[MOD] MagisterModmod

Magister:

First off, thanks for creating, and continuing to support, your modmod. Much enjoyment being had by me, I feel that it's the best flavor of FFH2 yet.

On adventurers. I upgrade an adventurer to a mage, collect the magely promotions, then sit him in a city til he reverts to adventurer. Then I upgrade him to a tank unit. Or a horse unit and collect flankings and mobility 2. In essence I subvert the specialization doctrine of promotions when I use adventurers. Intended or exploit?

Well, let's be honest : a "hero" that don't gain XP as normal hero, that can't cast lvl III spell except wonder, and cost that much and come relatively late seem useless.

I am trying to find some idea to convey the loki crazyness with other means. Maybe a chance to put enraged on unit in an entertained city ? A version of disrupt that add significant culture to the city after conversion and give Loki to the affected civilisation ? A version of the mind III spell that give the unit to a random civilisation you know, or the barbarian, or you ?

I do agree that random and fair idea for Loki are pretty hard to come by.

Calavente said:

I didn't use the blood guard as they did not seems strong with regard to the very bad aristocracy (I'm not sure I can afford the -1 from farms)

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Well, I may be old school, but aristocracy tend to be very good and not very bad as soon as you have either agrianism or the tech that give +1 food.

well, true, but I have a hard enough time to get 16-20 size cities with both agrarianism AND the tech with +1 food... that aristo seems dangerous.
However I'm currently trying it : I went to sacrifice the weak to compensate for the -1food...
but now I have instabillity : huge money investement to prevent the revolts...

Calavente said:

but now I have instabillity : huge money investement to prevent the revolts...

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I didn't know that, since I do not use revolution. Mainly because I believe revolution is not something realistic on Erebus. The Pillar of Chain being the visual reminder of why it should not happen.

See the good side : with Aristocracy, you can get the money you need more easily.

Whenever I start up a game after the first turn I get a message that "the barbarian civilization has been destroyed" after the first turn. If have barbarian world and raging barbarians on.

Is this normal or is this a problem? I haven't gotten a chance to play much into the game just trying out some set-ups. Maybe I was using too many Civs, I had 24...

TheLazyHase said:

See the good side : with Aristocracy, you can get the money you need more easily.

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with without aristocracy I wouldn't have needed that money

well I like revolutions..; it's fun. but the Ai don't know what to do about it.
it forces you to make puppet states rather than assimilate your conquests.
there should be something to improve the things...
(the only issue is the great number of - things you can't do many things against and the low number of + things.)

I just found that you could spend cash money to greatly reduce the revolution % in the city... but then I needed to spend 4-10 turns at 100% gold to refill the treasury

Judecca is way too strong (in human hand) in comparison of other demon lord.

The kicker is that he can dualcast Beast of Agares as soon as you have Fanaticism. Beasts of Agares are extremely tough and gain 2 turn of duration for each unit you destroy, meaning you quickly get a savage mob of 12+ beasts. And Judecca can concentrate on combat I-V, Heroic Strength, and Dimensional promotion since you don't really need other spell anyway. The AI just can't handle that - and even a human wouldn't be able to cope with that if he don't kill Judecca before he have a significant Beast stack.

TheLazyHase said:

Judecca is way too strong (in human hand) in comparison of other demon lord.

The kicker is that he can dualcast Beast of Agares as soon as you have Fanaticism. Beasts of Agares are extremely tough and gain 2 turn of duration for each unit you destroy, meaning you quickly get a savage mob of 12+ beasts. And Judecca can concentrate on combat I-V, Heroic Strength, and Dimensional promotion since you don't really need other spell anyway. The AI just can't handle that - and even a human wouldn't be able to cope with that if he don't kill Judecca before he have a significant Beast stack.

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v

I have already mentioned it before, maybe two can convince Magister, speakin of tweaking judecca. My idea: judecca can summon beasts of agares in cities, but every summoning costs 1 population per beast. Before summoning infernal pact, I save: in case of judecca I reload. with judecca "conquest win" is ridiculously easy.

Reducing the city population seems like too great a cost for temporary summon, particularly for players whose cities cannot grow from food.

I am considering implementing any or all of the 3 following options:
1) making Theology a prerequisite for the spell, so Judecca cannot use it any earlier than a Profane could
2) using python to cause a (~2 turn) revolt whenever a Beast of Agares is created in a city
3) using a python prerequisite to block the spell when the player currently owns a Beast of Agares belonging to that particular summoner.

MagisterCultuum said:

I am considering implementing any or all of the 3 following options:
1) making Theology a prerequisite for the spell, so Judecca cannot use it any earlier than a Profane could

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I humbly believe this being the best of the three. Theology is pretty advanced, and while Judecca would still have an hefty advantage, he is supposed to be a powerful demon after all.

I recently started playing your mod again, pretty heavily too. I have some comments and I guess questions about some of the things you have done with this mod.

Grigori:

Why do the Adventurers lose the class they have upgraded to? I find them almost unplayable because of this. I didn't take notes, but I had one adventurer become a base adventurer three times in about ten turns.

What is the thinking behind this? I've parked an adventurer in a city to protect it from Orthus and find he has become a base model when the time comes to show his mettle.

I'm just not getting what your angle is on this.

Ilians:

1) I can't seem to build The White Hand with any Ilian leader besides Auric. The other available guys are pretty awful, and they can't build the White Hand? With a non-Auric leader they are definitely the weakest civ.

2) The Ilians seem like they always start on extremely northern terrain. Whatever their cold weather benefits, they always seem to lag in production and population compared to other civs.

This means they get to Priesthood very slowly. I'm used to playing them as an early rush civ with the White Hand in other versions, but they are so much slower in this one getting there.

3) Whatever that pop up thing is when the White Hand is founded, it crashes my game.

On a more general note:

I've played about 30 games with your July 15th version. It seems like the Ilians get steamrolled early, or never become a major force in any game I have played if the AI is playing them. I'm not sure I have ever seen them with any Priests of the Hand honestly, but it is hard to tell. If they make it to round 300 or 400, they are usually in a little pocket somewhere waiting for the Khazad or someone to exterminate them.

Oddly enough despite my problems with the Grigori, the AI seems to do just fine with them. I've seen them become a steamroller very often.

Well anyway, thanks for the mod. I enjoy it more than base now, but I don't play either of those two civs.

Oh yeah, something else I want to bring up. You are using portions of the More Naval AI.

Something is screwy with the whole diplomacy thing with that mod. Several times I have been the only good civilization in the game, with the rest neutral or evil. Some evil civilization declares war on you, okay I get that. But then every other civ you know about immediately declares war on you?

Is there some kind of weighting in the AI with that mod, that makes you look "weaker" if you are at war with someone else, and thus a better target to attack? In one instance I can think of, Ameliancher had Fellowship of Leaves as I did, and was on a different continent. Little interaction had been done with him, only real difference between us was neutral versus good.

He immediately dogpiles with all the rest. I'm just not getting it.

Re the evil civilizations declaring war on you at once -- they are probably all part of the Undercouncil and passing a pact of mutual war against you.

Re Adventurers and Auric -- Magister Cultuum's mod is much more closely tied to the lore than any other FFH2 mod. 1) The adventurers may become bored if they aren't a) in rival territory or b) moved each turn. This is due to Grigori adventurers' fame for unreliability (This has been mentioned several times in this thread already, and it can actually be quite beneficial for collecting non-standard bonuses on a unittype).

The White Hand is only founded by the Illians or Doviello if Auric is present in the game as a leader. Since the mod is steeped in the lore, this is thematically appropriate.

Thanks, that makes sense.

If Auric isn't the leader can the Ilians adopt a religion besides the White Hand?

This is probably actually a MoreNavalAI issue, but I'm wondering if it's typical for the AI to build 15 to 20+ cities in this mod? The Clan and Grigori each have over 10 cities by turn 100 (when I have 3) and over 18 by turn 200 (when I have 6 -- the Grigori have 1/3 of the total land area with something like 25 cities). Strangely, this doesn't seem to be affecting gold/tech production -- they are researching Taxation as I'm just beginning on Currency.

I'm struggling in the early game to keep up with other civs -- I just can't keep pace with their city building without wrecking my economy. I'm typically at the bottom of the stack in victory points, with many others having twice as many as me. When the large civs DoW they easily overpower my 6 cities in just a few turns because I'm so far behind in tech.

So, is this normal and I just need to adjust my expectations and play style? I'm glad to see the AI actually pursuing real victories. I'm just not sure what I should be doing differently.

I'm playing as Amurites on Noble, standard sized map, normal game speed, no revolutions.

Acrux said:

This is probably actually a MoreNavalAI issue, but I'm wondering if it's typical for the AI to build 15 to 20+ cities in this mod? The Clan and Grigori each have over 10 cities by turn 100 (when I have 3) and over 18 by turn 200 (when I have 6 -- the Grigori have 1/3 of the total land area with something like 25 cities). Strangely, this doesn't seem to be affecting gold/tech production -- they are researching Taxation as I'm just beginning on Currency.

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Typical. AI have much reduced city upkeep and bonus to production, to help them with the sorry fact that they are relatively subpar as far as city placement go (not to mention that they aren't very efficient in unit handling).

Then again, on noble keeping up with their expansion usually isn't hard, you should be able to keep up just by using courthouse and settler ; you may also just steamroll your first neighbor to get additiona cities. Or try to play Kuriotates which don't have any upkeep problem.

Edit : also, it may a problem of defensive army composition. Unlike what you may believe, archery is actually very bad for defense. Fire II mage, assassins, and horse unit (including horse archer) are way, way better.

One issue 4 you Magister; I really miss the old priest of leaves that can plant new forests and I think they are the weakest priests now. It is true that they require there Religion to access there true strength but iven so whit Fol the best think you can do is summon wolfs and lions at best tigers, you could add them nature one and be able to take nature 2 if you have nature mana since there are not that great spells first ads +1 poison to recon and the second joust creates a new forest on the tile the same can be told about stonewardens and vicars but here i have no idea, earth 2 and sun 2 spells may seem good but malakim and vicars it is a to good combination and a stonewarden whit stoneskin on a hill is imba . But yes it can be a idea to add to all the priests access to lvl 1 and 2 of there masters sphere and this would be loyal to the FFH lore, cultists whit waterwalking is same as in base ffh, confessors and host of einherjar will be on par whit summon pitbeast from ritualists and ofcorse the unholy taint can represent the bound from the levels of hell and gives access to all the gods sphere that reside there.

Well, maybe that priest of the leave are not overly strong, but look at two thing :

* ancient forest. It is an economic benefit far stronger than what give any other civ, especially coupled with Guardian of nature to keep thoses peoples happy regarless.

* IIRC, high priest of leave can summon guardian vine and are consequently extremely strong, since guardians vines can immobilizes unit as well as being pretty though.

Also, the two fellowship heroes are powerhouses, especially Yvain. I don't believe that because priest of leave may be a bit subpar compared to Stonewarden the fellowship itself is weak.

Fellowship of leave is already pretty much mandatory for some civ. Strengthening it seem a not so great idea.

Hey this is a great mod! Playing my first game and going crazy trying to stem the revolts.

Tons of fun and a nice twist on vanilla FFH2.

I thought Ascension was supposed to mean the Illians won. Now I have to finish off the cities I ignored.