Feedback Thread (my thoughts on Rife)

[inuyashasama]

Hi, since you guys took the time to make such an awesome modification for Ffh, I thought I'd post what I think about the game, and my two cents worth of suggestions.

Barbarians
I understand that you never intended to unleash strength 18 monsters on the world from turn one, but there are some other things to consider:

• I noticed someone talking about minotaurs in another thread. I just want to say I agree with him, they need a nerf.
• Even if the high strength animals only show up late in the game, they're still incredibly annoying at times. I'd like to suggest an option that turns them on or off.
• An option that just halves the spawn of barbarians/animals and lairs would be great too.
• Archeron is sometimes appearing before even Orthus O.o
• Is the spawing of lairs/forts etc. on top of mountains on purpose? Cause it's really annoying without pact of the nilhorn.

Terrain
All I have to say about the terrain is that everything added was simple and intuitive. A great job.

Mechanos
The Mechanos are an absolute blast to play, and they have a great theme. I don't, however, feel they are balanced in any way.

• Their siege units, especially if buffed with a master siege thingy, can kill units with ranged attack
• The witch hunter's disrupt ability is overpowered, 75% chance to scrub a spell is too much.
• Despite being handicapped by their lack of adepts-archmagi, the adeptus still give the mechanos a decent range of useful spells.
• The dirigible fleets have incredible movement, and can hold a freaking army.
• Despite all this, they still have a decent hero selection

Let's imagine you declare war on someone. You pair up a zeppelin (for protection) and a dirigible fleet (for (10!!1!) cargo space), and load them up with a flamethrower, some champions, a technopriest, and some howitzers/steam tanks. Repeat this four times or so. You try to fly over the water/mountains as much as possible, then drop the units of a square or two from the city, and start bombing it, the zepplin can help.
If the enemy tries to counter attack you can:
Bomb the snot out of them
Load back up and run
Entrench
Repair/heal

If they don't, they're screwed, because nothing will last more than five turns of bombardment from howitzers (cept heroes).

Forts
Aside from the Mechanos, the forts are my absolute favorite addition. Don't change anything about it without careful consideration, it's awesome. Just one thing, why can't my commander create forts? The ability is always grayed out.

Railroads
Can any civilization make railroads, or only the Mechanos? I could swear the kuriotates had them, and that's just... tacky. My personal opinion is that they don't fit in. Instead, I'd suggest changing the name to Mecha Tracks (or steam carriages, or something), give a much smaller boost to movespeed, and make them Mechanos only.

Terraforming
Any way you could make vitalize and growth auto castable?

Once again, thanks for the awesome mod. Despite its few flaws, there's nothing major enough to convince me to go back to FF. Not even close.

 

[Andvare]

Any civ with access to refined mana, can create railroads. That means you would have to trade with the Mechanos, or conquer their capital, to do it.

The barbarians are ridiculous ATM, but luckily, Val have something in store for the next version, which sounds amazing (tiered barbarians, so the big baddies will still be there, but wont attack your cities until later), and, yes Acheron should be more expensive to build, he appears far too early.

The Mechanos is overpowered in Human hands, true. Though their economy isn't that good, their siege engines means that in MP, you have to rush them, and with those powered warriors, that is hard. The AI don't know how to use siege engines, never have, so they aren't any better than any other puny AI.

Forts with Illians (and/or Frozen+Doviello IIRC) is nasty, as they spread ice.

Great Commanders can only build forts outside of cultural borders IIRC.

 

[Cyrusfan]

If you check the thread on 'how do you keep AI civs from dying' on its third page, someone uploaded a nerf to the animals, and Valk explained how to get rid of the lair-spawning minotaurs and cyclops, at least for now.

 

[Valkrionn]

Hi, since you guys took the time to make such an awesome modification for Ffh, I thought I'd post what I think about the game, and my two cents worth of suggestions.

Feedback is always good.

We do have a feedback thread though.

Barbarians
I understand that you never intended to unleash strength 18 monsters on the world from turn one, but there are some other things to consider:

• I noticed someone talking about minotaurs in another thread. I just want to say I agree with him, they need a nerf.
• Even if the high strength animals only show up late in the game, they're still incredibly annoying at times. I'd like to suggest an option that turns them on or off.
• An option that just halves the spawn of barbarians/animals and lairs would be great too.
• Archeron is sometimes appearing before even Orthus O.o
• Is the spawing of lairs/forts etc. on top of mountains on purpose? Cause it's really annoying without pact of the nilhorn.

There's going to be a new barb system (for the Orc and Animal factions, not Demons). To summarize it:

1. Three 'tiers' of units
   • Low - Standard units, behave as now.
   • Mid - Stronger (Minotaurs fall into this one), can only spawn/move in their civ's culture.
   • High - Strongest, leashed to their lair.
2. To go with this, dens/lairs/etc will put out culture for their corresponding civ.

On the other points...

• I'm thinking of an option which decreases number of barbs/animals .
• Acheron requires a barb city to build him, but is pretty cheap; So if the barbs get a city early (which Minotaurs are doing atm), Acheron comes early. Should be fixed by the new system.
• It is not on purpose, and is already fixed. Was an issue with Mountains now being bPeak rather than bImpassable.

Terrain
All I have to say about the terrain is that everything added was simple and intuitive. A great job.

Mechanos
The Mechanos are an absolute blast to play, and they have a great theme. I don't, however, feel they are balanced in any way.

• Their siege units, especially if buffed with a master siege thingy, can kill units with ranged attack
• The witch hunter's disrupt ability is overpowered, 75% chance to scrub a spell is too much.
• Despite being handicapped by their lack of adepts-archmagi, the adeptus still give the mechanos a decent range of useful spells.
• The dirigible fleets have incredible movement, and can hold a freaking army.
• Despite all this, they still have a decent hero selection

Let's imagine you declare war on someone. You pair up a zeppelin (for protection) and a dirigible fleet (for (10!!1!) cargo space), and load them up with a flamethrower, some champions, a technopriest, and some howitzers/steam tanks. Repeat this four times or so. You try to fly over the water/mountains as much as possible, then drop the units of a square or two from the city, and start bombing it, the zepplin can help.
If the enemy tries to counter attack you can:
Bomb the snot out of them
Load back up and run
Entrench
Repair/heal

If they don't, they're screwed, because nothing will last more than five turns of bombardment from howitzers (cept heroes).

Yeah, Mechanos are getting nerfed a bit.

Forts
Aside from the Mechanos, the forts are my absolute favorite addition. Don't change anything about it without careful consideration, it's awesome. Just one thing, why can't my commander create forts? The ability is always grayed out.

Not sure; That ability has been completely changed now.

Railroads
Can any civilization make railroads, or only the Mechanos? I could swear the kuriotates had them, and that's just... tacky. My personal opinion is that they don't fit in. Instead, I'd suggest changing the name to Mecha Tracks (or steam carriages, or something), give a much smaller boost to movespeed, and make them Mechanos only.

Anyone with Refined Mana may make Railroads, the issue is getting the Refined Mana.

Terraforming
Any way you could make vitalize and growth auto castable?

Not as yet; If Xienwolf finishes his Aspect system I have plans for that, though.

Once again, thanks for the awesome mod. Despite its few flaws, there's nothing major enough to convince me to go back to FF. Not even close.

Glad you like it!

 

[inuyashasama]

Ah, the refined magic thing makes a lot of sense. I did trade refined mana to the kuriotates, which explains it. I have no problem with it now .

Some questions:
Is there a way to purify haunted lands?
What is a trail?
What is a caravan route? (trade route maybe?)
Why does kelp turn red?
More later...

 

[Divvu]

Some questions:

Is there a way to purify haunted lands?

Use workers to chop them down like forests IIRC

What is a trail?

A special road available and visible only to swamp dwelling civs. Dunno if it will be kept in next version.

What is a caravan route?

Same, but for Malakim and only buildable in desert.

Why does kelp turn red?

By the same arcane force that turns forests into ancient forests (Read: it becomes red in FoL lands, increases plot yelds)

 

[inuyashasama]

Thanks

I have a few more after playing for a while:
How exactly does culture control work, and the same for training rates (archery range for example). I know the last one is from FF, but I'm sure you guys know >.^

 

[Valkrionn]

Ah, the refined magic thing makes a lot of sense. I did trade refined mana to the kuriotates, which explains it. I have no problem with it now .

Some questions:
Is there a way to purify haunted lands?
What is a trail?
What is a caravan route? (trade route maybe?)
Why does kelp turn red?
More later...

To answer them in order:

1. Dispel Magic, or chopping.
2. Trails are Lizard roads; May or may not be removed.
3. Caravan Routes are Malakim roads; These are gone, instead the Malakim can trade over desert (like Ocean); They don't build roads in desert at all.
4. Kelp turns red when it becomes a Kelp Forest, under FoL. Was the only other Kelp model I could find at the time, and I wasn't comfortable doing recolors; Now I am, so here's what will be in the next version.

Thanks

A have a few more after playing for a while:
How exactly does culture control work, and the same for training rates (archery range for example). I know the last one is from FF, but I'm sure you guys know >.^

Cultural Control works like Culture for the most part; It's just easily pushed away by cities. Might be changing that.

Training rates.... Honestly, even I don't really know the formula. It's a bit complex.

 

[Almagafor]

That's some pretty kelp, as far as training I like flat XP, hope it becomes an option in the normal Rife (though staying a further mod works just fine)