First complete (almost) playthrough look at RiFE; thoughts, comments, and bugs (?)

[jeffreyac]

Hi all,

Just finished up my first game of RiFE and had a few comments - I'm not sure ANY of these are bugs per se - just my impressions only.

Fist of all, I do enjoy the mod and I thank the developers and team for all the work put in here - it boggles my mind how sharp both FfH and the RiFE mods are; they certainly look and feel like professionally developed products. So a sincere thank you for all the hard work!

I wanted to get that out of the way early - as most of the rest of these are gripes of sorts, and I didn't want to give the impression that ALL I had were gripes...

1) Wild animals - hippogriff lairs. I like the hippogriffs, and I especially like the buildings you can build when capturing them (nice flavor). But I had a bunch of lairs spawn off the coast (and my navy was camped by the leviathan), plus one on a mountain top, leaving me with no real way to slow down the unending swarm of griffons. The mountaintop one makes sense, no arguments - but the sea lairs? Seemed a little much. Maybe only allow hippogriff lairs to spawn on land? (On the plus side, as I had grabbed a couple of hunters early, I soon had a weyr in every city... )

2) Wild animals. Bear with water walking stalking my coast... seemed a little wierd. Why water walking?

3) And.... wild animals. A Str 10 tiger with combat V and magic resistance promotions? With nothing really to combat it (early in the game)? Oh, and invisible? Wow. Took the whole army to knock it down to the point where I could deal with it. (on the plus side, I then captured it... but then it seemed to lose stealth, though it retained all other promos...)

4) Wild... Forests?? After dealing with the tiger, my army went back to its primary job - the never ending patrol over the unclaimed land north of my borders trying to keep the blighted forests knocked down. The spawn rate on these, right next to my borders, seemed huge. (Note: this was with Dark Forests option enabled; I'll try it again without that and see if the rates are a little easier to deal with...)

5) (and possibly the only true bug of the list...) - playing Sheim, spawned the demons and took over them, and went to work. Of course, still had blighted forests everywhere - well, at east I have the big nasty demon now; so off I go to swat forests. Every time I tried to clear one of the blighted forests with a demon unit, the game would crash to desktop. Finally gave up, went back to a save point prior to taking over the demons and stayed with the Sheim. Eventually got to the area of the map where the demons lived - and then exploring a blighted forest with my units (but close to borders of the demon civ) would again cause a CtD. No resolution found, had to abandon the game. (well, ok, could have ignored the forests, I guess... which, I might add, persisted through transformation to hell terrain...)

6) Pirate ships have the ability to pick up the capture animals promo, but don't seem to capture anything they kill (i.e. hippogriffs!) Not sure why this is - may be intentional, but then why allow the promo for them?

7) Again, not sure about this one - but are Sheim supposed to get full food production from hell terrain? I didn't see a need for Sacrafice the Weak, as I still had great food production as hell terrain rolled over my lands... seemed like there was no real effect.

Anyway, thanks again for the hard work - and I hope the above doesn't seem to critical. Over all the mod was fun, just frustrating about the crash to desktop - all others were just annoyances, and could probably be adjusted by me messing with the game options a bit (for example, I don't think I'll be selecting dark forests again!)

One last shot - I know the Erebus is supposed to be a very dangerous place, and the world itself will kill you, but... well, even playing as the sheim, getting powerful, and wanting to play bloodthirsty, I still never tangled directly with any of my neighbors. I was too busy fighting off the barbs and the animals... and the other civs seemed likewise fenced in by giants, hippogriffs, tigers, trolls, etc, etc. The feel is tense, and that is good - but it also makes it feel more like you vs. the world and the AI vs the world, instead of you vs the AI civ with the world as a tactical consideration. Not sure if that makes sense - I guess my thought is ideally I'd like it to be more of a struggle between the civs against the backdrop of the (dangerous) world. I know it's a fine line - nerfing the world too much would also ruin the effect - but am I the only one who spends more time fighting off the barbs and animals then the other civs?

 

[Valkrionn]

Hi all,

Just finished up my first game of RiFE and had a few comments - I'm not sure ANY of these are bugs per se - just my impressions only.

Fist of all, I do enjoy the mod and I thank the developers and team for all the work put in here - it boggles my mind how sharp both FfH and the RiFE mods are; they certainly look and feel like professionally developed products. So a sincere thank you for all the hard work!

I wanted to get that out of the way early - as most of the rest of these are gripes of sorts, and I didn't want to give the impression that ALL I had were gripes...

Glad you like it.

1) Wild animals - hippogriff lairs. I like the hippogriffs, and I especially like the buildings you can build when capturing them (nice flavor). But I had a bunch of lairs spawn off the coast (and my navy was camped by the leviathan), plus one on a mountain top, leaving me with no real way to slow down the unending swarm of griffons. The mountaintop one makes sense, no arguments - but the sea lairs? Seemed a little much. Maybe only allow hippogriff lairs to spawn on land? (On the plus side, as I had grabbed a couple of hunters early, I soon had a weyr in every city... )

This is actually something I'm already fixing; Two issues, really. One is that the improvements could spawn on peaks (fixed); The other is that there are no checks for where the Hippgriff can place it's weyr, which isn't fixed yet but is python so is easy to fix.

2) Wild animals. Bear with water walking stalking my coast... seemed a little wierd. Why water walking?

Because Bears swim. It's removed for the next version.

3) And.... wild animals. A Str 10 tiger with combat V and magic resistance promotions? With nothing really to combat it (early in the game)? Oh, and invisible? Wow. Took the whole army to knock it down to the point where I could deal with it. (on the plus side, I then captured it... but then it seemed to lose stealth, though it retained all other promos...)

I'm redesigning the barb system. Described it before, can't hurt to do it again:

• Will have three tiers of barbs.
  • Low - Standard units, operate as now. These are the weakest.
  • Mid - Stronger units (Tigers, Minotaur), can not leave barb/animal territory on their own. If the territory is removed (City razed, dungeon cleared, etc), they become free roaming, as with Tier 1.
  • High - Strongest units, will be leashed to their lair as defenders.
• To go with this, Barb Dungeons/Lairs, and Animal Dens, will put out culture for their corresponding civ. This works the same as Forts.

Will basically slow expansion/exploration, without killing people off.

4) Wild... Forests?? After dealing with the tiger, my army went back to its primary job - the never ending patrol over the unclaimed land north of my borders trying to keep the blighted forests knocked down. The spawn rate on these, right next to my borders, seemed huge. (Note: this was with Dark Forests option enabled; I'll try it again without that and see if the rates are a little easier to deal with...)

I've honestly never played with the option; Comes from FF. Will take a look at how it works.

5) (and possibly the only true bug of the list...) - playing Sheim, spawned the demons and took over them, and went to work. Of course, still had blighted forests everywhere - well, at east I have the big nasty demon now; so off I go to swat forests. Every time I tried to clear one of the blighted forests with a demon unit, the game would crash to desktop. Finally gave up, went back to a save point prior to taking over the demons and stayed with the Sheim. Eventually got to the area of the map where the demons lived - and then exploring a blighted forest with my units (but close to borders of the demon civ) would again cause a CtD. No resolution found, had to abandon the game. (well, ok, could have ignored the forests, I guess... which, I might add, persisted through transformation to hell terrain...)

Really have to take a look at it, apparently.

6) Pirate ships have the ability to pick up the capture animals promo, but don't seem to capture anything they kill (i.e. hippogriffs!) Not sure why this is - may be intentional, but then why allow the promo for them?

I'm not sure why that's going on; The promotion is meant to allow you to capture aquatic animals.

7) Again, not sure about this one - but are Sheim supposed to get full food production from hell terrain? I didn't see a need for Sacrafice the Weak, as I still had great food production as hell terrain rolled over my lands... seemed like there was no real effect.

I'm not aware that they have any bonuses on hell terrain?

Anyway, thanks again for the hard work - and I hope the above doesn't seem to critical. Over all the mod was fun, just frustrating about the crash to desktop - all others were just annoyances, and could probably be adjusted by me messing with the game options a bit (for example, I don't think I'll be selecting dark forests again!)

It wasn't too critical at all; Constructive criticism is always welcome.

One last shot - I know the Erebus is supposed to be a very dangerous place, and the world itself will kill you, but... well, even playing as the sheim, getting powerful, and wanting to play bloodthirsty, I still never tangled directly with any of my neighbors. I was too busy fighting off the barbs and the animals... and the other civs seemed likewise fenced in by giants, hippogriffs, tigers, trolls, etc, etc. The feel is tense, and that is good - but it also makes it feel more like you vs. the world and the AI vs the world, instead of you vs the AI civ with the world as a tactical consideration. Not sure if that makes sense - I guess my thought is ideally I'd like it to be more of a struggle between the civs against the backdrop of the (dangerous) world. I know it's a fine line - nerfing the world too much would also ruin the effect - but am I the only one who spends more time fighting off the barbs and animals then the other civs?

Yeah... That's why I'm implementing the new system. Barbs/Animals are meant to slow expansion (which they do, very well) but not kill people. Hopefully, the new system will accomplish this.

 

[jeffreyac]

Not sure if this would help, but I found this save showing the crash with the demons. I loaded the game, moved the demon archer unit in Despero north one tile, explored the ruins, end turn, and get the crash. (previous crashes didn't require me to end the turn first, it just froze and crashed like the unit hung up somehow, but this may give you an idea of what I saw...)

 

[odalrick]

4) Wild... Forests?? After dealing with the tiger, my army went back to its primary job - the never ending patrol over the unclaimed land north of my borders trying to keep the blighted forests knocked down. The spawn rate on these, right next to my borders, seemed huge. (Note: this was with Dark Forests option enabled; I'll try it again without that and see if the rates are a little easier to deal with...)

That option actually turns them on or off. It's a challenge mode, like One City Challenge. It's supposed to be harsh.

6) Pirate ships have the ability to pick up the capture animals promo, but don't seem to capture anything they kill (i.e. hippogriffs!) Not sure why this is - may be intentional, but then why allow the promo for them?

Hidden Nationality units can't capture anything. Not sure why, but Working As Designed.

7) Again, not sure about this one - but are Sheim supposed to get full food production from hell terrain? I didn't see a need for Sacrafice the Weak, as I still had great food production as hell terrain rolled over my lands... seemed like there was no real effect.

There is no food penalty from hell terrain at all. Forests disappear, there are fewer kinds of health resources but otherwise it's the same as anything else.

Come to think of it, some improvements might be impossible to build on hell terrain, though they don't disappear when hell spreads. That is a bug though, and it might have been fixed ages ago.

 

[Valkrionn]

That option actually turns them on or off. It's a challenge mode, like One City Challenge. It's supposed to be harsh.



Hidden Nationality units can't capture anything. Not sure why, but Working As Designed.



There is no food penalty from hell terrain at all. Forests disappear, there are fewer kinds of health resources but otherwise it's the same as anything else.

Come to think of it, some improvements might be impossible to build on hell terrain, though they don't disappear when hell spreads. That is a bug though, and it might have been fixed ages ago.

Wow, I missed the 'pirate' portion of that. Yes, HN units don't capture, mostly because for an HN unit to capture something and have an Amurite unit pop out would defeat the purpose of HN.

And a food penalty from Hell would be a good thing to add. Though I think I have a better idea....

 

[Draconian]

Isn't Hell terrain already bad enough with killing food ressources and spawning demons? If Hell becomes worse this will weaken the AI even more and won't really affect players as those can easily get rid of Hell inside their borders with a few adepts.

 

[Grimz101]

4) Wild... Forests?? After dealing with the tiger, my army went back to its primary job - the never ending patrol over the unclaimed land north of my borders trying to keep the blighted forests knocked down. The spawn rate on these, right next to my borders, seemed huge. (Note: this was with Dark Forests option enabled; I'll try it again without that and see if the rates are a little easier to deal with...)

If the land is crap or you just can't afford the expansion, what I do is build many many forts. It denies the land to the AI, lets me get the resources & stops all the animal/barb spawn

 

[jeffreyac]

Isn't Hell terrain already bad enough with killing food ressources and spawning demons? If Hell becomes worse this will weaken the AI even more and won't really affect players as those can easily get rid of Hell inside their borders with a few adepts.

Good point - though at that point in my game I was thinking I'd encourage the growth of the hell terrain (trying to role play my Chaotic Evil Destroy the World civ... )

At first I trained a few adepts to run over and sanctify the lands (had grabbed a life node earlier) but then I realized there didn't seem to be a bad side,as the food production was fine and the demons were leaving me alone. Anyway, my question came from the 'Sacrafice the Weak' civic - it seemed to imply that it was difficult to keep cities going in the hell terrain, but in practice it didn't seem to be much of a problem. So maybe it's just more of a flavr/intent question than an issue...

 

[Valkrionn]

Isn't Hell terrain already bad enough with killing food ressources and spawning demons? If Hell becomes worse this will weaken the AI even more and won't really affect players as those can easily get rid of Hell inside their borders with a few adepts.

It would become worse in an interesting way, that would eventually effect everyone.

 

[Evalis]

I'm pretty sure that killing anything with your national heroes defeats the purpose of HN.. Alazkhan the assassin has killed your [something something] again... Don't see any reason why units can't be captured this way.