'Dragons', what can we do with them?

[El_Cid]

UPDATE: I will put the running changes i've made in game so far here at the top of this first thread if others are interested.

Dragon Str/Stat changes

Acheron: Str 30+5 Fire

History additions in Civilopedia (so this is mixed in with the normal entries):
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

"And Erebus would not soon forget Acheron, the flame lord, the beast of destruction, the Red Dragon, the first of his kind and most powerful. The original Dragon discovered by Bhall."

"It remembered that first connection, when a mind as fiery as his own had intruded on his slumber, whispering sounds of persuasion and reward. At first he had fought it, refused to heed the suggestions and his anger flowed like hot lava, unstoppable, irresistible. Slowly, overtime, he grew to appreciate it, and only on occasion would ignore it's soft warm melodies."

"When he and his adversaries clashed, it was a sight like no other before or since, and his list of victories was impressive. The dragon creations Shen, then Lotan and Watasumi, and finally Wruen the Pale had all fallen before his fiery might."

"When he brought forth his fire, now he got a taste of the pain he inflicted. And during that last fateful dragon battle, he was not quite fast enough, mortally wounded even as he destroyed Wruen the Pale, dragon weapon of Nantosuelta. After that battle Acheron had crawled to the western sea, laying down in the salt waters to heal, turning into an island down the eons of his recovery, then legend; a dream in the nothingness."

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Abashi Str 21+5 Death (also added Stoneskin)

History additions in Civilopedia (so this is mixed in with the normal entries):
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

"Ceridwen had dreamed Abashi into existence, a dark twisted nightmare brought forth by Bhall's discovery then use of Acheron. Abashi was black as night, death seeped from her, a terror more bleak than any other in existence."

"She had survived the great Dragon Age wars, the noble dragons Quinlong, Zilant, Ouroboros and Zomok had all paid the price for coming up against the mistress of death. She would not be denied her nature, always hungry, always final."

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Drifa the White Str 19+7 Cold (also added Stoneskin)

History additions in Civilopedia (so this is mixed in with the normal entries):
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

"Drifa is one of the few remaining dragons that survived the brutal Dragon Age wars. Not as fundamentally powerful as some of his kin, but in the right climate his ice cold attacks can bring down the most mighty. In this way he was able to destroy Lugus' dragon Ayida-Weddo."

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Eurabatres the Gold Str 23+2 Fire +2 Holy +2 Poison (also added Stoneskin)

History additions in Civilopedia (so this is mixed in with the normal entries):
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

"Eurabatres strength is unmatched. The most powerful of the created dragons, his triple aspect attacks of Fire, Poison and Holy rage are without equal."

"It remembered when it had been the Golden One, the most powerful dread creature of the created dragons, weapon of Amathaon. Then it had fought the enemy across the planes. With Fire, with acid and Holy fury. Three fearsome dragons had fallen before it; Bolla the Hungry, Orochi and Scultone."

"One would gain long life and power. The other, eventually, would gain...form, and resume it's purpose."

---------------------------

Age of Dragons: (additions in 'Fall from Heaven History' section of civilopedia)

"Dragons were the most powerful of these new weapons. Acheron was discovered first by Bhall, a mighty beast deep in the hottest fires at the core of Erebus. He was as ancient as creation itself, and when Bhall had tamed his fury and bent it to her will, the other gods reeled back in horror. Soon after the others were quick to forge their own dragon creations inspired by the mighty Acheron. These were:

Drifi the White (Mulcarn)
Eurabatres the Gold (Amathaon)
Quinlong (Sirona) - killed by Abashi
Wruen the Pale (Nantosuelta) - killed by Acheron
Ayida-Weddo (Lugus) - killed by Drifa
Zilant (Junil) - killed by Abashi
Abashi (Ceridwen)
Ouroboros (Oghma) - killed by Abashi
Watatsumi (Danalin) - killed by Acheron
Lotan (Dagda) - killed by Acheron
Culebre (Kilmorph) - killed by Shen
Zomk (Sucellus) - killed by Abashi
Druk (Tali) - killed by Bolla the Hungry
Orochi (Camulos) - killed by Eurabatres
Scultone (Aeron) - killed by Eurabatres
Shen (Arawn) - killed by Acheron
Bolla the Hungry (Mammon) - killed by Eurabatres
Nidhogg (Esus) - killed by Ouroboros

Other dread weapons used were golems, giants, great elementals and the gods themselves unleashed incredible magic that threatened to destroy creation."

--------------------

Notes

The names of dragons were researched from our mythological history on dragons, and mostly i tried to ally a historical myth dragon from our world with a suitable god in FFH world, it didn't work every time that way, but when possible i tried.

I wanted a richer history of the Dragons, and an explanation of why only 4 exist after the Compact. I also want to make them more powerful (but not OTT).

Sons of the Inferno unit now upgrades at level 6 (maybe 4 enough?) Disciple of Acheron unit (was lvl 1 previously). This helps mitigate the often too harsh early game ranged fire attack issue when Acheron is spawned near the player.

I've upgraded the 'Dragons Hoard' to include a source of fire mana (also via a civilopedia entry about a great gem called the 'Heart of the Dragon' in this hoard). I also aim to work out a cash bonus (one time pay out) the player that defeats Acheron gets. Currently thinking somewhere between 500-1000 gold perhaps?

This is all work in progress, comments welcome.

===============================================================

Original Post Start:

I'm trying to get an understanding on how the Dragons work in game. It seems they are a 'promotion' under the 'Beast' race, so not a distinct race themselves?

in CIV4PromotionInfos.xml you have this:

<PromotionInfo>
<Type>PROMOTION_DRAGON</Type>
<Description>TXT_KEY_PROMOTION_DRAGON</Description>
<Sound>AS2D_IF_LEVELUP</Sound>
<TechPrereq>TECH_NEVER</TechPrereq>
<Button>Art/Interface/Buttons/Promotions/Dragon.dds</Button>
<bFear>1</bFear>
<bImmuneToFear>1</bImmuneToFear>
<bRace>1</bRace>
</PromotionInfo>

Is that ALL that defines a Dragon in the game, this promotion (ontop of them being Beast units)?

You have the individual unit info xml file for some specifics for Acheron etc, but are there any other places that define what a Dragon is and more importantly what they can do?

I ask because i'm sort of looking to finish off some aspects of FFH2, and that is based on the Tweak Mod which removed the admittedly annoying (overpowered) 'Sons of the Inferno' from Acheron, but after numerous games i feel leaves that particular Dragon too weak/with less impact on the game world etc.

I've tried adding 'Fireball' to his options (in CvEventManager.py), but to no avail. 'Fire Elemental' i was able to add, but they seem too powerful as a starting summoned unit.

I've tried adding 'FIRE 1/2/3' and 'CHANNELING 1' etc to his unit info in CIV4UnitInfos.xml and access to FIRE_MANA (via the Dragons Hoard building).

All to no avail in terms of replacing the Sons of the Inferno.

So it got me looking at Dragons in the game in general. It seems they are not magic casting? As in not able to cast spells? And would need to be classed as 'Arcane' units to do so?

They also seem pretty weak overall. Eurabatres the Gold being the strongest (23), and while a very top tier hero unit, i feel they should be more powerful or versatile overall?

-------------------------------
So i'm aiming for this approach:

make Acheron the most ancient and powerful of the Dragons, all the others will be his children to reflect that, and not as out and out powerful.

In my game Acheron is currently a (34) strength unit, you need a big army to deal with him(so for the late game). But he needs more. I'd love for him to be able to cast 'fireball' ranged spells with access to 'fire elemental' when the barbarians have hit the required tech ('Sorcery' according to CvEventManager.py)

That got me thinking that ideally ALL dragons should have this ability (Maybe some changes for the Ice dragons (breathe Ice not fire etc)). So my question is does any modder here know of a way to make these types of changes to the Dragons, maybe in the Dragon Promotion?

The other option is to try and put back the Sons of the Inferno and nerf them some. Then maybe look at that code and see if it can be applied across the games dragons (and adjusted etc). This sounds like the much more complex and messy route, so i'm fingers crossed as a newbie that i can simply buff/add stuff to the Dragon Promotion and see these kind of results?

Other idea's i'm thinking over is as they will become more powerful game units, there will be a cost, a sacrifice, if your empire becomes involved with them. If you create one of the hero units for your empire (Abashi/Drifa/Eurabatres etc) they will have a random chance of eating (removing) a random unit from any army stack they are in etc. So it pays to keep them attached with expendable units.

Or maybe when they get to a home city they have a small chance of reducing it's population by 1. This kind of trade off that fits with Dragon lore to some extent.

But mainly for now i want to focus on trying to make them spell casters i guess?

Any suggestions for helping me make Dragons more awesome? Thank you

 

[Calavente]

normally to be able to cast they should only need the adequat chaneling promotion and the adequate spell-sphere.
(I'm not really sure you would even need to change the unit_AI).

As a side note, I'm not sure Acheron is supposed to be the oldest and strongest dragon.

Don't dragons already have the "meteor" spell ? (former fireIII archmage's spell, at the time there were invocators that had the fire elemental spell)... meteor is much more powerful than firballs. so I don't think having fireball is such an improvement.
An IMO the best way is to add the promotions and stuffs individually to each unit and not to the "dragon" promotion.. adding too much stuff on a promotion gets messy quickly.

 

[El_Cid]

The timelines are not detailed. Acheron is mentioned at the Compact, but also having been created before then.

Abashi is just mentioned as being summoned by the Sheaim at the Battle of the Black Tower.

Drifa is just mentioned as Mulcarn's weapon, like Acheron being at the Compact but created before.

Eurobatres is remarked as "the most powerful creatures of the created", but no real time reference.

Drifa may actually be the oldest as Mulcarn has history from the first game? But i'm not even sure that Drifa actually features in the game at all (he has no reference in the CIV4UnitInfos.xml).

So it is not clear at all what order the Dragons appeared in the game history that i can find.

The advantage of making Acheron the principle dragon is that he is factionless, so he can't become unbalanced in terms of any player faction being able to control him. I get the impression that all these dragons may have been created by the gods at the same time? They were weapons of the gods. But i also like the idea that one came first, and that inspired the others?

The main reason for looking to give Acheron a bog standard fireball spell is to replace the ranged Sons of the Inferno that were removed in the tweakmod. He has no ranged attack now, but obviously has that meteor spell in close combat.

The main effect has been that while the annoyingly slightly too powerful Sons of the Inferno could really dominate the early game if you got Acheron near you, that void has left Acheron something you can now ignore, pretty much, which i feel is a shame. Add that his Cult of the Dragon is back (in the tweak mod) and a very cool feature, i feel he needs some ranged 'nuisance' low level fire spells so you know when he is around.

I tried adding something via his unit info, via <FreePromtion> additions for Fire1-3 and Channeling 1+2, but Acheron would not cast a ranged fireball to use on units sitting right next to him for a number of turns. I even added BONUS_FIRE_MANA to the Dragons Hoard just in case it was due to not having Fire Mana.

Looking at the Spells 'Roar' and 'Breathe Fire' it might be possible to add a 'Fireball' spell to the Dragon Promotion, but as you say that might not be appropriate to ALL the games dragons so i'd prefer another method.

hmmm. Tricky. Sadly it seems i might have to try adding the 'Sons of the Inferno' back (which won't be easy i expect) and reducing their power maybe?

Thanks for your suggestions, i'll see what i can make work

 

[Calavente]

meteor spell normally summons 3 meteors, each being way stronger than a fireball.
on the reverse, fireball spell summons only 1fireball which is weaker than any meteors.
meteors are not "close combat" but normally can move 2-3 points.

maybe give acheron spell extension 1-2 so the meteor moves 3-5


back in time, the land around acheron was blackened and all forest burned as the meteor he launched everwhere burned the forests to crisps.

so I think the issue is mostly about AI then and not about available spells.

(roar is close combat, but breath fire summons the meteors IIRC)

 

[El_Cid]

Ah...interesting. So maybe it was the Meteor's that would dominate the area around Acheron? So from his 'Dragon' spells?

All this time i had thought it was the spells that the Disciples of Acheron and/or the Sons of the Inferno could cast (as arcane units). But yes it could have been the Meteor spell.

Trouble is he doesn't seem to cast them currently. I'm not sure what changes the Tweak mod made to Acheron exactly (i'll ask in that mods thread maybe, but my last post is the last active stuff there, so i may not get an answer?) that might cause him to stop casting spells?

Bizarrely i had got him to cast the Fire Elemental spell by adding that in the CvEventManager.py file as:

iUnit = gc.getInfoTypeForString('UNIT_FIRE_ELEMENTAL')

in place of the original Disciple of Acheron unit(which is removed in the Tweak mod). However changing that to 'UNIT_FIREBALL' results in nothing being cast at range at all. Very strange.

Fire Elemental is not ideal as they have no time duration and they sort of just marched across the map towards the closest city to attack. So which ever civ is unlucky to be near Acheron gets spam attack by Fire Elementals, which is actually worse than the original behaviour of the Disciples of Acheron/Sons of the Inferno!

At this point i think i'm just going to add the Disciples of Acheron and Sons of the Inferno back as that all worked in giving Acheron some ranged spells. The other Dragons can stay as is, it is really the non player faction Dragon i wanted to buff the most.

The aim is to eventually flesh out the whole Cult of the Dragon into being a viable proper religion (with buildings and temples etc) in it's own right, with Acheron as it's 'God'. But first i need to get the ranged spells working again as they used to for him.

 

[Blakmane]

Acheron already uses meteors as a ranged attack so I'm very confused about this whole thread.

All of the dragons were made before the compact during the aptly named 'Age of Dragons' as living weapons of mass destruction. It never mentions which dragon was created first, but Eurabatres is clearly stated to be the most powerful of the dragons. Thus in terms of lore Eurabatres should be the most powerful dragon (as he is in the base game). Of course, you can do whatever you want with your own modmods so it doesn't really matter.... but there's not much lore justification for making Acheron the strongest.

In terms of balance, changes to Acheron actually have the most impact on the average game because he is almost guaranteed to appear. The other dragons rarely ever appear in a hard-fought game due to their super-late requirements and, regardless, are not very impresssive for their cost.

 

[El_Cid]

Acheron already uses meteors as a ranged attack so I'm very confused about this whole thread.

I managed to put the 'Disciples of Acheron' and 'Sons of the Inferno' back in the Tweak Mod version i'm running(there were a few files that needed adjusting).

But i also did a check on vanilla FFH2. It seems those (maybe overpowered, for the early game) ranged fire spells that would attack any unit that entered Acherons city area only happen when the Disciple of Acheron unit is present in his starting stack, and they are Fire Elementals (str 6+3fire) with 2 movement and with a 1 turn life duration, rather than anything to do with the 'Meteor' spell the dragons have.

I checked in the world builder in both my current running builds (vanilla and Tweak Mod). I'm guessing from this that the 'Meteor' spell happens during a melee attack by the dragon, i certainly wasn't able to get it happen as a ranged attack at any rate.

All of the dragons were made before the compact during the aptly named 'Age of Dragons' as living weapons of mass destruction. It never mentions which dragon was created first, but Eurabatres is clearly stated to be the most powerful of the dragons. Thus in terms of lore Eurabatres should be the most powerful dragon (as he is in the base game). Of course, you can do whatever you want with your own modmods so it doesn't really matter.... but there's not much lore justification for making Acheron the strongest.

In terms of balance, changes to Acheron actually have the most impact on the average game because he is almost guaranteed to appear. The other dragons rarely ever appear in a hard-fought game due to their super-late requirements and, regardless, are not very impresssive for their cost.

I've been reading up on the history, and i think i can fudge Acheron as being the first dragon, created by Bhall, almost by accident, and from this 'weapon' the other gods created their own.

Just from the gameplay aspect i think the only Dragon that a player can not control should be the strongest, as that provides the fairest longterm challenge and gives the most fun for the player (from whatever faction) to choose to face Acheron in the late game (or protect him, if the 'Cult of the Dragon' becomes something they care about).

The details from the 'Age of Dragons' is very sketchy, in relation to how many dragons there were, how they came about etc:

'Age of Dragons':
Unable to overcome their differences the gods begin to war across creation. As in all things the gods desires became physically manifested and their aggression was acted out by powerful creatures that battle against each other.

Dragons, giants, great elementals and the gods themselves unleashed incredible magic and threaten to destroy creation with it

Is actually the only mention of Dragons in that section of the History. I certainly have a desire to make at least one of them much more powerful, Acheron is the least game breaking as he simply sits there (being annoying with his Disciple/Son of Inferno spells) waiting to be taken on. So his is a very passive aggression in the game world.

I was also interested to look through the other dragons details. Drifa is the only one to have a 'sphere' specific attack (in his case +7 cold combat), and that has got me thinking about adding a similar thing to the other dragons based on their likely characteristics and background (Acheron would have +X Fire damage etc).

And why did only Acheron, Eurabatres, Abashi and Drifa survive out of all the dragons, if indeed there were more? Eurabatres will remain the most powerful of the player created dragons, but i agree at the late stage the player created dragons arrive in game, they are often underwhelming so will look to address that without going over the top in terms of giving them too big an advantage over the other non dragon creating factions.

I'm currently constructing a possible background for dragons, considering each Angels characteristics and a reason why only the 4 dragons remain in creation now. So i plan to create some in game history for that, maybe as an addition to the Age of Dragons part of the text?

I'm happy Acheron now has his ranged attack back (in my Tweak Mod build), but will look to tone them down (maybe limit the Disciple of Acheron to summon Fireballs, giving the Fire Elementals to the Son of the Inferno upgrade). Currently my test build looks like this for the Dragons:

Acheron (barbs): str 30+5 Fire

Eurabatres (Kuriotates): str 23+4 Holy(?) - requires Divine Essence

Abashi (Sheim): str 21+5 Death - requires Divine Essence

Drifa (Illians after 'Stir from Slumber' ritual): str 19+7 Cold - requires Divine Essence (not mentioned in civilipeida currently)

I guess this could all become some kind of release mod-mod thing? I hadn't planned that, but as i'm also going through the civilopedia aiming to fix typo's and add entries that are currently missing etc, it might be worth a release in the future if it all works out well.

The biggest regret i have over FFH2 is that it was never completely finished, and things like missing entries in the Civilopedia always seemed such a shame. It is one of the best mods i've played on any game.

 

[Blakmane]

Acheron does use his meteor spell at range - they just disappear on the same turn they are summoned and explode after combat so you'll only ever see the combat messages of them attacking your stack, and only then when you are close enough for him to attack you with them (I believe 2 squares). His projectile already functions perfectly fine in vanilla; thus my confusion.

Is actually the only mention of Dragons in that section of the History. I certainly have a desire to make at least one of them much more powerful, Acheron is the least game breaking as he simply sits there (being annoying with his Disciple/Son of Inferno spells) waiting to be taken on. So his is a very passive aggression in the game world.

The reason changing Acheron has the GREATEST impact on a standard game is because his placement can greatly effect the expansion opportunities of neighbouring civs. As an example, in a recent game I played, my wife was blocked in on a large peninsula by Acheron, allowing her to tech for the first half of the game in relative peace. When the time came (A large hunter stack with assassins/alazkan) she took Acheron down and conquered the nearby AI civ that had also been hemmed in by Acheron in a much less beneficial location. If Acheron was substantially stronger, the game would've been extremely boring for her as she would've had to wait until lategame techs to overcome Acheron and thus been a total non-contender for the game at large. It is already standard practise to ban Acheron in more competitive MP games for this very reason.

Similarly, the benefit of Acheron (dragon's hoard) is relatively modest for the investment you currently must put in to defeat him. Making him stronger creates a situation where he becomes even more like a wallflower in games where he isn't placed in a meaningful position. Unless the reward for beating him has the potential to win a game or break a stalemate, losing half your army to him is a surefire way to be overwhelmed by an opponent for nothing in a close game.

Of course, I'm speaking here from a very MP focused perspective: SP FFH2 has lost its lustre for me over the countless years so I rarely play it alone anymore. I'm sure your mod is focused more on a SP experience where you indeed have time to do such things as hunt Acheron, in which case please ignore me . Modding FFH to suit your individual taste is a fun experience.

*edit*

Drifa is already set: it can be created by the Illians using a special ritual 'stir from slumber', which is available at Divine essence after they have destroyed at least one other Civ.

 

[El_Cid]

Acheron does use his meteor spell at range - they just disappear on the same turn they are summoned and explode after combat so you'll only ever see the combat messages of them attacking your stack, and only then when you are close enough for him to attack you with them (I believe 2 squares). His projectile already functions perfectly fine in vanilla; thus my confusion.

hmmm. There may be an issue with my reintroduction of the the removed Disciples of Acheron in the Tweak Mod then?

Although in my few test games in vanilla FFH2 having removed the Disciples of Acheron/Sons of the Inferno, when i entered the world builder after Acheron is created then placed a few hunters around his sphere of influence they could sit right next to him without getting attacked by any fire type ranged spells. As soon as the Disciples of Acheron/Sons of Inferno are in game then you get attacked by those Fire Elementals at range.

It might be the Meteor spell does not work for dragons (as in they can not cast it), or it is only used in melee attack? It certainly does not seem to work as a ranged fire attack, that aspect of Acheron only happens when he has the Aracne Disciples of Acheron/Sons of the Inferno in his stack.

The reason changing Acheron has the GREATEST impact on a standard game is because his placement can greatly effect the expansion opportunities of neighbouring civs. As an example, in a recent game I played, my wife was blocked in on a large peninsula by Acheron, allowing her to tech for the first half of the game in relative peace. When the time came (A large hunter stack with assassins/alazkan) she took Acheron down and conquered the nearby AI civ that had also been hemmed in by Acheron in a much less beneficial location. If Acheron was substantially stronger, the game would've been extremely boring for her as she would've had to wait until lategame techs to overcome Acheron and thus been a total non-contender for the game at large. It is already standard practise to ban Acheron in more competitive MP games for this very reason.

Similarly, the benefit of Acheron (dragon's hoard) is relatively modest for the investment you currently must put in to defeat him. Making him stronger creates a situation where he becomes even more like a wallflower in games where he isn't placed in a meaningful position. Unless the reward for beating him has the potential to win a game or break a stalemate, losing half your army to him is a surefire way to be overwhelmed by an opponent for nothing in a close game.

Of course, I'm speaking here from a very MP focused perspective: SP FFH2 has lost its lustre for me over the countless years so I rarely play it alone anymore. I'm sure your mod is focused more on a SP experience where you indeed have time to do such things as hunt Acheron, in which case please ignore me . Modding FFH to suit your individual taste is a fun experience.

Ah yes this is mostly for the SP game, although i do run ongoing Hotseat games where Acheron is often actually a boon, rather than a bane. In those Hotseat games only on rare occasions do you get him situated in such a manner to completely block your expansion, you really have to be on a tip of a peninsula with him right next to you for that kind of serious problem.

The reason he is a boon is that he is a constant source of barb warriors to build up the XP of your armies with. Unlike the Dungeons/Barrows that can get explored/removed easily by enemy scouts, he will hang around giving out the XP.

The downside is his Fire Elemental casting Disciple of Acheron/Sons of Inferno units, that spell IS a little overpowered in the early game when you are trying to explore with weak/single units. Having to run the gauntlet of those spells can be very annoying IF you are pasted into a corner via his placement.

However by early-mid to mid game i find my culture has pushed Acheron's back to the point he becomes more an interesting 'pet' close to my civilization, and less that sprawling run-from-fire-elementals terror he starts out as.

If most folk ban him from MP games then my changes won't effect these players.

My aim is to make the Dragons Hoard worth the effort if you decide to go for it (but it will be late game), the fire spells from his Disciples of Acheron and Sons of the Inferno less potent (for the early game), and Acheron himself more a focal feature around the Tweak Mod reintroduced 'Cult of the Dragon'.

I aim to expand that to feature as a full new demi-religion in the game, so Acheron himself becomes more useful to keep around, even to protect against those that might come seeking for his Hoard.

Dragons should be very awesome, certainly more than they are currently, and the non-player one the most to not be a game breaking/winning unit.

Drifa is already set: it can be created by the Illians using a special ritual 'stir from slumber', which is available at Divine essence after they have destroyed at least one other Civ.

Aha, so that is how he comes about. I had never seen him in game, and there was no info in his civilopedia entry about that. Thanks for the info, i'll add it to my civilopedia changes.

And i just want to say thanks to those have contributed to this thread so far, you've given me vital information in my quest to improve everything around the Dragons

 

[Tholal]

I believe that Acheron doesn't cast his spells is because of his Held promotion. This should be fixed in my mod. Speaking of which...

I guess this could all become some kind of release mod-mod thing? I hadn't planned that, but as i'm also going through the civilopedia aiming to fix typo's and add entries that are currently missing etc, it might be worth a release in the future if it all works out well.

The biggest regret i have over FFH2 is that it was never completely finished, and things like missing entries in the Civilopedia always seemed such a shame. It is one of the best mods i've played on any game.

...I suggest that you start with my mod as a basis, incorporating any changes from Tweakmod and your own modifications. My mod includes hundreds of bugfixes as well as UI and AI improvements.

 

[Terkhen]

You could also send missing non-lore civilopedia entries for inclusion in More Naval AI; that way both MNAI and all mods based upon it (which are a bunch already) would eventually benefit from them

 

[El_Cid]

@ Tholal, wasn't Rystic (Tweak Mod dev) going to incorporate his mod with yours? I remember him mentioning that at some point. It might be too complicated for my current skills, but i certainly know of the Naval AI mod and may aim at that kind of fusion down the line, especially if Rystic has given up on that.

Speaking of the held promotion for Acheron, i removed it once (by accident) and that was really nasty. I don't want to do that again!

@ Terkhen, yeah it will be easy enough to make available the CIV4GameText_FFH2.xml file for everyone, although it may require a little tweaking for peoples specific mod changes.

Currently i've been going through it removing the instances of that box symbol that currently sits in various text entries in place of mostly punctuation marks (':-. etc). I'll focus mostly on the english files for that, but have been changing it in the other language files as i come across it. It's a little thing, but pulls the quality down where it shouldn't.

Another long standing issue with FFH2 is the off center aligned map grid (it's slightly to the left in the bottom of the screen). I've no idea how that was changed (it must have been an error) or where in the code that info is stored, but that was another 'little' thing that always seemed a shame compared to the overall quality of FFH2.

 

[Terkhen]

@ Terkhen, yeah it will be easy enough to make available the CIV4GameText_FFH2.xml file for everyone, although it may require a little tweaking for peoples specific mod changes.

Currently i've been going through it removing the instances of that box symbol that currently sits in various text entries in place of mostly punctuation marks (':-. etc). I'll focus mostly on the english files for that, but have been changing it in the other language files as i come across it. It's a little thing, but pulls the quality down where it shouldn't.

That's great

Drop me a line along with the modified files when you finish those modifications. I don't mind doing the work of preparing them for a merge with More Naval AI.

 

[Calavente]

and acheron being too strong is also a way to be too OP.
Acheron is THE dragon that one can get the earliest in one army.
mass units, catapults and horse archers, then send the beastmasters (up till now the earliest TierIV unit). and lo... a captured Acheron (not really good in MP as he "flies" only 2 squares... no effect of roads and cannot be "hasted")... and the investment might not be worth the cost. (or Order's druids (or sephner) with command IV).

I could always get him quicker that drifta or Eurabatres.

boosting him would be too mucH IMO.

the best AI controled Acheron I've seen was in RifE... with the Leashed promotion.. a wandering Acheron, with a leash of 5 created a no-mans-land of... 10 x 10 tiles or so... powerful

 

[El_Cid]

I'd never tried that, i guess as a 'beast unit' there is a problem with being able to capture Acheron via the capture beast promotion. Hmmm i think in the mod of dragons i'm building, with the reintroduced Cult of Dragons, i'll look to make him non-ownable by a player faction(except maybe the Clan of Embers?). Also i will look to make sure he can not become un-held, as that completely is against his whole background of sitting and guarding his treasure hoard. Thanks for the heads up on that

Ok i have sort of managed to reduce the annoyance factor of those Fire Elemental spells that Acheron uses via his 'Sons of the Inferno' unit. What happens in default FFH2 is that the 'Disciple of Acheron'(Fireball) unit that upgrades to the 'Son of the Inferno'(Fire elemental) gets 1Xp per turn and the upgrade to the 'Son of the Inferno' happens at a level 1 stage (so very early on). Then you get all the Fire Elemental issues during the early stage.

So i've simply changed the line for that in CIV4UnitInfos.xml under 'Son of the Inferno':

<iMinLevel>1</iMinLevel> from a 1 to a 7

This has meant Acheron (now 30+5 Fire) is not quite as nasty on the ranged fire magics as he was. Fireball is still a nasty spell, but not as lethal as the Fire Elementals we normally get very quickly in the game. I'll playtest that change more to be sure it works ok, as i want him to have access to the 'Son of the Inferno' and that Fire Elemental spell but not too soon. Work in Progress.

 

[Calavente]

well, i'm sorry to say that capturing Acheron is one of the important things that should be allowed in FFH : their is a "medal" designed expressedly for capturing Acheron.

 

[El_Cid]

well, i'm sorry to say that capturing Acheron is one of the important things that should be allowed in FFH : their is a "medal" designed expressedly for capturing Acheron.

You mean a 'trophy' as in the 'trophy screen' (Alt+T)? I see one for 'defeating Archeron', but not capturing him? I also had a look through the code for specific mention of capture, but only found the 'defeat' mention. Maybe this has been added in whatever mod you use?

But anyway i've decided to leave him being able to be captured, IF you can manage that you probably deserve it!

My changes are optional of course, so far it is just in my own personal game (FFH2 latest patch+Tweak Mod+my own additions), and if i release anything later you do not have to use it Calavente, so don't worry about it

I'll update the first post with the current changes i've made in game.

 

[Calavente]

I know... I'm just meddling in things I don't have a say.. sorry.

 

[Blakmane]

Are you planning to be as canon as possible, or do you not mind? If you are trying to keep canon, here are some pointers. If you don't care and just want some more dragony stuff, ignore me.

-You've stated in the entries that both Eurabatres and Acheron are the most powerful dragons. Logically there can only be one! Canonically Eurabatres is the most powerful dragon.

- Eurabatres is the dragon of Amathaon, not Lugus.

- Unlike the other gods, Agares did not create a dragon or archangel (he either lacks the power to do so or choses not to). He corrupts the servants of other gods instead.

- Nemed was already human by the time the dragons were created and so couldn't have created his own. At the time, Arawn had the precepts of both Life and Death.

-Although it isn't outright stated, presumably Abashi is the dragon of Ceridwen as she is the patron god of the Sheaim. Arawn is a neutral god who did not participate heavily in the godswar - he is not evil at all and almost certainly didn't create Abashi. He probably didn't create a dragon considering his passive personality but there's no explicit mention.

- Drifa has no particular claim to being the eldest dragon. Age of Ice (the 'prequel') is set during the Age of Ice, which occured after the Age of Dragons in Erebus's timeline, not before. All dragons other than Drifa were sleeping or had been slain by that Age.

- You have some strange 'killed by Acheron' references there. Acheron would've been a force for Good during the age of dragons (Bhall didn't fall until the end of the Age of Magic), but you have it killing both good and evil dragons.

- There's not really any precedent either way, but it's possible that some of the other dragons aren't dead but are just in deep sleep storage, as Eurabatres was. The strongly good aligned dragons (Junil, Nanto etc) are good candidates for this.

Hope that helps!

 

[Calavente]

same line of thoughts:
I thought the "leviathan" was Danalin's "dragon" ??? wasn't it that ?

and technicaly Acheron is not "discovered by Bhall"... but... "constructed/created by Bhall"