Broader Alignments

[Iceciro]

If I could get art for the alternate forms of troops I could do a semi-complete module, but as usual it's the art work that's the pain, not the coding.

And the fact that you'd either have to have abandonment be a posibility or have all of the troops change globally.... though, isn't there a way to change art via promotions? If I can do that, and tie promotions to alignments, we may have something where when you change, all of the requisite troops change too... May be the best solution.

 

[Dean_the_Young]

If I could get art for the alternate forms of troops I could do a semi-complete module, but as usual it's the art work that's the pain, not the coding.

And the fact that you'd either have to have abandonment be a posibility or have all of the troops change globally.... though, isn't there a way to change art via promotions? If I can do that, and tie promotions to alignments, we may have something where when you change, all of the requisite troops change too... May be the best solution.

I know there's a lair event which turns your unit into a demon, complete with art change. Does that help?

 

[Iceciro]

I know there's a lair event which turns your unit into a demon, complete with art change. Does that help?

It will. *cracks fingers+knuckles* lets see what I can do, once I finish the other stuff im working on.

 

[Dean_the_Young]

It will. *cracks fingers+knuckles* lets see what I can do, once I finish the other stuff im working on.

Hold on, a thought that might make your job easier.

From what I gather, all art (as in, the ones in the gameplay) are already dictated by promotion: specifically, racial promotions. It's why generic units look different between elves, dwarves, demons, and dwarves. Art is most likely already dictated by promotion already, with 'human' being the default setting (and having no promotion).

One solution might be to create a new promotion (3, actually), based on alignment. Coding would probably be similar to how units get state religion assigned to them for purposes of Infernal/Mercurian spawning-after-death, only 100%, so that all units have it.

While you could code it so that every unit checks what the owner's alignment is every turn, that would be a drag on the system process. Instead, a beginning-of-turn check each turn would provide a single A/B/C as to what the current alignment is, and if different could activate the process accordingly.

I'm not sure if you could get the coding to work like this, but one avenue to think about is the Military Adviser function. The Military Adviser already has the coding to find and signal all units or certain units the player can see on a map. If you could use that coding or identifying all units yourself, you could implement something like a group promotion action (when you have a lot of promotable units in a stack, IIRC you can promote them all with the same promotion).

If you could do that, your coding could be much simpler and more effective than a unit-promotion-based changeover that occurs for every unit, every turn. It would be something like

Is -alignment- same as -stored alignment from previous turn-? Yes (stop)/No (continue)

If Yes, what is alignment? Good/Neutral/Evil

If Good, Military Advisor mumbojumbo "Select All Units", remove Alignment Promotion, Give Good Promotion

etc.



If I were still programing, that's what my first line of enquiry would be.

 

[Iceciro]

Problem is I want to code this all in XML so it's mostly piggybacking off existing code. I'll probabaly just use the requirement in a lot of promotions already that states "must maintain requirements" the same thing that keeps the Esus from staying if you swap to another religion, only this time make it alignment based.

 

[Valkrionn]

Missed this yesterday... You want UnitArtStyleTypeInfos, in the Civilizations folder.

Promotion (Trimmed Down to relevant parts):

        <PromotionInfo>        <!-- Camel Rider -->
            <Type>PROMOTION_CAMELRIDER</Type>
            <PrereqUnits>
                <PrereqUnit>UNIT_HORSEMAN_MALAKIM</PrereqUnit>
            </PrereqUnits>
            <UnitArtStyleType>UNIT_ARTSTYLE_CAMEL</UnitArtStyleType>
        </PromotionInfo>

Artstyle:

        <UnitArtStyleTypeInfo>
            <Type>UNIT_ARTSTYLE_CAMEL</Type>
            <StyleUnits>
                <StyleUnit>
                    <UnitType>UNIT_HORSEMAN_MALAKIM</UnitType>
                    <UnitMeshGroup>
                        <EarlyArtDefineTag>ART_DEF_UNIT_HORSEMAN_CAMEL</EarlyArtDefineTag>
                        <LateArtDefineTag>ART_DEF_UNIT_HORSEMAN_CAMEL</LateArtDefineTag>
                        <MiddleArtDefineTag>ART_DEF_UNIT_HORSEMAN_CAMEL</MiddleArtDefineTag>
                    </UnitMeshGroup>
                </StyleUnit>
            </StyleUnits>
        </UnitArtStyleTypeInfo>

Edit: Also, no need for python to check alignments at all, there's a <PrereqAlignments/> field in promotion infos.

 

[Bahmo]

Indeed, exactly what I was thinking in terms of. I think it's even been written that Drown are still self-aware, even if not in control, and so a benign OO cult might even allow them more connection with their family.


It's not even that hard to rethink of Asylums as something more benign in a better society. Those spoken to by the Overlords go crazy, yes. But what they are told could be important for all of us; the patterns of the seas, the means to use it to our advantage, warnings and prophesies. It makes sense to house the crazed in a comfortable institution in which our priests can look after them and care for them, separating diamonds of importance from the delusions. And of course, other crazed members of society can also be sent to an area well equipped to handle them.

I see the Overlords, especially the Lanun (though they aren't absolutely mandated to that religion), as being the extreme form of chaotic rather than evil, especially since it's always been a little questionable whether they really have gods at all, or if a lot of it is just a bunch of priests getting stoned and hallucinating. Much of what they do would be considered evil in the secular sense, but in terms of their attitude toward the "Heaven vs. Hell" struggle, they're pretty indifferent either way. Still, they have tapped into formiddable and tangible powers, so maybe they do have some sort of allegiance.

I have two issues I'd like to bring up about the alignment/armageddeon counter and how it ought to be modified. Apparently, it raises the armageddeon counter to raze a city, unless it contains the AV, in which case it actually lowers it. I think that's more than a little stupid. I remain irked at the original premise of the core mod that all of morality is based upon loyalties to the spirit world and the material world does not matter, but even if lessening the spread of demons is a very noble end, it needn't justify those harsh means. You aren't necessarily killing demons just because a city had people who worshipped them, and you'd in the process kill a lot of people who didn't worship them. Instead, the inquisition function should be used to purge demonic influence and lower the AC, but keeping any city you capture should always be a good act, even if they belonged to the Infernal--see it as liberation and enlightenment.