New player, some thoughts/questions

[Tsathoggua]

the spells create a temp. building in the city why simply requires the casting unit to remain in the city. The next turn another building can be created. I don't believe the buildings are mutually exclusive.

I had always assumed one mage per city buff, so I always went with Earth I. Goodness, but this has possibilities.

 

[Jheral]

As I recall, they will have a mana maintainance cost when that is in, so they won't be free bonus buildings for much longer.

 

[Andvare]

One mage can maintain all four spells.
It doesn't even have to be him that cast the spells, he just have to be able to.

 

[Calavente]

exactly.
you can start by summoning mindI
next turn earth I,
next turn creation I,
then next turn spirit II.
(hell, even force III if you have it... but a bit too much to hold an archmage immobile in one city)
all with the same unit.
or all the same turn with 4 units and only 1 stays in the city to maintain all the temp buildings.
but the one staying has to be able to cast the spells.

It works the same way with bodyI : while a BodyI caster is on the stack at the end of turn, the "hast" promotion stays on the units of the stack without having to recast it.

 

[Fleme]

I'm fine with careful city placement and all that. I've always been a player for health but it just pains me that whatever I do I end up facing unhealthiness. It's good to hear that you've somewhat overhauled the healer mechanics though, but I'd still like to point out that a settled great healer will be at 6 health 3 science while the regular is at 4, 1 respectively. Compare the "great" counterpart to other great guys and you'll see that the great healer is still lacking. A great sage is 6 beakers 1 hammer as opposed to just 3 beakers, great merchant is 6 gold 1 food as opposed to 3 gold and so on. You can see the the "basic" effect roughly doubles and that the addition is just gravy. With that in mind, the Great Healer would do good at 8 health, 2/3 science if it were to compete with the other great people.

As far as the great healer as an unit goes, nerf. I've not yet familiarized myself with this modmod enough to say whether you just made medic 3 heal an absurd amount but you should tone the great healer unit healing down or restrict them so that they can't leave your own empire because with some gear a melee unit can be at 20% healing on it's own and topping that off with 60% from a great healer medic is too much. Part of warring should be having to worry about how far you can stretch your troops and not just count on them being able to fight full strenght every turn. All in all if M3 is really this powerful, it should be toned down, don't you think?

I'll edit more later, lunch break starts now!

Lunch over, resuming!

Now, I personally don't have a big problem with the health issues per say but it just pains to see how badly the AI deals with it. I mean, FFH2 and Fall Further both have AI's that do their job and play out their part but sadly RifE AI is not up to par. I do not mean to belittle your efforts at all but it's just not fun when the AI doesn't know how to play, tech, expand, wage war... anything. It's so very painful to see Lanun with Hannah not building any coves nor improving their land terrain either. It just sits there in a jungleridden city with 7 warriors and 3 fishing fleets doing nothing. Clearly something with that particular AI is broken even further than with the others.

Edit: I'd also like to point out that civilizations like the Malakim that start deep in the desert surrounded by flood plains will never amount to anything with health being as is.

 

[Valkrionn]

I'm fine with careful city placement and all that. I've always been a player for health but it just pains me that whatever I do I end up facing unhealthiness. It's good to hear that you've somewhat overhauled the healer mechanics though, but I'd still like to point out that a settled great healer will be at 6 health 3 science while the regular is at 4, 1 respectively. Compare the "great" counterpart to other great guys and you'll see that the great healer is still lacking. A great sage is 6 beakers 1 hammer as opposed to just 3 beakers, great merchant is 6 gold 1 food as opposed to 3 gold and so on. You can see the the "basic" effect roughly doubles and that the addition is just gravy. With that in mind, the Great Healer would do good at 8 health, 2/3 science if it were to compete with the other great people.

You have a point about the GH; I'll look at bumping it up. However, it is also the only specialist that directly influences your growth rate, so we have to take that into account; 6vs8 is 3vs4 pop.

As far as the great healer as an unit goes, nerf. I've not yet familiarized myself with this modmod enough to say whether you just made medic 3 heal an absurd amount but you should tone the great healer unit healing down or restrict them so that they can't leave your own empire because with some gear a melee unit can be at 20% healing on it's own and topping that off with 60% from a great healer medic is too much. Part of warring should be having to worry about how far you can stretch your troops and not just count on them being able to fight full strenght every turn. All in all if M3 is really this powerful, it should be toned down, don't you think?

We have not touched Medic 3 at all. Really though, it's not that powerful itself; It's typically only available to High Priests.

I'll likely remove it from the specialist... However, I'm curious where your 60% number comes from. The spell uses python, and it's calling it as '<PyResult>spellHeal(pCaster,20)</PyResult>'... The 20 is the % it heals. So it should be about a 1/3rd of what you say.

I'll edit more later, lunch break starts now!

Lunch over, resuming!

Now, I personally don't have a big problem with the health issues per say but it just pains to see how badly the AI deals with it. I mean, FFH2 and Fall Further both have AI's that do their job and play out their part but sadly RifE AI is not up to par. I do not mean to belittle your efforts at all but it's just not fun when the AI doesn't know how to play, tech, expand, wage war... anything. It's so very painful to see Lanun with Hannah not building any coves nor improving their land terrain either. It just sits there in a jungleridden city with 7 warriors and 3 fishing fleets doing nothing. Clearly something with that particular AI is broken even further than with the others.

Yes, the AI will be taught to handle it. We didn't do it initially because we weren't sure what form it would be in after a patch or two; With things in flux, you can't teach it to the AI. Same reason we have not bothered with Naval Invasions yet; Unit lines will be significantly changed, so we aren't going to teach it how to use one effectively until after that is done.

Assuming Odalrick finishes it in time for 1.31, the AI will be teching fairly well.

Edit: I'd also like to point out that civilizations like the Malakim that start deep in the desert surrounded by flood plains will never amount to anything with health being as is.

Actually, Malakim suffer far less unhealth from floodplains than others do. 0.2. Even if COMPLETELY surrounded by floodplains, that is only 4 :unhealth:, which will ALWAYS be countered. Literally, always. That is the minimum amount given by difficulty. Then you have extra from freshwater, capital bonus, trait bonus, etc. Malakim are fine.

Scions are hit a bit harder.

 

[MaxAstro]

We have not touched Medic 3 at all. Really though, it's not that powerful itself; It's typically only available to High Priests.

I'll likely remove it from the specialist... However, I'm curious where your 60% number comes from. The spell uses python, and it's calling it as '<PyResult>spellHeal(pCaster,20)</PyResult>'... The 20 is the % it heals. So it should be about a 1/3rd of what you say.

I believe he is talking about the static effect of the Medic III promotion, that it increases the healing rate of all units on the tile by a total of 60%, counting the lower medic promotions. Combined with actually casting Heal means an army generally only needs to stop attacking for one turn to be at full health - which is fine if it is something that comes in at the end of a tech tree like High Priests do, but is very powerful on turn 50-ish when you can have your first Great Healer by. I personally think Great Healers should be only as powerful as Priests at healing by default, and then possibly have the tech Medicine grant them Medic III.

Right now, Great Healers are such powerful unit support that it's hard to justify settling them - except maybe one for an Apothecary so you can buy the horribly powerful Potions of Restoration.

 

[Valkrionn]

Ah, forgot about that effect, okay.

And yes, they'll lose Medic3

 

[Calavente]

so GH are too powerful ? I thought they were "we don't want GP" as they were not interesting ....
(sarcasm inside)

 

[MaxAstro]

They are in fact both. Early game, I always find myself going for a great healer, sometimes two if I really want an apothecary. Once I have a great healer for my stack of death, though, I have no interest in them because there is little point in having multiple apothecaries and the settled version is crappy. Plus, by then, I usually have a different kind of GP to focus on.

Of course, part of this has to do with my prior bad luck with great people; it's enough that I really don't like that settled great people give GPP because it means if (for example) I am going for the master's hall, I can't settle any great people in my capital because it'll taint my engineer pool. Sure it's not really that bad, I just don't trust my luck.

 

[Valkrionn]

They are in fact both. Early game, I always find myself going for a great healer, sometimes two if I really want an apothecary. Once I have a great healer for my stack of death, though, I have no interest in them because there is little point in having multiple apothecaries and the settled version is crappy. Plus, by then, I usually have a different kind of GP to focus on.

Of course, part of this has to do with my prior bad luck with great people; it's enough that I really don't like that settled great people give GPP because it means if (for example) I am going for the master's hall, I can't settle any great people in my capital because it'll taint my engineer pool. Sure it's not really that bad, I just don't trust my luck.

Sigh. The settled GPs giving GP points was added because people complained there wasn't enough reason to settle them. Now people complain the other way.

 

[Freesmog]

RifE will always be developed for Civ4. We aren't porting it to Civ5, as it is not our setting and feels wrong to redevelop FfH without Kael. We'll be working on our own setting for Civ5, simultaneously with RifE.

Fair Enough.

I think it highly unlikely that we'll be working on Kael's game... But that's mostly because I do not think it will be civ-like.

As for my own game? Heh. I'm going to school for Computer Science, with a focus on game design. My goal is to get a job making games, and eventually make it to lead design. The one game I really have in mind right now could be best described as Magitech + CoD + Soul Calibur. How that makes sense in any way, I'll leave for you to puzzle out.

What's to puzzle out? Kill Streaks? Aircraft bombings?

I think a game like Civ and an RPG, leading to an MMO is pretty ideal, i.e., for a gaming company.

 

[Valkrionn]

What's to puzzle out? Kill Streaks? Aircraft bombings?

I think a game like Civ and an RPG, leading to an MMO is pretty ideal, i.e., for a gaming company.

Well, the 'puzzle it out' was in reference to the combination of Call of Duty and Soul Calibur.

 

[Freesmog]

Well, the 'puzzle it out' was in reference to the combination of Call of Duty and Soul Calibur.

Kind of reminds me of the Stormbringer Elric series. Pretty cool. Nothing wrong with that at all, I'm all for it. Just let us know what you're doing

 

[Breez]

Healers have already been upgraded. Basically, we failed to take into account how the increased unhealth made them worthless at their current stats. Our bad.

.................

The Healer has already been changed to 4 and 1 in 1.31. That change has been in since pretty much right after 1.30 was released.

The Great Healer is 6 and 3.

Hmm (please forgive the over simplified numbers here) So if I have a 10 pop city that is 20 if I have 15 that leaves me with -5 from whatever my income is. Now if I gain a population point I am at 11 pop, with 22 and 15:Health: for -7 assuming the person works a grasslands so it is providing +2 to cancel out what it is eating.

If I change this newest person into a Healer in 1.31 then I am at 22 but 19 for -3 HOWEVER the person is no longer working the grasslands proving the +2 meaning I am at -5 food again.

My point is that at +4 and 1 a healer only cancels it's self out and all you are actually gaining for that new population point is +1 beaker.

I guess I am really saying is that healer is still an extremely poor choice. It doesn't actually help your city it simply doesn't hurt it. As far as Unhealth goes it is simply a wash.

 

[MaxAstro]

Sigh. The settled GPs giving GP points was added because people complained there wasn't enough reason to settle them. Now people complain the other way.

Haha. Don't get me wrong, I am of two minds about it. The only reason I don't like it is because I am so picky about what great people I get from my main great person production city, so if I get a great person from a lair or event, I have to settle it in a secondary city. I actually love it in any game where I'm not going for specific great people.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Personally I dislike the GP giving points as well.
It just makes them do more harm than good.

 

[Calavente]

how about settled GP giving "free" gpp..
everybody's happy ?
GP get use... but don't inflence the gpp ratio...

@Breez : it seems you missed something :
a healer is : 4 1 +3gpp so a global income of 1 +3gpp
else, you can count a craftsman as : +2 -2 -2 3gpp = total : -2 +3gpp.
counting that way, a healer is way better than a craftsman or sage or priest.
it is just that it is easier to calculate the yield of a healer versus it's / value than others specialists.

 

[MaxAstro]

how about settled GP giving "free" gpp..
everybody's happy ?
GP get use... but don't inflence the gpp ratio...

If that could be done that would be awesome. Is it possible to give untyped GPP?

 

[Meldon]

But then what happens if you get enough GPP for a GP but only have untyped GPP?