FiRe! - Fall into Revolution

[arkham4269]

Since I had to reintroduce tech eras: Does somebody have a good idea how to name the three Fall from Heaven technology eras? Ancient, Classical, Medieval sounds inappropriate.

Well unfortunately it seems that you can't 'go back' when it comes to Eras. I was discussing over in the Fury Road mod forum that the era could be based on the Armageddon Counter (in Fury Road, I've been pushing for a variant of the AC based on culture).

So I was thinking that depending on the AC, you'd have different eras. However, since you can't back up, perhaps you can have eras dependent on the AC in that when you hit the 'Classical' era and the AC is high, maybe you'd get one era screen with a certain name as opposed to something different if the AC is lower.

 

[Hanny]

Since I had to reintroduce tech eras: Does somebody have a good idea how to name the three Fall from Heaven technology eras? Ancient, Classical, Medieval sounds inappropriate.

Time/Age of Awakeing, Time/Age of strife, Time/Age of wars.

 

[arkham4269]

I realize this is probably way to much coding but something that came up on the Rapture mod thread as well as the Resurrecting the Aifons forum got me thinking. Would it be possible that you'd start the game as generic civ's based on race and then due to a combination of your actions and events, you would end up with your Civ?

I always like the 'blind research' function of old Sid Mieir's Alpha Centauri (SMAC) because it made being the human a bit harder and you could play on the lower difficulties easier because the AI wasn't able to 'cheat' as bad but you the human play had issues as well.

Now obviously certain races like the Grigori or the Kuriotates, this wouldn't work for, but I can see a breakdown like this:
* Kingdom of Man
* Kingdom of Elves
* Kingdom of Dwarves
* Kingdom of Orcs
So you start with a generic civ of Orcs say, and during the course of the first 50 or so turns, could would be presented with leaders coming forward or you finding leaders during your explorations.

Maybe if you built a pagan temple early, Jonas would come forward as a leader. Maybe you find a goody village that is ruled by Vampire lords and thus you could go Calabim.

I mean for most Civs, it takes awhile for there to be any significant difference between the Civs. Lacking a leader early in the game could represent how hard it is right after the Age of Winter.

Plus if the game starts with minor Civs, that would give the human player, as s/he conquers these civs, another option to get a leader. Are you Kingdom of Man and have available horse resources? Maybe you could go Hippus.

I'm sure it would be a major reworking of the game, but maybe the entire "Ancient" level of the game could be the very early part of Erebus history, when the world is again warming up (having that flagged would probably be good too) and a lot of the various survivors are coming together. It's at this time that the leaders will begin to surface.

Perhaps depending on your 'kingdom' - you could pick who you want by being the first to build a palace of which civ you want if you meet the criteria. Again I know the Hippus don't need horse resources in vanilla FfH, but maybe if you have access to them, you can build their palace and thus become that Civ. Maybe multiple palaces could be build so the first person/AI who builds the palace gets to pick their leader, then the second palace would go to which ever leaders is left.

Obviously there would have to be tweaks. I mean the dwarves would only build dwarven workers until the break between Khazad and Lurchirp happens, but I think that's doable.

Another option is that you could have one Civ, but depending on your actions or events, you get access to certain leaders, regardless of the Civ so maybe you end up with Jonas leading the Malakim. I mean they followed an Elf, why not an Orc?

Anyway, I'm sure there are way to many problems with this, but I think it brings up some options/ideas for this mod.

 

[arkham4269]

Think I found a bug. I'm noticing a lot of Civ's that seem to have been spawned from Barbarians having access to those new nasty mega-goblin units. Luckily they don't seem hell-bent to attack me which is good since I don't even have Axemen quite yet and these "Ljosalfar" goblins have a strength of 7.62! I mean I can sort of see the Clan having them, but I was damn lucky that right before the Clan Mega-Goblin waxed one of my cities, their Civ got destroyed.

Although I wish that units belonging to a destroyed Civ wouldn't just disappear but would go back to being barbarians.

 

[Jean Elcard]

Well unfortunately it seems that you can't 'go back' when it comes to Eras.

You can go back - in a way. The original era system is used by Kael to distinguish between the different religions. That's right. So I can't use it. I've decided to add a new type of eras called "Technology Eras". There are three of them and they are based on your tech level only. You see we have eras very similar to the original ones available again.

I won't use the AC for eras but, it's probably not a bad idea to tie the AC somehow to revolutions. I'll have to think about which things are likely to be affected by an increasing AC. More violent revolutions or stuff like this.

I'll answer other questions later. At the moment I'm just too tired.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

version 1.65 of revolutions is out

btw, revolutions in FiRe! are still too prone to happen imho. every time I destroy an enemy early on with a nice warrior rush, after a short while my whole empire revolts and I get screwed

 

[arkham4269]

The only 'problem' I'm seeing is that being Evil makes it really hard for a Civ. In the game I'm trying to finish things were just nuts till pretty much everyone switched to Order and Republic and we really haven't had a rebellion since.

So I'm thinking Evil races need something to help tap down the problems they have, especially early in the game.

I mean sure the Calabim can eat the rebels, but evil types need something.

 

[Jean Elcard]

1) this one is probably a base FFH issue: the random event in which an adventurer offers a map for 40 $ came up. I had 80 $ , but the option to accept the deal was greyed out.

Very likely.

2) if you select the "lite city screen" ( i.e. the one that comes up if you click once on the city bar instead than double clicking the city ) causes the button "avoid angry citizens" to show, which looks kinda weird

I'm going to fix this. Still have to learn a lot about the interface. Weird, that I never ever spotted this bug myself before. Speaking about buttons: If someone knows how to make buttons or knows where to steal a fitting one please tell me. The current one is more or less a placeholder and I don't even know a viable placeholder for a maybe possible "avoid unhealthy citizens" button.

I realize this is probably way to much coding but something that came up on the Rapture mod thread as well as the Resurrecting the Aifons forum got me thinking. Would it be possible that you'd start the game as generic civ's based on race and then due to a combination of your actions and events, you would end up with your Civ?

Cool idea, but way beyond everthing I would be able to code in a finite amount of time. At least not in a way, that I would be happy with.

Think I found a bug. I'm noticing a lot of Civ's that seem to have been spawned from Barbarians having access to those new nasty mega-goblin units. Luckily they don't seem hell-bent to attack me which is good since I don't even have Axemen quite yet and these "Ljosalfar" goblins have a strength of 7.62! I mean I can sort of see the Clan having them, but I was damn lucky that right before the Clan Mega-Goblin waxed one of my cities, their Civ got destroyed.

I think I know this bug. There exists a mechanism transforming all the barb units in a barbarian city and its surroundings into units of the newly arising civ. Sometimes this fails and the new civ ends up having skeletons and all kinds of other funky units. They won't be able to build morre of those units though.

Although I wish that units belonging to a destroyed Civ wouldn't just disappear but would go back to being barbarians.

Since (if revolution or requires complete kills is active) a civilization is allowed to exist without cities, that would be kind of pointless.

version 1.65 of revolutions is out

Thanks for the hint. The changes are integrated into FiRe already. Besides other things it fixes two bugs reported by me. Know how to outsource your problems.

Btw, there exits a small change log for the next version on the first page.

btw, revolutions in FiRe! are still too prone to happen imho. every time I destroy an enemy early on with a nice warrior rush, after a short while my whole empire revolts and I get screwed

Yeah, I know. It's hard to decide where to cut. Civic influence? unhappyness? taxes? distance? Nationality? Which is your biggest problem when going for an early warrior rush?

The only 'problem' I'm seeing is that being Evil makes it really hard for a Civ. In the game I'm trying to finish things were just nuts till pretty much everyone switched to Order and Republic and we really haven't had a rebellion since. So I'm thinking Evil races need something to help tap down the problems they have, especially early in the game. I mean sure the Calabim can eat the rebels, but evil types need something.

You are right, the evil civics tend to be a lot more revolution-prone. Especially civics like Slavery or Sacrifice the Weak. If you have an idea how to counter this, feel free to make a suggestion (besides to eat them ). It's hard for me to imagine, that people would like to be enslaved, even if the civ has an evil leader.

Thanks for all the feedback.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

Yeah, I know. It's hard to decide where to cut. Civic influence? unhappyness? taxes? distance? Nationality? Which is your biggest problem when going for an early warrior rush?

I'll say nationality. I'm actually facing revolutions only after successfully destroying a civilization. In my last game I was Elohim. I destroyed the Calabim capital ( only city they had ) with warriors, and got the "Calabim got destroyed" message. a couple turns after that ALL my cities ( 5 on a standard Erebus map, 3 were very close together and the other two - one of which being the captured calabim capital - in the valley right next to mine ) revolt and lot of Calabim units spawn out of each of my cities and conquer them. ouch! ( something very similar happened in the game right before that, I was Svartalfar and conquered my neighbour Calabim with warriors ) I know that in Revolutions it's supposed to be hard to keep conquered cities, but IIRC the penalty resulting from foreign nationality is supposed to fade after the enemy civ is destroyed. this doesn't seem to happen though..

 

[Tarquelne]

I destroyed the Calabim capital ... a couple turns after that ALL my cities ... revolt and lot of Calabim units spawn out of each of my cities and conquer them.

Did you cut off all the Calabim heads and stuff the mouths with garlic? Sometimes I forget to do that.

 

[phungus420]

In my opinion jdog5000 set some of the rev effects to be a little too harsh. I honestly couldn't stand the fact that in the early game any city further then 5 tiles away from your capitol is going to rebel, or the fact the rev index numbers are hidden from you. Softening some of the rev indexes, mainly only the CityDistModifier was crucial in making the Rev mod component playable, at least for me.

If anyone is interested in checking out the python adjustments I've made, this is the link: Revolution Python Adjustments I'm not sure though if this is compatible with the FiRe merge. John, did you change anything in Revolution.py?

Anyway I recommend you take a look at these changes, they make the game alot more playbable for me. I've never seen a stable empire form prior to Democracy without them.

 

[Jean Elcard]

Thanks, phungus, I'll definitely take a look at your changes. And "yes" I had to make changes to revolution.py and I'm still far away from being done with making changes to it. I didn't touch the distance calculations, though. More transparecy what's going on behind the scenes is probably a good thing for everybody too.

"Democracy" you say, hm, never heard of concept like this in Fall from Heaven. The FfH civics are vere different from the BtS ones. Overall I tried to be more gracious concerning the distance to palace penalty.

 

[phungus420]

In terms of transparency, all I did was turn on debugging, without pop ups. This gives you the numbers for the rev indexes. I added a couple of lines in revolution.py for some effects that had no corresponding text, but that's minor. The main problem seems to be the effects which are empire wide don't display their cause. I'm not sure why, the text message is called in revolution.py, it is referenced in the revolution text file, but none of it shows up in the rev indexes. The penalty or bonus does, but it's cause isn't displayed. I could never figure this out, if you do, please tell me, I'd love for "High Taxes" to actually show up in the rev index bar in the city.

 

[Jean Elcard]

Ah, ok, I know this option and switched it on by default too. There isn't really a reason to hide this information from the player. To get the empire wide effects to show up in the city rev bar info window correctly would be great. Goes definitely on my todo list. Sometimes I'm lucky and manage to figure stuff out by accident.

Speaking about high taxes aka the gold rate. I don't see them as a bad thing at all. I was thinking about cutting them as a rev factor completely. They aren't really taxes anyway. It's a viable option to run a successful money driven empire with everybody making happy faces especially the dwarves.

 

[giddion]

I love the mod but it seems to me very difficult to get out of trouble...
Playing epic turns and variable difficulty, currently it is deity and has been for the majority of the game.
I find that I can rush buildings and build temples with priests or use bears to improve things but when the revolt again all that meant nothing and instead of improving as it was it worsens again, so I trade for more happy and it starts to improve, but then the revolution processes and i'm f#$ked again...
Things are good so I let it grow 1 more pop so I can get more hammers to build more happy improvements and bam!... i'm f#$ked again...

It seems extremely difficult to fix. I have spent 100's of turns trying to repair cities and they are only starting to be in a position where they will not revolt. I don't understand what more I can do?

 

[FireBlaze]

You are right, the evil civics tend to be a lot more revolution-prone. Especially civics like Slavery or Sacrifice the Weak. If you have an idea how to counter this, feel free to make a suggestion (besides to eat them ). It's hard for me to imagine, that people would like to be enslaved, even if the civ has an evil leader.

Were's the fear?

I'm no coder, and the most experience I've had with an editor is the Warcraft 3 editor, but whats the fear factor in citizens?

Usually in RL dictatorships, the main way to supress their rebellions would be the everyday fear the average citizen has from the government. You could add an evil only national wonder that functions as a "Secret Police", that reduces the chance for rebellion.

Another thing would be random events were evil civs could show off their cruelty, reducing rebellions, but at a tradeoff (Ex. A small group of citizens have been shown to plot a rebellion, what should we do? 1. Let them go [No effect/ Increase happiness but higher chance of rebellion {Because they think they can get away with it}] 2. Throw them in jail. [Small reduction {of the likleyhood} of rebellions/ No effect] 3. Hang them all! Make a public example of them! Let their blood run red through the streets! [Large reduction {of the likleyhood} of rebellions/ Regular reduction in rebellions] 4. [Cabalm Only] I belive it is time for the feast! [Huge reduction of rebellions/ Large reduction of rebellions] {I know you said no eating, but it kinda fit in, and I had other ideas with it }).

 

[arkham4269]

Have had two odd things come up in a game I'm playing. I wiped out the Elves and the Bannor, but they popped up again, yet I can see the map and no where are they anywhere. So I sent so units through Balseraph territory just to be sure, nothing. Then many turns later, I get the pop-ups saying they're killed and they droped off the side-bar. It's almost like I killed them, but it took the computer a long time to figure this out.

Plus, I have the slavery civic and just killed Archeron; now I have a slave that can cast dragon meteor breath since the slave still retains it's 'dragon' race. I'm eager to see if I can turn it into a Lunatic with this ability!

 

[arkham4269]

Just finished the game I was playing (I won a Religious victory; Glory to Cthulhu...uhm I mean the OO!)

One thing I notice while going through the game play back is I don't think a Civ should revolt when they have only one city. The Hippus had two cities and one got taken by the Barbs and then a few turns later, the Doviello revolted and took the Hippus last city.

I would think if you are going to have a revolt w/only 1 city, you need to only have a change of leaders.

Again, I see a lot of revolution going on when the AI Civ's only have 1 or 2 cities. I would think that you'd at least have to wait awhile. I'm thinking the problem is many Civ's base attributes along with the civics they tend to trend toward make certain Civ's more prone to the revolution matrix. Plus, early in the game, there is little you can do to make people happy.

I really think (yes I'm about to suggest it again) that at first, this mod should mainly be concerned with barbs turning into minor Civs and later morphing into major civs. I think most Civ's need to get a little more into the tech tree before massive revolution should happen. Again, as the human player playing Lauann, I was able to only build new cities when I felt I could control them. I was able to expand at this slower rate since all the other AI Civ's were to busy battling their rebels to really make a go at me.

As mentioned before (I think, in this thread but it may have been in the Religious Mod thread) that I think all Civ's need a back-up rebel faction that would be the antithesis of the main faction. So when a Civ gets to a point where they are growing and they have had enough time to learn enough civics to really start down the path of good, neutral or evil, then you'd start having revolutions.

The back up rebel faction could come into play when a Civ is playing the way the Civ should but has enough factors to cause revolution. I mean if you are doing things the way you are expected to and things still suck, I doubt changing from Alexis from Flauros is going to cause any change in policy. So then the back-up faction would pop up. They'd still be that Civ (now Calabim II for example) but their leader would have different priorities and trend toward different civics.

Plus, I think this mod would do well to have the expanded alignment that Fall Further has in that I think it might help the AI decide when revolution is needed. I mean if you are playing Bannor and your good score is only 75 there are probably a lot of unhappy citizens. Plus neutral races might get penalized if they get to close to good or evil in score.

Oh, BTW, I was able to build a lunatic from my dragon slave, complete with dragon breath ability! Score!

 

[skallben]

Question: What file and how do I do to make Diplomacy impossible until you got both Exploration and Writing. Only exploration is too early for my tastes

 

[Jean Elcard]

Question: What file and how do I do to make Diplomacy impossible until you got both Exploration and Writing. Only exploration is too early for my tastes

It should be Cartography, not Exploration that gives your civ the ability to conduct diplomacy if you start as a minor. Anyway, if you want to change this behaviour, you would have to make some Python changes in StartAsMinors.py in the Diplomatic events section.