ExtraModMod

[ArkhanTheBlack]

If the enemy has but a few longbows, use sacrificial units.

This only works if you have at least a higher chance than 1% and not even then it's sure that the unit is even hurt. And in the next round they get several promotions and get almost invincible.

So you don't want the barbs to have anything but a 2/4 unit (orc archers spawn with weak) at a stage when you can build Champions (efffectively 8str units)? The current setup is fine.

I've never said anything about 'weak' archers. There's also a 'strong' promotion if I remember right. I've also said that I'm fine with the whole offensive ogre & co stuff. I'd even go so far to say that those could have been even a bit stronger. My whole point is that they focus on defense too much. I mean, they were still attacking with axemen but have a longbow men as defense?!?

Civ does favor defense (at certain stages, in certain settings), but FFH definitely doesn't.

FFH2 is still Civ and the whole ridiculous defensive boni apply. It's not difficult to get them on +200% strength in defense. Especially since archers also get first strikes and often don't get even hurt when they are attacked. Try to invade a well protected fortress with just warriors. I can assure you that you will fail even if you outnumber them 10:1.

But you are all missing the point. I didn't say that I'm not able to conquer a barbarian city with a longbow men. I said that it simply gets too much if I'm at war with an AI who is twice as strong as myself and constantly sending troops. My normal crusaders were usually <1% against a longbow men. That way they are just sacrificial lambs and wouldn't help at all.
Anyway, it's more 'annoying' than a game breaker since I can also delay my attack until the war with an AI is over. I also kind of liked some of the broken stuff in pre 4.0 like spawned wraiths wiping out whole Civ's, so I guess I just enjoy offensive barbarians more than defensive ones. Like I said, I think I'm fine if the lairs are back. It's just... first they don't show up at all half of the game and then the first thing I see in a barbarian town is a longbow men. It just annoyed me...

 

[Tasunke]

I think fair winds can be cast if there is a naval unit in stack, but not at any other time?

 

[lfgr]

Event OOS: No idea. I'll check the whole thing when I have time, but I really can't add anything to your thoughts right now.

Lairs: I removed the mentioned minimum distance to the starting points. After a test game I'm convinced it's really better that way. Thanks, Arkhan!
The change will be included in 0.0.5, but if you want to enable it right now, change LAIR_GUARDIAN_STARTING_PLOT_MIN_DISTANCE in GlobalDefinesAlt.xml to 0.

Edit: almost forgot: In my last game two civs were destroyed by free-roaming disciples of acheron. I am pretty sure they are supposed to stay in acheron's city (and I remember they did in the past), but I found no code in either EMM/Barbsplus or MNAI to make them stay. Does anyone know more about that?

 

[ArkhanTheBlack]

Lairs: I removed the mentioned minimum distance to the starting points. After a test game I'm convinced it's really better that way. Thanks, Arkhan!
The change will be included in 0.0.5, but if you want to enable it right now, change LAIR_GUARDIAN_STARTING_PLOT_MIN_DISTANCE in GlobalDefinesAlt.xml to 0

Many thanks, I'll try that in my next game.

 

[doktarr]

Will installing 0.4.2 on 2.6.1 cause problems?

EDIT: answering the barbarian survey above:

Difficulty: Monarch or Emperor, Increasing
Civilization: many
Number of players: 19
MapScript: Big and Small, snaky continents
Map size: (customized extra-)huge, generally some minor postprocessing using worldbuilder (creating a couple land bridges to make sure all civs are land-connected to each other)
Raging barbarians: (Y/N) N
Wildlands: (Y/N) Y
Spawning rate: (Perfect, too frequent, too low and so on) Seems about right to me
Barbarian unit strength: (Challenging but good, weak, too stong...) Seems about right to me
Other comments:

 

[Terkhen]

Will installing 0.4.2 on 2.6.1 cause problems?

Yes, it will be unplayable as ExtraModMod 0.4.2 was created with More Naval AI 2.53 and it is not prepared to work with More Naval AI 2.61.

Installing an ExtraModMod version on top of a More Naval AI version equal or lesser than the one it uses will usually work (you can find which MNAI version it used in that EMM version's changelog), but it may also fail. The only failproof way to install ExtraModMod is to use a clean installation of Fall from Heaven 2 0.41o (as ExtraModMod downloads already include the More Naval AI they are based upon).

EDIT: answering the barbarian survey above:

Thank you! This seems to confirm my own impressions. How did you customize the size? I wondered about adding a bigger map size (since MapScriptTools supports it out of the box) but since Huge or even Large maps already lag too much for me in the late game I discarded it.

Besides the OOS error mentioned before and the barbarian rebalancing, there are only a few minor issues and features pending for the first 0.5.0 beta. I wanted to ask anyone interested for their opinion and feedback about some of them before they get implemented:

• Apprenticeship and Conquest both require Education, and both grant +2 XP to new units. I believe that one of them (most likely Conquest, as it does not have much to do with Education) could get a new prerrequisite in order to avoid this concentration of similar civics in the same technology. What technology could it be?
• Some time ago, there was a request on changing AI XP bonuses in higher difficulties (see https://bitbucket.org/Terkhen/extramodmod/issue/220/change-ai-xp-bonuses-in-bigger). I agree on implementing this, but since I have mostly never played above Monarch, I would like to request people more versed in this than me to suggest how it should be changed.
• Don't forget that we are still looking for more information about barbarians! If you are playing 0.4.2, please give us more information to allow us to imrpove barbarian balance. As the responses to the query have been quite few (I guess most people are playing other more updated modmods or MNAI), releasing a first beta of 0.5.0 without more changes to barbarian balance besides the ones included in 0.4.2 and requesting more feedback could also be an option.

 

[A Moon]

• Apprenticeship and Conquest both require Education, and both grant +2 XP to new units. I believe that one of them (most likely Conquest, as it does not have much to do with Education) could get a new prerrequisite in order to avoid this concentration of similar civics in the same technology. What technology could it be?

Vannilla FFH has the warfare technology, right? That sounds like a sensible pre-req for Conquest.

 

[Qgqqqqq]

Conquest is going to be shifted back in v12 of EitB, BTW.

 

[Calavente]

Vannilla FFH has the warfare technology, right? That sounds like a sensible pre-req for Conquest.

but isn't warfare a bit late (and off-course for most research paths) for the boon granted by this civic ?

 

[Tasunke]

myticism, bronzeworking, warefare all fit 'thematically' at least ....

although I guess u could have it at Agriculture or Calendar because ... well, options/synergy I guess

Education never made sense to be BUT as its the current location, and has been a default fallback in EitB, it seems 'decent' enough, but its the tech for cottages, not for farms, or for other warfare things.

I guess mechanics and theme don' always go together, but in some ways having Conquest be at Broneworking *might* make the most sense because its kind of like 'slavery lite' before the actual slavery is researched at Philosophy ... however this depends on whether Bronzeworking is considered more expensive than warfare ... BUT its on the same general *path* so ... honestly it might make more sense.

The real question is why melee line and the 'military strategy' line are organized in the way that they are .... but messing with the core game mechanics (ie places in the tech tree for important things) does seem like a bit of a chain-reaction-over-reaction when it comes to meddling.

I like conquest in the warfare category because its thematic .... however perhaps changing the prerequisites for 'warfare' might be better.

What if Warfare/Conquest was a tier 1/ tier 2 tech ... whereas Military Strategy, while requiring conquest, stemmed off from (or at least required) Writing and Philosophy.

Having Warfare be its own tier 1 tech honestly seems like the best solution ... and have Doviello start with Warfare tech (instead of whatevs they have now ... is it Exploration??)

 

[Terkhen]

Conquest is going to be shifted back in v12 of EitB, BTW.

For consistency, I think I'll adopt EitB v12 solution

What if Warfare/Conquest was a tier 1/ tier 2 tech ... whereas Military Strategy, while requiring conquest, stemmed off from (or at least required) Writing and Philosophy.

Having Warfare be its own tier 1 tech honestly seems like the best solution ... and have Doviello start with Warfare tech (instead of whatevs they have now ... is it Exploration??)

That seems to me like a too big change for what it pretends to achieve.

Besides the things I mentioned in my previous post, I would like to request opinions about an additional topic. In the EitB v12 thread at Realms Beyond they are discussing the inclusion of the Grigori Adventurer Counter, with a difference. Instead of using ExtraModMod way of calculating points (which is a modification of the method used in Rise from Erebus), they are aiming towards making it as similar as vanilla behavior as possible by using the same way of adding points and the same thresholds used by Great People Points. In essence, adventurers would work as they do in vanilla FFH2/MNAI, but their points would be added to their own pool and not pollute the normal GPP pool.

I think that I like this idea better than the one currently implemented in ExtraModMod, as it is a simpler way to handle adventurers. Another good point of the idea is that it would be possible to see in the interface what buildings grant Adventurer GPP again (I explain how this would work in the code later). But before moving towards this direction, I wanted to know what EMM players think about switching towards this mechanic.

Qgqqqqq: If I get a positive response about this, if you want I could code and test the required changes to python code I described in the CivCounter thread and provide them for inclusion in EitB. I would also add and document a hack to the dll code that would prevent the addition of Adventurer GPP points to the GPP pool. The result would be that the GUI and the Civilopedia would still display what buildings grant adventurer GPP (not having this is one of the ugly points of the current EMM implementation), but the dll would not use them and would let the Adventurer Counter code take care of adventurer spawning. This would also allow to simplify the Adventurer Counter python code a lot, as it would just use the Adventurer GPP granted by each building instead of having to hardcode all values.

 

[Qgqqqqq]

...
Well that would be awesome, certainly! I've held off replying to that thread until I actually manage to get the .dll into an editable fashion, but people decide in favor of that and you were prepared or able to do the work there, than that would be just amazing! (I'll still need to be able to open the .dll to merge those changes, of course, but I need that for quite a few EitB changes anyway.)

 

[sungchiahao]

Is ExtraModMod and the EitB mod similar or very different?

 

[Calavente]

.. they are quite similar as terkhen has taken most balance changes of EitB v11.
howeverthey are quite different as :
terkhen added some modifications.
Extramodmod contains the last MnAI which is not in EitB (so better AI for Emm)
Extramodmod has barbplus (and few other things)
Im not sure Emm integrates the last balance changes of EitB v12.

 

[sungchiahao]

Do they have BUG integrated?

 

[Qgqqqqq]

EitB does not have BUG, EMM does.

EitB is more similar to the base FFH, changing only for the sake of increased balance and playability, EMM is more different, designed around "extra" - adding more flavor and alterations, with the aim of creating more interesting choices and gameplay. It's up to you which approach is superior.

Truthfully, the aims are very different. I think the only real mod EitB should be compared to is MNAI. If you're considering EMM then the comparisons are Magisters, or Tweakmod, or one of the older ones. MNAI/EitB offer, IMO just an entirely different experience and approach. Not better or worse, merely different.


(This is all my opinion and how I understand each mods aims.)

 

[Terkhen]

Truthfully, the aims are very different. I think the only real mod EitB should be compared to is MNAI. If you're considering EMM then the comparisons are Magisters, or Tweakmod, or one of the older ones. MNAI/EitB offer, IMO just an entirely different experience and approach. Not better or worse, merely different.

I agree with that opinion

It is also true that I've seen people that just want EitB balance with updated MNAI (either because of BUG or because of the improved MNAI) trying to make ExtraModMod fit their needs. I try to not encourage this because, as you said, the aims of EitB and EMM are quite different and they target different users. A possible solution to this would be an update of EitB to the current MNAI version, but I don't know if you are considering that.

In the case that you are considering an update, did you check the method I proposed here for updating EitB in a simple way? If you don't want to bother with mercurial/git/whatever, I could try the update myself if you tell me the MNAI version in which EitB is based and provide me with a snapshot of the EitB source code. It shouldn't take me more than a few hours to update it to MNAI 2.61 and I would love to help back the project to which I owe so many improvements in game pace and balance.

Qgqqqqq: Given the lack of opinions, I decided to go ahead and start changing the Adventurer Counter implementation in ExtraModMod to mimic the vanilla implementation. The code is in a quite advanced state already, but there is something that we should discuss and that I forgot to take into account in my CivCounter post.

I'm not sure whether the (relatively extensive, IMO) alterations will be appropriate for EitB. How difficult would it be to adapt your implementation so that the Adventurer Counter simply functions the same to the GP counter, except incremented separately and affected civ-wide?

You mention here that the Adventurer Counter should work in a civ-wide way, but I'm unsure on how to do the thresholds that need to be reached to get a new adventurer. Should we use the same thresholds than the normal GPP counters use even if all cities add to it? This would encourage expanding a lot and having a lot of cities.

lfgr: I reckon that we won't get much more barbarian feedback until a 0.5 beta is released. I believe that a release should be made soon, what do you think? Also, should 0.5 include the barbarian spawning changes added to 0.4.2? Are there any other changes that should be included too before releasing the first beta?

 

[lfgr]

I think the "No Wilderness" option should be in. The other changes don't affect gameplay anyway (save the memory leak fix). I played a few games with the option and it seems to work.
I plan to do some minor things from the bug tracker and then finish the new lair/camp system already mentioned next, but there is nothing really urgent.
Either way I won't be able to do any developing or testing in the next time since unfortunately my computer is broken.

 

[Terkhen]

I think the "No Wilderness" option should be in. The other changes don't affect gameplay anyway (save the memory leak fix). I played a few games with the option and it seems to work.
I plan to do some minor things from the bug tracker and then finish the new lair/camp system already mentioned next, but there is nothing really urgent.
Either way I won't be able to do any developing or testing in the next time since unfortunately my computer is broken.

Okay, I'm going to give it some time by pushing the release for some weeks while I code some small quality of life updates. I will release 0.5.0-beta1 once I'm done with them. If by then No Wilderness is not ready, it will be left for beta2. I hope that your computer's problem is not too serious and that it is solved soon

Qgqqqqq: The new Adventurer Counter implementation is ready. It currently mimics completely how vanilla Great People Points work, except that all cities contribute to the same counter. If you believe that it should work differently, please let me know. I also added debugging strings to allow to check in pythonDbg if the counter is working correctly. In order to mimic the default implementation a bit further, I also added a little something that should help Grigori players a lot...



The code is finished and ready for being imported into EitB. You can download the whole pre-beta repository by going to the ExtraModMod downloads page and selecting "Download repository". You need all changes tagged between AdventurerCounter and CivCounter, in python, XML and dll code. In ExtraModMod, there are extra buildings that contribute to the counter such as the Museum or the Forum. Since the python implementation is not hardcoded to specific buildings anymore, it should work on whatever buildings you define as producing Adventurer Points via the usual, vanilla way. The only thing that you will need to adapt is the TXT_KEY_CONCEPT_ADVENTURER_COUNTER_PEDIA text, in order to remove the ExtraModMod specific things from the description of how the Adventurer Counter works. Please let me know if you run into any problems or if you believe that something should work differently.

EDIT2: The code for the Grigori Adventurer Counter bar is also reused for displaying the current level of the Khazad Vault. You can ignore the changes labeled "Khazad vault display" in CvMainInterface.py, but of course you can take them too (along with its xml file with the required strings). Here is an example of how the current display for the Khazad Vault looks like:

 

[lfgr]

Okay, I'm going to give it some time by pushing the release for some weeks while I code some small quality of life updates. I will release 0.5.0-beta1 once I'm done with them. If by then No Wilderness is not ready, it will be left for beta2.

No, you misunderstood, No Wilderness is already out in the repository (here). It thought you were talking about whether to merge the things already uploaded.

I hope that your computer's problem is not too serious and that it is solved soon

Thanks!