True Lycanthropy in RIFE

[blue_cow_spit]

so Ive been sitting around trying to think of new ideas for Rife and I have been thinking "there is no true Lycanthropy based civs in RIFE." I dont know how hard it would be to make a civ of real werewolves/werebears/boars/birds/etc. You could make a spell like trigger that would allow a unit to switch from its "normal" form to it were form.

You can make it so that only units of a certain level can change at will while the newer ones can only change once every so many rounds. Each type can of unit could be represented by a different "were" type. say werewolves for standard soldiers, while the heavier fighting units can be werebears. You could implement shamans instead of adepts or mages. Also you could make flying units by creating werebats or birds.

Like I said Im not sure if this would be possible and since im not really anywhere near a proficient modder I could not do this, but perhaps one of you would like to and I would love to help with the idea process. I know there is already a "werewolve" type character in RIFE but it is not a true shape changer like I would imagine one to be.

So what do you guys think about this? Is it possible?

 

[dunedainjedi]

First, I like the idea, but werewolves in RIFE have never been shape changers persay. Still it shouldn't be too hard to have them 'change' forms. Functionally it could work exactly like the Wagghh ability. Which when casted has X effect for X number of turns.

Anyway I'm in favor of any change that makes werewolves fun again. These could be a fun idea for the Dovollio(assuming you're using the Baron), and could give them a nice mid-late game.

 

[Sarisin]

First, I like the idea, but werewolves in RIFE have never been shape changers persay. Still it shouldn't be too hard to have them 'change' forms. Functionally it could work exactly like the Wagghh ability. Which when casted has X effect for X number of turns.

Anyway I'm in favor of any change that makes werewolves fun again. These could be a fun idea for the Dovollio(assuming you're using the Baron), and could give them a nice mid-late game.

I agree. Going for the Baron is not as much a priority as it it used to be. Yes, it is good to get an 'extra' hero with the potential at strength 14, but...

The mechanism of creating werewolves that run away to be killed in short order is just a waste of time.

Now, the old way of building up a nice army of Greater, Blooded and even Ravenous Werewolves...those were the good ole days.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I think that there should be some way of keeping the current system without such radical changes.

Personally, I would give the Baron (the unit) the ability to command a number (say 3-5? Maybe give him some unique promotions to let the number increase later in the game) werewolves.
These would be leashed to him + 1/2/3? tiles away (again with possible promotions to extend it) and fully controllable from the moment of creation. So no Ravenous Werewolves effect.


All Werewolves he creates beyond that limit however would start as Ravenous Werewolves and just go nuts.


And the Baron (leader) would give the Baron (unit) some extra unique promotions extending the range and number, maybe even allowing for Werewolf Great Commanders that could have the same effect as the Baron (unit).


What do you think?



PS. The idea for a shape shifting civ is quite interesting, but I think that it deserves special attention. It would be a shame to become just a Werewolf Baron knockoff.

 

[Valkrionn]

....The Baron CAN command units, and auto-grants his minions a promotion which suppresses AI control.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Oh, I did not build him ever in RIFE. Did not know. Now I feel stupid.

PS. Did you see the bug I posted?

 

[dunedainjedi]

....The Baron CAN command units, and auto-grants his minions a promotion which suppresses AI control.

He's still no where close to as powerful as FFH. I really only build him if I'm bored and I already won or I forget that werewolves suck now. Speaking of which taking werewolves if you're the first one to Foxford is a horrible idea. The fact of the matter is, despite being able to avoid AI control w/ Duin, werewolves are useless now.

 

[KrugSmash]

He's still no where close to as powerful as FFH. I really only build him if I'm bored and I already won or I forget that werewolves suck now. Speaking of which taking werewolves if you're the first one to Foxford is a horrible idea. The fact of the matter is, despite being able to avoid AI control w/ Duin, werewolves are useless now.

Pretty sure the foxford werewolf doesn't go crazy. My first warrior became a werewolf through that event in my recent game as the Cualli, and he became one of my strongest soldiers, with the extra attack strength from becoming a greater werewolf. The spawned werewolves are kinda useless though. I can't for the life of me figure out how to make them into blooded werewolves, I think it only happened once that entire game.

 

[stupidnewbie]

Pretty sure the foxford werewolf doesn't go crazy. My first warrior became a werewolf through that event in my recent game as the Cualli, and he became one of my strongest soldiers, with the extra attack strength from becoming a greater werewolf. The spawned werewolves are kinda useless though. I can't for the life of me figure out how to make them into blooded werewolves, I think it only happened once that entire game.

When you gain a werewolf, it loses 25% of its strength. When that werewolf wins in combat, it has a 5% chance per attack strength (note: attack strength. You cannot level up off of great commanders.) of the defeated unit of gaining one base strength for itself. Once it has as much strength as a normal unit of its type, it becomes a blooded werewolf. When it reaches 50% greater strength than a normal unit of its type, it becomes a greater werewolf.

Unfortunately, elemental combat and combat bonuses (+2 poison for assassins, bronze weapons, etc.) count towards the werewolf strength check. For instance, you have a warrior with 3 base strength. It becomes a werewolf, so it drops down to 2. However, it also has bronze weapons, which bumps it up to 3 again, so he starts out as a blooded werewolf.

 

[dunedainjedi]

Pretty sure the foxford werewolf doesn't go crazy. My first warrior became a werewolf through that event in my recent game as the Cualli, and he became one of my strongest soldiers, with the extra attack strength from becoming a greater werewolf. The spawned werewolves are kinda useless though. I can't for the life of me figure out how to make them into blooded werewolves, I think it only happened once that entire game.

He doesn't become crazy, I just like Adventurer more. More so if it's a scout and I have ancient city ruins on. Spawned werewolves are useless, and I can't find anything in the pedia about making them into greater werewolves.

 

[Valkrionn]

I see no way in which werewolves are not MORE interesting now than in FfH. Stupidnewbie already summarized the system.

The important thing is that units stay the unittype they had been. This means limited units, heroes, whatever; They stay what they were, and switch to you. They won't even abandon if you don't meet their religion or civic reqs. How is this not better?

 

[Sarisin]

I see no way in which werewolves are not MORE interesting now than in FfH. Stupidnewbie already summarized the system.

The important thing is that units stay the unittype they had been. This means limited units, heroes, whatever; They stay what they were, and switch to you. They won't even abandon if you don't meet their religion or civic reqs. How is this not better?

I'm just wondering if you created and played the Baron, V.

I appreciate the explanation and all, but in actual games just about every unit the Baron turns into a werewolf departs and is quickly killed by the first unit it runs into. More often than not it is multiple units it stumbles into and that is all she wrote.

I'm fairly certain in all my games (and I built the Baron in all, I think), I never had a turned unit stick around for more than a few turns. Yes, a few won battles, but either left again, or just were useless units to have.

I will say the best this ever worked out for me is when the Baron turned Zarcaz into a werewolf. Unfortunately, even this fun was short-lived as he wandered off to be killed by a group of Minotaurs.

 

[tokala]

I'm fairly certain in all my games (and I built the Baron in all, I think), I never had a turned unit stick around for more than a few turns. Yes, a few won battles, but either left again, or just were useless units to have.(

I got lucky once with a free champion
But for that one ten others wandered of to meet their fate

 

[dunedainjedi]

Here's an idea, why not let the player choose whether or not to give his werewolves over to their 'nature.' Essentially if you captured an warrior, you could say screw it give up the unit class and allow it to function as a ravenous werewolf from base FFH. If you grabbed Chalid you could choose to have him fight his nature and work him back up to his full potential. Best of both worlds.

 

[Merddyn]

Personally, I prefer the current version. Not only is it more realistic, but honestly, the older version was a bit overpowered. Now, I don't remember the exact numbers for their strength as I only used him once per version (that's normally my brother's purview), but you could send the Baron to fight the weakest civilization currently in the game (Which my brother typically does exactly that -_-) and take a bunch of strength 3 warriors, beat them and they become strength 7 or 8 ravenous werewolves, and eventually become strength 11, I believe. And you don't even have to really worry about them dying, because what they're fighting is too weak to stand a chance anyway.

With RIFE's system, it's basically a version of command that's both better and worse; worse in that they start out weaker than normal, but if you train them up (and honestly, I never had any trouble with that, including getting them commanded by the baron. I eventually ended up with more blooded werewolves than I knew what to do with. XD Though it helped most of them were archers for the defensive strength) they become stronger than normal of their type. And that's not too hard with control of them, especially for the Amurites; just throw in fireballs/fodder to weaken the enemies to killable, and boom, easy time de-ravenousing that werewolf. While used right, that too can be overpowered, but that's a LOT better than the original version.

 

[Valkrionn]

I'm just wondering if you created and played the Baron, V.

I appreciate the explanation and all, but in actual games just about every unit the Baron turns into a werewolf departs and is quickly killed by the first unit it runs into. More often than not it is multiple units it stumbles into and that is all she wrote.

I'm fairly certain in all my games (and I built the Baron in all, I think), I never had a turned unit stick around for more than a few turns. Yes, a few won battles, but either left again, or just were useless units to have.

I will say the best this ever worked out for me is when the Baron turned Zarcaz into a werewolf. Unfortunately, even this fun was short-lived as he wandered off to be killed by a group of Minotaurs.

I have, yes. Keep a Law1 adept with Baron. Loyalty affects an arbitrary number of units in the stack. You need an extra unit with the Baron, but the payoff is far better. It just takes more time to build up.

Here's an idea, why not let the player choose whether or not to give his werewolves over to their 'nature.' Essentially if you captured an warrior, you could say screw it give up the unit class and allow it to function as a ravenous werewolf from base FFH. If you grabbed Chalid you could choose to have him fight his nature and work him back up to his full potential. Best of both worlds.

No. System is complex enough as it is, maintaining both systems (and allowing a choice between them) is far trouble than it is worth.

 

[Breez]

Personally, I prefer the current version. Not only is it more realistic, but honestly, the older version was a bit overpowered. Now, I don't remember the exact numbers for their strength as I only used him once per version (that's normally my brother's purview), but you could send the Baron to fight the weakest civilization currently in the game (Which my brother typically does exactly that -_-) and take a bunch of strength 3 warriors, beat them and they become strength 7 or 8 ravenous werewolves, and eventually become strength 11, I believe. And you don't even have to really worry about them dying, because what they're fighting is too weak to stand a chance anyway.

With RIFE's system, it's basically a version of command that's both better and worse; worse in that they start out weaker than normal, but if you train them up (and honestly, I never had any trouble with that, including getting them commanded by the baron. I eventually ended up with more blooded werewolves than I knew what to do with. XD Though it helped most of them were archers for the defensive strength) they become stronger than normal of their type. And that's not too hard with control of them, especially for the Amurites; just throw in fireballs/fodder to weaken the enemies to killable, and boom, easy time de-ravenousing that werewolf. While used right, that too can be overpowered, but that's a LOT better than the original version.

+1 I agree completely

They were WAY over powered in FfH2. Everyone got used to the one unit ending the game and got spoiled. The RiFE way is so much more balanced, it is much more fun for me. It isn't an auto win button anymore.

 

[mo123567]

Werewolves may have been overpowered before but they were fun. All that was needed was to limit the amount of greater werewolves. I much prefered the werewolf units and also some units just shouldn't become werewolves, which would also be a good way of limiting the old system.

In my last game I had a werewolf Ascheron when I killed him with Baron. Baron also had the capture beast ability so I actually got 2 Acherons. One normal one with strength 35 and one werewolf acheron with strength 27?... I guess that's a bug. Neither of them could move for some reason though so I deleted them. I also had a werewolf wolf which I thought was kind of funny.

I like the old system and only living humanoid (humans, elves, dwarves, maybe orcs and upright walking lizards) units should be able to be converted. (no dragons, animals, undead, demons, etc..)

Edit, with either system, the wolvesblood promo could make units werewolf immune.

 

[Valkrionn]

If you like the old system, feel free to mod it back in.

I prefer the new one.

 

[Sarisin]

I have, yes. Keep a Law1 adept with Baron. Loyalty affects an arbitrary number of units in the stack. You need an extra unit with the Baron, but the payoff is far better. It just takes more time to build up.

I didn't know that, and, frankly I thought the Loyalty spell was pretty useless. If you have a Law node this might work as you use the spell on units you want and ignore those you don't want.

However, I generally use the Baron as my shock troop in my territory. I send him to deal with barb groups that materialize on my border, for example. I'm not sure the Adept could keep up.

One more thing I noticed on this is if you do turn a unit into a werewolf, it does NOT enjoy the benefits of Nox Noctis. This is another reason it is immediately targeted by the bad guys even in your own territory. It might be the only unit, except for those in cities, the AI can see.