Éa, The Ageless and the Divine (phase 2, alpha)

[Pazyryk]

Éa II, v4 (will break saves)

Changelog

• Added Policy help texts (thanks oChuckles!)
• Only show highest level promotion for numbered promotions.
• [Promotion] Battle Magery 1-6 (Thaumaturge): Specifically increases the effect or duration of certain combat spells (e.g., Magic Missile). [1.5x the effect of Thaumaturgy]
• [Promotion] Terraforming 1-6 (Devout or Thaumaturge): Specifically increases the effect or duration of terraforming spells (e.g., Ea’s Blessing and Bloom).
• [Promotion] Benevolence 1-6 (Devout): Specifically increases the effect or duration of certain good-effect spells (e.g., Bless, Sanctify).
• [Promotion] Malus 1-6 (Maleficium): Specifically increases the effect of certain evil-effect spells (e.g., Hex, Curse, Defile). [Benevolence levels will automatically convert to Malus if the GP falls]
• Morale is now shown in unit panel after melee and ranged strength (if it is not 0). Morale affects strength anywhere from -90% to >+1000% (in theory) and is affected by various things including several Warrior actions. It has a natural decay where it approaches your civilization's happiness over a few turns (the difference is halved each turn).
• Enslaved military units (i.e., captured units with the Slave promotion) have a baseline morale = -30% that is not affected by your civilization's happiness. (This replaces the -30% attack/def affect of the Slave promotion.)
• Using the [ICON_STAR] as a graphic now for Mana (for both the top panel and the map yield icon). It's not great but it will serve for the time being.
• Fixed bug where Prophecy of Vâ could not be made after someone learns Maleficium.
• Fixed bug in Prophecy of Vâ so that the Azzandarayasna Holy City properly becomes the Aŋra Holy City if its owner falls.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

That looks great!

Thanks

It would be nice to have a template "spell scroll" that all the spells could be drawn onto. In fact, what I would really like is 3 different templates -- for Arcane, Divine and Divine(fallen)

Actually i already have it. I drew the scroll and then put the "arrow" on it. I could post a png version of the scroll alone. I thought about the multiple looks too when reading the doc. Not sure what would reptesent Divine best, if anyone has an idea? Different color-shemes is possible, either for the scroll or the spell itself.

The examples i posted are 256/64/45/32 but they would probably not fit perfectly inside the circles. I've read that custom masks are possible, but what i don't know is whether dds files use true 8bit alpha, or only 1 bit (full transparancy/opacity)

Magic Missile works btw. It's an arcane spell so Druids can learn it (Thaumaturgy tech is prereq).

Ah, i didn't played long enough

 

[Pazyryk]

If anyone wants to tackle the religious icons, here's what I'd like:

Azzandarayasna
The symbol of Azzandara is the Fire Pot. I'm pretty happy with the first one here, particularly the colors. The base needs to be lightened to match the stem and upper part because it will sometimes be on a black background. I provided the 2nd for slightly different proportions and because it does a better job with the "hanger loops" on the sides.






Aŋra
The symbol of Ahriman is the Peacock, so it should be that or maybe a peacock's "eye" feather. Some possible templates below. The color should be like this. These are mostly too busy for the size that will be shown. This first one is an actual religious icon, so I'd want to change it anyway before making it the evil religion icon.














The Weave of Éa
Google image search "celtic weave pattern". There are 1000s to pick from. They are kind of cliché I guess but it is fitting.

The Pantheistic Cults
I don't have anything specific in mind. Something topical for each cult.


Edit: I also prefer "free standing" icons rather than those placed in a background frame. What I mean is the first one below rather than the second:

 

[darkedone02]

Is it safe to use the Ingame Editor mod on this mod?

 

[Pazyryk]

Is it safe to use the Ingame Editor mod on this mod?

Maybe. I'm not sure. But if you plop a Great Person you will have multiple errors. The mod needs to be aware of these at creation. For that, use the Fire Tuner (EaMain state):

GenerateGreatPerson(iPlayer, class, subclass, eaPersonRowID, bAsLeader, dualClass)

It's fairly versatile, though it only plops them in the capital at the moment. At some point in the next month I'll add iPlot as a last arg so they can be plopped anywhere. But here is what it does now:

Spoiler :

GenerateGreatPerson(0, nil, nil, nil, nil, nil)
--Generates a random person of a random class based on Civ 0's current GP points.

GenerateGreatPerson(0, "Warrior", nil, nil, nil, nil)
--Generates some kind of Warrior that may or may not have a subclass depending on the civ. It would be a straight-up Warrior for most civs, or a Paladin for an Azzandarayasna follower, or an Eidolon for an Aŋra follower.

GenerateGreatPerson(0, nil, "Druid", nil, nil, nil)
--Generates a GP of subclass Druid (even if the subclass doesn't make sense for the civ). The Druid is automatically generated with its two appropriate classes, Devout and Thaumaturge. Don't try to supply subclass and class in the same call.

GenerateGreatPerson(0, nil, "Druid", 30, nil, nil)
--Will generate a specific person (ID=30 from the EaPeople table) as a Druid, even if that person doesn't look like and would never normally spawn as a Druid. The people names are defined in EaPeople in the main mod. Their corresponding portraits are defined in EaPortraits in the Media Pack (with the portrait dds files).

GenerateGreatPerson(0, nil, "Druid", 30, true, nil)
--Generate person above as a leader (only ever used before a civ has a leader).

GenerateGreatPerson(0, "Sage", nil, GameInfoTypes.EA_PERSON_THEONO, true, "Artist")
--Generate Theono as leader as a dual-class Sage/Artist (don't use the last field with a subclass)

If you get a workboat, then something has gone awry...

It should be OK to delete a Great Person. The mod will detect that they are gone and give the GP Death popup (if active player), and make the civ leaderless if the GP was their leader.

Other functions like the Morale system should adjust OK. The unit's morale will adjust on it's own up or down to the civ's happiness (over a few turns).

There may or may not be serious problems with plopping cities. It needs to trigger the GameEvents.PlayerCityFounded hook. I'm not sure if the IGE does that or not (DonQuiche will know that). If I had to guess, I'd say it will.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Hi again.
I'll try to have a look at religions in the coming days. Not sure a full peackock could be made into a religious icon without turning into a blue-grren blob.

A question now, i tried playing a little longer. Are features written in black in the pdf supposed to be working right now? Cause if they are, a number of those are not. Out of memory i can tell the movements bonuses for pantheistic (forest and hills) don't work. Also, no Yew seem to have been generated in the last map i tried (continents plus).

I also encountered a rather strange and nasty bug. I opened military SP, but it was wy 3rd branch (others were complete). However, instead of a warrior GP, i got a workboat. When i disbanded it (pantheistic), i got a "portrait" screen with the name and stats of one of my sages, but no portrait (i forgot to screen-shot). I closed it but when i clicked end-turn this same screen showed again. I closed it, and tried clicking another button : again the same sreen. This time i couldn't close it. I couldn't even save the game so you could investigate.

 

[Pazyryk]

Black = supposed to be in. But the two you mention aren't. IIRC, I was working on these back in May and I don't always remember what I haven't finished.

The workboat GP is the common symptom for the GenerateGreatPerson function failing, which is possible since it is a versatile function that can do many things. Can you tell me if your civ was following either Azzandarayasna or Aŋra? (I'll troubleshoot this one tonight, ...I think maybe there is a specific Warrior issue .

Once you see an error like the workboat GP, it is time to hang up the game and report the problem here...

Out of curiosity, how hard was it to finish two policy branches? What turn? How much were you focused on culture specifically? How was the pacing of policy advancement? Ditto for tech advancement.

You all are getting to play this a lot more than me. I have no idea what happens after about turn 50...


Edit: Well that was easy to find. In EaMain/EaPolicies.lua, line 235, change:

GenerateGreatPerson(iPlayer, "Warrior, nil")

to:

GenerateGreatPerson(iPlayer, "Warrior", nil)

I'll get a hotfix (or new version) out shortly. Should fix the problem if you have a gamesave from before opening this branch. [Edit: on second thought, it is likely that these savegames are hopelessly broken since an AI likely tried to do the same thing before you.]


Edit2: Hotfix posted on the OP.

 

[darkedone02]

alright, i'm not too worry about the great person, as i use other alternatives that uses the same features (instant research, 1 day production, spread religion, etc).

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Black = supposed to be in. But the two you mention aren't. IIRC, I was working on these back in May and I don't always remember what I haven't finished.

OK. Out of curiosity, how do you plan to implement this? If you are going the promotion way, it should be fairly easy and i can probably help you add the Lua while you are doing something else. If you want to make something like the Incans "hidden" hill bonus, i have no idea how this works.
The downside of the promotion system is the need for a Lua loop through all units at the start of a turn to check whether they have the promo. It would have an impact on performances, not a big one, but every little performance drop adds up

Can you tell me if your civ was following either Azzandarayasna or Aŋra?

Neither, i was playing pantheistic sidhe

Out of curiosity, how hard was it to finish two policy branches? What turn? How much were you focused on culture specifically? How was the pacing of policy advancement? Ditto for tech advancement.

Actually, finishing the second one was easier than the first, but the second was traditions and the opening artist did help. At some point i was "producing" +0.15 culture level per turn. All the culture from the wildlands + tradition bonuses was a big culture pump. I was trying to produce as much culture as possible to "see" the various policies.

As for tech, i'm not sure. I got 2 Sages thanks to an early Library and choosed the reasearch promotion at each level up. They did nothing but sit in my capital to study. Approx mid-game, my tech-upkeep made city science yield drop to zero (top bar showed no tech) but my 2 Sages were enough that i could get a new tech in a dozen turns (more or less). Building every science building available did little to my city yield (sometimes i was able to get 1 or 2 total, compared to the 12 or so my sages gave me) and it dropped back to 0 after one tech.
I think maybe the drop with known tech is to steep. It makes sages uber-powerful and science buildings virtually useless later on (i could as well have sold them all to save money). Maybe some exponenial or sigmoid curve would be better, making science city yield tend to zero, but not reach it.

You all are getting to play this a lot more than me. I have no idea what happens after about turn 50...

Well, i can tell you what happened for me. Forests were all over the map. Only desert was not covered by either forests or jungle. I had 3 size 7 cities and the AIs were all more or less stuck with size 2s. The popups showed me i had twice the number of techs the AI had, was producing 30 or so while they were producing only 8-12. My people were the most well fed with something like +1 or 2 total, while all AIs were starving.
I was playing King so i wasn't getting bonuses. It looks like the AI is doing a terrible job at feeding their people and this really kills their growth past the first 50 turns.

 

[orlanth]

You all are getting to play this a lot more than me. I have no idea what happens after about turn 50...
Well, i can tell you what happened for me. Forests were all over the map. Only desert was not covered by either forests or jungle. I had 3 size 7 cities and the AIs were all more or less stuck with size 2s. The popups showed me i had twice the number of techs the AI had, was producing 30 or so while they were producing only 8-12. My people were the most well fed with something like +1 or 2 total, while all AIs were starving.
I was playing King so i wasn't getting bonuses. It looks like the AI is doing a terrible job at feeding their people and this really kills their growth past the first 50 turns.

I'd agree, that happened for me even when I tried to play as non-Pantheism and chopping forests aggressively; they kept returning and overgrowing my Farms and the micromanagement got to be overwhelming.

I hear what you're saying about not getting to play much, I had the same case with making my Civ4Col mod and always stopping to tweak something after 30 turns Civ4 had an AI autoplay feature where you could set it to run rapidly on its own and see the results, that ended up being extremely helpful but don't know if that's possible in Civ5.

I think what Bob was saying about sigmoid or asymptotic relationships is a great tool for mod balancing in general; it's hard to know how things balance out under every possible play style or map type, but when in doubt gradually diminishing returns can keep any one strategy from dominating. Maybe for forest/jungle, some sigmoid function based on the % of forested tiles could make it harder for them to go to either extreme of being totally wiped out or totally dominate the map.

 

[Pazyryk]

Thanks for the comments. That's really the only way I'll find out what's going on so I can balance it. The other thing I need from you is Lua.log, especially for those high turn games.

On AI being wimpy, a couple things:

1. It may be a game bug (like the Militerism opening bug [fixed in Hotfix A] or another I don't know yet), that permanently breaks an AI civ. If some AI function is crashing, then that AI will never gain another tech or policy or do anything with GPs. I can tell if this is the case from your Lua.log.
2. None of the new game mechanics have been adjusted for difficulty yet. The base Civ5 AI normally plays with a Chieftain/Prince handicap against your King/Emperor/whatever. For all new mechanics, however, you are evenly handicapped. So adding handicaps for the new mechanics is something I need to do.
3. There is still some missing AI I need to add. For one, they aren't aware of the last two policy branches I added (Pantheism and Theism) so they are missing out on a big chunk of the game. (Fortunately, the AI system is all there so it won't be that hard to add these.) Also, they don't yet have any urgency in remove Living Terrain if not Pantheistic (which they should).

I'm surprised that the Living Terrain is still so tough. I reduced strength of starting features to 1-3 (random) and newly spawned features to 1. That's the percent chance per turn per feature that it will try to grow to an adjacent plot, or regenerate if it has been removed. But that's still too high I take it? Perhaps I should reduce the newly spawned strength to 0, --then spread will just stop on its own after all features have grown to an adjacent plot. (I assume you are aware of the strength indicator in the map mouse-over and are targeting the high strength features for removal?)

On Knowledge Maintenance, it is good that you are being stopped from infinite tech progression, but bad the way it is happening. It is based on an asymptotic system, but:

1. Because Sage Research is not subject to Knowledge Maintenance, your Sages are blowing through the ceiling and so there is no sense of an asymptotic approach (rather, you just suddenly loose any effect whatsoever from your research infrastructure rather than a slow diminishing returns).
2. The current system is a function of population, where you spend x points per tech known per citizen on Knowledge Maintenance (it's calculated as points but then converted and applied as a %modifier because that is easier to mod). The problem here is that your population is growing (probably faster than your research infrastructure) which means that the ceiling is lowering. So then (just like in #1 above) you "blow through the ceiling" and loose the asymptotic effect.

I think the solution to 1 and 2 above is: 1) subject Sage Research to Knowledge Maintenance, and 2) go back to an older system for K.M. that I had developed (and was talked out of by PowelS and others ) that did not reference population at all. The old system went like this: Each city had a Knowledge Maintenance penalty that was simply -10% per tech known. That penalty could be lowered (by Writing-branch techs, Tradition policies) to a minimum of -5% per tech known. Also, you could counteract it locally in a city by research infrastructure. For example, if you had -100% K.M. and a University (+20% research) then you really have a total modifier of -80% in that city. A nice consequence of this system is that your spam cities (in late game) contribute 0 research but your core research-focus cities are still putting out some research (and may continue to do so if you continue to add research infrastructure [though I need to add some more buildings to make this possible]). (Btw, I don't think you will sell off all your libraries because they continue to give you 1c.)

Contributed code is very welcome but a bit tricky because it needs to fit into the existing framework, which is pretty massive. There is already a UnitsPerCivTurn(iPlayer) function (find in EaUnits.lua) so anything checking promotions would go in there. Simpler implementation is always better so I'd prefer using an existing system (core Civ5 or an Ea mechanic that exists) than making a new one, even if that means altering a bonus effect a little. However, there is a lot that Ea code can do. It's very common in the mod to add a hidden policy or tech or building associated with a naming trait (or to add, say, a hidden policy when a tech is gained, or visa versa). I'm assuming the Pantheistic move effects are simple policy->promotion mechanic (there is a promotion tag for this, no?) --so this is just a couple lines added in Policies.sql and UnitPromotions.sql (which will go in v 5 for sure if someone posts for me, --just look in the Changelog to make sure it isn't something I did already). Or, If you wrote a SpawnResourceNearCity(city, resourceID) function, then I could just drop that in EaPlots.lua and then call it from Traits.lua (which can have triggered functions for civ-naming traits -- there are a couple others that also are supposed to add a resource).

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Yep, i already guessed it that AI was a work in progress. I was just pointing it's current state.
I already saw the numbers on forest but didn't really knew what they were for. All i can tell is that forests and jungles were everywhere. 1% is quite high considering the number of tiles.

On another subject

 

[Pazyryk]

Fantastic! (I can't wait to see some others.)


The AI really is 95% working. But that's kind of like saying the space shuttle is 95% working.

 

[Sezneg]

Some impressions from a long game with version 4:

1. You may want to look at great people actions on the effect end, or on the time to completion end. Things like the tomes are essentially not worth doing; you are much better off simply using the research per turn action. It's simply better than the tomes, since with even a pittance of time spent building research buildings you can research most of the techs tied to the tomes long before you can finish building the tomes. Really for a sage the only actions worth using are the research per turn, great library and academies.

My suggestion is to drastically reduce the time spent building tomes/epics. Make it more about "racing" your opponents to these bonuses. The great people are THE coolest/most fun part of this mod, so the less time they are spent tied to a single action the more we get to enjoy their mechanics.

2. Some issues with having multiple great people working on separate epics/tomes still linger. My great people are having me reaffirm their actions on a turn by turn basis. It might be a good idea to let different civs work on the same epic/tome at the same time, many times I've had progress on an epic im working on interrupted by an AI starting that epic, who then keeps me from progressing on it for several turns.

3. Some of the pacing problems from V2 are much improved in this version.

4. The current magic missile graphic is hilarious. The spells were fun to play with.

 

[Pazyryk]

My great people are having me reaffirm their actions on a turn by turn basis.

That's a bug. Which action(s) does this? (Or if it's all, then I must have broke something in v 4.)

You shouldn't have to reaffirm the action ever, even if you get a level-up. The promotion wakes them up, yes (just like if you clicked on a worker in the middle of a build), but you should be able to cycle to the next unit and not have to reissue any command.

 

[darkedone02]

There is a possible bug somewhere that is used with IGE, is that i was testing the promotions with one of the great druids and try to get it all maxed out, but suddenly the whole promotion menu disappeared and stucked on a turn considering the promotion saving is not on (as advance setup is not finished for this mod).

A question about this mod, are you plan on making a soundtrack for this game? if so, what is it that your looking for music wise?

 

[Pazyryk]

The mod is so massive it's going to be a challenge to integrate with any other mod, even IGE I fear...

On music, there's a lot of great stuff here: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/. (The horror stuff makes me think of FFH's Sheaim). No hassle there about ownership either, just have to acknowledge.

There are some serious problems with Civ5 sound modding though. See here for my research on it. In short:

1. For leader screen popups, I can do it. (It's annoying the way I have to do it, by adding mp3's with names corresponding to existing leader sounds, but perfectly doable by mod.)
2. For background soundtracks, it is only possible by replacing actual Civ5 installation files (these are .ogg files you can find). That's much more of a hassle for players because 1) it has to be added by a separate installer operation, 2) it changes music for any other Civ5 game you play (modded or unmodded), and 3) it'll get overwritten whenever Civ5 auto-updates itself via Steam. But if folks are willing to do that, then it may be worth creating an Éa soundtrack.
3. If #2 is not prohibitive, then we can have race-specific music but still not civ-specific (this is because Éa races are really Civ5 civs and Éa civs are nothing but Lua constructs). However, I do think that soundtracks could change in game, e.g. for a Pantheistic civ or a Fallen civ (using Eras, the same way FFH did it). Does anyone remember for sure if Civ5 music changes with Era?

 

[darkedone02]

The mod is so massive it's going to be a challenge to integrate with any other mod, even IGE I fear...

On music, there's a lot of great stuff here: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/. (The horror stuff makes me think of FFH's Sheaim). No hassle there about ownership either, just have to acknowledge.

There are some serious problems with Civ5 sound modding though. See here for my research on it. In short:

1. For leader screen popups, I can do it. (It's annoying the way I have to do it, by adding mp3's with names corresponding to existing leader sounds, but perfectly doable by mod.)
2. For background soundtracks, it is only possible by replacing actual Civ5 installation files (these are .ogg files you can find). That's much more of a hassle for players because 1) it has to be added by a separate installer operation, 2) it changes music for any other Civ5 game you play (modded or unmodded), and 3) it'll get overwritten whenever Civ5 auto-updates itself via Steam. But if folks are willing to do that, then it may be worth creating an Éa soundtrack.
3. If #2 is not prohibitive, then we can have race-specific music but still not civ-specific (this is because Éa races are really Civ5 civs and Éa civs are nothing but Lua constructs). However, I do think that soundtracks could change in game, e.g. for a Pantheistic civ or a Fallen civ (using Eras, the same way FFH did it). Does anyone remember for sure if Civ5 music changes with Era?

alright, just to put this out there on the music, if your need any short of music that sounds jungle-ish, I found a song that actually sounds something for a jungle civ or a jungle theme civilization. To answer your question about the Era music change, I do believe so because I've hear some soundtracks changes when you advance an Era, although when I look up the files themselves in the civilization 5 folder, i've noticed that the developers didn't spend any time to put them in appropriate folders like they did in Civilization 4, what I think the reason why is either they don't want to go though some pathing troubles to put them in to play X song out of Y Era or something like that and just place them all in under one folder, or they gotten lazy and didn't add any folder and just say "F**K it".


Link to video.

I also helped on searching for the right music for FFH, i've look up Arcana and Nox Arcana that he added with his mod when FFH got popular (and probably still is popular before Fallen Enchantress).

 

[Sezneg]

That's a bug. Which action(s) does this? (Or if it's all, then I must have broke something in v 4.)

You shouldn't have to reaffirm the action ever, even if you get a level-up. The promotion wakes them up, yes (just like if you clicked on a worker in the middle of a build), but you should be able to cycle to the next unit and not have to reissue any command.

It was the tomes and epics.

 

[Pazyryk]

Sorry guys, I've spent the last 3 days debugging the debugger. What's really nice is that Lua allows you to do this and bypass the Core Civ5 debugging, which is broken in multiple ways.

Good news is that I now have Lua error reporting for all Runtime Errors (previously did not work for any Lua downstream of a GameEvents call) and I can get full traceback report that is not truncated (current error lines in Live Tuner are truncated so mostly uninformative).