[MOD] MagisterModmod

I'm afraid I'm no expert on multiplayer games, as the only multiplayer games of Civ IV I've ever tried were hotsteat games against myself. First, did you make sure that all the players were running the same version of my modmod? There would obviously be issues if you are not using identical versions. Second, could you share your .log files from the multiplayer game with OOS errors? I might be able to track down an issue from looking at those. You may need to first edit CivilizationIV.ini (found in the Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword directory) so that LoggingEnabled = 1 and SynchLog = 1. It is probably best for RandLog = 1 and MessageLog = 1 too. I'm not sure, but you may need for all the players to modify their CivilizationIV.ini thus.





It is the Necronomicon that is giving your units Mutation.

Asylums Have a 10% chance of giving living, non-world units Crazed when they are first created. In vanilla FfH2, these same units are also given Enraged. In my version, it removes Enraged instead, but I'm thinking that might not actually do anything as there is no buildable unit that starts with Enraged from its xml defines.

Crazed units still gain the Enraged promotion at random. Asylums will remove this promotion, but only if the unit is in the city at the start of the turn. (The <bApplyFreePromotionOnMove> tag is a misnomer, as in the BtS versions of FfH2 it actually only removes promotions at the start of a turn rather than on move.) The problem is that Enraged units tend not to stay in one place long enough to be in the Asylum to have their Enraged promotions removed. The other problem is that the check to remove promotions based on the buildings in the city probably happens before the check to randomly apply promotions based on other promotions.
 
A problem regarding installation:
I've had this problem for other Civ 4 mods as well. When I open the installer and it asks me where to install it chooses the correct(BtS/Mods) folder. But the problem is this- it always misspells Civilization. i.e-D:/Games/Civiliaion 4/....So because of this I've and my pathetic memory every time I install a mod I realize this and have to reinstall it and change the source in the desktop shortcut. Not much of a hassle, but in this case it is different. The component 'Magister Modmod for FfH2 Core Files' installs fine but the component 'Copy Fall from Heaven 2 Files' tries to copy FfH 2 files from D:/.../Civiliaon 4/... instead of Civilization 4, even though I had changed the installation location in the previous step. So the init XML check while the game is loading fails. I've tried copying the XML files from the FfH 2 folder which the Magister Modmod folder lacks, but it doesn't start at all then:(.
Very unfortunate, as I really wanted to play this modmod after hearing it concentrates a lot on lore (especially coming from you:worship:).
And IMHO, I believe FFH2 shall be really called complete when each civilopedia entry has something in the history sections.
Many regards,
Akbarthegreat.

EDIT: In short, I want to know which XML files this modmod copies from the FfH2 folder during installation.
 
The problem is that Enraged units tend not to stay in one place long enough to be in the Asylum to have their Enraged promotions removed. The other problem is that the check to remove promotions based on the buildings in the city probably happens before the check to randomly apply promotions based on other promotions.
Could you use python to replace the Crazed promotion with Commited when in a city with an asylum and then have Commited switch to Crazed when not in a city with an asylum? That way "Crazed" units would only be at risk of becoming Enraged if outside the asylum.

Edit: Make the Committed promotion autoaquired/mustmaintain for units with the Crazed promotion when in a city with an Asylum. Then make Committed block the Enraged promotion.
 
It is the Necronomicon that is giving your units Mutation.

That's...pretty terrible. Mutation is a dangerous ability with just as much chance of ruining a unit as giving it a benefit. I often end up with the holy city in my capital, meaning that building the shrine is a serious detriment to my ability to create reliable troops. The occasional heroic strength or blitz is not worth the countless rebellious, crazed, or blinded units that will pop out.
 
That's...pretty terrible. Mutation is a dangerous ability with just as much chance of ruining a unit as giving it a benefit. I often end up with the holy city in my capital, meaning that building the shrine is a serious detriment to my ability to create reliable troops. The occasional heroic strength or blitz is not worth the countless rebellious, crazed, or blinded units that will pop out.

+1

For me, the Necromanticon is , as it is now, the least deirable holy shrine.
 
For the past couple weeks I've noticed that when my laptop got hot from leaving it for a few days and playing civ iv a few random horizontal lines would flicker on the screen. Most of the time it is just one line, but once it was most of the screen and trying to change the resolution resulted in the rightmost inch being displayed on the left and the bottom inch on the top. Restarting always fixed the problem, but it left me concerned. I asked someone what do do about it yesterday when I took my mothers desktops to the shop for a free diagnostic. (A transformer blew out on Sunday morning, and caused a surge that may have fried the PC she has been using. I also brought the shop her old PC, which we have not used since last summer when it started overheating and automatically restarting every 5 minutes or so. I figured that can fix which ever costs less and salvage parts from the other.) He strongly recommended that I return the HP Pavilion g7 to the store while I sill can. I did so, and while at BestBuy decided to spend an extra $30 to trade up to this Asus that has a USB3 port and a 2nd Gen Intel® Core&#8482; i5-2450M processor. I think it will be much better overall, although I did prefer the larger screen of the HP. I like the layout of my mod better when I can use the 1600x900 resolution. All of the x768 resolutions tend to cut off the bottom of the screen with widescreen laptops. The 1280x720 seems adequate in windowed mode though.

I thought that I had saved my latest version to my external hard drive before switching laptops, but it seems I forgot. I am now having to start over and redo my latest changed from my last released version.
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@Akbarthegreat:
I have no idea why the installer would be having such issues. I a no expert on installers. I just followed Valkirion's Inno Install Script Tutorial. It might be best to ask him for help.

Most of the FfH2 files are needed. I would recommend you try saving a copy of base FfH2 in the directory where the installer is trying to place my modmod and then running my installer again. That will probably work. Copying the FfH2 files to my modmd's folder manually would overwrite most of my customized files.

If nothing else works, I suppose I could release both an installer and an archive of the files in folders.

@Lplate:
I followed your suggestion and added a Committed promotion, but then lost that version when I switched laptops and have not yet reimplemented it. Since I am using Tholal's DLL instead of Xienwolf's, there are no autoaquired/mustmaintain tags. I had to resort to a spell to add Committed, and another dummy spell with its effect in its python prerequisite to remove it once the unit leaves the city. For some reason I never figured out, the spell that granted the promotion was not working.

@Fafnir13 and scutarii:
If you insist, I will change the Necronomicon to grant Amphibious instead of Mutated.
 
I do not know is it possible or not but I'd add from Necromanticon a unique promotion to produced units: + 50% str on the coast, next to river(yes, city garrnisons count too) Like a um...+50 tundra promo for battlemasters.
 
It would require major SDK changes to allow a promotion to give an actual combat bonus based on being adjacent to a river or coast. It is easy to negate the combat penalties from attacking across a river or from a water tile (this is what Amphibious does) plus a combat bonus on the Coast/Ocean/Black Sea/Abyss terrain types. I have no real intention of creating a new promotion just for this though.
 
I really want something stronger...and amfibius...too unsignificant.... hmmm....amfibious and water walking free promo are nice combo, don't you think?a free water 2 promo to everyone?
I'd give to water mana and nodes a chance to find new resources from the water.

and instead of pretty useless water3 spell summon water elemetal: flooding - floods plains and grasslands - simiulates water tiles for 3 rounds. useful for attacking/defending cities,(units w/o water2 promo can't move) etc. w3 promo lost after usage.
 
Thank you! :D
OO has been my favorite religion since the beginning of my FFH-ing, so I'm rather sensitive to anything that seems to weaken/disrupt it. I was really unhappy when craze was originally changed, and made a number of complaints that never made any difference. Seriously, why would anyone want lunatics?
Spirit III makes them a possibility again, but I digress.

Looking at the promos from other shrines, we've got Command I (Order), Perfect Sight(Empy), Subdue Animal(Hippies), Stigmata(Veil), Guerilla II(RoK), Stealth(Essus), Immune to Cold(White Hand), and Scourge(Uh...Grigori).
Kind of a mixed bag, and direct comparisons really shouldn't be made as some religions come way later and have way better heroes. Early game religions get a big boost as they are in effect for a lot longer and the religion itself gives the owner quite a boost in the early game. OO is especially scary as they get a cultist. Does the enemy have coastal/river towns? Not anymore. The xp gained from killing all those coastal guys should even give your army enough promos to tackle any early game defense, especially when combined with some bronzed warriors.
That all said, I think amphibious is perfectly reasonable, with perhaps one addendum. Perhaps water walking could be enabled not as the free promo, but as a possible upgrade if the unit has OO religion and amphibious? That could be fun and not too game breaking (well, anymore breaking then it currently is ;) )

Side note: Tablets of Bambur have an insane free specialist bonus. Could it be changed to certain resources (gems, gold, bronze, etc) instead of the mines themselves?

Playing Illians single player last night. Weird stuff happened when the White Hand was founded. A video tried to play, but it was blank. Then the game kept windowing out with an error message about video memory being full or something (I forget the original message). Eventually had the end the FFH process. Loaded the save a few more times with similar results, until I managed to click on one of the civ tabs on the top right. This seemed to interrupt the movie and let me keep playing. Having wonder vids disabled would have probably worked too.
 
Playing Illians single player last night. Weird stuff happened when the White Hand was founded. A video tried to play, but it was blank. Then the game kept windowing out with an error message about video memory being full or something (I forget the original message). Eventually had the end the FFH process. Loaded the save a few more times with similar results, until I managed to click on one of the civ tabs on the top right. This seemed to interrupt the movie and let me keep playing. Having wonder vids disabled would have probably worked too.
You can also just press enter when that pop-up appears.And I'm just going to say this here for no reason: Lose. Lose is a verb. You lose things. You can lose games. You can lose battles. I can lose my sanity. But you cannot "loose" these things. Lose. Looooooooose. Blargh.
 
It would require major SDK changes to allow a promotion to give an actual combat bonus based on being adjacent to a river or coast. It is easy to negate the combat penalties from attacking across a river or from a water tile (this is what Amphibious does) plus a combat bonus on the Coast/Ocean/Black Sea/Abyss terrain types. I have no real intention of creating a new promotion just for this though.


How about just a simple Drill I&II promotion for the berzerkers?
 
@Fafnir13:
The game does not not allow you to make the unit's religion a prerequisite for promotions, only the player's state religion. I would not want a bunch of RoK units purchasing Water Walking. Speakers have a spell to a temporary version of water walking to units in their stack anyway, so being able to purchase it late in the game would not be that great anyway.

Keep in mind that in my modmod, having Amphibious already allows units to purchase Boarding. I considered having the Necronomicon add boarding, but that would take away from the uniqueness of he Lanun Harbor.


I'm thinking I already reduced the number of free specialists from improvements, but I'll have to check to be sure and perhaps do so again if those were changes I lost in the laptop switch. (The version on my external hard drive was actually only about a week old, still more recent than my last release.)

I never turn movies on, but I would have expected that the issue with founding The White Hand would have been fixed in the last release. I set set it to use he Council of Esus video specifically for that purpose.


@Cutlass:
I don't know what adding Drill promotions to Berserkers has to do with anything we were discussing, but it would be an easy change. I don't think the makes much sense thematically though, as Berserkers are very undisciplined units fighting from rage rather than carefully practiced tactics. I think it would be better to make the unit itself immune to first strikes, which is even easier.
 
my idea for berserkers: during berserking +march and blitz and immune to 1st strikes - true badasses(although out of control), instead of one shot wonders. Usually I upgraded troops with good promost to berserks, but now I have no reason to invest to tech and units(berserks usually die after first kill).
 
Berserkers may be all about rage in the middle of combat, but that doesn't mean they won't go where they are told to go in the first place. Once they got to the front lines, there could definitely be problems getting them to not attack (as with many armies in history), but I don't think that equates to running around willy nilly across the continent looking for something to kill.
 
Hmm...I'm thinking now that it may be better to get rid of the Crazed promotion for Berserkers and instead give them a Berserk spell that grants the caster Enraged and Burning Blood. I would probably have to get rid of the Doviello Circle of Urd UU (as I certainly do not want to allow the Elohim Counselor UU the same ability I would need to use <UnitPrereq> instead of <UnitClassPrereq>), but as far as I can tell there is no reason for this UU to exist anyway. Going back to just unique art seems fine. There is no need for the Brujah to have access to the same spell, as it already has a version that effects more then just the caster.
 
Perhaps a special promo that works like enraged but has a much higher benefit, maybe some healing after winning a combat too. I've also noticed that the targeting on enraged can be a little....off. I have seen units completely ignore enemies much closer to chase down a worker have way across the continent. Could the AI on berserkers (or all enraged units, for that matter) be altered to target the closest unit?
Started up a new Illian game. Barbs had taken out way too many Civs in the last one. I got to watch via a hawk as a high level wraith slowly pick apart the Amurites around turn 100. The Amurites had Orthus's Ax. Then the wraith got it. :eek:
I'm just glad the thing never came south. I was also responsible for the destruction of the Sidar. Used a scout to explore an epic lair near their borders and spawned several ogers. My scout quickly ran away. Few turns later, the Sidar were whiped out. Honest, officer, I don't know what could have happened to them. :mischief:
I'm thinking there should be a delay on exploring lairs outside your borders. Maybe 50 turns for basic lairs, 100 for the big ones. Could even give lair exploring a tech or unit level prerequisite.
Anyways, in my new Illian game, Lettum Frigus was on another continent. I was able to quickly wipe out the nearby civs and set up a new mini-empire. Reminded me of switching to the infernals. Small group of units cut off from any support, but so strong that they don't really care. Plays havoc with maintenance until a summer palace can be built, but better then letting the units sit idle I think.
 
I said it would also be given Burning Blood, which gives blitz, immunity to fear, +1 movement points, a 20% combat bonus, and a chance of turning barbarian.


I would love it if Tholal made it so that enraged units would attack the nearest target, but I have no idea how to edit the AI myself.
 
I like the idea of the randomness of that mutation gave to the Necronomicon, but I can also understand why people wouldn't want a shrine hurting their units. Instead of just granting amphibious, could you make a new promotion that has a chance to only apply the positive effects of mutation? Call it "Touch by the Overlords" or something.
 
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