Feedback from a lot of MP Games

[Zetner]

So.. My friend and I live in a dorm, and play RiFE on a daily basis over LAN. Yesterday we talked about writing a "report" on some multiplayer-issues we have seen. Do with this what you want, we just thought it maybe could help in some way.

Also, probably a lot of known bugs will come up in the following (so, please don't comment on that, unless you have some ideas to avoid it.. the "known bug" comment isn't really that needed)

Our options usually are as follows:
Monarch Difficulty
Advanced Start
Normal Game Speed
No Tech-trading
Inceasing Difficulty
Familiar Faces

Out of Sync:
In general the game runs quite smoothly - A lot better than RiFE 1.24.
When playing RiFE 1.24 we had to play on the same team, to avoid OOS every single turn due to ranged-attack issues.
That being said, we still get quite a lot of OOS's.

From what we have observed, the following can cause OOS:
Casting World Spells
Casting City Spells
When one player has hit Enter, and while waiting for the other player enters the 'pedia, a city, civic-advisor, actually, any advisor - This doesn't give a OOS every time, and not necessarily when you are IN the city-menu, but when entering/leaving the menu while the computer is loading for the following turn.
Ranged Attacks still seem to be able to cause OOS. I.e. fighting against Ljosalfar is a biatch, since they have loads and loads of archers, and we get a lot of OOS when fighting them. Also, we noticed, that when some enemy unit, outside our range of view, is firing at some unit one player actually can see, it can cause OOS.
We also speculate a bit in stealth-units...

The OOS-issue has gotten A LOT better with the new version. We don't have to play as teams any more, but we have still had a couple of games we had to abandon because of OOS - We simply grew tired of reloading the game every single turn...

Special Barb Units:
Since 1.30 came out, we have only seen a very few barbarian/animal heroes, who pop up in every single game, while others we haven't seen since the last version.

The ones we ALWAYS see (and sadly, have to deal with):
Acheron

Ones that only show up when a player (not AI) plays Lanun:
That Ghost-ship-thingie
Big old seamonster, who is kraken-like.

Some that show up occasionally:
The monkeys.

The ones we miss:
Orthus

The one we haven't seen, but don't miss:
That long-sighted goblin mo-fo!

If I've forgotten some, they haven't showed up.

Tips for playing Multiplayer:
AI:
After the new patch, we quickly realized that the AI sucks with the new health system. To make up for this, we usually team the computers up in teams of two - This seems to make them last longer before we rule the world. - We even had a few games where one of us got killed!

Races:
We have started playing with the Familiar Faces challenge on, since the computer tends to make better use of the Major Leaders (especially the ones with the Expansive trait). Other than that we let the AI play random civs.
We often change civs ourselves, just to try out different stuff, as most people do in single player...

Entertainment:
We have found that this game is enjoyed WAY better when drinking a couple of beers while playing... It takes the edge off of reloading-rage when the game crashes/OOSs, and also, it kindda makes the AI a little harder to crush, when suddenly, one player who has been building a nice kingdom with RoK, suddenly decides he wants to see the world burn, founds Ashen Veil, screws his economy over, and goes in "Unholy Crusade"-mode on the world...


Conclusion:
We enjoy RiFE a lot! After studying medical textbooks all freaking day, it's nice to come home, play an hour or two of RiFE while drinking a beer or two.. So, thanks a lot!

Also, we will start saving the games where the OOS is especially heavy, so that at some point, maybe someone with more knowledge of the issue than us can have a look at it.

P.S.: Any issues we have that aren't related to multiplayer, we make sure to post in other topics.

 

[Valkrionn]

So.. My friend and I live in a dorm, and play RiFE on a daily basis over LAN. Yesterday we talked about writing a "report" on some multiplayer-issues we have seen. Do with this what you want, we just thought it maybe could help in some way.

Also, probably a lot of known bugs will come up in the following (so, please don't comment on that, unless you have some ideas to avoid it.. the "known bug" comment isn't really that needed)

MP feedback is very welcome! We don't get a whole lot of it.

You know I'm going to say known (or fixed ), if just to make sure random people viewing the thread know.

Out of Sync:
In general the game runs quite smoothly - A lot better than RiFE 1.24.
When playing RiFE 1.24 we had to play on the same team, to avoid OOS every single turn due to ranged-attack issues.
That being said, we still get quite a lot of OOS's.

From what we have observed, the following can cause OOS:
Casting World Spells
Casting City Spells
When one player has hit Enter, and while waiting for the other player enters the 'pedia, a city, civic-advisor, actually, any advisor - This doesn't give a OOS every time, and not necessarily when you are IN the city-menu, but when entering/leaving the menu while the computer is loading for the following turn.
Ranged Attacks still seem to be able to cause OOS. I.e. fighting against Ljosalfar is a biatch, since they have loads and loads of archers, and we get a lot of OOS when fighting them. Also, we noticed, that when some enemy unit, outside our range of view, is firing at some unit one player actually can see, it can cause OOS.
We also speculate a bit in stealth-units...

The OOS-issue has gotten A LOT better with the new version. We don't have to play as teams any more, but we have still had a couple of games we had to abandon because of OOS - We simply grew tired of reloading the game every single turn...

The City Spell issue (and World Spell, same thing) is fixed. Your other issue is interesting...

And glad to hear it's gotten better! I know we used to have quite a few issues.

Special Barb Units:
Since 1.30 came out, we have only seen a very few barbarian/animal heroes, who pop up in every single game, while others we haven't seen since the last version.

The ones we ALWAYS see (and sadly, have to deal with):
Acheron

Ones that only show up when a player (not AI) plays Lanun:
That Ghost-ship-thingie
Big old seamonster, who is kraken-like.

Some that show up occasionally:
The monkeys.

The ones we miss:
Orthus

The one we haven't seen, but don't miss:
That long-sighted goblin mo-fo!

If I've forgotten some, they haven't showed up.

Orthus should be showing. There is a hidden option to disable him (and Zarcaz), so run a play now game to make sure that's not on; Otherwise, I'm not sure why he wouldn't show.

There are no others, really. Other animals will come eventually, but are way down on the priority list.

Tips for playing Multiplayer:
AI:
After the new patch, we quickly realized that the AI sucks with the new health system. To make up for this, we usually team the computers up in teams of two - This seems to make them last longer before we rule the world. - We even had a few games where one of us got killed!

Races:
We have started playing with the Familiar Faces challenge on, since the computer tends to make better use of the Major Leaders (especially the ones with the Expansive trait). Other than that we let the AI play random civs.
We often change civs ourselves, just to try out different stuff, as most people do in single player...

Entertainment:
We have found that this game is enjoyed WAY better when drinking a couple of beers while playing... It takes the edge off of reloading-rage when the game crashes/OOSs, and also, it kindda makes the AI a little harder to crush, when suddenly, one player who has been building a nice kingdom with RoK, suddenly decides he wants to see the world burn, founds Ashen Veil, screws his economy over, and goes in "Unholy Crusade"-mode on the world...

....I feel like I would do the AV thing while drunk....

Conclusion:
We enjoy RiFE a lot! After studying medical textbooks all freaking day, it's nice to come home, play an hour or two of RiFE while drinking a beer or two.. So, thanks a lot!

Also, we will start saving the games where the OOS is especially heavy, so that at some point, maybe someone with more knowledge of the issue than us can have a look at it.

P.S.: Any issues we have that aren't related to multiplayer, we make sure to post in other topics.

Glad to hear you enjoy it!

 

[Arhat42]

Hi, I'm the other guy Zetner is talking about. I agree with just about everything he just said. I know that RifE is not meant to be perfectly balanced for multi player, in fact, one of the reasons I came to prefer it over Orbis is that everything is a bit more extreem (!!! ) than in RifE. However, there are a couple of civs that I feel could use a slight nerf for multi player purposes. Also, I know that much of this may have been mentioned in other posts, but this is primarly from MP games, so I thought you might wanna know.

1) Mazatl: in mid- to endgame they sky-rocket because of Lost Lands combined with 5 jungle tiles. new cities begin with +20 and +20 because of trade routes, and as opposed to Raitlor (Illian leader) or Malakim who have similar mechanics, they got a bunch of trade-improving buildings. Yes, I know they must give up foreign trade, but I had nonetheless cities with 40+ pop at around turn 200 even with the new unhealth mechanics. Maybe it could be scaled down a bit, I mean, they already get ridiculous amounts of from the jungles, maybe just give them a bonus from trade and no additional . Oh, and the wyverns are a bit imba, maybe not give them 9 of them.

Before I move on to the next OP civ I would like to say that I like that workers improve the land so slow in this version. It might be a little bit too slow (speed it up 25% perhaps), but all in all it's a great improvement to the game.

2) Mekara Order: With workers taking 20+ turns to improve the terrain, mekara's early horde of familiars and a little later horde of Sluga gives them a lot, I mean a lot, of momentum in the early game. A momentum I have abused every time to expand like a madman early on, which their economy can handle because they got free militia units. Unless you get attacked by Mazatl (which I did once and lost, damn you Mazatl wyverns and damn you Mekara's Lack Of Rangers), you pretty much own the game. However, I feel that if the normal worker speed is increased then Mekara will lose some of it's edge and actually become balanced Awesome civ design btw.

I will of course mention the new unhealth system. I think everything has been said: it often it does not even pay off to let your cities grow, the AI handle the system like a scared goose in a violin shop (weird analogy) and unless you're expansive your early growth is non-existent. Hopefully this will be changed a bit, like upping the inherent health-bonus in new cities or perhaps let cities bellow 12 pop only give one per pop. I dunno. I'm confident you'll think of something. Which brings me to the most OP civ in MP RifE...

3) Legion of D'Tesh: They were underpowered in the last patch, yes, and the changes to them are fitting and fun, however, they are the only civ unaffected by the new unhealth system (except Infernal and Frozen), so now they grow just as fast as everyone else in the early game (faster with a bit of luck and some watchers/hunters). They get a ridiculous tile-yield from pyres, catacombs and what-not, and their tech explode early on. They can take vast chunks of the worldmap very early with their new mausoleums, and they can turn this land into Infused Ash (extra tech) and pop (extra everything). The most OP feature is that they get both powerful military units (Binders/Chosen) and huge economical upgrades from the same tech-line. There really is no reason to beeline anything other than arcane lore, while this make them one-dimentional it is also very unfair to the rest of the world that has to chose between economy/intfrastructure techs, magic techs, religion techs and military techs. They get it all from one line of tech and that makes them very powerful, very fast. In MP we have reached a point where none of us plays as the Legion, because it feels like cheating. Maybe spread their tile-yield upgrades to other parts of the tech-tree.

Other balance issues: FotL is useless to all races except the elves and Lanun, ancient forests removing one from a tile and blocking all improvements other than than a camp is not a good trade-off for 2. Not that I think that FotL being favorable for elves necessarily is a very bad thing, FotL was OP all races before, but maybe other civs should be allowed build lumbermills in ancient forests, so that ancient forest can compete with normal forests.

Other than that I really like the new patch, and look forward to the next one. Awesome mod you have created here guys.

 

[RFHolloway]

Not an experienced multiplayer (or Rife player either for that matter), but played a hotseat game with my daughter over the weekend - us two on one team against 6 AI's, she played Rhoanna, I played Cassiel. I hadn't realised that teams shared techs so it was easier than I anticipated (had i known i might have set things up a little differently) but it was an enjoyable romp nevertheless. I was confused by a couple of points.

Adventurers no longer spawn via GP's , but Caissel still starts with the pacifist civic.

It was a bit difficult to identify exactly what was producing the adventure points.

Having normal units go on sidequests gives a massive XP boost early so getting a fort should be a priority from day 1

Cassiel having the ability to change to charasmatic (perhaps at the second change?) gives all the units a couple of extra promotions, and feels very strong.

If he happens to get an assassin from a lair it is very easy to get him to level 6 very early with almost no risk - with the +2 unholy he is fairly well unstoppable.

 

[Meldon]

Well Cassiel IS a pacifist.

 

[Jheral]

2) Mekara Order: With workers taking 20+ turns to improve the terrain, mekara's early horde of familiars and a little later horde of Sluga gives them a lot, I mean a lot, of momentum in the early game. A momentum I have abused every time to expand like a madman early on, which their economy can handle because they got free militia units. Unless you get attacked by Mazatl (which I did once and lost, damn you Mazatl wyverns and damn you Mekara's Lack Of Rangers), you pretty much own the game. However, I feel that if the normal worker speed is increased then Mekara will lose some of it's edge and actually become balanced Awesome civ design btw.

Thanks for the feedback; the thread for them has pretty much stopped, and I really enjoy seeing what people think of them.

I have been thinking about pulling them back a bit as far as workrate goes, but I'm not sure how far I should go, or where I should make the change; the Sluga are harder to get going than regular workers, so I figured I'd give them a lot to make them be competetive, but maybe I went a bit too far.

Could also drop the Familiar's workrate (something I've been thinking about anyway).

By the way, they do have a Ranger; the Slave Hunter. It's just not on the usual recon line. You get it at Currency, instead.

 

[Calavente]

What I think he meant is
"damn you mekaran for lack of subdue animal/subdue beast / +x% versus animal units with a reasonnable combat ". (in order to fight with wyverns).
IIRC, Slave Hunters do not have bonus for attacking animals nor beasts and only for attacking cities ?

 

[Jheral]

Ah, right. Yeah, they don't have animal bonuses. They're better against Melee and Recon units, instead.

 

[Rapier]

Well I too have been playing the new patch multiplayer.

Currently we've only played on the same team (it's just more fun that way for us), and so it obviously gives us an edge in the early game. We played on Monarch and had a really easy time, it seemed like the other civs just weren't expanding. (In regular civ you get a slight early game advantage by being two vs ffa, but it's quickly offset by the computers rapid expansion, preferential treatment for other computers and so by the time you're looking at knights and cannons it can be a real challenge).

In this mod it seems like the computers really don't aspire to create cities and empires. We tried a game with barbarian cities on and the computers were completely hopeless. In our current game we took that and mana guardians off so that there were a lot less barbarian threats. We raised the difficulty to emperor... for about the first 250 turns it seemed like we'd just have a repeat of the last game (no one else was expanding at all).

However the computers did get there act together (except the calabim flaruos, who despite having 300 turns to get the temple of sucellus and 2 gems, failed to get there before me and so ended up with one city at the end of the game).

The computer still struggled with tech though, admittedly there were two of us and if the game is actually better balanced than regular civ it may be the computers can't handle that advantage (though on emperor they do get individual advantages that aren't quite as good).

Any ideas why the computers may be a little bit lemonish early?

My other complaint is the possibility for barbarians to ruin a start - this game we just started, 3 barbarian spectres and a barbarian Cyclops attacked my friend before 100 turns, and so his one city was killed. In other games we've found an early savage hill giant which can even be before you're 20 turns in. - I know that defence is more important but even though we both build a warrior straight away it can still be the case that too many barbarians turn up and wreck the start. (It's not that annoying since we're only talking about 10-20 minutes at most but still it's an issue)

Apart from that, the mod is far better this patch than last patch for multi-player - last patch it just wasn't possible.

 

[Calavente]

the issues you talk about are not stricktly multiplayer.
Even in SP, the AI has a hard time to expand.
It seems it builds lots of military units, few working workers (or very late), and almost no settlers.
They start expansion very late.
Maybe the Ai is so rigged on defense/no-risk expansion that they wait too long ...
and then, they waited so long that you have an overwhelming start compared to them.