Deliverator
Graphical Hackificator
More adventures in SDK-Land...
Promotion Effects Bonanza
While looking for Modcomps that might be useful for Dune Wars I came across Conqueror's Delight by Dom Pedro II. Unfortunately, this mod seems pretty much abandoned, but it has some great stuff in it. It consists of a number of different modcomps some of which have no been released separately as far as I can tell. I have merged in the first and most interesting component which is simply called Promotions Mod which adds a long list of new effects for promotions.
I previously added the TLOTags modcomp by TheLadiesOgre which added several new abilities for Promotions. So altogether we now have a pretty handsome list of new Promotion tags which I hope we can use to make Dune Wars combat more varied and interesting. Here's a list:
Here's a little image showing some test promotions I have created to prove this is all working. (Don't worry these aren't serious ideas for promotions).
A lot to digest, I know, but there is a lot of potential here, particular when you start thinking about using combinations of these.
For example, if I set PrereqCivilization to Atreides, UnitCombat to Melee, iCombatChange to 1 and set bAutoAcquire and bNoXP to True then every Atreides Melee unit would start with the promotion and would have a base combat strength 1 higher than other Civs.
Other very early ideas:
Zeal promotion that gives +10% Attack, -10% Defense. Could be something to go at the Fanaticism tech. Perhaps have Zeal II and Zeal III with differing effects only available if your State Religion is Mahdi.
Orbital Insertion promotion that uses iExtraDropRange to give Paradrop ability to units.
Instead of Infantry unit having 1 First Strike we can give them a free City Watch promotion that uses the iCityFirstStrikesChange instead. This would give them First Strikes when defending cities, but more vulnerable when outside.
After Promotions Mod the next bit of Conquerer's Delight I am most interested in is Slavery Mod which seems to be a more expanded version of our Harkonnen Slave capture mechanic. It doesn't seem to be documented too much, but it seems you can get slaves from capturing cities and pillaging as well as combat. I'm going to understand what it does more, before decided whether we can use it.
Giving Mesa Tactical Value
As well as getting the promotion effects for Mesa working, I've added a new tag to Units to control whether or not they can enter Mesa. This means I can now stop Vehicles and Siege Weapons (and maybe Suspensors?) from being able to enter Mesa. Mesa can represent more the really craggy rocks of Dune - Thopters and Carryalls can fly over it and foot units can pick their way over it, but you can't drive over it. I think this will help the terrain of the planet play more of strategic role in the mod, which is appropriate since in Dune the planet is one of the main characters.
The underground caverns and tunnels of Dune are not really represented much in the mod yet, and I would like to have Mesa represent areas where there are caves and tunnels to hide in. We have talked before about having graphical caves visible on Mesa, but I would like to expand that further by having promotions that give advantages on Mesa. For example, you could have Cave/Tunnel related promotions that give extra withdraw chance when defending or attacking from Mesa or allows double movement through Mesa since the unit knows the secret passageways and short-cuts.
Promotions Mod adds different invisibility types as well. So we could have an Underground invisibility type, for higher Cave related promos that means that units cannot be seen by most units. We can then create/change some scanner type promo that can see underground units. The Cave promotions could go on a new Guerilla Tactics promo after Jihad perhaps (with the Razzia Command +100% War Weariness wonder idea).
Mahdi Shrine Effect
Finally, I have got the requested Mahdi Shrine effect of +X% Military Production per City with the Mahdi Religion working. I have added a tag to Religion infos called iShrineGlobalMilitaryProduction so that the value of X called be tweaked.
One thing is that Mahdi is a bit one-dimensional right now. We now have the Temple, the Jihad Veterans Barracks and now the Shrine all boosting Military Production. A later version of the Mahdi Zealot has been suggested, but perhaps we can also use the new promotion effects for some Mahdi State Religion specific promos as well.
Promotion Effects Bonanza
While looking for Modcomps that might be useful for Dune Wars I came across Conqueror's Delight by Dom Pedro II. Unfortunately, this mod seems pretty much abandoned, but it has some great stuff in it. It consists of a number of different modcomps some of which have no been released separately as far as I can tell. I have merged in the first and most interesting component which is simply called Promotions Mod which adds a long list of new effects for promotions.
I previously added the TLOTags modcomp by TheLadiesOgre which added several new abilities for Promotions. So altogether we now have a pretty handsome list of new Promotion tags which I hope we can use to make Dune Wars combat more varied and interesting. Here's a list:
Spoiler :
Here's a little image showing some test promotions I have created to prove this is all working. (Don't worry these aren't serious ideas for promotions).
A lot to digest, I know, but there is a lot of potential here, particular when you start thinking about using combinations of these.
For example, if I set PrereqCivilization to Atreides, UnitCombat to Melee, iCombatChange to 1 and set bAutoAcquire and bNoXP to True then every Atreides Melee unit would start with the promotion and would have a base combat strength 1 higher than other Civs.
Other very early ideas:
Zeal promotion that gives +10% Attack, -10% Defense. Could be something to go at the Fanaticism tech. Perhaps have Zeal II and Zeal III with differing effects only available if your State Religion is Mahdi.
Orbital Insertion promotion that uses iExtraDropRange to give Paradrop ability to units.
Instead of Infantry unit having 1 First Strike we can give them a free City Watch promotion that uses the iCityFirstStrikesChange instead. This would give them First Strikes when defending cities, but more vulnerable when outside.
After Promotions Mod the next bit of Conquerer's Delight I am most interested in is Slavery Mod which seems to be a more expanded version of our Harkonnen Slave capture mechanic. It doesn't seem to be documented too much, but it seems you can get slaves from capturing cities and pillaging as well as combat. I'm going to understand what it does more, before decided whether we can use it.
Giving Mesa Tactical Value
As well as getting the promotion effects for Mesa working, I've added a new tag to Units to control whether or not they can enter Mesa. This means I can now stop Vehicles and Siege Weapons (and maybe Suspensors?) from being able to enter Mesa. Mesa can represent more the really craggy rocks of Dune - Thopters and Carryalls can fly over it and foot units can pick their way over it, but you can't drive over it. I think this will help the terrain of the planet play more of strategic role in the mod, which is appropriate since in Dune the planet is one of the main characters.
The underground caverns and tunnels of Dune are not really represented much in the mod yet, and I would like to have Mesa represent areas where there are caves and tunnels to hide in. We have talked before about having graphical caves visible on Mesa, but I would like to expand that further by having promotions that give advantages on Mesa. For example, you could have Cave/Tunnel related promotions that give extra withdraw chance when defending or attacking from Mesa or allows double movement through Mesa since the unit knows the secret passageways and short-cuts.
Promotions Mod adds different invisibility types as well. So we could have an Underground invisibility type, for higher Cave related promos that means that units cannot be seen by most units. We can then create/change some scanner type promo that can see underground units. The Cave promotions could go on a new Guerilla Tactics promo after Jihad perhaps (with the Razzia Command +100% War Weariness wonder idea).
Mahdi Shrine Effect
Finally, I have got the requested Mahdi Shrine effect of +X% Military Production per City with the Mahdi Religion working. I have added a tag to Religion infos called iShrineGlobalMilitaryProduction so that the value of X called be tweaked.
One thing is that Mahdi is a bit one-dimensional right now. We now have the Temple, the Jihad Veterans Barracks and now the Shrine all boosting Military Production. A later version of the Mahdi Zealot has been suggested, but perhaps we can also use the new promotion effects for some Mahdi State Religion specific promos as well.
