Orbis and Rife

Derf

Derf

Modular Mushroom
Joined
Jun 1, 2002
Messages
595
Location
UK
I've been playing FFH for some time now, and it has firmly sunk it's teeth into me. I don't like bog-standard Civ4 any longer thanks to it because it seems... well, so plain and uncomplicated.

Now that I've (almost) collected all the FFH trophies, the only ones left being for various specific civilizations, I've started looking into the modmods.

Wild Mana, which if I'm not mistaken is now Master of Mana (someone please confirm?) I managed to get completely put off by for now because of the separate spell-research tree. Maybe I'll give it a second look another time (It has BUG, which the others don't) but for now, I'm leaving.

Orbis and Rife seem to be the next biggest, and after glancing into them, I'm having trouble telling the difference. Am I mistaken, or do they actually have exactly the same content? They both have the Mechanos, Scions and Spiderkin... I won't list the lot.
Just what are the differences between the two?

And on a related side note, just how do you get that mobile fortress unit I saw in the civilopedia of one of them?

And lastly, does anyone happen to know just how easy it is to merge BUG into FFH?

Right! That's it. I'm done for now, going back to ravage the Bannor on my Elohim crusade. Fun times.
 
Orbis and RifE do share some content (though not the Archos, or spiderkin as you put it; That's only in Fall Further and RifE), but they approach that content in very different ways, and are balanced entirely differently.

RifE is more actively developed at this point, has the most civs of any FfH mod (fact, not boast), is the only mod to introduce Lawful/Chaotic alignments, possesses an entirely new barbarian spawn mechanic, and so on. Orbis on the other hand has a redesigned tech tree, places emphasis on the Renaissance, additional unitcombats (notably Polearms, though RifE will feature those as well after 1.4, as well as quite a few other unitcombats), etc.

So; There is a similarity in some of the content, and much of it has been shared back and forth, but balance and mechanics differ greatly.


Mobile Fortresses are in RifE, and are Mechanos only; Their Fort Commanders gain access to the ability. They are only mobile on Railroads, however; It's not a bug if you're unable to move them off the tracks. ;)


AFAIK, it's quite a pain. There was an active mod at one point that did just that, but IIRC it has been inactive for some time now; Honestly, I don't care for much of BUG, seems unnecessary. RifE contains the parts that I like. :lol:
 
IMHO RiFE has more new stuff than Orbis, but Orbis is more "orderly".
Orbis focuses a lot at changes to he economy; it also introduces some elements of BtS into FfH (I do not remember if RiFE does it too).
The main downside of Orbis is rather poor AI. Orbis is also not developing any longer.
The main downside of RiFE, IMHO, is... too much new stuff. It is hard, at least for me, to get accustomed to them
 
Aloha,

yes, Master of Mana (MoM) is the new Wild Mana (WM). Sephi and his Team did an awesome job with MoM. Super stable (except for pc with few RAM, some MAF issues), I personally had since the newest patch no ctd and no maf. And very, very good and challenging AI that actually does everything to win. And imho the most fantasy-atmospheric modmod, very masterofmagicish ;) . The changes for the improvement and the magic system are quite big (global enchantments, hostile terraforming, summon not as cannon fodder, but combat aura porting special units), but make "sense" and are, imo, very intuitive, especially the spell research tree. There have been impelemented a few new mechanics for civs, and two new civs, too. I love the real undead Aristrakh, the real vampires... and doviello in mom are simply adorable. All the new stuff, imho, works almost automatically, if you want to... (for more infor go to: www.masterofmana.com )

Orbis was great, but is not active in civIV any more - what a pitty. There was/is so much love in the details... Awharic moved, afaik, to ciV and will create a mod there - at least one reason to buy it, asa it is done.

RiFE puts tons of new stuff and very interesting mechanics to it, lot of free modules to implement, too, and for a while it is very cool and funny to play, especially with the D'Tesh :goodjob: But, at least for me, stability is important, and I still have lots of ctds. But Valk and Team work very hard on it.

So, every modmod here is, without question, worth playing it. Thanks to all modmodders!!!

Greez,

Tschuggi
 
I knew there was a reason I liked the Mechanos before I'd even played them.

I was sure I saw the Archos in Rife, but maybe I've just been looking through too many modmods and modmodmods (Fall Under, anyone?).
So it seems that Orbis is the older but more stable way, and Rife is the more actively developed but slightly less stable way?

As to BUG... well, I suppose I can live without it a bit longer. I just got used to having some of it's features around.

Thanks everyone.
 
I believe you DID saw Archos in RiFE, because it is one of mods that have them.
Orbis DO NOT have Archos (what a pity)
MoM has BUG included in it AFAIK

And yes, Orbis is older and more stable, also changes are more predictable and limited to some acpects of a game; RiFE is still developing, has loads of stuff, is somewhat unstable, and changes a lot of things - both small and big, I feel almost nothing is left without a change
 
Yep, Archos are in RifE. And Jarrema, we'll be changing even more in 1.4; Full redesigns of the unit trees, promotions, civics, buildings, techs. We'll be applying some of the lessons we learned from Orbis, but more importantly will be fully integrating several mechanics that had been added; Stackable promotions, child buildings, etc. It'll be fun. ;)

And Tschuggi, I'm going to disagree with you on one point; Changing summons from cannon fodder to support units you want in the rear is not an 'intuitive' change. It's also one that I strongly dislike; And when discussing our own magic system, the one that people most often ask us not to do. Our own design using Willpower is a more intuitive setup for anyone who has played FfH, and work will start on it soon.
 
One last little question for you then.
The module manager of the Rife Launcher says there's updates for several modules, except they're for a different (newer?) version of Rife.
Since I've gone and nicked it from the Rife thread, am I missing something here? And does the Launcher update them itself, or do I still have to go hunting?

Okay, so that's two questions. Close enough.
 
Derf said:
One last little question for you then.
The module manager of the Rife Launcher says there's updates for several modules, except they're for a different (newer?) version of Rife.
Since I've gone and nicked it from the Rife thread, am I missing something here? And does the Launcher update them itself, or do I still have to go hunting?

Okay, so that's two questions. Close enough.
Click to expand...

Thanks for pointing this out; I had to go in and update the wiki info for the official modules (which is where the launcher grabs the latest version info).

All official modules are up-to-date; Any third party modules are quite likely not, so check their threads. The only modules I know for sure are compatible, are those in the modules subforum of our official forum.

For a list of modules, check here. It's the page the launcher uses. ;)
 
Have you checked the Links they link to? Both MPL and BuildXP, if you follow the links they eventually lead to, will sooner or later lead to here: urlremoved/rife/forum/viewforum.php?f=11
Where those two don't seem to be.
I haven't checked any on the Official Modules page below BuildXP (yet) but though that since I'm making a pest of myself as it is, I'd point it out to you.
 
Hi,

Valk: Changing summons from cannon fodder to support units you want in the rear is not an 'intuitive' change. It's also one that I strongly dislike; And when discussing our own magic system, the one that people most often ask us not to do. Our own design using Willpower is a more intuitive setup for anyone who has played FfH, and work will start on it soon.
Click to expand...

both approaches, MoMs' and RiFEs', are very interesting and fun to play. I don't value one above the other. I am glad that there are actually very good modmods still for civIV to play. Thanks for that, guys.
 
I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad way to do it; I'm saying it's not intuitive, coming from FfH. Neither, of course, is the way we'll be setting up spells in RifE, balancing by the School rather than Sphere.

It is simply a large departure from the traditional; Sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes not. I for one dislike that implementation for summons, and it is quite honestly the thing most often requested we not implement. That does not mean it necessarily bad, and IIRC the main goal behind the change was an easier system for the AI. It's just not a change we will emulate. ;)
 
Derf said:
Have you checked the Links they link to? Both MPL and BuildXP, if you follow the links they eventually lead to, will sooner or later lead to here: urlremoved/rife/forum/viewforum.php?f=11
Where those two don't seem to be.
I haven't checked any on the Official Modules page below BuildXP (yet) but though that since I'm making a pest of myself as it is, I'd point it out to you.
Click to expand...

BuildXP is now uploaded again. urlremoved/rife/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=202
 
So it is...
I realise MPL is just an example, but is it safe to take it out? MPL, to me, suggests something on the lines of 'Modular Python Loader' or similar, so I'm sort of leaving it alone just in case I'm wrong.
 
Valkrionn said:
...Honestly, I don't care for much of BUG, seems unnecessary. RifE contains the parts that I like. :lol:
Click to expand...

BUG is awesome! Dealing with any decently sized stack of units in RiFE without BUG is a PITA. Being able to see what units are waiting for you to assign promotions after they've leveled, manipulate the display of the stacks so you can reach pesky units hidden under a panel, separating units by class, etc... I loved that!

Now.. it's gone..

/sniffle

Dangit!
 
Actually, there's only a few parts of it I liked. Sevopedia, for obvious reasons, the notches (or whatever they are) on the research bar that denote each turn, researched or not, and the great person bar.
 
I disagree on that. RifE, for the most part, uses the bog-standard pedia, which is unintuitive, clunky, and difficult to navigate. Sevopedia, on the other hand makes it easy to navigate between sections without having to go back to the top-level view, something that's very irritating.

Even a third drop-down combobox that lists each of the other sections when not in top-level view would be an improvement. *Any* way that means I don't have to keep hitting top to go to another section is better.

But until something like that, I want my Sevopedia back.
(And the Promotions/Unit Upgrades trees)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

kitfox
All menus on right side of screen are missing/disabled
Replies
16
Views
560
Necamijat
Necamijat
K
Key mods for re-starting Civ 6
Replies
8
Views
2K
Jub64
J
P
Have you ever completed a modern era leader quest?
Replies
2
Views
621
pjotroos
P
Navelgazer
"Enlightenment" (Exploration Science Legacy) Questions
2
Replies
20
Views
2K
Leucarum
Leucarum
modmyciv
Sudden random crash
Replies
0
Views
167
modmyciv
modmyciv
Back
Top Bottom