[MOD] MagisterModmod

I quit playing this thing for a long time. I picked it back up again a couple of weeks ago.

Right now I am playing whatever version it before your post on the 24th. So you may have made some changes that I haven't seen.

But something is very different from the versions of your mod I played in the past.

It's like their are no upkeep costs. I am seeing truly massive armies. An example of this is that I went into worldbuilder and saw Rhoanna had 95 Soldiers of Kilomorph.

On round 185.

And this is nothing compared to what the Khazad can pump out. I have yet to see the Khazad not take out anyone if they have any kind of good terrain, instead of the usual hellholes they get on the Erebus map.

Sheaim, Bannor, doesn't matter they walk all over them.

You've changed something and I can't put my finger on it. Maybe it is the enhanced AI, but civs that take up Kilomorph pretty much don't make anything but Soldiers of Kilomorph. And lots and lots of them. I mean it is ridiculous. I'd almost say the ai is smart enough now to use the club the world to death with bronze warriors strategy, but most of the time they don't seem to bother with researching bronze. Just loads and loads of Soldiers of Kilomorph.

Which brings me to ask what is different? These things are just too good now. I just played a game tonight where the Khazad had an apparent unlimited supply of them. I had archers in a former Khazad city that had just been taken, and I think they killed about 20 of them before the city was retaken. And the Khazad had close to 50 left, again before round 200.

I don't know what the difference is, but something is different. It's like they don't have upkeep costs at all. I realize the Khazad have ingenuity, but something is screwy about this whole thing.

Also do you think it might be just a little overpowered for Soldiers of Kilomorph to have Guerrilla 2, Heavy, and Mountaineer? Just a little?

Also I play on the Erebus map, and there are lots of mountains. The Khazad world spell is totally overpowered on this. I've taken to deleting all the mountain mines when I see the Mother Lode message. It really doesn't do anything but slow them down a little.

Which brings to mind the question, and I guess it is one that has been asked before. Some of these world spells are pretty useless. I know the Kuriotate one is. The Doviello one is too. Seriously what are you supposed to use that for? It takes a long time for the Doviello to get hunting, and by that time a stack of 30 str 2 wolves doesn't do much of anything but crash the economy. Maybe you've changed it though, I don't think I've used it in the past year.

The teching is screwy too. Cottages are nice for some civs, but surviving is a higher priority. I've seen the Svartalfar of all things researching drama and education before researching hunting and Fellowship of Leaves. Actually more often than not they take up another religion. There really isn't much difference between the Ljolsalfar and Svartalfar, except that the Ljolsalfar beeline Fellowship, and the Svarts don't. The Ljolsalfar are usually a late game power, and the Svartalfar usually get eaten by the Bannor, Sheaim, Khazad, or something.

Which brings to mind another thing. Some of these civs always die early. The Balseraphs usually die early on, whether Keelyn or Perpentach is the leader.

Anyway, I guess this is another post where people don't want to hear things. But I can't believe no one has noticed how overpowered Runes of Kilomorph is now. I mean literally I have to go into worldbuilder and delete these mountaintop mines to give other civs a fighting chance before the Khazad sprawl over everything.

Actually the Luchiurp do it too. They build lots and lots of SoK. I've had games where for whatever reason they don't research construction for a long time, and they so pretty well.

well, i'm playing it too.
and didn't notice the Khazad thing.
but mainly because the declared war on me... a bit too early ... and I could resist their invasion... and then crush them.

However I noticed the "huge-stack" situation.
Calabim had like.. a stack with a gazillion units when they attacked.
I survived only because :
-they had to come close to my borders without entering.. for a long time, so I could Harass.
-lots of ForceIII summons, from a long distance, disabled their casters before they could get in range
-went near them with a smallish stack on hill-forest
(3 LB with blitz to give many defensive strikes, 2 heroic archmages, 2 mage) (I'm grigori)
1 mage to call maelstrom
1 mage to hast everybody to approache the good tile.
1 Archmage summoned 2 Earth Golems with 4 Earth Mana in Empire + 10 free promotions
1 Archmage used "Body 3" to enervate the stack and force them to attack even with low odds.

I killed >80 units there. 20 or so wounded one remained and I had killed at least 30+ units before, sending 4 Earth elementals/Runewraith/turn to attack their stack before realizing that at 4/turn I would never see the end of the stack.

for the following attack of a smaller (80+) ljo stack (archers/priests of leaves/ MA), I used this technic directly, instead of harassing for many turns, and it was really efficient

I'm not making it to the endgame.

Look I use the Erebus map, which I gather is relatively unpopular. I can't say I am that much of a fan of it, but it is the best one I've seen for spreading out the civs so you don't have early wars. (I am a builder and want to get to endgame units).

But there are a load of mountains on that map. More than any other I think. Usually by the time the Khazad get mining they have 2 or 3 cities, so 10 to 15 mountain mines is a common figure.

But as I said I'm not getting to the endgame. Seems like the civs are getting knocked out earlier than they used to. Partially it is the ai, it seems smarter now. But I have seen the Luchiurp, Khazad, and other civs that use SoK take out civs on the other side of mountains without researching sailing or anything like it.

Like I said, apparently I am not using the latest rev, the one before that. But what I am seeing is different from past versions. From my viewpoint it seemed a lot more balanced early on in this mod than it is now.

Oh yeah, the Calabim are doing well? Usually they are one of the civs that doesn't make it past the early game when I play.

Sheaim, Khazad, Bannor always do really well in my games. If the Clan doesn't get knocked out before they get warrens they do really well too. Honestly if the Clan had some kind of weighting so they valued Masonry as much as the Ljolsalfar value Fellowship of Leaves they would be absolute terrors.

Something else I want to say, I have no idea what parameters the ai civs operate under.

But they seem to stay in God King the whole game unless Over or Undercouncil get them to switch civs. They do agrarianism, Guardian of Nature, religion, pacifism, conquest, etc.

But they seem to be in God King no matter what. And it doesn't seem to affect them at all.

well : playing Erebus continent:
____................__________..........................
.......Calab...............................Dov.....___....Illian..
..................Bal.......................S.............._____________
......................................................Khaz.....__________
...E...............................................................
....................................................__________
..............Ljos...........................................___
____...........................................Grig.............___
......................________________......................__.......
.........____________________________________..........
... is land
__ is water
so calabim, elohim and Ljos were mostly alone in the west, separated from the rest by desert and could develop without fights till mid game, then elohim was ganged-up.
illian was blocked by dov in small peninsula
Sheaim were very between Doviellos and desert, and southward a mountain range separated them from desert, and Khazad not far away.
Khazad in mid-size end-of-continent, water+grigori south, sheaim/dov north, desert east.
and me: grigori: big peninsulae south east, protected by mountain range on the west, and north and water on the north.

early game was peacful, save doviello sacking Sheaim and calabim-ljos coalition against balseraphs.

early-mid game Khazad decided (mid game) to get to my northern cities by sending normal sized stack of SoK/others passing mountains ranges (10+size stack + stragglers)... but I defeated it, and sent an expedition to sack them... the stack was too small to do much due to their production and the abundance of 5-10 size stacks moving in their country, and i had a mid game of harassing Khazad and taking/losing their cities.

late mid game I had destroyed them, and Ljos/Calabim attacked Elohim.

late game... I'm at war with everybody same nice friendlies Doviellos... ^^

any reason why chrome is saying the dl is malicious software?

While trying your latest version of your modmod, a glitch popped up. As I have the habit of tweaking my modmods, I thought it'd be a bad port or something, but I tested the vanilla modmod too, and the same problem showed up: in the Civilopedia, the civics section was empty, and everytime I hovered something on the features a religion offered in the religion section, a CTD happens.

Something you tweaked must be acting up, methinks.

EDIT: Wait, no, this must be a problem related to my copy of civ4; disregard that post.

EDIT 2: Yep, nothing a reinstall couldn't fix. Nothing to see here, carry on.

Would Huge Pre-Settled 21 civ map be compatible with this mod?

I believe that Chrome considers it malicious not because of anything about the modmod itself, but because the host is not one which enough people have used and rated as safe.


That map, KE huge ICE Empires v1.1.CivBeyondSwordWBSave, is not compatible with MagisterModmod without making several changes first.

There is no need for you to make such changes though, as the compatible version of the map has actually been included in the Private Maps folder of the past several versions of this mod. It is called KE huge ICE Empires v1.1 for MagisterModmod.CivBeyondSwordWBSave

Well if you are still engaged in this thread, I seem to recall that you were supposed to be able to build mountain mines with Arete. As nearly as I can tell though the only way to build them now is with Mud Golems or the Khazad world spell. It might be possible to do it with a worker who has Runes as a religion, and Apprenticeship or something to give a promotion, but I have never tried it.

Also you can't build cottages or other improvements on Ancient Forest without Smelting.

If you adopt Leaves as a religion early, it is awful for any civ, since all those forest tiles are useless and unclearable except for elven civs. I guess you can make lumbermills, but they take a long time to build and aren't that many hammers. But you can't build cottages.

This only affects the Kuriotates, since they are the only civ that really seems to go for Leaves besides the Ljolsalfar, but it is actually harmful for them to adopt this instead of Runes early on. I guess you could beeline Bronzeworking/smelting, but I usually have a lot of other things I want first. The Civopedia says the Kuriotates should be able to build in forests like elves, but they don't seem to be able to. I actually cringe when I get hunting as a tech from a goody hut, since I usually try to bulb a religion with a Great Prophet, and that means I get Leaves and lose the race to Runes.

As long as I mentioned the Kuriotates, their palace is supposed to give a specialist per enclave, much like other civs get for improvements like the Hippus with pastures, the Luchiurp with workshops, the Khazad with mines, the Grigori with homesteads.

But you don't see these for a long, long time.

sunbeam said:

Well if you are still engaged in this thread, I seem to recall that you were supposed to be able to build mountain mines with Arete. As nearly as I can tell though the only way to build them now is with Mud Golems or the Khazad world spell. It might be possible to do it with a worker who has Runes as a religion, and Apprenticeship or something to give a promotion, but I have never tried it.

Also you can't build cottages or other improvements on Ancient Forest without Smelting.

If you adopt Leaves as a religion early, it is awful for any civ, since all those forest tiles are useless and unclearable except for elven civs. I guess you can make lumbermills, but they take a long time to build and aren't that many hammers. But you can't build cottages.

This only affects the Kuriotates, since they are the only civ that really seems to go for Leaves besides the Ljolsalfar, but it is actually harmful for them to adopt this instead of Runes early on. I guess you could beeline Bronzeworking/smelting, but I usually have a lot of other things I want first. The Civopedia says the Kuriotates should be able to build in forests like elves, but they don't seem to be able to. I actually cringe when I get hunting as a tech from a goody hut, since I usually try to bulb a religion with a Great Prophet, and that means I get Leaves and lose the race to Runes.

As long as I mentioned the Kuriotates, their palace is supposed to give a specialist per enclave, much like other civs get for improvements like the Hippus with pastures, the Luchiurp with workshops, the Khazad with mines, the Grigori with homesteads.

But you don't see these for a long, long time.

Click to expand...

You can build Mines or Quarries on Peaks with Mud Golems or any workers with the Mountaineer promotion. That promotion requires the RoK religion for the unit and the state religion, and also requires either the Dwarf race or the Guerrilla 2 promotion (which would be given to free to any worker built in the RoK holy city once its shrine the Tablets of Bambur is created). Workers with the Dwarf promotion (and I just changed this to include workers with the Guerilla 2 promotion too) with that religion and state religion are granted the promotion automatically upon their creation. If you convert to that state religion later or use the Evangelize units spell to convert a worker later, it will cost xp.

(I'm debating whether I should make Guerilla 1 and Woodsman 1 available to Civilian units. They wouldn't gain much benefit from the combat bonus, but they world make them able to purchase the Woodsman 2 and Guerrila 2 promotions and benefit from their added movement in forests and hills without having to have been built in a city with the Song of Autumn or Tablets of Bambur.)

I believe that you could also build on Peaks while running Arete using workers without the Mountaineer promotion if you can transport them there by means of a Kuriotates Airship.



The Kuriotates can build on New Forests, not regular Forests or Ancient Forests. This is mostly so that they can use Bloom over improvements. The Creation sphere is strongly associated with the start of new growth, not its long term continuation. It is more in keeping with the Kuriotates to clear the forests and then plant them back where they want them.

Akbarthegreat said:

3. A bug: When running I am running apprenticeship, but still haven't researched HBR, all my newly built workers have the blue aura around them (2/2 xp). But there is no promotion I can give them. It's pretty annoying.

Click to expand...

I was trying to add some python code to stop this, even if it required removing xp which was not currently but later might be useful, but wasn't having much luck until recently.

I discovered yesterday that for some unknown reason the function canAcquirePromotion(iProm) and the canAcquirePromotionAny() function that depend on it are returning True for promotions that are blocked by having a minimum level of -1 unless they also have other prereqs like TECH_NEVER.

The code seemed to be working last night after I added <TechPrereq>TECH_NEVER</TechPrereq> to all the promotions like Blinded that had <iMinLevel>-1</iMinLevel>.

This morning I discovered that it actually worked without any of my added code. Apparently the game already checked canAcquirePromotionAny() before applying the glow.

Will you be updating with your new WorldBuilder adjustments?

Yes. I have the new version ready, but wanted to wait another day or two just to make sure that it is bug free before releasing it.

The update has now been uploaded.

You can download the installer here or the archive here.

The changes other than the worldbuilder updates are fairly minor.

This will however break some saved games, as I renamed the dummy buildings (which had been listed as BUILDINGCLASS_ instead of BUILDING_ ) that reduce a player's supply of the mana type opposed to his state religion. This will not effect saved games where no player has both a state religion and a capital city.

I made it so that the Sanctify spell changes hell resources back to their non-hell equivalent immediately, rather than waiting for the next turn.

I made the Chancel of the Guardian work likewise, and made its range depend on the life mana available in that city rather than in the capital.

I added a new ability which allows a unit to pick up equipment that was dropped by teammates. (Long ago I made it so that the equipment units were all bAlwaysHostile, which allowed neutral players to claim equipment that had been dropped. Teammates could not capture them though, and the xml prereqs of the various take equipment abilities would only count units belonging to the same player. I did not bother making new python spells for each piece of equipment, but rather just one ability that changes the ownership of all equipment units on the tile that belonged to a teammate. It does not let you take equipment held by a teammate's unit.)

I fixed a couple minor bugs. One of these I think was the most common cause of equipment being duplicated, but per a different unidentified MNAI bug that still happens sometimes.

Most of my recent changes just made the code prettier and more compact, without changing gameplay. I hoped that some of those changes will make the game run faster, but haven't actually noticed a significant difference.

Got an interesting bug I think. When a caravel i had entered the maelstrom, the ship and the unit got sent to different areas of the map, and the unit which was loaded on is now in the middle of the ocean. He's alive, but can't move. Gonna send a ship over to him to see if it can pick him up.

My computer have a problem with this mod. This happens for years, but it is getting worse now.

Whenever I play it, it loads incredibly the processor and I hear the fan spinning madly and permanently.

With this new release, it happens every one or two hours that the computer crashes and *reboots*. Of course, there is probably a problem with my computer. I suspect a temperature problem and I with try to clean the fan.

But I NEVER encounter this behavior with any other application and I can use the computer for weeks without any crash (even with other civ mods).
Has anybody experienced such a problem and have ideas to fix it?

Ghostslayer said:

My computer have a problem with this mod. This happens for years, but it is getting worse now.

Whenever I play it, it loads incredibly the processor and I hear the fan spinning madly and permanently.

With this new release, it happens every one or two hours that the computer crashes and *reboots*. Of course, there is probably a problem with my computer. I suspect a temperature problem and I with try to clean the fan.

But I NEVER encounter this behavior with any other application and I can use the computer for weeks without any crash (even with other civ mods).
Has anybody experienced such a problem and have ideas to fix it?

Click to expand...

Not for this mod specifically, but it does sound like an overheating problem. Generally the solution is to blow out all the cooling bits of your computer, especially the cooling vanes on the CPU and GPU and if a laptop the air vents in the case. You can do this with a vacuum cleaner, but those cans of compressed air work much better.

I don't feel like releasing a whole new version, but here are the file you would need to update the last version of MagisterModmod to the newest version of WorldBuilder, gaining abilities like custom brush sizes.

I wanted to play elves with a Philosophical leader, so I'm playing Cassiel with Black Elves.
My problem is that I can't convert to Fellowship of Leaves.
I have Way of the Forests. I have FoL in all my cities.
Cassiel has Philosophical, Industrious and Adaptive -- not Agnostic.

I've tried turning Agnostic on and back off in the WB - no dice.
I've tried adding a religion in the WB, but can't convert to that either.
I can't see how to give myself another leader.

Are the Svartalfar blocked from FoL?
Is there some way around this problem in the WorldBuilder?

It is entirely proper for Cassiel to be unable to adopt a religion. His personality is largely defined by an opposition to the worship of any of the unworthy angels who call themselves gods, and his opinion of the very concept of worship is no negative that he does not believe the one true god would ever desire worship.

From a linguistic standpoint, Agnostic never made much sense within the lore. Misotheistic would work better. Cassiel is not agnostic about the gods. He does not deny knowledge of divinities. He knows they exist, and has personally interacted with all of 21 of them. He also knows that he does not respect them. Auric Ulvin does not know the gods personally, but does believe they exist. He also believes himself worthy and able of not only joining their ranks but even surpassing them.


I have essentially cut the Agnostic trait from this modmod. The trait is unnecessary, and never really worked as described.

(I actually don't recall how the Agnostic mechanism worked in the early years of FfH2, but am confident of how it has worked since the mod moved from vanilla Civ IV to BtS.)

In base FfH2, I believe that the only thing the Agnostic trait itself does is block access to certain technologies (those which found religions) through python. I instead opted for the more efficient mechanism of blocking those technologies in the civilization's XML defines.

What really matters are the religion weightings in the leader's xml defines. A -100 weighting makes it impossible for a leader to ever adopt the religion.

(The weights work as a modifier to the percentage of your civ's population that has the religion. A -100 means that the computer will never recognize that the religion is present in any of your cities, and so will not permit it to be adopted. (A weighting of -99 should be sufficient to prevent any AI from choosing to adopt the religion, but not block a human from doing so.)




Cassiel's leaderhead info has a -100 weighting towards every religion, so he can never adopt any of them.

(It used to be that using the Random Personalities game option would give a player all of the leaderhead info of another player except for the text and graphics. Back then, it was possible to have a religious version of Cassiel. I was about to recommend you use this game option change to make it work as you want, but thought I'd test it first. Once I saw it no longer worked, I remembered Kael changing it due to complaints about other leader's being assigned Cassiel's personality and thus being unable to adopt any religion for no apparent reason. That was happening even for human players, for whom most other personality data would be meaningless.)



Tholal does reference the Agnostic trait in the Revolutions modcomp and I did not remove that, but I added a religious weight check there too.

(I don't recall whether the trait is reference in C++ for AI planning purposes. I kept the trait in the game just in case, but I don't think it matters.)