Less Dangerous Animals

[Milaga]

I did a toning down of pretty much all the animals. Animals in RiFE spawn much earlier in the game than they are supposed to, which cannot be easily fixed. These changes really just make sure that a strength 24 Sabretooth pride doesn't start rampaging on turn 19. Still, I didn't make them all wimpy. You will definitely find them a challenging threat. If you make it to Animal Handling, you should be able to kill pretty much any of the wild animals.

This doesn't fix the problems with the wild animals upgrading. My advice to you is to play without wild animals or at the very least timid animals. But if you must, this at least makes things a little more sane.

Changelog for 1.22a:

CIV4PromotionInfos.xml

• Mountaineering promotion is now available to recon units with either Guerilla II or both Guerilla I and Drill III.

Civ4UnitInfos.xml

• Changes compatible with RiFE 1.22.2.
• Further reduced strength of Cave Bear, Sabretooths, Griffons, Kongs, Giant Hampsters, Giant Lizards and their packs by 1.
• Giant Hampsters move reduced to 1. They also lost Marksmen promotion and their +100% to archers and siege weapons. I'm still waiting for an explanation on this one.
• Giant Lizards and their packs have their lightning damage reduced to 2 and their strengths reduced by 2.
• Hyena strength reduced to 4. Hyena Packs strength reduced to 5.
• Dire Boar strength reduced to 5, Dire Boar Pack strength reduced to 6.
• Allosaur strength reduced to 5, Allosaur Pack strength reduced to 6.
• Animals and packs with a large number of first strikes had them cut drastically. Animals should at most have one first strike. Being part of a pack should grant at most two additional first strike chances.
• The final evolution (monstrous creatures) of most animals lines remain untouched.

CIV4ImprovementInfos.xml is no longer distributed. RiFE 1.22 tones down barrow and ruin spawns.

Spoiler version 1.20 changelog :

Civ4UnitInfos.xml

• Reduced strength of Cave Bear, Sabretooths, Griffons and Kongs to 6.
• Reduced strength of packs of Bears, Cave Bears, Sabretooths, Hyenas, Hippogriffs, Griffons, Giant Lizards, Lions, Tigers and Boars to only one higher than their original. The change to upgrade to these units was not changed and the upgraded versions still have a chance to create spawn new units after a successful combat.
• Movement of Stags, Dire Hampsters, Dread Hampsters, Raptors, Lizardzillas, Scorpions, Wolves, Boars, most flying creatures and their upgraded versions reduced by 1.
• Bears no longer have the water walking promotion.
• Drake flight strengths reduced to 3+3.
• Dire Hampster strength changed to 1+2 death. Dread Hampster strength changed to 2+2 death. Both animals lost their +100% bonus versus archers and siege weapons (can someone explain this to me?) but retained marksman and weakness to animals.
• Giant Hampsters strength reduced to 4 +1 poison +1 death. Giant Hampster swarms strength reduced to 5 +1 poison +1 death.
• Lion changed to 4 2 with no promotions
• Lion Pride changed to 5 2 0-3 First Strikes and starts with Spirit I, Cannibalize
• Tiger changed to 4 1 1 First Strike and starts with Woodsman I
• Tiger Pride changed to 5 1 1-4 First Strikes and starts with Woodsman I, Shadow I, Cannibalize
• Sabretooth changed to 6 2 0-1 First Strike with no promotions
• Sabretooth Pride changed to 7 2 0-4 First Strikes and starts with Spirit I, Shadow I, Cannibalize
• Stag changed to 3/4 2 30% withdrawal and starts with Woodsman I
• Elk changed to 4/5 2 30% withdrawal and starts with Woodsman I, Body I, Nature I, Creation I
• Scorpion changed to 2/0+2 poison 1 1 First Strike
• Scorpion Swarm changed to 3/1+2 poison 1 2-4 First Strikes
• Ice Scorpion changed to 2/0+2 poison +2 cold 1 1 First Strike and starts with Winterborn
• Ice Scorpion Swarm changed to to 3/1+2 poison +2 cold 1 2-4 First Strikes and starts with Winterborn, Ice I
• Giant Spider strength reduced to 2/3 +2 poison. Giant Spider swarms strength reduced to 3/4 +2 poison.
• Griffon first strikes reduced from 2-4 to 1-3. Griffon Flight first strikes reduced from from 4-8 to 1-7.
• Sea Serpent strength changed from 6 +4 poison to 10. They were also given a first strike and a 40% defensive withdrawal.
• Wolf packs given cannibalize.
• Ice Scorpions and their Swarms, Cave Bear Packs and Giant Spider Swarms changed to UNITCOMBAT_ANIMAL.

CIV4ImprovementInfos.xml

• Dungeons now spawn Skeletons instead of Minotaur.
• Ruins now spawn Lizardmen instead of Cyklops.

CIV4PromotionInfos.xml

• Mountaineering promotion is now available to recon units with either Guerilla II or both Guerilla I and Drill III.

Back up the following files in your RiFE directory:

assets/XML/Units/Civ4UnitInfos.xml
assets/XML/Units/CIV4PromotionInfos.xml

Unpack the rar and copy the file to the appropriate directory.

EDIT 3/22/2010: Re-added the mountaineering promotion.

 

[Abremms]

thanks!

 

[Valkrionn]

You may want to distribute the Promotion file; Neglected to include that myself, though it's fixed in the team version.

 

[Deon]

I find it really easy to play Malakim in the current version. Get to Mirror of Heaven ASAP and you get a starting hero to bash all those str13 sabertooths into submission . Also their Dunespeak is Overpowered. It's a free March + immunity to first strikes, which means most of animals' promotions are neglected. And increased movement and sight range means that they can see and outmaneur animals. They are basically all "Gaara"s (if you watched Naruto).

 

[vivictius]

woot! Thanks

 

[Milaga]

You may want to distribute the Promotion file; Neglected to include that myself, though it's fixed in the team version.

D'oh. I ran a merge on my changed files with the changes from the patch. I suppose if there were no changes to that file in the patch, my old file stuck around. No wonder they were identical.

 

[Valkrionn]

That promotion will be available to Melee as well as Recon, though, so you may want to make that adjustment.

 

[Milaga]

That promotion will be available to Melee as well as Recon, though, so you may want to make that adjustment.

I think it should only be able to available to recon. I don't really see legions of chainmail clad soldiers crossing the himalayas (unless on elephants ... hmm ...) but recon parties, sure.

So you can make that change yourself when you fix the mod!

 

[Nadrak]

I think it should only be able to available to recon. I don't really see legions of chainmail clad soldiers crossing the himalayas (unless on elephants ... hmm ...) but recon parties, sure.

So you can make that change yourself when you fix the mod!

Hannibal did it!

 

[acestealth]

got a promotion error of some sort using this with the new patch (did backup files and still going to give it a try anyway), but would be nice if this was updated for the new patch.

 

[Kemystul]

May this be the last time I achieve a conquest victory by turn 27 on a large map, because I survived the griffins.

 

[arcticnightwolf]

May this be the last time I achieve a conquest victory by turn 27 on a large map, because I survived the griffins.

hehehe, nice

 

[Alsark]

Wow, why didn't I see this sooner? I needed something like this. It's ridiculous getting attacked by animal units that, after considering promotions, have 22 strength. And the quantity of them is equally ludicrous. On one occasion my settler was being escorted by 3 warriors... I got attacked by five wolves, which I managed to kill all of, and then immediately got attacked by two bears and a minotaur... all on the same turn :/. Then later the same game my 7 strength unit who was level 12 got killed by a 10 strength Griffon, and I didn't even damage him (and he was already injured down to 6.5 strength from killing another one of my units). I was tempted to turn animals off all together after that, but I'd rather them just be weakened a bit.

 

[Milaga]

When I get a chance I'll run a merge and upload a version for 1.23. Been too busy.

 

[Alsark]

When I get a chance I'll run a merge and upload a version for 1.23. Been too busy.

I wouldn't worry about it with 1.3 supposedly coming out by the end of the week or so.

 

[Cyrusfan]

Not to draw the ire of Valk or anything, but that's what we thought two weeks ago. I'm not even jokingly asking for ETAs at this point given the quantity of stuff he's said has to go to the testers first. (Not a complaint, I remember one version where everyone and their second cousin was getting first turn crashes and it took a weekend to sort out and patch).

 

[arcticnightwolf]

I wouldn't worry about it with 1.3 supposedly coming out by the end of the week or so.

errr... what's your source for this claim ?