Magister Modmod

[it-ogo]

rewrote Govannon's "train spell" ability...

Dimensional2

I added a "barrage" ability for all archery units

Hard to balance...

I added a random chance ... to gain +1 xp each turn ...

I made it so that Planar gate units start with free xp based on the ac when they spawn (1/4 of the AC, rounded down)

I made pretty much every unit with visible wings in their graphics start with the flying promotion.

Doubt...

and can cause a worldwide inquisition (effecting every city of every civ with the Order state religion).

Then i will hardly accept Order if have no holy city. I do not like it in gameplay. But the logic is good.

the Vampire promotion now randomly causes the unit to gain a very negative promotion,

Disagree from both viewpoints. This is chaotic mechanism, close to mutation, while Calabim tend to law. Very bad intuitive contradiction. Also it involves unnecessary micromanagement.

BTW now Contagion causes Diseased and Calabim got even more synergy with good religions. As well as Death mana usage in general. You should be well protected from your weapon - that is a basic strategy.

Most spells now have tech prereqs

Very bad. Less effect from caster heroes and bad for possible scenarios.

Lightbringers are now Malakim UU for Ecclesiastics, being slightly cheaper and starting with more promotions.

Not good.

Monks can cast life and spirit divine spells (starting with level 1, can learn level 2), and are weaker but have spirit affinity.

Bad. Life 1 for monks is OK, maybe Body 1, maybe bonus against vampires. But for divine we need priests. Affinity is counter-intuitive as all mana "mined" in Erebus is arcane, for divine spells you get mana from... let us say, outer planes.

a Vicar (now called Vicarius) don't have law or earth magic, but they do have life and spirit. They are the only priests that do not require their state religion in order to build.

Bad. Cure Disease was very serious balance feature against evil religions.

Vaghan of Lugus, a second Empyrean Hero at Righteousness

Slightly too general. And I do not think that Righteousness and paladins provide good accent for Empyrean. If they still "have a point".

Talia Gossam has been added ad a Malakim druid hero (requiring they change to a neutral alignment). Because of her affair with the Baron, she is also a werewolf.

I added Orc slaying, elf slaying, dark elf slaying, dwarf slaying, angel slaying, but none of these are availible. I intend to make them be granted only by events, but have;t written any events yet.

Do not like new race "dark elf". Events OK.

The Council of Esus got a new hero too: Tsvarlain

Druid with Death magic? Fallen druid? No, not good. Overall I feel that death magic feat CoE badly. Mind - OK.

plus a large combat bonus verses druids and most FoL units (almost certainly overpowered.)

"Elf butcher" promo... Prominent person but bad as Druid and bad for CoE. CoE is not an extremal religion like Order and AV. Not for hating self. You need still mind and good self control to deceive. Still Druid for CoE is OK.

Arcane units and Vampire lords with channeling 2 can become liches if they either have the Staff of Souls (Barbatos's equipment) or are standing on the Broken sepulcher.

Sounds like one big exploit.

The Death III sorcery spell has been replace by "Curse the Ground"

Interesting...

Treants are now Siege, and can bombard and cause collateral damage.

OK

In the March of the Trees spell

Too much IMO.

control of all demons within 2 tiles.

Demons are bad object for control.

I

added a spell that allows Shadows to remove other religions muh like inquisition (but killing population in the process)

Bad. Again Inquizition is for extremal religions, not for hidden one.

I added the Forests Preserves from BtS.

More and more micromanagement. Overall looks like completely overpowered. And I do not like specialist economy emphasis for elves.

I added an Altar of Bhall improvement

Now with new tweak - no unhappiness for infernals - it is inacceptable for them.

The consumption civic

Don't like.

Spoiler :

Fend for themselves grants +2 xp, and theology grants 3 instead of 2 xp in cities of state religion.

Temples of the Empyrean grant +20% GPP, but -15% military production

In my feeling overall bonus is strongly negative. Although I am builder. When I gain Theology, build National epic and start rush for Altar few less turns before final great prophet is not of much help. But no matter in this case the best is to have Emp temple in one city, but never follow the religion.

Spellstaffs are now equipment

Feast and Consume soul can continue until the city would be reduced to size 0, at which point it is razed.

But if option "no city razing" works with it? And attitude penalty for captured cities?

The Infernal Grimoire grants 2 entropy affinity in its building form.

Grants to whom? All units built in the city?

The Barbarian State has

No much sence in late time as it is not playable and heroes will not be protected. Bad at early time with raging barbs as RB is mainly problem for AI player. You will often have an early conquest as barbs will do your job with Aggressive/Charismatic/Raiders. No?

 

[woodelf]

This is an impressive modmod. I can't wait to try it after 0.31

 

[kenken244]

Heroic stength 1 and heroic strength 2 bolth grant heroic stength 1 to summoned units. I assume that heroic stength 2 should give heroic stength 2 to summmoned units instead of heroic strength 1

 

[Ekolite]

Hmmm not sure about making Empy priests buildable for everyone, kinda detracts from the already lacking point of the empyrean . Also, I always interpreted the Spirit promo of Order priests to represent sirona/lugus priests working with them.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I'm giving the Empyrean some other bonuses to compensate, like their second hero and probably a FoL-treant-esque (but rarer) chance of having invaded deserts spawn Sand Lion or Aurealis defender (perhaps more likely in Malakim lands).

I want Empyrean Priests to be available to both Empyrean State religion and Order state religion Civs, since it is clearly stated that the Priests of Lugus and Sirona are officially sanctioned but required to assist the Order in its Crusades. I also wanted to give the religion a better chance to spread, as it is a late religion.

I'll probably insert a python block to limit their availability. I'm thinking they should require either Empyrean state religion or Good alignment (so the Order civs could still build, as could Good Leaves and Runes.)



Because of the frequent complaints about Lichdom being unbalanced for the civ that control the Sepulcher and/or Staff of Souls, I'm requiring the Soul Debt tech and allowing it to be cast by any arcane unit on any Death Node. Casting it will destroy the node and mana source, just like resurrection destroys life nodes/mana. I think I'll also forbid Good civs from using it (maybe also neutral)

I'm considering removing Channeling 2 and 3, combining the channeling 2 abilities with Sorcery/Summoning/Divine and combining channeling 3 with new Sorcery2/Summoning2/Divine2 promotions. Splitting it up like this will let me better control what spells a unit can cast.

I'm also considering reducing micromanagement by removing the train sphere spells, instead making them a <PyPerTurn> effect of the Tutor promotion. Since the Magical Aristocracy disapproves of Govannon's teachings, why should they(/you) control what he teaches, to whom, and when? Making it a passive effect also frees you to use Govannon and his students as actual mages/archmages, instead of just having them stay home and teach your army.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

What would you think if a added a unit for each of the Towers that lead to the Tower of Mastery? I'm not sure whether I want world units or national units (limit 1 either way), or if I want to make them very expensive, cheap, or even free to the first player to finish the appropriate tower, or if they should require upgrading from an arcane unit of a certain minimum level. I'm thinking:

Great Necromancer: requires Tower of Necromancy. Starts with Hero, channeling 1-3, Sorcery, Summoning, Death 1-2, Dimensional 1. Strength 1, movement 1, 2 death affinity. Can cast Necromastery without the Staff of Souls.

Lord of the Elements: requires Tower of Elements. Starts with Hero, channeling 1-3, Sorcery, Summoning, Water 1, Fire 1, Earth 1, Air 1. Strength 1, movement 1, 1 Fire affinity, 1 Water affinity, 1 Air affinity, 1 Earth affinity. Can cast a new "Elemental Mastery" spell, basically the same as Necromastery or Dynamis Agares, but for Elementals instead of Demons or the Undead.

Magic Infuser (probably needs a better name): requires Tower of Alteration. Starts with Hero, channeling 1-3, Sorcery, Divine, Enchantment, Nature 1, Body 1. Has a spell that creates some new pieces of Equipment (not sure what yet)

For the Tower of Divination I can't think of a good unit, so I'm thinking of having it provide a free Great Prophet instead. The Wonder already grants a free tech anyway, so it doesn't need a huge bonus.

 

[kenken244]

I like that idea

 

[Cuteunit]

Death 3 is still coming up as lichdom in my game using the modmod.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Does the Spell say Death III or is it just the civilopedia? I haven't updated the Civilopedia at all, or created any textkeys. So far I've just been writing the names of spells, untis, etc, directly in their xml files. If I take the time to earn how to update the pedia and create textkeys my mod may be delayed.

Try cheating in world builder (perhaps giving yourself 2 archmages, 1 with death III and the other with the Staff of Souls) if you want to test the actual mechanics. I suspect it is only a cosmetic issue related to my laziness and ignorance of textkeys.



So, do you think that the Towers' units should be world or national? Expensive, cheap, free, or upgrades only?

 

[Cuteunit]

my friend built 3 liches in our MP game just now the standard way, death 3. he didnt have the barbarian lich's staff or anything.

 

[Cuteunit]

National, cheap, upgrade only.

 

[Cuteunit]

Alchemy lab is way way too expensive to build in terms of hammers.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Are you sure your friend was using my modmod? It the code clearly states that it requires channeling 2, unitcombat_adept or unit_vampire_lord, and Staff of souls or broken sepulcher.

I guess its possible that I loaded the wrong files. Do my other spells work?


What level requirements (if any) do you think the Tower Masters (I guess I'll use this term for them collectively) should have?

I don't think I did anything with the Alchemy Lab, so the cost isn't my fault. Bring it up though makes me think I should give it some more abilities instead of just making it cheaper. What if it allowed arcane units in the city to cast spells that generated temporary buildings that consume certain resources to create others? It could give free gold, iron, reagents, mana, maybe even mithril. Also maybe some promotions that give death- and/or poison- damage granting promotions?



You should probably just edit your old post instead of making a new one every few minutes.

 

[Cuteunit]

Probably, but I've had an extremely depressing day ( as in losing a thousand dollars and other things) so I've no care for such things.

we both used the modmod.

 

[Ekolite]

Hey Magister, I think the ability to specialise mages would be cool. For eg, you could specialise a mage making them a water mage, could require a certain amount of water manas under your control and require water 2 and gives the unit acces to all water spells (all tiers) except for divine magic. You would be limitted to maybe 1 with two mana of that type (in my eg: water mana), 2 with 3 mana of the type, 3 with 5. It should balance itself out because to have a lot of specialist mages you'd need a LOT of mana. What do you think?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Honestly I'm not quite sure I agree, but I see where you are coming from.

I was actually thinking that I might get rid of the current mechanic of giving a free promotion at 2, and giving 2 free promotions at 3 with something more random. You wouldn't be guaranteed any free promotions, but would have a chance of getting them (say, (# of a type of mana / 50)%) and an equal chance of getting the next level if the unit already has the first, and an equal chance of getting the third if it has the second. This would encourage specialization. I might make it so that all Amurite units have this chance, and that their arcane units have a much higher chance.

(Also, I'm planning to add the Tower Master units (Great Necromancer, Lord of the Elements, something for the tower of Alteration too), which will have access to both sorcery and summoning spells in their spheres.)


I wasn't wanting to implement this idea until the game had more sources of mana and more ways to gain caster xp. I was wanting to make the palaces give more of their civs characteristic mana than of the other types, and to make the Amurites and maybe Sidar get more mana than most civs. This is not currently possible, so I'm waiting to see if I can convince Kael to make an xml schema change.

 

[kenken244]

You could just give a free building in the civs capitol that provides more mana

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I could, but I don't want to. I've thought of a lot of spells that would require adding more buildings, and don't want the total number to double or triple. I'd rather just be able to have a building grant any number of any number of resources (an also to forbid the use of multiple resources)


I've also considered making the first city built by some civs create a unique feature (but not set as unique, just unbuildable, or else the Elohim would meet everyone instantly) that grants mana and other boni (e.g., give Braduk the Burning the Eternal Flame improvement (at least until Kael adds the Equipment as a reward with certain trophies), with basically the abilities of the Pyre of the Seraphic.)

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I just added ideas that I'm considering but not decided about/sure how to implement to post 3 of this thread. Feel free to critique them.

 

[Cuteunit]

Arrow Barrage is doing no damage in our modmodded MP game.

edit: using ljosalfar archers