Thoughts on RiFE from a FF player

[kdodge]

So, after many many FF (and other mods) games, I decided to make the jump to RiFE after seeing how active the community is here and some of the interesting changes.

Caveat, I have played through 2 games as D'Tesh, 3 or 4 as mechanos, 1 as Clan, and one as Bannor.

I typically play on Prince or one step up, standard games. I can play harder, but I find it too much work. lol.

Here are some of my early thoughts & questions... discuss?

General: I really like a lot of the ideas and concepts in general! I think most of them have enhanced the FF (and by extension FFH) concept without deviating too far.... Kudos team and keep going!

I love the ancient city ruins and leftover roads, really adds to the feel of rebuilding a ruined world.

all of the supertough animals and early barb leaders and other changes seem to have slowed down the early game alot! I find that I"m struggling to get my 4th & 5th city by turn 180 anymore.

comment/complaint: I typically play with 'end of winter' .. this seems borked in RiFE.
the Ice & frost never goes away. by turn 300 I"m still locked in ice & tundra. (and no, illians were not my neighbor) bug?

Question: on the erebus2 mapscript ...I forget the exact term.. what does the "advanced climate" do? off/ensure/force on/force off

complaint: the animals are nuts!! I love the new variety, but lets tone them down!!
(I've seen the postings, and I'm anxiously awaiting patches) at one point I was so frustrated I opened up the worldbuilder... and holy cow.
surrounding me were 4 and 5 str24 5 promotion Griffin Flights, wandering through my area were 3 different invisible, 5firstrike sabres, and one peninsula had (no kidding) 35 Spider swarms, in stacks of 4 and 5 deep.

I love D'Tesh, once I got the hang of it!

I never was able to figure out how to create ash pyres as d'tesh.. help?

The fortress commander & forts exerting culture control is a great idea!

re: the Clan, I miss goblins! I loved the gobbos ability to become wolfriders, and I loved the "meat shield" aspect. But I love the bosses & seige ogres, so I guess its a wash.

 

[shoggi]

Animals will be towned down in future releases, but you already seem to know that.

You can build the D'Tesh pyres on any "organic" ressources. That means every animal and all the plant types, like corn.
If you build a pyre on it, the ressource becomes infused ash instead, which each boosts your research by 1%, beside being a nice workable plot.
Because who needs food, when your whole population consists of shambling zombies.

If you mean the Erebus Continent Map, all the options are explained in detail here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=308590

 

[Valkrionn]

So, after many many FF (and other mods) games, I decided to make the jump to RiFE after seeing how active the community is here and some of the interesting changes.

Caveat, I have played through 2 games as D'Tesh, 3 or 4 as mechanos, 1 as Clan, and one as Bannor.

I typically play on Prince or one step up, standard games. I can play harder, but I find it too much work. lol.

Glad to have new players.

Here are some of my early thoughts & questions... discuss?

General: I really like a lot of the ideas and concepts in general! I think most of them have enhanced the FF (and by extension FFH) concept without deviating too far.... Kudos team and keep going!

FF laid all the ground work, honestly. We've done quite a bit though, and a lot more original work is on the way. A true "Hinterlands" mechanic, completely redesigned Leader Status mechanics, guild changes, reworked unit lines, etc.

So... Big plans. All of which are already designed and an implementation schedule written up.

I love the ancient city ruins and leftover roads, really adds to the feel of rebuilding a ruined world.

That's thanks to the ErebusContinent mapscript.

Some of our features (Ancient Ruins, oceanic Kelp forests, etc) are only supported by ErebusContinent... It's the only map I play, as well.

all of the supertough animals and early barb leaders and other changes seem to have slowed down the early game alot! I find that I"m struggling to get my 4th & 5th city by turn 180 anymore.

That's our goal with them, yes. The new system will be more survivable, though.

comment/complaint: I typically play with 'end of winter' .. this seems borked in RiFE.<br>
the Ice &amp; frost never goes away. by turn 300 I"m still locked in ice & tundra. (and no, illians were not my neighbor) bug?

I'll have to look into it. I honestly do not play it.

Question: on the erebus2 mapscript ...I forget the exact term.. what does the "advanced climate" do? off/ensure/force on/force off

I can't remember the specifics without looking at it. I'd recommend checking it's thread, here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=308590

complaint: the animals are nuts!! I love the new variety, but lets tone them down!!<br>
(I've seen the postings, and I'm anxiously awaiting patches) at one point I was so frustrated I opened up the worldbuilder... and holy cow.
surrounding me were 4 and 5 str24 5 promotion Griffin Flights, wandering through my area were 3 different invisible, 5firstrike sabres, and one peninsula had (no kidding) 35 Spider swarms, in stacks of 4 and 5 deep.

Yeah... The new mechanic will be much more survivable. Most barbs will be limited to Barbarian (and Animal) culture put out by their lairs. Makes those areas VERY tough to clear, but keeps you from being swarmed. Limits expansion, doesn't kill civs.

I love D'Tesh, once I got the hang of it!

I never was able to figure out how to create ash pyres as d'tesh.. help?

In the current version, the Pyre has the same art as a workshop, so the button isn't clear (Pyre and all other D'tesh improvements have unique art next version; I play them alot). It can only be built on an organic resource of some kind, as well.

The fortress commander &amp; forts exerting culture control is a great idea!

Not my idea, honestly. The original implementation (where Fort Commanders put out the culture) was done by Ahwaric; He later merged an Improvements modcomp by another modder which allowed for improvements to generate culture, and I merged it from him.

That said, I've done some work on it as well for the next version, necessitated by the new barb system. Forts can put out 'real' culture now, a certain amount is added each turn to Cultural Control plots. Based on the improvement's stats, so a fort is nowhere near as strong as a Citadel. Makes those ancient fortresses (and barbarian lairs) harder to push away with culture.

We've also added a LOT of Fort Commander UUs.

re: the Clan, I miss goblins! I loved the gobbos ability to become wolfriders, and I loved the "meat shield" aspect. But I love the bosses & seige ogres, so I guess its a wash.

The Boss unit is being expanded to the full recon line.

We also have plans for goblins...

 

[Seven05]

That's thanks to the ErebusContinent mapscript.

Some of our features (Ancient Ruins, oceanic Kelp forests, etc) are only supported by ErebusContinent... It's the only map I play, as well.

And I, in turn, have to give David Allen from Fury Road credit for the original idea and code. Good to see I'm not the only person that really likes those, especially in RiFE

We also have plans for goblins...

Stew?

 

[kdodge]

Thanks for the fast answers!!
I'll look at the erebus mapscript!

re: pyre button graphics that may explain it.. I was looking for the pyre graphic.

Speaking of..another bug report... have you noticed that the Great Person add-to-city buttons are all "pinked out" .. I wonder if the addition of healer has borked up their indexing somehow.

have to give David Allen from Fury Road credit

I wondered if that's where you got the idea.. I messed around some with FuryRoad, their whole "bunker upgrade" idea is pretty cool too.

Sort of like a FF unique feature that you not only have to tech up to take full advantage but then have to DO something to it too .. like pyre of seraphic or some such.

 

[Valkrionn]

Thanks for the fast answers!!
I'll look at the erebus mapscript!

re: pyre button graphics that may explain it.. I was looking for the pyre graphic.

Speaking of..another bug report... have you noticed that the Great Person add-to-city buttons are all "pinked out" .. I wonder if the addition of healer has borked up their indexing somehow.

Actually that would be from the unique specialist art. Elves, Dwarves, Undead, Lizards, Demons all have unique specialist buttons for the city screen, and we have new specialist art for the standard specialists (all by VSPavlov); I just forgot to include the buttons for the 'Add to City' ability is all.

 

[kdodge]

ME again!

Well, been through a few more games, mostly with old faces from FF (svart, austrin, Khaz) The stifling on early exploration & expansion made Austrin hard to play, & Harmatt died before he could do anything useful (as always) but I coped and even whipped up on my neighbors.
I have to say I like the dwarven mines, but it made it seem a little unbalanced to me.. of course I've always found Khazad to be too easy.. but it matches my style. Turtle up and bust out after champions & seige.

One bummer... I can't say I like the Jotun changes. I really liked the idea of a "spam-city" culture.. sort of the opposite of Kurios. even once I got the new mechanic down, I still struggle with it conceptually, especially since the idea before was that they spam cities to get more citizens to make their units... (yes, I know I can capture slaves and promote them up, I just don't like the 'feel') Perhaps if we had a different civ with the old 1x1 city mechanic of the FFJotun I could let it go and cast the Jotun as the big baddies from the icecapped mountains. heh.

I like the Imperial roads alot, but I wonder if it should be restricted to some of the more .. 'civilized/imperial' civs like scions, bannor, etc.
Elves with Imperial stone roads felt odd to me.
Still exploring the mod!

 

[Valkrionn]

ME again!

Well, been through a few more games, mostly with old faces from FF (svart, austrin, Khaz) The stifling on early exploration & expansion made Austrin hard to play, & Harmatt died before he could do anything useful (as always) but I coped and even whipped up on my neighbors.
I have to say I like the dwarven mines, but it made it seem a little unbalanced to me.. of course I've always found Khazad to be too easy.. but it matches my style. Turtle up and bust out after champions & seige.

One bummer... I can't say I like the Jotun changes. I really liked the idea of a "spam-city" culture.. sort of the opposite of Kurios. even once I got the new mechanic down, I still struggle with it conceptually, especially since the idea before was that they spam cities to get more citizens to make their units... (yes, I know I can capture slaves and promote them up, I just don't like the 'feel') Perhaps if we had a different civ with the old 1x1 city mechanic of the FFJotun I could let it go and cast the Jotun as the big baddies from the icecapped mountains. heh.

I like the Imperial roads alot, but I wonder if it should be restricted to some of the more .. 'civilized/imperial' civs like scions, bannor, etc.
Elves with Imperial stone roads felt odd to me.
Still exploring the mod!

Yeah, I'm thinking of nerfing the mines down a bit. Particularly those available through RoK. Matches my style too .

For the Jotnar, we just didn't think it fit their flavor. Dying race of giants =/= Dozens of cities. The way we see them each citizen is a single family and their thralls... They just take more living space.

The original mechanic (small, spammable cities) will return. Twice. I like it too, just didn't care for it with them.

Imperial Roads aren't in RifE, just in one of the addons.

 

[kdodge]

Valk (and team)

I'm a "lapsed" java and python programmer (I"m now a manager...yes, I went to the dark side, adopted OO adn got 'mind stapled' .. heeheh). I'd love to give something back to the RiFE team (I'd offer farther up chain, but FF seems to be on hiatus, and you guys look like you could use the help!)

Do you guys have a list of 'small fixes' that need to be made, or even better, a list of 'pedia entries that need to be updated?
I could review code & add flavor text and update pedia entries, I could help in some small way ?

Or is there anything else I could help do?


KD

 

[Valkrionn]

I sent you an invite to the test group. Can get the latest files, and access to the wiki; Any new text should go there, as it's set up in such a way that any entry with out pedia or strategy texts is automatically added to a special category, so we can see them all. If you add anything, make sure to set the Updated tag to true; Will put it in yet another special category, letting me know it contains material which is yet to go in game.

Other than that, just follow the templates; The help page contains links to them all, and they all have instructions if you follow the link.

 

[kdodge]

I sent you an invite to the test group.

Thanks! am familiar with wiki formatting and templates, so hopefully I won't screw it up too bad

Just wading around and looking right now.. I'll see what seems to need the most help and wade in soon.

Anything you prefer I look at first?

 

[Valkrionn]

Well, first you should browse through the testers group to see the changes that have already been made.

Then, I think we're working on Buildings at this point... Most units are done.