I have uploaded a beta for those interested. It's also a good way to give feedback on the new features.

Download for Beta (Version 3) (http://www.filefront.com/14814061/FFH-Wild-Mana-SETUP-6.0-Beta-III.exe/)

if you already had a wild mana beta installed, please uninstall that first.

Should you find a bug or weird AI behavior please post a save.

Changelog from Wildmana 5.0


FIX: events aren't loaded modular for now (could cause bugs/OOS)
FIX: AI tech trading
FIX: Scoreboard shows War Status
fixed an display issue with manors/pillar of chains
FIX: Pieces of Barnaxus will be removed from the game if they are the only unit from Luchuirp and they can't be permanently destroyed by HN units.
FIX: possible CTD when declaring war fixed (was related to the CAR mod merge)
FIX: some rarely happening WoCs (waiting of civilization loops)

AI: Patrols improved
AI: Summon use improved
AI: Prefers to Heal in City if it is close
AI: starting settler now moves distance depending of world size
AI: Barbarian Cities gain access to strategic resources later in the game
AI: Elohim/Malakim also go into Conquest Mode
AI: leaders will pressure other leaders only into their favorite Religion
AI: favorite Religion and Alignments have a much larger impact on AI diplomatics
AI: able to give help to other friendly AI (same way it sometimes gives help to friendly human player)
AI: able to make demand maps/gold/techs from hostile AIs (same way it sometimes makes demands to human player)
AI: in ConquestMode more likely to ask someone else to join its war
AI: in ConquestMode more likely to join someone else war
AI: will ask to stop trade less often
AI: Altar Victory Strategy added
AI: Culture Victory Strategy added
AI: Religion Victory Strategy added
AI: Production choosing improved
AI: Conquest Logic improved
AI: fixed a few issues with promotion selection
AI: improved use of Equipment (orthus axe, spellbooks)
AI: Better tactics to deal with Barbarians
AI: Lots of leader related improvements
AI: Prophecy of Ragnorok blocked for non evil AI
AI: Defense of Cities adjusted to stronger animals/barbarians
AI: grouppower function added to improve battle calculations
AI: if attacks odds aren't very high, AI will prefere to attack with low lvl units to soften up defenders for it's high level units
AI: fixed problem that could cause conqueststacks to retreat to cities too often
AI: will use conquest civic a bit smarter
AI: better AI gold management

allows AI to save up gold used only to hurry victory buildings
allows AI to save up gold used only for trading
allows AI to save up gold used only for production hurry (or better said this allows the AI not to waste their gold on production hurry)
allows AI to save up gold used only as a reserve (Khazad, events)



Gameplay change:impossible now to hurry victory buildings
Gameoption: can hurry victory buildings added
Gameplay change:Conscripting has a small chance to create several units (since units without XP are at a greater disatvantage in FFH I think the mechanism needed a boost)
Animals are now at war with Barbarians
Animals have a small chance to enter a Rage
Animals/Wild Mana Guardians strength increases later in the game.
more dens for Animals (from Orbis)
destroying Animal dens now can give unique results like rescuing a hunter. Hunting Tech gives better results for this.
SPEEDBOOST: Gameoption Barbarian World
lairs always start with a defender
Improved Placement of Unique Improvements
Gameoption Influence Driven War improved
Maximum trade routes in City increased from 8 to 12
ADDON (or maybe its a FIX?): CommerceChangeDoubleTime mechanic from BTS got to working again.
gameplay change:UnhappyProduction (used by manors and pillar of chains). Bonus to :hammers: from happy population reduced by 50-66%, bonus from unhappy population increased by 50%
high level units are immune to many bad effects from lairs
balseraph puppet spells can be set to autocasting
Tradesroutes are now better displayed

merged Hated Civic Concept (from Operas LENA mod)
merged better Blizzards (by TC01) and rebalanced a bit
merged a few Animals from FF+
merged militiamod (made by Tholal)


module tweaked buildings added (small tweaks to buildings to make build selection more interesting. Granaries/Smokehouses now allow cities to export small amounts of food to another city)
module tweaked Civics added (some civics got a small boost (republic, consumption,...), agrarism a small nerf. Most civics unchanged). Idea is to make civic selection more interesting.
module Balseraph+ (a few leaders added with unique traits. Courtesan UU requires halls of mirrors and has shapechanging abilty, taunt spell should work more stable)
module Scions lite added (will need quite a bit of work since FF has a lot of custom functions I do not use). Civliziation is set to human only so they won't show up as AI.

Can't tell you if I still get a WoC - the save won't load with new beta... :p

Anyway - 1st small thing to report about the beta - the second option is crossed. Unfortunately, it doesn't say what it is (if anything) ;)

Deadly wild mana game option.

reuploaded with the missing txt key.

Just lad a LOLtastic bug.

Beat up a tiger with an adventurer hunter, got this.

ended up getting about 10000 gold and 750 units.

It's reproducable also.

cool gameoptions like Aggressive AI, Raging Barbs, Barbworld, Wild Mana, No Lairs are still not visible, but I don't care much... I do demand ( :p ) to know if Barbarian Groups has become the new default barbarian spawn mechanic and if not... where has it gone?

lairs are supposed to always spawn with a defender on them, but I've seen a goblin fort with no defender on turn 0.

also, the sabretooth tiger den is called just "sabertooth", it should be "sabertooth den" or something I guess ;)

one thing that greatly annoyed me was after I made Aggressive AI visible again, it was missing its text key... it's a tiny thing but it was annoying :lol:

Just lad a LOLtastic bug.

Beat up a tiger with an adventurer hunter, got this.

ended up getting about 10000 gold and 750 units.

It's reproducable also.

I just had the same with a wolf lair.

I found a lot of adepts that had got lost on a research trip... And quite a few hunters! :)

yea, i would also like to know why a number of gameoptions have been set to invisible. i made them visible. but if they cause a CTD or mess with somehting else ill turn them back off

here is a quickfix for the new animal lair exploring system. nasty loop in which one adept would rescue another one. I'll update the download tomorrow. As for the Gameoptions, you can enable or disable whatever you want, there shouldn't be any Ctd or the like. But many like the Aggressive AI gameoption don't do much at the moment.

http://www.filefront.com/14761987/CvWMGameUtils.py

cool, thanx for the quickfix Sephi ;)

so, what about the Barbarian Groups gameoption? sorry for nagging so much about it, but I really loved it :D

The barbarians seem way too powerful with that on. I don't like spending the first 200 turns just fighting barbs and having to keep 3+ warriors in every city. It really slows the game down. AI's seem to be dropping left and right to it also, and it makes building settlers pointless.

Another bug, the Lanun seem capable of building the Scion's unique buildings.

Another bug, the Lanun seem capable of building the Scion's unique buildings.

which one?

some barbs will run around in groups, some will try to plunder on their own, and they will have different behavior.

I plan to make two gameoptions, one that makes both animals and barbarians stronger and one that makes both of them weaker. Since they are at war now there should be some balance between them.

I saw their temples at a minimum. Forget what elese.

Imperial Cenotaph.

I can't heal my warriors and scouts... bug or feature?

reuploaded the beta with both the animal lair and scions buildings bug fixed.

Do you have a save pimparel?

Attached. Installed after installed last ffh patch, is it correct?

I forgot to include a customized config file into the beta like FFH does to prevent the game from reading gameoptions from civ ini file. In your game the gameotion no healing for humans had been selected because of that (f8 shows all gameoptions). Either start a PLAY NOW game or open the config file in the wild mana beta folder and set ForceGameOptions to 1.

which one?

some barbs will run around in groups, some will try to plunder on their own, and they will have different behavior.

I plan to make two gameoptions, one that makes both animals and barbarians stronger and one that makes both of them weaker. Since they are at war now there should be some balance between them.

that's cool, but I was referring to them SPAWNING in groups, size of which depending on game difficulty and gamespeed ( the barbarian groups gameoption that came from FF ) if now they spawn in groups sometimes and singleunit some others, that's nice :D

I seem to have a comparative strength of -0.0 to (every single one of) the AI. Now, I know I'm at Deity, but after 127 turns on marathon, with a hunter, 6 bloodpets, and an adept, it seems more likely that this is an error in the calculations, than they are incredibly powerful compared to me...

Edit: got a repeatable CTD. Save attached.

I forgot to include a customized config file into the beta like FFH does to prevent the game from reading gameoptions from civ ini file. In your game the gameotion no healing for humans had been selected because of that (f8 shows all gameoptions). Either start a PLAY NOW game or open the config file in the wild mana beta folder and set ForceGameOptions to 1.

it was at 1.

edit: sorry. wrong file.

The AIs are crippled by barbarians. They're not handling it well.

do you have a save? I usually have much bigger problems with the barbs than the AI.

I seem to have a comparative strength of -0.0 to (every single one of) the AI. Now, I know I'm at Deity, but after 127 turns on marathon, with a hunter, 6 bloodpets, and an adept, it seems more likely that this is an error in the calculations, than they are incredibly powerful compared to me...

Edit: got a repeatable CTD. Save attached.

Looks like something is draining your power. You can prevent the crash by changing your power (adding a unit via worldbuilder is easiest way). Might take some time until I figure out what exactly is causing the problem.

My economy couldn't handle having to keep adding units, so I started another game... :)

I have to ask you - have you changed anything to do with the battle formulas? I seem to have lost some very odd battles when defending. And I mean consistently losing 70/80% advantage my way. In fact, recently I lost something which had I been doing the attacking, I would have had 96% chance of victory (and the respective powers wouldn't have changed for the battle when I defended), barely harming the orc. Thinking this was odd, and having my suspicions raised, I reloaded (I've taken to saving at the end of each turn for betas! ;)). I then lost the battle 4 more times in a row. Now, that might just be a statistical improbability, or else something's odd's going on in the fighting.

Or else maybe I get a big minus when being attacked by barbs for being on Deity? I'd have said I might possibly have been too successful considering the odds when I've attacked too, but that's kind of a tentative observation. (Chances are I imagined it, I guess, it just seemed weird)

I haven't changed anything with battle formulas. Keep in mind that % close to 99,99 are inaccurate when you have first strike chances.

Yeah - but there wasn't any first strikes involved. Like I said, chances are I imagined it - it was just really bizarre. Anyway, just thought I'd check it with you.

Animal lairs don't spawn on desert. Whilst this probably makes sense for non-gameplay reasons, it also means that the Malakim don't really see any animal lairs around the place. Which is a little unfair, considering the other civs will be able to gain benefits from the lairs. Might be worthwhile having lairs spawn on mountains (even if desert) like say, Griffons, say? Or else normal ones near floodplains, perhaps. Just so there are some lairs around. As it happens I am completely cut off from anyone else in my current game as the Malakim, and I didn't get to raid one animal lair. :( :p

The attached screenshot shows a city without its entire inner ring being 'owned'. This is because in IDW, pillaging gave the barbs some of my territory.

a) I didn't think IDW worked for the Barbs anymore?
b) I've won plenty of battles which should really have been enough to get the squares back, but hasn't, presumably because the city hasn't been able to generate any culture yet?

(edit) I think it's the pillaging that did it. Presumably you changed IDW for fighting, but not for pillaging?

Beasts still seem to occasionally be stuck when borders go over them. In this case, they didn't have lairs (see above), but they just stay in the borders, without trying to move out - or attack any unit near it. So they are basically frozen there - just like the giant spiders that pop up in the 'infested mine event' I guess. Would be nice if this wasn't the case. Well - not necessarily nice for the player, at the moment I can send my workers right next to the hill giant without worry! ;)

Had a message saying that the Barbarians had a golden age. Isn't that a little weird? *tries to envision the Barabrians impressing their citizens across the land so much that they get a golden age* :lol:

Also, the Barbs (run of the mill 2 strength goblins) captured one of my spell books, and the spell book disappeared. Presumably the barbs can read spell books?! That's gotta be wrong... :)

Hmm - I keep seeming to add to this post - maybe I should make a new post to show that there's new stuff in here, but I hate double posting.

Anyway. Barbs can spawn Legates. Don't know if that's intended, but I wouldn't have thought it was.

Also, I'll be ridiculously pedantic, and point out that the BUG hint which says animals can't enter your land doesn't really apply any more.... :p

Playing as Perpentach with Beta II I seem to be unable to build the Hall of Mirrors, although I have Alteration and Carnivals everywhere due to the Grand Menagerie.

Doomsayers are red circles on the map (i.e. missing the graphics). These are Barb Doomsayers btw - are they meant to spawn? (like the Legates). Even if they are, the fact that they spawn in groups of three, and don't link up with other barbs as far as I can tell (although maybe I just kill them too soon! :p) makes them pretty useless. By the way, if you read my last post, chances are I added stuff to it so look again. :)

thanks. I think I got all these issues fixed.

this calls for a new beta! :D

Beta 2 - Scion world spell caused a repeatable CTD when you end the turn after casting it. I'm at work right now, but I have the save at home if you need it.

Something odd going on with diplomacy I just noticed. In the attached save, go to do diplomacy with Kandros Fir, ask what he wants for Mercantilism - well, the only tech he'll trade. He'll ask for Sorcery, Animal Handling (I think), and Deception. Say no, and ask what he'll give you for the same deal - he'll add the world map. Okay, clear the table, and offer him Sorcery and Animal Handling for Mercantilism, and ask what will make the deal work. He then demands Deception and extra money.

Oh - and I keep meaning to mention this: Is Strong really meant to give 1% strength, and 1 defensive str. Shouldn't it be +1 att str and +1 def str? It isn't the only promotion that does that kind of thing, either. (i.e. giving negligible percentage increases to strength)

Also, for some reason I can't upgrade elephants to war elephants. Or upgrade a goblin full stop, I think.

Following up on my Perpentach/Hall of Mirrors issue, I don't know if that's included in what you fixed recently but I noticed that even when I add a Hall of Mirrors to a city with World Builder I am still not able to build Courtesans or upgrade to them.

First, thanks a LOT Sephi for producing this awesome work. I just installed the beta, some feedback :

1/ Can all the scion-specific stuff (heroes, units...) be removed from the techtree ? tis quite confusing as of now.

I'm playing as the amurite water-proficient new leader (and love the free water walking) :
2/ when building wizard's hall, a red blob appears in the city screen instead of the building's pic

3/the flag at the up-left corner of the screen does not show up, which blocks the mouseover showing the civ/leader traits. Kinda annoying with an emerging civ.

4/ noob question : my adepts spawned with potency, tho I don't have the arcane trait. Is it a new feature from your enhanced Amurites ?

Overall, I love the new animals and their lairs, and barb stacks. Definitive improvement, although I haven't played enough to asess if the AI can handle tem tho.
The tweaks to base-culture-generating buildings, and building costs look cool.

So does the tweaks to civics in general. Specific points to discuss :
- mercantilism is quite overpowered, but since it's a late civic it's OK and might actually make the tech worth researching.
- I like the new agrarianism, useful in specific food-poor situations, without being a no-brainer now.
- I saw consumption received a big happiness boost, although I already found it a very good mid-game civic. Was this really intended ? Am I the only one feeling that way ?

Does anyone tell me how to get 6.0 beta SDK? Please.

Couple of things.

I tried to attack a dragon with a druid, and was told he was too scared to attack. Fine. However, next turn I attacked and killed the dragon, and then was told he was too scared to attack.

The Amurites' have size 1 cities. Blight has hit, so I'm guessing there's still a problem with war mode and growth. I think they've been at war ever since blight hit - maybe that had some effect. My perm allies, Kandros Fir don't seem to have much population either, so maybe that can be improved. (Stuck around 7 or 8 mark with most of them)

And finally, rejecting threats and giving help doesn't give any bonuses or penalties in relations. Is that because they can demand from each other, or just a bug?

@afterthought
strong is +1/+1, the % is just a display error
the diplo stuff was a bug

@Eshnunna
you can find the flag right from the minimap.arcane trait is part of the Amurite racial trait.



I have changed techtree on mouseover from techs so that it won't show things which only other civs can get.

uploaded a new beta version to first post that has quite a few small things fixed. Dragons will now be a little bit more aggressive

yay! thanx a lot Sephi ;)

Beta 3: Amurites can build Loki. I'm really hoping this is an "oops". I can't stand that little !@#$!@#$

lo and behold, I had this python exception while generating the map. obviously because my starting settler got placed on a gorilla den... lairs should really not be present in the starting BFC, eh? :D

aside from this, the gorilla den should be called gorilla den or shack or something, instead of "Gorillas" :p

goblin lairs start with no defender :(

and yeah, animal lairs should be explorable. I mean really explorable, like in Orbis. stepping on them and destroying them like that is no fun. just steal everything from Orbis and it will be just perfect ;)

some lair exploration results are written in a dark grey shade which is really hard to read on the background.

and yeah, Loki can be built by any civ. :lol:

the ratio of animal lairs/normal lairs is still too heavily weighted towards MANY ANIMALS, even with no Wildlands gameoption. although... I did spot a werewofl spawning lair! bully, that's a brilliant touch. I also love how hill giant steadings now spawn hill giants, and maybe the dungeons should spawn random stuff. frostling lairs spawning random frostlings would be awesome too! :goodjob:

also, polar bear lairs could be added, and polar bears should only spawn and set lairs in icy regions ( commonly known as MaxAstro's "duh!" change in FF :lol: )

regarding the AI, does it increase the amount of defenses it tries to have in the early game depending on what gameoptions are on?

Barbarianworld and Raging barbs would mean MORE WARRIORS, while Wildlands would mean MORE SCOUTS, should be pretty easy to understand even for the AI.

btw, does the Aggressive AI gameoption do something now if added back in and activated? you mentioned something about it not doing much, but it'd be nice to hear if it's obsoleted by the new AI behaviour or what.

regardless, a gameoption for a more aggressive AI would be nice to have for when you want a more cutthroat game.

I also liked to be able to choose between normal barbarians and barbarian groups ( which would mean the AI builds more warriors, again :D ) , but you know that already :p

edited the above post with a couple more small bugs and suggestions :D

reuploaded the version 3.0. Fixes the Loki issue. Shouldn't break save games.

gah. bunch 'o loading errors...

oh, I had uploaded a debug dll. You can simply ignore the messages, they aren't errors

Whoa, something weird. Might be a vanilla problem, but it's not exactly something that would happen particularly often, even so. (This is with the second beta, btw)

My vassal - the Amurites - used Seven Pines to make peace with my enemies, at least the 'Verlain made peace with X' messages all came up. Thing is, I'm still at war! So I'm not sure if Seven Pines just didn't do anything, or if somehow Verlain is not at war with the enemies of his master. As an aside, I killed Verlain's teammate, Hyborem, and despite having DEAD by Hyborem's name, because Verlain capitulated to me, he's (it's?) also my vassal in the scores. :)

oh, I had uploaded a debug dll. You can simply ignore the messages, they aren't errors

Wild mana not loading at all. Seeing errors pop up while the game is trying to initialize the map, but only if I call up windows or Task manager, and then my computer freezes.

Similar experience with version 3. I click through all of the debug messages during startup, but then civ4 quits with no message (it did make a bonk sound). Version 2 works for me.

sorry about the mess with the debug dll. I uploaded a new version 3 (will break saves), hopefully this time with all files correct. Played quite a few autoplay games with it, no crash.

I wonder if someone still has any OOS with it.

Also, the Barbs (run of the mill 2 strength goblins) captured one of my spell books, and the spell book disappeared. Presumably the barbs can read spell books?! That's gotta be wrong... :)

The barbs don't read the spell book. The goblins probably used it to make fire or so. Barbs will destroy everything they can't really use.

Gekko;8584559']
btw, does the Aggressive AI gameoption do something now if added back in and activated? you mentioned something about it not doing much, but it'd be nice to hear if it's obsoleted by the new AI behaviour or what.

I don't know what effect it exactly still has. Made it visible and moved it to the bottom of the list.

Gameoptions are now ordered by

1. Gameoptions with huge impact (like one city challenge)
2. Challenge Modes
3. normal gameoptions (like double events)
4. NO X gameoptions (like no settlers, etc.)
5. weird gameoptions and those that might not be that balanced

The barbarians and animals being on different teams makes the barbarians a lot less threatening. I have a lot of unsettled land around me in the midgame, but I hardly ever have to deal with barbarian incursions because they all get killed by the animals. The animals, meanwhile, will only come after you if they are enraged and they see you--they don't target cities from far away, meaning that as long as I keep my units well inside my borders, I have no animal threat at all.

Perhaps most telling, the animals help defend me from the Horsemen. I saw Stephanos spawn right outside my borders, but he went to attack a stag rather than my city, and then he was immediately pwned by a group of bears.

I see that Raging Barbarians has been brought back but is now on the bottom of the list along with Wildlands... does that mean the AI can't really handle those well?

I'd like to try a game with barbworld, ragingbarbs, wildlands and deadly mana... things should be pretty brutal early on. maybe throw in end of winter too :lol:

speaking of end of winter, adding Flavourmod to WM would be awesome, the extended end of winter for example gives a whole new meaning to it :D

oh, and I see you like No Acheron, what would you think of making him a random event instead of having him spawn 100% or 0% ? maybe the same could be done with orthus, while the other bad spawns like mary, the leviathan and the great apes could get more common, then you would have a lot more variety. maybe add in FF+ Wyrms for added danger :D

you should also make Barbarian World visible again imho, some people could like switching that off from the custom game screen ;)

Gekko;8590598']FF+ Wyrms

You mean RifE? :p

Repeatable CTD when I end turn on the attached save, running 6.0 beta III. Huge map (ErebusContinent script), marathon game, playing Ljosalfar.

EDIT: Whoops, attached an earlier save. This save (turn 369) crashes, the save I posted earlier (turn 355) does not.

After passing through Maelstorm I found my ship encased in ice.

A city with lighthouse and The Great Lighthouse only has 2 trade routes. I realized that can be due to the lack of neighbours, still made a screenshot.

Also I have noticed that my military units built in that city gain Amphibious promotion. I haven't found a civilopedia explanation for that.

this is pretty weird:

there was a stag lair on the tile which the stag is sitting on in my BFC.

what I think happened is that the lair spawned a new stag in the same turn my borders enveloped that tile, and the new stag moved the lair out. the old stag however is still sitting there instead of going somewhere else :D

yes, the stag lair next to the stag just got moved out of my culture.

edit: uh, a couple turns later he moved out. I wonder why he just sit there for some five turns or so, and if this is WAD.

btw, is it intended that barbarian lizardmen have 4 attack and 2 defense? why did you change it so? it seems they'll be far too easy to kill now, ruins that spawn them will be easily got rid of :(

Also I have noticed that my military units built in that city gain Amphibious promotion. I haven't found a civilopedia explanation for that.

New feature: for every unit build in a city, there's a small chance of gain a promotion based on the terrain in wich that city stand.

So, a coastal city may give u amphibious, a hill city cliff walker, a desert one sand devil and so on. Juicy, IMO.

a Stag attacked me in a city, I guess that's made possible by Rage?

the behaviour of automated workers is also not supersmart, not sure if Turinturambar's tweaks are in, but some things are weird like for example how they love to build roads on a resource before the improvement, even if it's in your BFC, and then proceed to road everything else instead of building a couple useful improvements ( check picture )... and if they get scared and flee to a city, they take a couple turns too long before going back to work once the threat is got rid of, cowards :lol:

btw, there should be some code that makes sure that barbarian cities don't end up like this :D

the harpy event is back to its old evil self, for some weird reason ( i.e. you can end the 15 turns revolt with a great work )

avoid unhappy stil fails sometimes, like in this savegame for example. food is 14/14 so city is going to pop, but since it is set to stagnant the avoid unhappy code doesn't trigger and the city grows into unhappiness the next turn.

whoa. how the hell did that happen? my guess is that the city got cultureflipped, cuz it was under heavy malakim culture pressure even before acheron spawned... not sure if this is supposed to happen, but one thing is sure: acheron should go berserk instead of sitting there like a big red idiot :lol:

not sure how the sheaim got that Hill Giant either, it's early game and giants are beasts... it's not one of the three stooges, it's definitely a wild hill giant with 4XP, he still has UNITAI_ANIMAL :lol:

we really need more jungle animals, seeing bears, wolves and stags in them is weird. crocodiles, snakes, what say you :lol:

btw, it often happens that an animal goes crazy, kills a barb lair defender and starts guarding it himself. I've seen both griffons and stags guarding barrows :lol:

oh, and I still think it would be awesome for deer and ivory resources to act like stag and elephant lairs respectively ;)

Gekko;8591977']whoa. how the hell did that happen? my guess is that the city got cultureflipped, cuz it was under heavy malakim culture pressure even before acheron spawned... not sure if this is supposed to happen, but one thing is sure: acheron should go berserk instead of sitting there like a big red idiot :lol:

I saw the same thing happen in a recent game--Acheron just chilling next to a Lanun-owned ex-barb city. Maybe Acheron's presence should prevent culture flips?

Gekko;8591977']oh, and I still think it would be awesome for deer and ivory resources to act like stag and elephant lairs respectively ;)

Deer resources already kind of do, since about half the time when I kill a stag lair, it pops a deer resource underneath. Same thing happens with Gorilla lairs and banana resources. Do elephant lairs exist in the game? I've never seen them.

Also, is it intended that Lizardmen are on the Beast team, while Griffons are on the Barbarian team? Seems like it should be the other way around.

repeatable CTD in 2 turns.

The barbarians and animals being on different teams makes the barbarians a lot less threatening. I have a lot of unsettled land around me in the midgame, but I hardly ever have to deal with barbarian incursions because they all get killed by the animals. The animals, meanwhile, will only come after you if they are enraged and they see you--they don't target cities from far away, meaning that as long as I keep my units well inside my borders, I have no animal threat at all.

currently animals vision blocks barbarians from spawning which I still need to change. And the barbarian cities probably could use some free hammers in the late game when units cost are high.

Gekko;8590598']I see that Raging Barbarians has been brought back but is now on the bottom of the list along with Wildlands... does that mean the AI can't really handle those well?

no, they just don't do much. wildlands for example should also increase spawn rates from lairs.

Gekko;8590598']
oh, and I see you like No Acheron, what would you think of making him a random event instead of having him spawn 100% or 0% ? maybe the same could be done with orthus, while the other bad spawns like mary, the leviathan and the great apes could get more common, then you would have a lot more variety.

I think they all need some finetuning. I see mary in maybe 1 out of 100 games or so.

Gekko;8590598']
maybe add in FF+ Wyrms for added danger :D

There is already a gameoption for Dragons ;)

After passing through Maelstorm I found my ship encased in ice.
fixed

A city with lighthouse and The Great Lighthouse only has 2 trade routes.
you need more cities to trade with

Gekko;8591904']edit: uh, a couple turns later he moved out. I wonder why he just sit there for some five turns or so, and if this is WAD.

animals won't move every turn

Gekko;8591904']
btw, is it intended that barbarian lizardmen have 4 attack and 2 defense? why did you change it so? it seems they'll be far too easy to kill now, ruins that spawn them will be easily got rid of :
hmm, maybe 4/3?

Gekko;8591977']
not sure how the sheaim got that Hill Giant either, it's early game and giants are beasts... it's not one of the three stooges, it's definitely a wild hill giant with 4XP, he still has UNITAI_ANIMAL :lol:

there is an event that spawns one

Gekko;8591977']
btw, it often happens that an animal goes crazy, kills a barb lair defender and starts guarding it himself. I've seen both griffons and stags guarding barrows :lol:

fixed.


Also, is it intended that Lizardmen are on the Beast team, while Griffons are on the Barbarian team? Seems like it should be the other way around.
I have never seen a barbarian Griffon. Would be a bug. Lizardmen are on the beast time, else they kill too many animals :lol:

Found something else. At least the Hippis can build Tumtum.

There is already a gameoption for Dragons ;)

Wyrms aren't dragons. Oh no, not common, everyday dragons. They're something much worse. Something that inhabits the deserts, the marshes, and the cold wastes of the north.... And does so right underneath your feet. :p


http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=12802

hmm, maybe 4/3?:
not sure about that. you could make barbarian skeletons 3+1 death again, like it used to be a while ago, and make lizardmen 2+1 poison. that way skeletons will be strong but slow, and lizardmen weak but quick.


there is an event that spawns one
oh, I see, they probably decided to lose pigs ang gain the giant. is it supposed to have 4 xp and have UNITAI_ANIMAL though?

speaking of events, the crazed swordsman event in FFH is bugged cuz it should have 10 xp and it has none, not sure if WM fixes that but would be nice.


@Cabbagemeister: "Deer resources already kind of do, since about half the time when I kill a stag lair, it pops a deer resource underneath. Same thing happens with Gorilla lairs and banana resources. Do elephant lairs exist in the game? I've never seen them."

that's cool but not what I was saying, I'm saying that deer and ivory should ACT as lairs, i.e. always have a lair on them that spawns animals. I think you're right there's no elephant lairs, we need them :D and that's a cool idea about bananas, bananas should act as gorilla lairs and always have a lair on them :D

btw Sephi, I see that after you added the Scions to the game now a couple haunted lands tiles spawn on the map here and there even if the scions are not present ( very uncommon, but I've seen a couple tiles with them. while you're at it, you could also add kelp to make coastal cities more interesting. making sea monsters more common would be nice too. ;)

Running beta III, I was chugging along when I suddenly couldn't work the cotton tiles in Nubia, which is a pain since I'm already hurting for commerce. It's as if another city was working the tiles, but there isn't one there. I checked in worldbuilder, and there aren't any invisible units on the tiles.

Here's the city screen (note the lack of yield icons to the right of the city):
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=232771&stc=1&d=1256904052]
Here's an overview:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=232772&stc=1&d=1256904052]

Save file attached.

:( should be fixed now. I had changed some code in the CvCity::canWork function while tracking a base FFH bug.

I have finetuned the Scion Lite module. They should fully work now except worldspell.

Animals and Barbs have a new spawn mechanism now. Basically every plot has a Animaldensity and Barbariandensity (number of animal/barb units close by) and if the density is below a targetvalue the plot has a chance to spawn a barbarian or animal.
Lairs have a high chance to spawn a unit if the Density is low.

Also Lairs aren't created at the beginning of the game, but throughout the game. And goblin forts will now always start with goblins. This should make the beginning less of a mess. So the world starts empty and after some turns is filled with animals, barbs and lairs.

Raging Barbs increases the max barb density by 50% and Wildlands the max Animal density by 50%.

oh, and Gorillas will use their taunt ability now :)

awesome stuff Sephi, thanx! a new beta with these fixes and tweaks would be great, I plan to have a nice WM game tonight, hopefully that will allow me to give some good thorough feedback.


question about Aggressive AI: any idea if the worst case scenario with it is "doesn't do anything" or is it a "AI reverts to BTS behaviour" ? :D

BTW, Sephi, which Scion worldspell are you going to use? The Breach (if that's what it's called) or Create Dark Council?

I'd go with the Breach. ;)

Found something else. At least the Hippis can build Tumtum.
made a small typo. Fixed :)

Scions Worldspell? Breach looks pretty cool. Might have to disable it for now though (stabilty)

latest patch, Loki is a unique unit for animals and beasts... damn I was Perpentach XD

btw, I think animals should be able to enter cultural borders. otherwise they always stay in the wilderness killing barbs. just make sure they don't attack cities unless enraged and everything will be fine... dragons and other beasts should probably be able to attack to, like spiders, griffons... FF+ system about animals becoming beasts after a while is nice, and making the animals that aren't really "animals" beasts would be cool too. like spiders, griffons, sea monsters...

and something is wrong with giant spiders, they're 5 attack 1 defence and they're not invisible... plus 5% chance of generating baby spider seems low.

oh, and a lion spawned on a peak :lol:

Gekko;8597051']latest patch, Loki is a unique unit for animals and beasts... damn I was Perpentach XD

already fixed

Gekko;8597051']
and something is wrong with giant spiders, they're 5 attack 1 defence and they're not invisible... plus 5% chance of generating baby spider seems low.

fixed. changed the chance to 10%

Gekko;8597051']
oh, and a lion spawned on a peak :lol:

I noticed that too. not sure if it should be considered a bug or feature? I can easily change it, but I kinda like the fact that animals and barbs spawn at hinterlands. Was the lion able to attack you?

he just lazed there for a while, now he's gone, not sure where. he was sitting right next to my cultural borders so he could not enter. I don't think units should be allowed to spawn on tiles they cannot enter anyway.

another possible cool thing: making animals become beasts not only after a certain strength increase through age, but also after they get enough XP.

a couple more things: animals are still guarding barb lairs, and tribal villages too. actually I think each different kind of lair should only allow its own kind of units as defenders. this would also keep Orthus and other strong barbs from sitting on a tile doing nothing instead of going around killing :D demons should not be allowed to guard tribal villages though.

one question... what happens now when someone completes that ritual that turns all barbs into animals?

btw, are barbs now a bit more suicidal than they used to be? they've been killing themselves on my walls quite a lot.

taking a look at some animals special abilities, the numbers still seem wrong somewhere:

giant spiders -> baby spider spawn chance after combat 10 % seems low and so does the 20% baby spiders have to mature into giant. the numbers seem to indicate that they will rarely spawn babies, and the babies are very likely to die before they get a chance to grow bigger. and imho spiders should use this system of kill -> spawn -> kill -> grow a lot more.

lions have a 25% chance to grow into a lion pack, which seems fine, problem is that the lion pride's ability to create dens is A LOT less appealing now that lairs are everywhere already :lol:

wolves have 70% chance to grow into wolf packs, good since they're weak. wolf packs have 100% chance to spawn a new one, but don't they also have an innate ability to spawn wolves every now and then without combat? that mechanic would be good for lion prides imho, if it exists of course :lol: but it could also be created from scratch I guess :D

Gekko;8597145']a couple more things: animals are still guarding barb lairs, and tribal villages too. actually I think each different kind of lair should only allow its own kind of units as defenders. this would also keep Orthus and other strong barbs from sitting on a tile doing nothing instead of going around killing :D demons should not be allowed to guard tribal villages though.

animals only guard the lair of their own kind, barbarians will guard any barb lair.

Gekko;8597145']
one question... what happens now when someone completes that ritual that turns all barbs into animals?

not quite sure, I think I just disabled that part of the ritual for now

Gekko;8597145']
btw, are barbs now a bit more suicidal than they used to be? they've been killing themselves on my walls quite a lot.

yes, they are more suicidal. I plan to have different kinds of barbs, some which are smarter, some which are not :p So you never know what they will do next :)

yes, they are more suicidal. I plan to have different kinds of barbs, some which are smarter, some which are not :p So you never know what they will do next :)

that's great. unpredictability will make things a lot more fun :D

one more small thing: lesser dragons should really be beasts instead of recon... if you0re worried about beastmasters capturing them, just give em loyalty. problem solved ;)

Gekko;8597180']wolves ... they're weak.

The starting scout has >90% odds against wolves, and it only gets better as he wins battles; they're pretty much free money as things stand. They also don't seem to get any defense bonus: I had just as good luck attacking them on hills/forests as in clear tiles.

Latest Beta version, repeatable CTD next turn.
232876

Gekko;8597180']taking a look at some animals special abilities, the numbers still seem wrong somewhere:

giant spiders -> baby spider spawn chance after combat 10 % seems low and so does the 20% baby spiders have to mature into giant. the numbers seem to indicate that they will rarely spawn babies, and the babies are very likely to die before they get a chance to grow bigger. and imho spiders should use this system of kill -> spawn -> kill -> grow a lot more.


You want to destroy my economy, don't you? :lol:

Given that spiders will likely kill a nice amount of barbs at start when barbs are still weak, you probably don't want too much of a chance early on imo. Not only that, but if you get animal husbandry early and capture one, you can prevent your close rivals even getting started. Giant spiders are fantastic for killing other civs warriors and workers early game, and if you have a steady supply of them, you can literally stop other close civs having a chance. I know - I've done it before! :p

If it is increased, then maybe it should only be at a tech like Bronze Working that they can be given a 'spawning promotion' to increase chances of spawning, so they only get it when they aren't at a massive strength advantage to other units.

Oh, and about the dragons getting loyalty in order to be beasts - I disagree, I think you should be able to capture them somehow - because, quite simply, they're cool - and loyalty would completely stop that. I got a couple with my druids! :D There's just something awesome about commanding dragons...

you may be right about giant spiders, but what about baby spiders? they're weak, and 20% chance is very low for them.

spider stealth could get weakened by making them only become invisible after they reach 25% fortify bonus, so that they're visible until they attack ( takes time to burrow )

AI could also get taught to leave a scout here andthere to watch out for them.

Playing as Scions, crash to desktop in beta 3 (the folder it's installed to in the Beyond the Sword mods directory and the desktop shortcut both read "Beta 2", although this is the first version I've installed) on hitting the "Next turn" button.

sorry for these CtDs. I made a small mistake in the code I added in version 3 to prevent OOS.

No need to apologise, it's all part and parcel of the beta shakedown process. :D Anyone choosing to participate should be cognizant that it's an iterative endeavour, and won't spring forth fully formed and immaculate from its coder's head.

No need to apologise, it's all part and parcel of the beta shakedown process. :D Anyone choosing to participate should be cognizant that it's an iterative endeavour, and won't spring forth fully formed and immaculate from its coder's head.

(conjures up images of Peewee's Playhouse's word of the day)

Hmm - with beta 2 (so you may have fixed it), I attacked with a dragon, and the stack I attacked ran onto the same square my dragon was on. Irritating - it let them attack me next turn! lol

edit - Just thought - may be to do with Nox Noctis.

Repeatable CTD....just hit enter. Beta V 3. In addition, the Balasaraphs (how the hell do you spell them?) can't build Loki.

BUG Beta V 3: Kuriotates are able to build the unit Hybo on the first turn.

nice catch, fixed

a new version of the Unofficial Patch has been released, it's definitely worth checking out since it's very likely that some ( maybe most ) of the bugs it fixes are also present in FFH. I know that Ahwaric has merged it with an upcoming Orbis patch for example. http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=12819

similarly, a new version of Better BTS AI ( 0.82 IIRC ) is out, not sure how useful it is to FFH though :D

The Naval AI is pretty good in Better AI :)

Beta 3: I keep having 4-6 barbarian warriors spawn in pairs around my capitol around turn 8, before I can build my first warrior. This is not very survivable--I've now lost three of four games before turn 15. Why have barbarians spawn so early?

Wasn't intented to have them spawn that early. I already set it so that barbarians will only spawn after some time like in BTS (about 20 turns in normal speed).

I started a game as Faeryl, and she is just outrageously overpowered on this setup: her starting scout can kill most of the animals with >95% odds, and since she starts with agriculture, subdue animal is just one tech away. I've played up to about turn 85, and have captured something like 20 animals, cleared about 10 lairs, and built the Grand Menagerie, despite losing a combat 5, subdue animal, bounty hunter scout on a bad defensive roll.

The options at start are a bit wrong - awakening the dragon enables the advanced start box... :p

(Just started using beta 3)

Also, the spider infested mine event gives a barbarian controlled spider rather than a beast controlled spider. (Or it did in beta two)

^^^ for some reason spiders are barbarian.


So I chose Sandolphon, and got Jundal. Not that I mind, but I didn't pick random Sidar, I picked Sandolphon. Also, there is no civ entry for Jundal, and no other leader has the "general" trait, so I can't see exactly what it does.

^^^ for some reason spiders are barbarian.


Hidden Nationality ;)

Hidden Nationality ;)

I am already amassing a nice collection of them this game. Lots of everything.

I'm really enjoying this mod! I appreciate all the extra animals, as it feels like my recon units are actually worth something in later game as opposed to just early scouting and hut-popping. I too was bummed, though, that I couldn't capture a dragon - especially when "subdue beast" netted me a hill giant! Seems like it should be the other way around.

I noticed that the AI seemed rather averse to building wonders. Granted, I was only playing on Noble (because I suck, haha) but the only wonders the AI built were the Pillar of Chains, Perfect Lyre, and Catacomb Libralus, and those were finally built long after the AI got the techs for them. All the others either I built or no one built. This goes for the religious special buildings as well as the normal wonders.

Another little thing was that I had a unit attack and kill a spectre, and then after he won I got the message that "axeman is too afraid to attack". That should probably happen before he wins. ;)

Also, I am having a problem with custom games. Memory allocation error - bad allocation, CTD, when I use one of the more complicated mapscripts, such as PerfectWorld2. I did not have this problem with Vanilla FFH. Just a head's up!