[MOD] MagisterModmod

[BvBPL]

How does Vampirism work these days? I can't find a gift vampirism button.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

In base FfH2, gift vampirism is a python-only spell cast by a vampire that grants the Vampire promotion to all eligible units on the same tile.

In MagisterModmod, the spell is not cast by the vampire but by an eligible unit on the same tile as a vampire, or a Governor's Manor. The Vampire promotion itself is actually granted in XML, which helps the AI understand how to use the spell. Python is used to apply free spell sphere promotions to the new vampire based on the mana you possess.

Gifting Vampirism also requires the Calabim civilization and the Feudalism technology.

(I now allow Vampires in other civs to use the Feed and Feast abilities, but not to share their dark gift.)

 

[OKSleeper]

I had a great game of Magister, my first real one where I dominated. Thanks for your efforts. This ffh2 & it's mods are better than anything the Civ folks have made. But, I had 2 issues. The first may be in my settings, but when I conquered a city, it wouldn't expand it's borders no matter how many Supplies of culture I added. The second is that the Desert Rose (?) tile did not give an option to make a Plantation. A Tower victory is not possible without it. Even though I had a tile in my own territory, I couldn't convert it, so I wasn't offered it's Mana. It was the only Mana that I didn't have. And as to that, what about a Mana victory for getting all of them? (needed 3 Shadow Mana as they started at -2). Because I couldn't get the DR Mana when I was going for the Tower victory, my game dragged on. Playing the 1800 turn game, the tech chart ran out about 1/2 way through so for about 400 turns, it was purely Future Techs & no new units or buildings. Some spice for the late game would be nice. Perhaps something for the workers, as their usefulness peters out. Eventually, there were only 3 team left in the game & the 3rd place team won. But I did love all of the magic, terraforming, weather etc., & the Genesis wonder was very cool.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Desert Rose is not a mana type, nor does it have anything to do with the Tower of Mastery. It is a poison which requires the Poison tech to trade, and gives a production bonus for Assassins. It can be banned by an Overcouncil Resolution, so if that vote has passed you might need to leave the Overcouncil to get it.

It just s o happens to share the icon art with Creation Mana, which is required for the Tower of Divination and the Tower of Mastery. Creation mana may be hard to get because Creation Nodes may only be built on Creation Mana, rather than Raw Mana like other mana types. (Plantations would never be used for this resource.) Amathaon grants his blessings rather randomly. His sphere depends heavily on luck.

City borders not expanding sounds like it is related to the Fixed Borders Overcouncil vote, but that should have been removed a while back. It was experimental and always rather buggy. Are you playing an older version?

Edit: I just had that resolution pop up anyway (despite not existing in the XML) in a game, and a few turns later had an unexplained crash. I'be had a lot of such crashes lately. Has anyone else?

 

[BvBPL]

Gifting Vampirism also requires the Calabim civilization and the Feudalism technology.

Ah. I didn't have Feudalism. I see.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I'm thinking of changing the Kuriotates world spell Legends; making random units Evangelists of the Cult of the Dragon is often just too annoying, plus can be too processor intensive. The vanilla version which grants + 300 in the player's cities fits the Creation sphere better, although it seems too weak and bland. I'm thinking that in the next version Legends will:

• Make the caster's tile's city the Cult of the Dragon Holy City
• Spread Cult of the Dragon to all of the caster's owner's cities
• Spread Cult of the Dragon to some random foreign cities (fewer than currently)
  
• Hurry Production of Stir from Slumber (if in progress in any city)
• Grant all cities with the Cult of the Dragon present some of the caster's player's type, based on a fraction of the culture found in the city where it is cast. (This could contribute to culture flipping)
• End revolts in your CotD cities, and extends them in cities of leaders not associated with Dragons

I'm also changing the Council of Esus Disrupt spell, making it stronger and earlier. Agents of Esus can use it to cause unhappiness, reduce the city's owner's culture, and increase the revolution index. It could also cause a small gain in xp. When Whisperers use it it may also cause a few turns of disorder or flip ownership once the culture if fully depleted, but this will never happen when the caster does not have the Divine 2 promotion. When it captures a city, it also ejects hostile units. It can be used even in capital cities, but can never flip a player's last city. The effects depend on the unit's xp and level, and are tripled by the Fund Dissidents vote passing.

Paranoia will weaken units more.

The Invisible promotion will no longer block Evangelist. The Initiate into the Cult of Esus ability would no longer require an Agent of Esus unit on the tile, but instead any Esus unit with the Evangelist promotion. Agents could purchase it like other priests at Fanaticism, and Whisperers would start with it. Unseelie Shadows would also start with Evangelist. letting the Svartalfar convert their units more easily.


Any player could get Honor for free by moving any Empyrean unit onto the Mirror of Heaven before knowing the tech. Those who have already converted to that State religion first could also gain a free Great Prophet. Only Varn would receive found The Empyrean at Way of the Wise, with other Malakim leaders requiring Honor like other players. Lightbringers would start with Evangelist.


With the Fellowship of the Leaves State religion and unit religion, and at least level 6, Mages and High Priests could purchase the Druidic promotion and all the free spell spheres it unlocks.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

The vanilla version which grants + 300 in the player's cities fits the Creation sphere better, although it seems too weak and bland.

The problem with that is that culture itself is too weak imo. It should have some other effects besides only a few which only make sense in border cities, not in your core.

 

[Kapor]

Speaking of Kuriotates, could you make it so that settlements don't have food penalty? Or at least captured cities don't have it?
I always hate it how captured cities starve to death. Lore-wise, it would be more appropriate to have captured territories as autonomous communities that keep going on as before, keeping their population, but paying no taxes, research and costing no maintenance either. Mass famine and executions and expulsions seem wrong to me.
Even founded settlements could keep growing normally- I could picture that some autonomous communities could grow quite large, while still being almost independent from central authority. BUT since you normally wont send your workers to build farms around settlements that don't benefit you in any way, most settlements will remain wild and small, and only conquered ones would actually be large.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Speaking of Kuriotates, could you make it so that settlements don't have food penalty? Or at least captured cities don't have it?
I always hate it how captured cities starve to death. Lore-wise, it would be more appropriate to have captured territories as autonomous communities that keep going on as before, keeping their population, but paying no taxes, research and costing no maintenance either. Mass famine and executions and expulsions seem wrong to me.
Even founded settlements could keep growing normally- I could picture that some autonomous communities could grow quite large, while still being almost independent from central authority. BUT since you normally wont send your workers to build farms around settlements that don't benefit you in any way, most settlements will remain wild and small, and only conquered ones would actually be large.

Unfortunately I believe that Settlement code is all handled in the dll, so it would be up to Tholal instead of me.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

What would you think if I allowed Elven (and Dark Elven) Druids' Vitalize spell upgrade Forests and Jungles to Ancient Forests, so they (especially the Svartalfar) don't have to be so closely tie to the Fellowship of the Leaves?

I'm thinking I may also make the spell a delayed casted version, as the pedia entry for the spell describes the druid tasked with vitalizing the Jusli desert as singing for a hundred days before the first sign of growth and then for a hundred more to complete the transformation.

I might make it effect adjacent tiles too.

I'm not sure I want to tie it to the Elven race so much anymore. I'm thinking maybe that a Druidic caster with Nature 2 might hasten the growth of new forests into forests and forests into ancient forests.

 

[zldrago1000]

That sounds sweet thematically. I always thought the svartalfar relied on fellowship of the leaves too much early on to get thier economy going.

 

[vajar22]

@MagisterCultuum I have started making one huge map for Magister ModMod yesterday been working on Northwestern part of map but today when I try to reload map to work on in CustomSenario I get CTD...any idea what went wrong? Regards!

 

[Alornal]

So the Doviello units have Golem Slaying, yet I know that they haven't gotten Machinery yet - I teched it first myself. What gives?

 

[Cutlass]

On the map I'm playing now, the labels for the unique features show up before the plots have been explored. Long before it's even possible to see them, Should that be not happening?

Another thing, I'm playing the Elohim, and pretty much the entire populated part of the map is visible to me. Any reason for that? I should have to work to see other places.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

@MagisterCultuum I have started making one huge map for Magister ModMod yesterday been working on Northwestern part of map but today when I try to reload map to work on in CustomSenario I get CTD...any idea what went wrong? Regards!

I'm afraid something broke in worldbuilder several versions back, which I have not figured out how to fix just yet. It is related to reading or writing worldbuilder saves, as it not a problem for editing things for a game in progress as I usually do. I think it was something BUG related not cooperating with something Platyping coded. I haven't looked into it in a while, but suppose I probably should.

So the Doviello units have Golem Slaying, yet I know that they haven't gotten Machinery yet - I teched it first myself. What gives?

If practically all of their units have the promotion, they probably got it through the random event rather than though purchasing the promotion through xp once the tech requirement was met. There are several racial slaying events, all of which can only be triggered while at war with a player that uses units of that race and cannot be triggered when the player itself has that race. The events grant the promotion to most of the player's units and cause a major diplomatic penalty between you and all players who use units of that race.

On the map I'm playing now, the labels for the unique features show up before the plots have been explored. Long before it's even possible to see them, Should that be not happening?

Another thing, I'm playing the Elohim, and pretty much the entire populated part of the map is visible to me. Any reason for that? I should have to work to see other places.

It is a normal thing for the Elohim. In vanilla FfH2, the Elohim start out with all the tiles containing unique features already revealed and visible. I consider that too much (as it reveals info about the terrain and features there, and possibly even other players units that start too close) so I reduced this bonus to having signs placed to label all of the unique features.

(I also removed the permanent landmarks that label unique features for everyone who can see the tile in vanilla FfH, as I found irremovable labels annoying. I also gave the owner of the Celestial Compass the same bonus of having Unique Features labelled as the Elohim automatically enjoy.)

If you are part of the Overcouncil and their Share Maps resolution has passed, then it is intended for you to share visibility with all other members of the Overcouncil. The other full members can see whatever you see too. You should loose that active visibility if you or the other players leave the Overcouncil, although due to a quirk in the code it could take a turn or two. (The Sidar worldspell could also destroy your whole map, leaving you with only your units' line of sight visible.)

 

[vajar22]

I'm afraid something broke in worldbuilder several versions back, which I have not figured out how to fix just yet. It is related to reading or writing worldbuilder saves, as it not a problem for editing things for a game in progress as I usually do. I think it was something BUG related not cooperating with something Platyping coded. I haven't looked into it in a while, but suppose I probably should.


Don't mind, have been working on map in FFH2 as it is possible to play FFH2 map in Magister ModMod(allready have played OZZY which inspired me to make this map
HERE are some screenshots - for example I put some unique story based imbalances - Khazad are at civil war - Magnus, Arturus and Stavrus Thorne(Thorne family cousins - which i made up) separated Old Khazad empire in three and while they fought Demons spawned through portal in old citadel and took holly Kilmorph city of Khazak. They all start at war and bannor are split in three(Sabathiel, Capria, Decius) Map is huge and has a lot to conquer explore. Also I add a two strong evil alliances : Illian-Doviello and Tebryn Arbandi-Os Gabella in purpose of making the rise of evil inevitable...

 

[Alornal]

If practically all of their units have the promotion, they probably got it through the random event rather than though purchasing the promotion through xp once the tech requirement was met. There are several racial slaying events, all of which can only be triggered while at war with a player that uses units of that race and cannot be triggered when the player itself has that race. The events grant the promotion to most of the player's units and cause a major diplomatic penalty between you and all players who use units of that race.

That sounds just like it - they had it several hundred turns before and it was almost all their units. Sweet, thanks!

 

[Fibonacci1123]

What would you think if I allowed Elven (and Dark Elven) Druids' Vitalize spell upgrade Forests and Jungles to Ancient Forests, so they (especially the Svartalfar) don't have to be so closely tie to the Fellowship of the Leaves?

I'm thinking I may also make the spell a delayed casted version, as the pedia entry for the spell describes the druid tasked with vitalizing the Jusli desert as singing for a hundred days before the first sign of growth and then for a hundred more to complete the transformation.

I might make it effect adjacent tiles too.

I'm not sure I want to tie it to the Elven race so much anymore. I'm thinking maybe that a Druidic caster with Nature 2 might hasten the growth of new forests into forests and forests into ancient forests.

I like this idea, but I would not tie it to druids. By the time you get druids, one extra food or hammer hardly matters. Making it a Nature 1 or 2 ability would actually make it useful.

As for druids, I think a casting time for vitalize + affects adjacent tiles (or has a chance to) would be great.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

You don't necessarily have to wait for a Druid, but I suppose you cannot rely on getting lucky enough to have the Druidic great person Talia Gossam born in your civ.

Upgrading Forests to Ancient Forests seems like a much stronger ability than the regular Nature 2 Bloom spell, so Nature 1 seems wrong. I would suggest Nature 3, but that would be even harder to get than Druidic.

I suppose I could make Nature 2 permit multiple versions of the Bloom spell, with Bloom I creating New Forests, Bloom 2 turning New Forests into Forests, and Bloom 3 turning Forests into Ancient Forests. I could give the spells level requirements, and/or give them longer delayed casting times

The level prereq would most benefit Faeryl Viconia and Thessa, due to their arcane trait letting their adepts and mages gain free xp faster. Thessa could even take the thematic route of embracing dark magic as a way to empower her casters to fight against the very corruption that such evil magic itself helps to bring. She could adopt the Ashen Veil and send our mages with Unholy Taint to preserve and expand her Ancient Forests.

Currently I have Vitalize take 4 turns but have it terraform 9 tiles at once. It is like Vitalize used to be on all the tiles based on the Druidic promotion alone, but if the caster has Life 1 it includes casting Sanctify and if the caster has Nature 2 it blooms all those tiles and upgrades new forests to forests and forests to ancient forests.


If I'm going to give Nature 2 multiple spells anyway, what you you think of a Nature 2+Water 1 cross sphere spell to create an Oasis in a desert tile? (I'm thinking it would have to limited to those with no water or freshwater on adjacent tiles, which would also mean no other Oases on adjacent tiles as the feature itself provides fresh water. It might have to have desert terrain all around it too.) Or maybe Nature 1 + Water 2, so that Water 2 has some effect beyond just granting water walking? I guess I could just make it Water 2, but it does seem like some nature magic would be needed to make the plants bloom around a new source of fresh water.
Edit: Eh, I'm thinking that since I removed all of the other cross sphere spells already and since this is the only spell sphere without a spell, I may just make Create Oasis a Water 2 spell.

 

[kjnoren]

Thanks for keeping FfH alive! I just installed your modmod, and I must say I'm very impressed with your thoroughness.

One issue I found that might be from MNAI or from your work, is that it's possible for a unit to cast Join and Split Commander in the same turn. In the original FfH I had earlier, you could only cast one of them per unit and turn. In effect, this means that you can use a Great Commander with every unit in a stack, each of them getting +1S and more XP per combat.

It might be your intention to it to work like this, but I find this a rather large loophole.