Grigori Adventurers

[AvataroftheAnge]

Can someone explain the change to the FF version? I hate it honestly. Lack of a religion is a pretty big hit, but the Grigori were able to make up for it by making adventurers. In the old version they could do what their name implies, adventure! Because of the random generation method a player could often get several, allowing them to be sent out to do their thing, and if they died in the dangerous wilds of Erebus it was no major loss. Now getting your first takes 100 turns, and the second 120 and so on. I understand that buildings help this later, but not before other Civs are blowing you by with their religious bonuses and heroes. On top of the long delay to getting them, since they are so hard to come by you are required to let it sit in base for a good 50 turns or more so that it acquires enough promotions to be viable in combat. Sadly, the last games I have played with the Grigori have led to the death of my adventurers in their first fight or two, and then I have nothing to fall back on. The game I just played I started out with the Tower of Eyes one tile south of my first city, but waited the 100 turns to explore it with my adventurer. I let him get level 3, and then explored it relying on his reduced chance for bad lair results. A boss ogre with nine strength spawned and promptly destroyed him, leaving me more than 100 turns from my next hero.

I understand that with the random chance system a player could potentially have an army of heroes. So maybe have a hardcap? I dont know... But in my experience the Grigori are lackluster without adventurers

 

[Valkrionn]

Can someone explain the change to the FF version? I hate it honestly. Lack of a religion is a pretty big hit, but the Grigori were able to make up for it by making adventurers. In the old version they could do what their name implies, adventure! Because of the random generation method a player could often get several, allowing them to be sent out to do their thing, and if they died in the dangerous wilds of Erebus it was no major loss. Now getting your first takes 100 turns, and the second 120 and so on. I understand that buildings help this later, but not before other Civs are blowing you by with their religious bonuses and heroes. On top of the long delay to getting them, since they are so hard to come by you are required to let it sit in base for a good 50 turns or more so that it acquires enough promotions to be viable in combat. Sadly, the last games I have played with the Grigori have led to the death of my adventurers in their first fight or two, and then I have nothing to fall back on. The game I just played I started out with the Tower of Eyes one tile south of my first city, but waited the 100 turns to explore it with my adventurer. I let him get level 3, and then explored it relying on his reduced chance for bad lair results. A boss ogre with nine strength spawned and promptly destroyed him, leaving me more than 100 turns from my next hero.

I understand that with the random chance system a player could potentially have an army of heroes. So maybe have a hardcap? I dont know... But in my experience the Grigori are lackluster without adventurers

There was no change to an FF version; Both systems you mention were designed and implemented for RifE, and then merged to Orbis (One of the few things to move that direction, instead of from Orbis to RifE. ).

Now, to explain why the change was made (from my point of view, Ahwaric may disagree with some or all of it).

First off, Adventurers should NOT be something that you can replace easily. Losing one SHOULD be a big loss; They are heroes. It's not as bad as a standard hero, but it is still NOT a minor thing.

Second, the lack of predictability made it hard to balance as an important mechanic, without leading to a situation where you could be flooded by them. This is what the original mechanic you mention led to.

Third... I agree that it takes too long currently, and I'm in the process of adding quite a bit to reverse that.

New Pagan Temple UB, from Orbis: Dagda's Memorial.

• +10% , 10% , +:happiness: with Incense, free Statesman specialist.

Museum is now it's own building class, comes at Education rather than Mysticism
New 'Legislative Assembly' building

• Requires Code of Laws, Writing
• 180
• Double production for Philosophical leaders
• -25% Maintenance
• Allows 'Statesman' specialists in the city to affect the Adventurer counter

New 'Homestead' improvement

• Requires Grigori
• Upgrades from Farm/Pasture
• Provides 2, 1, free Statesman specialist to owning Grigori city
• Can work all farm resources, all pasture resources
• Gains 1 with Feudalism

New 'Statesman' specialist

• Grigori only
• 1, 1
• With the 'Legislative Assembly', adds 0.33 to the Adventurer counter

I realize that the Dagda's Memorial is in Orbis; However, Museum is not (I think), so bringing it back would help.

They're getting more, too, but it's not implemented yet, just on paper.

 

[Wauthan]

AvataroftheAnge, could you please provide some more information about your game? An adventurer/100 turns sounds like an early Epic game. The old system often resulted in either dozens or no heroes at all, based on pure luck. Popular consensus was that this system either felt like cheating or was too unpredictable. Sort of how I feel about the Scions right now...

Anyway, the idea was that the Grigori should be a strong lategame civ (where their worldspell really shine) and was too strong in the early game. Hence the change. You can compare it to how nerfed the Dovellio hero Lucian have become in FFH, and is now just one extra basic unit.

 

[Calavente]

And if I may say something, the "bad" process you are criticising, as a "new bad process" replacing a "former better process"... is the one used in base FFH.. and the original one.
It has flaws, don't say it is not balanced. There are better ways to do it but the random chance system has (for me) much more flaws.

Adventurers are not made to do "exploration". They are only adventurous citizens that enlist in your army and are so good they become a 1-man-platoon. In fact, after you upgrade them they lose the name "adventurer" and are "just" mundane units with the hero promotion.
thus adventurers are units to cherish and not unit made to explore and to be risked for peanuts.

It's more and less powerful than standard heros of other civs :
-less as you don't get the special abilities and sometimes the equivalent of 1 more tier IV slot (archmage-hero) ; you don't get the special spells/abilities/strength of those heros
-more as they upgrade once they are of less use : saverous and Bambur are powerful when they come, but mid-game are here just for flavour, worth something only due to theire mega XP. The grigori hero can have the big xp + upgrade to the next tier.

 

[Ahwaric]

Can someone explain the change to the FF version? I hate it honestly. Lack of a religion is a pretty big hit, but the Grigori were able to make up for it by making adventurers. In the old version they could do what their name implies, adventure! Because of the random generation method a player could often get several, allowing them to be sent out to do their thing, and if they died in the dangerous wilds of Erebus it was no major loss.

And due the same random generation, you could get just 1 for your entire game...
I think the current system is more balanced - but it needs more work, of that I am sure.
Plus, it needs better documentation. I will work on it.

Also, the time you required is definetly too long. I guess you are playing epic.

I let him get level 3, and then explored it relying on his reduced chance for bad lair results. A boss ogre with nine strength spawned and promptly destroyed him, leaving me more than 100 turns from my next hero.

And here you contradict yourself. The result depends on chance - and you just had bad luck. Exactly the same can happen if you have bad luck on spawning heroes.
The adventurer promotion increases chance of good result - but the bad can still happen. Usually it is 50/50, with adventurer you have 60% chance for good and 40% for bad one. Plus, if you explore epic lair, the result is always powerfull, be it good or bad. It is simply a bad idea to send any non-dispensabe unit to explore lairs alone - and even more the epic lair.

 

[Valkrionn]

And if I may say something, the "bad" process you are criticising, as a "new bad process" replacing a "former better process"... is the one used in base FFH.. and the original one.
It has flaws, don't say it is not balanced. There are better ways to do it but the random chance system has (for me) much more flaws.

Actually, the 'new bad process' is not the one used in FfH, though it does mirror it. The main reason I set it up the way it is was to be able to remove the possibility for your GP pool to become 'Polluted' (couldn't even build wonders....), while still keeping it incremental, predictable, and basically the same system.

 

[AvataroftheAnge]

And due the same random generation, you could get just 1 for your entire game...
I think the current system is more balanced - but it needs more work, of that I am sure.
Plus, it needs better documentation. I will work on it.

Also, the time you required is definetly too long. I guess you are playing epic.

And here you contradict yourself. The result depends on chance - and you just had bad luck. Exactly the same can happen if you have bad luck on spawning heroes.
The adventurer promotion increases chance of good result - but the bad can still happen. Usually it is 50/50, with adventurer you have 60% chance for good and 40% for bad one. Plus, if you explore epic lair, the result is always powerfull, be it good or bad. It is simply a bad idea to send any non-dispensabe unit to explore lairs alone - and even more the epic lair.

Ah, I see. But i am definitely playing at Normal game speed. I get one point per turn until I start building helpful buildings

 

[Valkrionn]

Yes, that's the correct values (according to the code as it currently exists, not saying it shouldn't be faster). That is why I'm doing work on the Grigori; The one point you mention comes from the palace, and is actually how it worked in FfH... You should have to build a few things to get it up faster. Only issue is there aren't enough buildings to build, and they're a bit scattered.

 

[AvataroftheAnge]

any chance of some changes slipping into .30?

 

[readercolin]

There are a number of things that you can do to improve the rate at which you get adventurer points. An easy one is city states - running city states will bump you from +1 point per turn to +2.75. Adventurers guild also increases this, as probably does the tavern. There may be more as well - I don't feel like searching them all out. Look around a little. I actually find it easier to get adventurers in Orbis than in regular FFH, after the first one.

-Colin

 

[Apeiron]

I think the Grigoris should have more flavor, like in Rife, because I think they have nothing special except their adventurers...

 

[Jennvare]

With the Grigori Worldspell, is there a way to have that spell reset their adventurer timer as well as their great person bar?

 

[Valkrionn]

I think the Grigoris should have more flavor, like in Rife, because I think they have nothing special except their adventurers...

The Grigori don't have any more flavor in the current version of RifE. They're getting some more (Well, a lot more; Some interesting features, all of which in the end come back to adventurers; Tied together pretty well. ), but the current version does not have any more than Orbis.

With the Grigori Worldspell, is there a way to have that spell reset their adventurer timer as well as their great person bar?

Easily. Add this to the Ardor Spell:

pPlayer.changeGrigoriSpawn(0 - pPlayer.getGrigoriSpawn())
pPlayer.changeGrigoriSpawnMod(0 - pPlayer.getGrigoriSpawnMod())

In the next version of RifE, the names are slightly changed (CivCounter and CivCounterMod rather than GrigoriSpawn, also have a CityCounter/Mod; All spawn functions use these variables now), and you can use setCivCounter(0) which is a bit easier. Other than that, pretty much the same.

 

[Randomness]

I think that some of the Austrian (from FF, RiFE) features could be fused into the Orbis Grigori. Prehaps the Dural(also from FF, RiFE) sculptures could be fused. As a cap for those who havn't played FF, RiFE, Austrians have recon UU and no city matenence cost for distance from palace (represents the adventuring side of the Grigori). The Dural have a series of sculptures that give varying benifits (promos, GP points, gold, culture, ect.), representing the builder nature of the Grigori.

 

[Valkrionn]

I think that some of the Austrian (from FF, RiFE) features could be fused into the Orbis Grigori. Prehaps the Dural(also from FF, RiFE) sculptures could be fused. As a cap for those who havn't played FF, RiFE, Austrians have recon UU and no city matenence cost for distance from palace (represents the adventuring side of the Grigori). The Dural have a series of sculptures that give varying benifits (promos, GP points, gold, culture, ect.), representing the builder nature of the Grigori.

Meh. I prefer keeping those three separate; Austrin I just don't feel belong with the Grigori (Too much emphasis on a widespread empire, Grigori I think would be more centralized), and Dural (taken with Grigori and Mechanos) help show the range of agnosticism; The Dural, who study the philosophy of the religions but do not pay much allegiance to the gods, to the Grigori, who refuse to adopt a state religion but respect the right of each individual to worship as they please, to the Mechanos, who want to destroy the influence of the gods.

We're giving the Grigori some Roman flavor, and the Dural some Greek.

 

[Deon]

But there're no Dural or Austrin AFAIK so some ideas can be merged for good.

 

[Apeiron]

I think the austrin flavor of distance may be fused into the Hippus or the Doviellos, with a nomadic trait. Their adventurer traits to the Grigoris (the explorer promotion, for example). I think the Dural flavor to study religion without adopt it may be added to the Grigoris (the students of religions for example), wich may increase the benefit to have religions in the empire.

 

[Tasunke]

aye ... allowing the Grigori to spread religion and build temples (without changing to a State Religion) could increase their flexibility (or at least economy).

 

[Valkrionn]

But it's against the Grigori flavor, IMO.

 

[Apeiron]

For the temples, yes, but they may have students of the different religions, and a special ability for the exploration of dongeons or ruins.