Phase II gameplay discussion thread

[Lunargent]

I figure that it will be much easier to discuss issues that come up while testing phase II in a thread, as opposed to zillions of private messages that probably mostly all say the same thing. Kael agreed to let me start this thread.

I'll repeat what I sent in my PM here to get it started.

Originally Posted by me

I've not had many issues with 1.1 so far. Everything is so minor or obvious that it's hardly worth mentioning, but I'll do it anyway in the name of completeness. Perhaps you should make a phase II testing thread in the forums so we have a place to discuss issues that come up. The new spell-casting system works pretty nicely. I like that if you have a stack of four mages upgraded from adepts, you don't have to seperate them out to have only one cast haste.

Obviously in progress:
]City names are missing
]Flags are all the same

others:
]Arcane barges lost the ability to cast
]The mage line of fireballs is meant to be seperate from all other promotions? It seemed a bit confusing to be able to upgrade an adept to fire I, and not get access to a fireball spell, while the mage did have access to such a spell.
]The new haste buff gets pretty anoying when you have a ton of enemy cities converted to your religion and they all have adepts in them casting haste every turn. The spell noise should be toned down a bit, since every time I hit enter, I get a loud boom. ( I've converted alot of enemy cities)
]Did you change the winter palace cost? I don't seem to recall it being 800 hammers before. In any case, I've been building it for a million ( ok, maybe 100)years in some barb city I captured so that I can have an expansion area for waging war on the other side of the map.
]Garrim Gyr shows up in the score window as Luchuirp, the civ name, instead of his name.
]I'll have to double check this, but I think the creative trait was giving me +7 culture per turn instead of +2. It was nice, but I dunno if you meant for that and probably overpowered. I was getting that amount in brand new cities with nothing in them anyway. I've not yet checked other civ types to see if they're also getting more.
]You might want to add a movement cost to the elves ability to create a forest. I could create sometimes 3 forests a turn. Nice, but probably overpowered as well.

The new hawk range really makes them worth using. Now I can get an idea as to where I want to go, instead of bumbling into dead ends all the time, a nice improvement.

[Kael]

Definitly better to have the feedback here in a thread so we can all see whats going on (and I can maintain some history, my 70 pm limit only allows me to keep 2-3 days of messages).

The past 2 days I have adding the unit files to the FfH editor. The unit file is by far the biggest and nastiest xml file and it took forever to make it into a spreadsheet, propogate, and write the macro that exports everything to xml. But now that it is done I can quickly and easily add and modify units so I am all ready to start adding new units.

So far I have made the following changes based on feedback from you and Loki.

*1. Gave the Arcane Barge, Hemah and Kael the ability to cast.
*2. Kept units from being able to cast twice ber turn.
*3. Added xp to spellcasting (early very basic form).
*4. Made a UNITCLASS_CIV_HERO1.
*5. Made Kael a Sheaim hero.
*6. Made Maros an Khazad hero.
*7. Added Mardero as a Ashen Veil hero.
*8. Added Sphener as an Order hero.

I have yet to:

1. Check city names.
2. Check the Haste sound.

Before I release an updated version I also want to:

1. Add Talchas's updated spell system.
2. Make disease only applicable to living units.
3. Add animals to living units.
4. Make it so animals cant be slaves.
5. Make werewolves animals.
6. Test out Talchas's promotion blocking suggestion (to allow priests to select from limited spheres for advancement).
7. Start adding any units I had skins for, maybe try to get a fully functional Vampire in.

[talchas]

Just a note - if you use the updated spell system, you'll have to change your promotion generator to output at least

			<SpellTypeFlatMods/>
			<SpellTypePercentMods/>

after <FeatureDefenses/> (assuming you are using a promotion xls)

[Kael]

I haven't written the promotion one yet (just unit, civilization, leaderhead and bonus so far). What do the 2 new tags mean?

[talchas]

Well, if you had them like this:

			<SpellTypeFlatMods>
				<SpellTypeMod>
					<SpellType>SPELLTYPE_RANGE</SpellType>
					<iSpellTypeMod>1</iSpellTypeMod>
				</SpellTypeMod>
			</SpellTypeFlatMods>
			<SpellTypePercentMods>
				<SpellTypeMod>
					<SpellType>SPELLTYPE_DAMAGE</SpellType>
					<iSpellTypeMod>10</iSpellTypeMod>
				</SpellTypeMod>
			</SpellTypePercentMods>

It would tell the AI that the promotion gives a bonus of 1 range to everything that used RANGE (not flatrange) and a 10% bonus to damage.

[Kael]

Originally Posted by talchas

Well, if you had them like this:

			<SpellTypeFlatMods>
				<SpellTypeMod>
					<SpellType>SPELLTYPE_RANGE</SpellType>
					<iSpellTypeMod>1</iSpellTypeMod>
				</SpellTypeMod>
			</SpellTypeFlatMods>
			<SpellTypePercentMods>
				<SpellTypeMod>
					<SpellType>SPELLTYPE_DAMAGE</SpellType>
					<iSpellTypeMod>10</iSpellTypeMod>
				</SpellTypeMod>
			</SpellTypePercentMods>

It would tell the AI that the promotion gives a bonus of 1 range to everything that used RANGE (not flatrange) and a 10% bonus to damage.

Perfect, thanks.

[loki1232]

Here's a quick thing. The subdue animal promotion wasn't working in my game. I killed two wolves and a lion with my hunter that had combat 1 and subdue animal, but i didn't get any captured units. I was teh OO and had slavery active at the time, in case that matters.

[Kael]

Originally Posted by loki1232

Here's a quick thing. The subdue animal promotion wasn't working in my game. I killed two wolves and a lion with my hunter that had combat 1 and subdue animal, but i didn't get any captured units. I was teh OO and had slavery active at the time, in case that matters.

I will check it out, thanks Loki.

[loki1232]

Originally Posted by Kael

I will check it out, thanks Loki.

I started in the second era if that was the problem.

[Lunargent]

I can comfirm that this doesn't work with a Leaves civ as well.
I did notice this, but I forgot to mention it :|. I usually skip the subdue animal promotion for more survival related stuff on my scouts and hunters. But I have rangers, and noticed that the one animal still left didn't give me a captured animal.

Also, because the discussion came up on the main thread, I confirmed that Meshabber can still force someone with closed borders to declare war.

[Kael]

Its because Talchas and I have conflicting onCombatResult functions (and onBeginPlayerTurn).

Talchas is there any reason I can't cut CvFFHSpellsEventManager.py and CvEventInterface.py?

[Lunargent]

Garrim Gyr shows up in the score window as Luchuirp, the civ name, instead of his name.

I just noticed that when I re-loaded my game, it now says Garrim Gyr. Weird. No other civs came up as the civ name instead of the leader name.

Also, I just had a friendly civ declare war on me because of Dis' aura. We were both beating up poor Garrim when I think one of their units got a bit too close. Stupid me also killed my own 3 archmages, 4 mages, and 8 catapults with his aura as well (and my high priests were on 0.1/7 health.). I think there should be a damage message from his aura. I've never managed to do that before, but there was no message or other indication I just suicided half my army.

[talchas]

Originally Posted by Kael

Its because Talchas and I have conflicting onCombatResult functions (and onBeginPlayerTurn).

Talchas is there any reason I can't cut CvFFHSpellsEventManager.py and CvEventInterface.py?

You can, but you'll probably want its functionality - onCombatResult kills victorious summons and onBeginPlayerTurn removes all 1-turn promotions (currently haste and the "has cast" marker promotion). You may already have these in your code from before, I just made my own versions.

[Lunargent]

Building Mardero causes a CTD....I'm presuming because there isn't a model. Looking through the civipedia, he should start with march instead of medic one as the other demons do now. It's also impossible to halt production of him once started, the city screen gets bugged as well. Burning blood didn't kill the Moroi at the end of the turn.

Though, perhaps it should just cut their HP in half or something instead of killing them outright.

[Lunargent]

Started another game, and had a barbarian city spawn a Lion as a defender, hehe.

[Kael]

Originally Posted by Lunargent

Building Mardero causes a CTD....I'm presuming because there isn't a model. Looking through the civipedia, he should start with march instead of medic one as the other demons do now. It's also impossible to halt production of him once started, the city screen gets bugged as well. Burning blood didn't kill the Moroi at the end of the turn.

Though, perhaps it should just cut their HP in half or something instead of killing them outright.

Burning blood has a 50% chance of killing the Moroi each time its used, i figured the random chance made it a little more interesting.

Setting them to 50% damage is an interesting concept, Ill think about it.

I added the Mardero and Sphener models, thanks for the heads up. Thats the problem with maintaining multiple versions of the mod, I added them in 1.0 but not 1.1. Or maybe just the problem with my faulty short term memory.

Ill switch mardero to march like you suggest.

[loki1232]

Um a vampire caused a CTD for me. I added one with the world builder but even so...

[Kael]

Originally Posted by loki1232

Um a vampire caused a CTD for me. I added one with the world builder but even so...

Just in creating him with the worldbuilder? Or what was he doing when you got the CTD?

[loki1232]

Originally Posted by Kael

Just in creating him with the worldbuilder? Or what was he doing when you got the CTD?

Just creating him with the world builder.

Also, last time i checked the angel civpedia entries are also screwed up.

[Lunargent]

Hmm, I played as Calabim, and made plenty of Vampires without a problem.