it, at least), or he may be able to attack up to 6 tiles away from it. You never know, and it changes every turn.

Cool. I think Acheron is more scary this way than that version of FfH when he roamed Erebus.

Next patch, you will only get it on one unit, and each unit can only have one Blood promo.

Much better. Although it would be cool if Beastmasters could get them all. They already are tough enough for a low tech cost, so their base strength might have to be toned down slightly were that the case. I always thought it would be neat if Hunters could have a pet promotion (very similar to the Blood idea.) The pet promotion would change the icon of the Hunter.

 

[Alamoslithe]

From a flavor standpoint, the Sidar are awesome. From a game standpoint, they are both underpowered and bland.

Let me say three things before I begin: (1) The mist is one of the most original and amazing features added by RiFE. I am blown away by the awesomeness of it. There are, however, a few problems, which I will address below. (2) I think that the immortality promotion change is not working, or if it is, it is not easy enough to see or understand when a unit becomes immortal for the turn. Lastly, (3) Rathus Denmora is an awesome machine of destruction. If he gets Orthus' Axe, the world belongs to the sidar.

OK, Now to my point: Remove the Sidar, and give the Mist mechanic to the Svaltalfar or the D'Tesh. Both civilizations are better than the Sidar at their own game: the recon line. In fact, that's the sidar's only game. In fact, their game really ends at the Poison tech, because everything else about the civilization is bland. Their early game is bland, their midgame rocks with assassins and Rathus, and their late game is as flavorless as lettuce.

One caveat- my favorite civ is the Hippus. I like to play a fast rushing civ, and the hippus do it in style. A lot of people complain they are bland. They are not bland in the slightest- they may be one- dimensional, and they may have an easily acessible focus, but they are fun. Very fun. And Magnadine is the most awesome hero in the game, despite what that flavortext guy says about his pony. Mounted mercs are awesome. They have flair and style, and they may be simple, but they are not bland. However:

The Sidar boil down to one tech. Poisons. Meanwhile, the Svart are rocking their +1 attack from turn one, and Thanatos is beating everyone at their own game. I love Thanatos, and after playing that civ, I see no reason to ever play the Sidar. So give the Mist to the legion, since they already have so many wonderful and surprisingly awesome things about them- why not add more?

Here's what is wrong with the Sidar, as I see it:

(1) the immortal promotion thing may be an awesome mechanic. I never saw a unit gain it when looking in mouseover. I had a level 25 ghost, and if never got it, then the mechanic is not working, or the chance is far, far too low.

(2) Rathus does not get the promotion that allows him to become immortal. He's like the king Ghost, bust the other Ghosts beat him at his own game.

(3) The Grey should be the ultimate watchers- they see all without being seen. That's their lore flavor, and that's what they should be like, in my mind. Sort of like the Dunedain (or whatever) from the Lord of the Rings- they watch all without taking an active interest unless things go to . And everything is going to in RiFE, so the Sidar must act. However, Thanatos does this better with fully invisible recon units. With a recon promotion. So do the Svarts.

(4) One leader no longer fits with the new mist mechanic. This is more of an annoyance, or maybe an oversight, or maybe could be a change. In any case, other civ's cities captured by the leader who has the (formerly called) tolerant trait retain their own civ's building capacity. This is great, because the sidar units are all so bland. However, it sucks because captured cities from other civs CANNOT use the Mist. Again, the mechanic is awesome. I think it's bad to have a leader who cannot use the only thing the sidar have going for them for a majority (at least to an aggressive player like me) of their cities.

(5) D'tesh has invisible great commanders. This is awesome. Very awesome. The sidar- well, they do not. I have a stack of 10 hidden ghosts and one, very visible, great commander. I also like the combat applications of the new great healer, casting heal on my ghosts. So it's two great people and a bunch of invisible units. Well, would be two great people, except they just die. (I know the worldspell into the mist would help here, but honestly, in my game, either I used it early without knowing, or was never able to actually use it, or couldn;t find it. In any case, it was never used).

(6) After poisons, you get those stupid and bland basic Shadows that everybody gets. You know what- the art in RiFE is amazing. Some of the units are stunning. The FFH2 and RiFE artists are awesome, and this is just bellyaching, but I hate the Shadow model as much as I hate the Paramander model, in general. But the poor Sidar, who even cares about their Shadows, because they can just stop at poisons. If they don't- barring religious heroes (which they will almost never get because of their tech priorities)- they get absolutely nothing unique.

When they used to be able to wane shades, the sidar could be nigh unstoppable end- game. They were like an avalanche; starting slowly, building momentum, and then crushing everything with a supercity. A supercity that, in RiFE, would be almost as good as the D'Tesh or Scion cities.

Ok so there's 6 points. It's not exactly material for the feedback thread. It is certainly a balance issue, however, because the Sidar are complete filler. They are not balanced against any of the powerhouse early game civs (Khazad, Hippus, Clan, and the incredibly broken archos), not balanced against any of the mid game civs, and have no real late game.

Want to make the Sidar on par with the Legion, the Scions, or the Archos? at level 6, all uints gain the blood of the phoenix promotion. They can die once and be resurrected. At level 12 (or 15, or whatever) They become truly immortal. There- now the sidar are balanced as overpoweredly as any of the other awesome, flavorful, detailed, and fun civs.

And one last thing- I have said it before and I can't say it enough- you have an awesome and incredibly talented team at work on this mod, and there is no game that gets even a tenth of the playtime as FFH2, and now RiFE. I love the "more is better philosophy," the innovative game mechanics, and the sheer brilliance that has gone into this mod. I'm looking forward to your work in Civ 5.

 

[Grey Fox]

Worldspells are City Actions now and casted by the city. Might account to why you couldn't find the spell.

If they got a tech requirement you should be able to find the spell easy in the techtree since we have added buttons there now for your civs World Spell and City Actions/Spells.

 

[Rainbow Sand]

Due to 2 unhealth per population point every early growing city is forced to keep 1-3 healer specialists, thus first and highly probably second and third great persons born are great healers that must be placed into largest pop cities to alleviate large (-6 to -10) unhealth. As a consequence, possibility to receive other great person than healer moves into late-endgame except for random events. Thus any civ without philosophical trait/ardor is effectively denied useful great people exc for generals.

 

[lordrune]

Due to 2 unhealth per population point every early growing city is forced to keep 1-3 healer specialists, thus first and highly probably second and third great persons born are great healers that must be placed into largest pop cities to alleviate large (-6 to -10) unhealth. As a consequence, possibility to receive other great person than healer moves into late-endgame except for random events. Thus any civ without philosophical trait/ardor is effectively denied useful great people exc for generals.

That's not as big an issue as it seems at first. You have the option to choose your great people, if you do this, you'll get the ones you need. And there are a lot of ways to gain health in RiFe. For starters, every food resource gives you 2 health once you have the granary/smokehouse/harbor. Secondly you've got wells, herbalists, and similar things that add up.

There's tweaking that's needed around the edges of the system still - and that will come - but I think the principle of the change is fine. I'm playing an Elohm game right now and going for an altar victory. Getting plenty of prophets and developing my civilisation at a nice modest speed. Only have about a third of the food resources available at this stage, 250 normal turns in, but its quite adequate to have functional cities.