Fall Further - The Original Thread

Vehem · Feb 24, 2008

Sarisin said:
OK, Vehem, I downloaded the file, unzipped it and placed it as specified in your instructions.

Please forgive my ignorance as I have never run a mod within a mod, so what is the best way to do that?

Are those 3 new civs available to me in my future games by just doing putting the unzipped files in the correct Assets directory? Will they be selected as part of the Random ai civ selection?

Or is there another step I have to do to load your mod after I am in FFH2.

Thanks, I'm looking forward to playing with/against those civs.

Once the Assets are in place, they should appear in the list and the AI will select them randomly too, aye. I've tried to integrate them seamlessly to the main mod, simply extra content.

Psychic_Llamas said:
I think the Dural Hero lacks the flavour and character that the other heroes have, to me he just seems like an adventurer with a tiny advantage. is there some way that you could make him more unique? perhaps allow him to make a special tile improvement that, if inside the civs borders, grants the unit on it the courage, loyalty and homeland promotions temporarily? like some war statue that inspires the soldiers. or if not, make it a building like hope.

That was pretty much deliberate, at least the "small advantage" part. I didn't want any one unit of the Dural to drastically outshine the others but Karrlson is a particularly well-practiced warrior for the reasons outlined in his background story. He is basically a champion with an additional Strength, Movement and the Hero promotion - simply an "excellent warrior".

Ekolite · Feb 24, 2008

Looks good. Does it work with other modmods?

Psychic_Llamas · Feb 24, 2008

That was pretty much deliberate, at least the "small advantage" part. I didn't want any one unit of the Dural to drastically outshine the others but Karrlson is a particularly well-practiced warrior for the reasons outlined in his background story. He is basically a champion with an additional Strength, Movement and the Hero promotion - simply an "excellent warrior".

ok, thats fair enough

id still like him to have some funky hero mechanic like the others though. but thats just personal preference.

Vehem · Feb 24, 2008

Kol.7 said:
Looks good. Does it work with other modmods?

Depends on the Modmod. Apparently it does with Xien's modules, but I imagine it won't blend with Magister's without a little work. Event mods should probably work fine - provided they stick to the normal events XML/Python files as I haven't touched those.

Sarisin · Feb 24, 2008

OK, I've played 250 turns (Epic speed) as Chislev. It is always fun trying a new civ, but so far this has been better with so many new things to see and try.

I only just got my 2nd city, though, as I have been getting pounded early by raging barbs (they came in force on turn 152, a little earlier than I expected).

Here are some of my early impressions:

1. What no starting tech?

This hurt me early in the game as most civs start with one. With the Spiritual trait how about starting with Ancient Chants?

2. GP points seem to be hard to come by for this new civ. I know it is early, but I used to enjoy getting that Pagan Temple so I could get Great Prophet pts. Not so with the replacement - btw, when you get Mysticism, the 2 replacements are showing the same picture as the old Elder Council...a little confusing.

3. I love the Totem of the Old Enemy.

It is great that you brought back the good old Orcish promotion, especially at 20%...and my Hunters and Archers are getting it too! Not, my Adepts, though, but I cannot be greedy. It is helping a lot defending against the barb invasion.

4. The icons on screen are a bit confusing. There is a good unit model for both the Hunter and Archer, but the icon shown for both is the same as for the Warrior. I think even the Horse Archer uses the same icon.

I'm looking forward to getting some of the promised better things now that I have my 3rd city.

So far, and outstanding modmod! Thanks, Vehem.

Oh, one more thing...the Chislev hero seems so far away. I often don't even get to Strength of Will in many of my games. Any chance of moving this to Arcane Lore? Thanks.

Vehem · Feb 24, 2008

Sarisin said:
OK, I've played 250 turns (Epic speed) as Chislev. It is always fun trying a new civ, but so far this has been better with so many new things to see and try.

I only just got my 2nd city, though, as I have been getting pounded early by raging barbs (they came in force on turn 152, a little earlier than I expected).

Here are some of my early impressions:

1. What no starting tech? This hurt me early in the game as most civs start with one. With the Spiritual trait how about starting with Ancient Chants?

2. GP points seem to be hard to come by for this new civ. I know it is early, but I used to enjoy getting that Pagan Temple so I could get Great Prophet pts. Not so with the replacement - btw, when you get Mysticism, the 2 replacements are showing the same picture as the old Elder Council...a little confusing.

3. I love the Totem of the Old Enemy. It is great that you brought back the good old Orcish promotion, especially at 20%...and my Hunters and Archers are getting it too! Not, my Adepts, though, but I cannot be greedy. It is helping a lot defending against the barb invasion.

4. The icons on screen are a bit confusing. There is a good unit model for both the Hunter and Archer, but the icon shown for both is the same as for the Warrior. I think even the Horse Archer uses the same icon.

I'm looking forward to getting some of the promised better things now that I have my 3rd city.

So far, and outstanding modmod! Thanks, Vehem.

Oh, one more thing...the Chislev hero seems so far away. I often don't even get to Strength of Will in many of my games. Any chance of moving this to Arcane Lore? Thanks.

Thanks for the feedback - I'll see what I can do about the button-artwork tonight.

The lack of tech was a design choice to provide them with a slightly slower start as they can offset maintenance significantly with their later game abilites, plus it fits with the background and the fact they've just lost a lot of their tribe - they're effectively rebuilding from scratch. I do agree however that Ancient Chants would be an appropriate first tech for them (they had it originally, but I removed it as they could get education quite quickly with it). Something I'll seriously consider if other people feel the same way about the lack of tech.

Good point regarding Meskwaki as well - I would like to let him make an appearance in most games and Strength of Will is uniquely expensive. I may move him to Arcane Lore as you suggest and add a second lower level tech-requirement (along a different, useful research-line, possibly Warfare with "The Council of the Warchief")

it-ogo · Feb 24, 2008

I am strongly excited with your modmod, Vehem. I think you found a good balance between novelty and implementability. And I found at least 2 civs (Dural and Chislev) more interesting for builder (which I am) then Sidar (announced in Shadow as builder-oriented).

Hope you will be enough patient to polish your modmod and update it with each patch.

First few toughts.
1) Being able to found and adopt religion and being unable to spread it is frustrating. I'd like to make Dural able to build first-level disciples without prerequisite of temples. Otherwise Dural are too attached to Counsil of Esus, that is counter-intuitive IMO.
2) I feel that Giant spiders at time of Feral Bond are rather useless. Strength 4 (even 5 with strong), movement 1, no XP and support cost... Collecting spiders is costly. Constant attacking enemies with spiders just provide them XP. I didn't check but as I remember GS can't pillage. I think GS can be useful if they get movement and ability to pillage. But even in this case it means much micromanagement. Anotheir solution is to grant spiders Arcane promo which gives slow xp growth... But that is not enough. Maybe after Feral Bond give hero promo to each generated spider?

But the best is to make spiders support-free for Archos if it is possible.

MagisterCultuum · Feb 24, 2008

it-ogo said:
Anotheir solution is to grant spiders Arcane promo which gives slow xp growth... But that is not enough.

Keep in mind that the Arcane Promotion only grants caster xp, so it only gives xp to disciples and arcane units. It would be useless for spiders.

Vehem · Feb 24, 2008

I've just posted a "Patch A" in the third part of the thread (Changelog and Patches) for 2030j-010 (these version numbers are getting ridiculous, but the first part is the FFH2 version, the "010" is the Fall Further version)

Included are the unit and building buttons for Chislev. I had meant to complete those initially but got caught up in writing the TXT_KEY's and background and simply forgot them. It's another "Assets" directory install, so just drop it into the mod-folder as you would with a FFH patch.

Vehem · Feb 24, 2008

it-ogo said:
First few toughts.
1) Being able to found and adopt religion and being unable to spread it is frustrating. I'd like to make Dural able to build first-level disciples without prerequisite of temples. Otherwise Dural are too attached to Counsil of Esus, that is counter-intuitive IMO.

I've had a look into this one - it was pretty much supposed to work the way you suggested.

=====
To explain, there are two important tags relating to buildings. <BuildingClass> and <Type>. The BuildingClass is always BUILDINGCLASS_SOMETHING whilst the building is BUILDING_SOMETHING. In many cases the "SOMETHING" part is the same, but for Unique buildings, it differs. For instance, the Lanun Harbor starts with the following two lines

Code:

            <BuildingClass>BUILDINGCLASS_HARBOR</BuildingClass>
            <Type>BUILDING_HARBOR_LANUN</Type>

The "Type" is BUILDING_HARBOR_LANUN, but this is just a type of Harbor so it belongs to BUILDINGCLASS_HARBOR. In the Lanun CivInfo, BUILDINGCLASS_HARBOR is set to be replaced by this building, instead of the default BUILDING_HARBOR.

Normally, if a Unit relies on a BuildingClass being present, and that BuildingClass is set to "NONE" for the Civ, then that Civ does not require the building as a prerequisite. This is how the Doviello (and to a lesser extent, Archos) have some units that do not require the appropriate buildings.

The Religious units however do not depend upon <PrereqBuildingClass>, but have a <PrereqBuilding> tag. That means that races unable to build that *specific* building cannot build the unit at all.
====

I had assumed they behaved like the first, but they don't. The "fix" would be to switch

Code:

            <PrereqReligion>RELIGION_FELLOWSHIP_OF_LEAVES</PrereqReligion>
            <PrereqCorporation>NONE</PrereqCorporation>
            <PrereqBuilding>BUILDING_TEMPLE_OF_LEAVES</PrereqBuilding>
            <PrereqTech>TECH_WAY_OF_THE_FORESTS</PrereqTech>

for

Code:

            <PrereqReligion>RELIGION_FELLOWSHIP_OF_LEAVES</PrereqReligion>
            <PrereqCorporation>NONE</PrereqCorporation>
            <PrereqBuilding>NONE</PrereqBuilding>
            <PrereqTech>TECH_WAY_OF_THE_FORESTS</PrereqTech>

in each Disciple and then add

Code:

            <PrereqAlignment>NONE</PrereqAlignment>
            <PrereqBuildingClass>BUILDINGCLASS_TEMPLE_OF_LEAVES</PrereqBuildingClass>
            <PrereqCivic>NONE</PrereqCivic>

further down in the file. I'm not sure at the moment however whether the Grigori (and possibly Illians) rely on this behaviour to block their religion spreading units being built, so I'd need to check that before making it part of this mod - I don't want to break existing civs for the sake of new ones.

Thanks for spotting it - if it turns out that the Grigori don't rely on that, it'll be sorted out in a patch.

EDIT: They do rely on it. I can still get round that by explicitly banning the Grigori from building Disciple units, but I originally hoped not to have to alter any of Kael's civs as part of this mod (the behaviour wouldn't actually change so far as the player can see - but it would alter things "behind the scenes").

it-ogo · Feb 24, 2008

Vehem said:
EDIT: They do rely on it. I can still get round that by explicitly banning the Grigori from building Disciple units, but I originally hoped not to have to alter any of Kael's civs as part of this mod (the behaviour wouldn't actually change so far as the player can see - but it would alter things "behind the scenes").

Hmm... I think there is a way to replace for Durals all 1lvl disciples by UUs with no building prereqs or replace temples by void UBs.

MagisterCultuum · Feb 24, 2008

You could add a python block not allowing Agnostic civs to build temples.

Vehem · Feb 24, 2008

it-ogo said:
Hmm... I think there is a way to replace for Durals all 1lvl disciples by UUs with no building prereqs or replace temples by void UBs.

That's the way Temples are currently blocked. The Unique disciples is an option. I was looking for a "neater" one but that might end up being the way I do it in preference to altering the Grigori.

A simple switch to "Student of the Leaves", "Student of Kilmorph" would be fairly painless - would there be any difference between a "Disciple" and a "Student" other than the name and Temple-reliance?

EDIT

You could add a python block not allowing Agnostic civs to build temples.

This is another solid option - but if I recall "CannotBuild" means that the building is "Greyed out" rather than absent, which may be irritating for Grigori players - will check that.
Also - it would probably be "Build Disciples" rather than "Build Temples" - I'd keep the old XML block on temples for them.

EDIT AGAIN: It doesn't grey out - so that would work. I'm still leaning toward the "Student" idea, but I'd like an extra feature for them to justify the unique units, rather than just as a method to get around the building prereqs. I'll ponder this some more

Vehem · Feb 24, 2008

I've just posted a Patch B to sort out the Dural-disciples.

The Dural now have additional unique units to replace each of the Disciple units. These do not rely on the Temple building and have a basic Strength of 2 rather than 3. Each also has an additional, minor ability related to the religion they have studied.

Student of the Order - Students of the Order know the importance of defence (+1 Defensive Strength)
Student of the Veil - The teachings of the Veil lead to anger and aggression (+1 Offensive Strength)
Student of Kilmorph - Kilmorph teaches to build high your walls and protect your gold (Can Hurry buildings. 10 Hammers + 1 Hammer per city pop)
Student of Empyrean - The Empyrean advocates the application of wisdom in all matters (Can produce Research. 10 Beakers + 1 per city pop)
Student of the Overlords - Studying the Messages of the Overlords will surely lead to madness (3/1 Att/Def strengths, Crazed)
Student of the Leaves - The Fellowship are as one with the woodland (Starts with Woodsman 2)

The "minor abilities" are supposed to be exactly that - minor. Some (Overlords) are arguably even a negative ability. They do add flavour however to units who have dedicated their lives to better understand the religions of Erebus.

xienwolf · Feb 24, 2008

Well, since they are big on learning, they would be big on sharing ideas. So maybe you can find a way to make it so that simply connection via traderoutes automatically spreads religions for them? That way it won't take long for a Dural city to acquire any religion that has been founded anywhere in the known world. Then the player wouldn't NEED to spread the religions personally.

Psychic_Llamas · Feb 24, 2008

and it would encourage free religion for them, which is what i picture the Dural having.

it-ogo · Feb 24, 2008

My first idea about students was to give them level1 spells of corresponding mana (which is given by altar of religion). And allow them to upgrade to Professor. But it was too trivial... The patch B student differences surely only for flavor, no practical use.

Still I disagree that Order is defencive religion and doubt many others minor abilities.

BTW students can learn even CoE.

What is not so good is most of statues don't worth their hammers. Courage and Loyality are worst as one adept can do the job much better. As palace grants this mana the statues provide something which is not a problem even without them. The best statue of cause is the Statue of Glory and I am not sure all others worth building.
What to do:
1) Make the price of statues very low. 10 hammers.
2) Take out obelisks from Dural. Make all statues available at Ancient Chants, give them +2 culture only in addition to unique effect and a price of obelisk. (Also nice to allow only one statue per city but it is not necessary.)
3) Give a big prize when all statues are built. (Though I think it is not possible with xml only if statues are in different cities.)

Professors are nice by themselves but again they repeat effects accessable through palace mana. Also pity that they have no future - no upgrade path.

Candidus · Feb 24, 2008

Haven't played yet, but I had a thought.

Couldn't you summon two Mother's with the Birthright Regained ritual?

Vehem · Feb 24, 2008

Candidus said:
Haven't played yet, but I had a thought.

Couldn't you summon two Mother's with the Birthright Regained ritual?

Aye - it's actually commented on in her 'pedia strategy entry too. You can't have a second Mother in play whilst the first is still alive however - I added a check to disallow that.

Spoiler extract from the pedia Entry :

frenzyslave · Feb 24, 2008

First up, hey excellent modmod... :goodjob:

Um... dont build the prophecy of ragnarok in ur capital if youre the Archos, unless you want to bring about armageddon... :crazyeye:

haha. Whoops.

My favourite however of the three would have to be the Chislev...

Havent played the Dural yet.

Fall Further - The Original Thread

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