V2.5 Beta Testing

[stmartin]

We are happy to announce it! Download V2.5 Beta 5 (~9MB). It requires V2.4 Patch F.

To install:
1. make sure you have V2.4 Patch F installed.
2. extract the downloaded 7z file, copy 'The History of Three Kingdoms' folder within the 7z file, to your Beyond the Sword\Mods folder, overwrite the folder with the same name.

What's new in this version, roughly:
1. hero capture, execute, release, and trade system. See HoTK concept's Hero section.
2. Army system. See HoTK Concept's Army section.
3. Hero attribute: leadership and might, with slightly revised legion. See HoTK concept's Hero section and Legion section
4. Customising random hero. See HoTK Concept's Random Hero section.
5. When changing leader picking from current faction heroes as well. See HoTK Concept's Hero section.

What to keep in mind when playing:
1. hunting bugs, of course
2. see if the hero trade value is proper. See if AI's requesting for hero trade is timely. See if AI knows when to and not to refuse trading heroes.
3. see if hero's surrender, capture, die chance, etc. is proper.
4. what do you think of using experience and leadership to determine legion's maximum member.
5. How to use leadership and might attributes better
6. How to adjust the customisation option when creating random hero.
7. The type of promotions random heroes gains when level up now is influenced by the heroes potential unit combat level. See if we should adjust some promotions' chance to appear.
8. Any thought on the new and complex (probably too complex) Army system is welcome.
9. when creating new leaders out of heroes, do you like the random trait and personality choice.

Some notes:
1. This beta is feature complete. V2.5 will be released around 10.1
2. We will include new art and may be some sound in V2.5. Such as new unit by Bakuel, and new buttons and icons by koap.
3. The AIs don't know Army system, yet. In V2.5 it's unlikely they will know. It's hard.
4. The hero leadership and Might attributes are just the first draft, we are looking for feedback in order to further adjust them.
5. xxhe, our xml guy, has some reservations about watermill improvement being overpowered. Would like to hear your opinion about it.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Yay...something new to try. But are we going to have a real 3 Kingdoms scenario (Shu, Wei and Wu) soon?

 

[stmartin]

Well, a last minute change messed up the Mod, causing a game hang bug (busy writing a 1GB save game). Uploaded beta 2 to fix it. Break save game. Download at the same link.

@AP

Not until advisors and history event are in place. When? It depends on how well everything goes.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

There seems to be a big glaring glitch: when heroes are defeated, even if they are not killed, they can't be found anywhere on the map. Doesn't matter if it's human or AI (Taishi Ci was defeated by me and he's not in Liu Yao's capital the next turn; in a different game, my Zhang Fei was defeated but I can't find him anywhere in my cities the next turn).

Addendum: Duh, I guess I didn't realize I actually caught Taishi Ci, so I had to persuade him. Never mind. Maybe if you can put in a reminder that heroes are languishing in prisons (in the future there might be a lot of heroes waiting their turns to be persuaded or executed).

 

[stmartin]

Hey, I thought I did put some reminding text on screen when you capture a hero didn't I? Of course, an alert message reminding player about hero in prison would be nice.

 

[Ambreville]

Got a msg my hero died during combat when he actually didn't.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

If you persuade a captured generic hero twice, you'll get 2 duplicate heroes. One of them is defective, and when you group the legion the defective hero will disappear.
If you eliminate a faction and they currently hold one of your heroes prisoner, that hero will still be imprisoned.
Any way of putting up imprisoned heroes as part of peace talks?

Addendum: Sun Quan (my imprisoned hero) broke out of prison and returned to me! (It would have been better if I freed him after Wang Lang was destroyed though...)

 

[Kenjister]

Ok, I found a bug. When you pass a judgement on a prisoner, the button requires two clicks before it goes away. This means however, that if I persuaded Cao Ren to join me (as Lu Bu) I have to hit the button twice, giving me TWO Cao Ren's. The game seemed to really hang up later however, with massive slowness.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Same bug as Kenjister that I referred to in the post before his.
When the head of an army gets defeated, a CTD happens (tried this before when playing the first beta).

 

[AnotherPacifist]

When you select Huang Gai's Danyang and attack Chen, it'll crash, no matter how good the odds are. So the CTD bug doesn't seem to be related to whether your army wins or not.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

I wounded Gan Ning the turn before when he dared to blockade Yue Yang, but even though there are no pirate ships, the blockade is still there!
On another note, a hero of the people will cause a CTD when you move him. Can't even upgrade him.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

No matter what you do, when you hit enter next a CTD happens. (I tried deleting the troublesome hero of the sword which has a lot of my generals attached, but no use) (and I was about 15 moves from an emperor cultural victory and just rescued the emperor from Xu Chang)

 

[Kenjister]

I noticed that all heroes seem to surrender without fail if you choose to persuade... maybe a variable is off here?

EDIT: A CTD when I attempt to dismiss the Army that Liu Bei is commanding with the Dismiss Army button. I had the only legion that was in the army (Guan Yu) grouped when I hit the button. I also had Resilient 1 from Liu Bei via Nine Transformation active on the legion.

EDIT2: I noticed that in my current Liu Chong game, I can no longer make any trade proposals with any other factions. I can contact them, and recieve trade offers, but when I attempt to propose something (such as a peace treaty) I can't even get to the trade table because the button is not there.

 

[stmartin]

Got a msg my hero died during combat when he actually didn't.

He escaped or be captured?

to join me (as Lu Bu) I have to hit the button twice, giving me TWO Cao Ren's. The game seemed to really hang up later however, with massive slowness.

It's the AI's turn or the player's turn? If it's human player's turn, it's clicking plot list button, or attack with an army member, or open a screen, or something else?

I noticed that all heroes seem to surrender without fail if you choose to persuade... maybe a variable is off here?

EDIT: A CTD when I attempt to dismiss the Army that Liu Bei is commanding with the Dismiss Army button. I had the only legion that was in the army (Guan Yu) grouped when I hit the button. I also had Resilient 1 from Liu Bei via Nine Transformation active on the legion.

EDIT2: I noticed that in my current Liu Chong game, I can no longer make any trade proposals with any other factions. I can contact them, and recieve trade offers, but when I attempt to propose something (such as a peace treaty) I can't even get to the trade table because the button is not there.

If the hero won't surrender, the 'persuade' button will not appear.

About the CTD and Liu Chong's situation, if there's a save game it would be a tremendous help.

 

[Kenjister]

Another update on the missing Diplo Text: I think it has to do with when a hero takes the place of a deceased leader. Everything was fine up until Zhang Liao took over for Lu Bu and I entered the diplo screen to check his traits. I could propose trades to Liao, but after that, I couldn't make any trades with anybody else. I'll try to see if I can dig up a save.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Actually the buttons are still there, but you can't see them. If you click on the appropriate places (usually it's the 2 middle ones that are missing) you'll get the appropriate screens.
Stmartin, if you want a save for this, use my late Sun Ce game which crashes the next turn, it's got it. (Gongsun Zan is dead but is replaced by a generic leaderhead, and Lu Bu was too earlier until he was dead).
Any idea about the phantom menace (Gan Ning)?

 

[Ambreville]

He escaped or be captured?

I still had the hero at the end of the battle.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

How often do heroes break out of jail, and is it related to their history (e.g. Guan Yu more likely to be uncontainable)? Therefore is it better to wait; is there even an option to ransom them?
Also, since some generals are more loyal, when they do betray you in battle, can they become "freelancers" rather than betray to the opposite side, so that the original faction can hire them back. E.g. Cao Cao captures and persuades Guan Yu, who then helps him fight Lu Bu, but Guan Yu betrays, and instead of going to Lu Bu he should be free so that Liu Bei can rehire him for a low sum. Now, of course if Liu Bei is dead, then he should just betray, but loyalty should be dynamic, maybe even allow it to slowly increase to you the longer he's in your service.

 

[Kenjister]

I've noticed that some of the Leader and Might stats seem... interesting I suppose. Some heroes like Zhang Yang seem quite overrated with their dual 80's in each. Some, like Yue Jin, have strangely low Might ratings (he has a 70 compared to Yu Jin's 80). Perhaps if the stats can be adjusted so the more famous generals (such as Zhang He and Yue Jin) have improved might ratings since they both seemed to be quite capable warriors in their own right.

Finally, I've noticed that the leader name doesn't change after the death of the previous leader. It's quite odd when Zhao Yun is referred to as Gongsun Zan all the time.

 

[stmartin]

Uploaded HoTK V2.5 Beta3 to the same address in the first post.

0.298: fix: fix CTD when dismissing Army
fix random leader's text and button display error in score board hover text
fix CTD when Army's normal legion core troop is defeated, but has other legion member
fix a bug when heroes who did not die naturally in history die too early in the mod
fix a bug that Hero Advisor's prisoner screen refresh too late
rule tweak: Leader heroes can die and be captured in combat now.

Haven't fixed the pirate blockade bug though. Also I haven't see any couldn't propose trade stuff. May be fixed also.

You can propose hero trade, just start diplomacy with the other player, and you'll see the choice.

As to the chance for hero's to break out of jail, it's related to the heroes' might attribute, the maximum chance is 1/10 per turn.