Explorable Lairs and other changes I'm trying

[DharmaMcLaren]

Is this compatible with Fall Further?

 

[Marnok]

Is this compatible with Fall Further?

Not as it stands. Vehem was using bits and adapting them to Fall Further, but I am not sure how many or which bits. Also I nicked some of Vehem's changes and improvements and incorporated them into my stuff, but converted it back to base FfH. Things like the name generator would need some extras for FF, to handle the extra civs, and I haven't played enough FF to do that myself. If I get into FF, I might make a parallel modmodmod of my stuff + FF, in addition to one just with my stuff for FfH. (Should I call it "Fall Harder", or is that taken?)

 

[Vehem]

Is this compatible with Fall Further?

Not as it stands. Vehem was using bits and adapting them to Fall Further, but I am not sure how many or which bits. Also I nicked some of Vehem's changes and improvements and incorporated them into my stuff, but converted it back to base FfH. Things like the name generator would need some extras for FF, to handle the extra civs, and I haven't played enough FF to do that myself. If I get into FF, I might make a parallel modmodmod of my stuff + FF, in addition to one just with my stuff for FfH. (Should I call it "Fall Harder", or is that taken?)

What he said

I've incorporated the original mod (explorable lairs) into Fall Further 030 (and it's great fun ), but I haven't included the naming system yet. I do plan to make use of it - as it looks great - though it won't be in the next release. I really like the ideas that have come out of this thread in general - some very nice flavour and depth added to what were originally "fringe features" (lairs etc) - I now find myself looking forward to assaulting a lair to see what turns up next

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

What he said

I've incorporated the original mod (explorable lairs) into Fall Further 030 (and it's great fun ), but I haven't included the naming system yet. I do plan to make use of it - as it looks great - though it won't be in the next release. I really like the ideas that have come out of this thread in general - some very nice flavour and depth added to what were originally "fringe features" (lairs etc) - I now find myself looking forward to assaulting a lair to see what turns up next

Have you also incorporated the exploring Tribal Villagers?

I'm currently creating a scenario and I would really love to use both this and the Fall Further mods since they are both great. The Tribal Villagers could open up alot of possibilities to scenario builders i think.

Thanks for two great mod mods!!

 

[mahazel]

Hello, it`s me again I`ve found some new bugs

First of all, the problem with adventurer promotion is still the same- sometimes (not always, I don`t know why) you can choose next promotion normally, sometimes not.

There appeared a skeleton without body, only barbarian flag and info. I`ve got it 2 times in one game and one time in another. And all this games crashed when I changed a turn.
EDIT:
Now I`m playing as Calabi and the no-body skeleton come out. When I want to attack him, game is stopping and I can only do alt+ctrl+del
/EDIT

I don`t know when, but in two games (once as orcs, once as Sheim) mana I got with nodes and the Holy City disappeared, I still had nodes on mana crystals, but they didn`t give me their mana. I had to destroy it and build again, but couldn`t get back mana from the Holy City:/ I still had mana from palace. Amurite wasn`t in this game.

And one more sugestion, maybe you can add options for Clan to recruit lizardmens from dungeon for gold? Or maybe sometimes they can get magic items from there for lots of cash or get warrior with name and some promotions? I just love play as orcs and want to see some new options Maybe some bad options too, something like manticore or minotaur, not only giant -they should have hidden nationality and attack anyone who is near their lair or maze.

 

[Marnok]

I have been playing for a while and I've seen the adventurer glitch a couple more times. I am not 100% sure what is causing it, I shall do some tests. (It may be a tiny glitch in the naming function.)

The skeleton thing I have never seen. I shall play as Calabim and see if I can recreate. It sounds Very Odd. Also the Holy City vanishing - there's nothing I can see in the code which might cause that. I have not seen anything like it.

I am going to reinstall FfH later (after a backup of course!) and then re-apply my changes, just to make sure everything I am doing is current version. Can you confirm which version you are running?

Clan are getting more options for interacting with lairs, at the moment they can pay 50 gold to "help" the lair, and the lair will produce some units, or give a warrior to the player, that sort of thing. I will be expanding all these options once I have each type of interaction safely in place.

 

[mahazel]

I am going to reinstall FfH later (after a backup of course!) and then re-apply my changes, just to make sure everything I am doing is current version. Can you confirm which version you are running?

I`ve got the problem with mana in previous version of your modmod, now I`m playing only about 150 turns and haven`t any nodes, so can`t check it. But I`ve got problem with skeleton in both previous and last version. I have FFH 2.031e, and system is Vista Home Premium.

Also the Holy City vanishing

I didn`t say it vanished, I had +1 gold bonus from city with religion, only bonus mana disappeared, just the same as mana from mana nodes. I had to pillaged my own mana nodes and rebuild them, also I could build any new node, not only the same as it was before. Normally if you pillage mana node in your nations border, you can rebuild only the same node as before, unless you use Dispel magic.
But I couldn`t destroyed and rebuild Holy City to got mana back, could I?

Unfortunately I haven`t time to play now, but if I`ll have free time in next weekend I`m going to reinstall my FFH, and load again your mod.

 

[Marnok]

OK I fear the semi-lockup inconvenience is engine related. This is when a unit gains adventurer, and the game doesn't respond properly to levelups.
To test this, I reinstalled Civ4 and FfH, and simply changed the combat1 promotion to set the number of units to 1. When a unit levelled up, I clicked the combat 1 promotion, and the game did not acknowledge the change (the same promotion choices were still showing)
I need to test mre, but it might be that switching to a single-figure unit graphic is causing it. I didn't get the problem with missing options from the city screen, so maybe I haven't completely got to the bottom of this one yet.

This part actually seems a minor worry anyway, as the player can just click on another unit most of the time to clear it; at worst, save and reload. Of course I want to problem to go away, so I shall continue to explore.

I'll keep you informed.

 

[Jhoniten]

I been getting a strange lockup. Adventurer fully promoted as a hunter with combat 5, and heroic strength and defense at 2. Every time I try to attack an barbarian warrior that came from a tribal village spawn the game locks up. Also occurs if I move next to it and end turn letting him attack me. Attacking or defending from the 2 earth elementals or the 2 Balors does not cause this. (one of each is also named)

Maybe just a coincidence of my own bad luck. Duel sized map set for archipelago. very first village spawns 2 barbarian warriors, my warrior dead. Later in the game I return with hero to take them on only to find that there is now also 2 earth elementals and 2 balors there, one of each being named. To top it all off, Orthus spawned on my island chain also.

 

[Marnok]

I been getting a strange lockup. Adventurer fully promoted as a hunter with combat 5, and heroic strength and defense at 2. Every time I try to attack an barbarian warrior that came from a tribal village spawn the game locks up. Also occurs if I move next to it and end turn letting him attack me. Attacking or defending from the 2 earth elementals or the 2 Balors does not cause this. (one of each is also named)

Maybe just a coincidence of my own bad luck. Duel sized map set for archipelago. very first village spawns 2 barbarian warriors, my warrior dead. Later in the game I return with hero to take them on only to find that there is now also 2 earth elementals and 2 balors there, one of each being named. To top it all off, Orthus spawned on my island chain also.

OMG that is TOO unlucky!

Re: multiple Balors
Never fear, I shall complete a newer release which is, I think, more balanced. Each monster type has a Boss type and a Follower type, the arrangement should mean you end up with fewer top-tier monsters like Balors. I still need to balance, and to make sure that rare random monsters CAN spawn, but that most monsters are of a type, creating the chance for little themed areas appearing if left alone to develop (valley of the minotaurs, that sort of thing)

Re: Lockup bug
When I have re-built the new release, I am tidiying up code and checking things carefully, if the problem is something in my scripts then it ought be be gone in next release. I can't think right now what might have caused that particular problem though. Adventurer didn't ought to do anything in normal combat, it is just a promotion which is used to affect variables in the scripts.

 

[mahazel]

Every time I try to attack an barbarian warrior that came from a tribal village spawn the game locks up. Also occurs if I move next to it and end turn letting him attack me.

I think it`s the same story as mine with the no-body skeleton. It`s look like the game is generating some failured unit. Hmm, I didn`t notice this earlier, but in my games this unit always appeared near unit with an adventurer promotion.

 

[Marnok]

I think it`s the same story as mine with the no-body skeleton. It`s look like the game is generating some failured unit. Hmm, I didn`t notice this earlier, but in my games this unit always appeared near unit with an adventurer promotion.

Interesting. I have no idea why generating *near* an adventurer unit would cause grief.

For most promotions, the <iGroupSize> is set to 0, which obviously means "no change" not "no units". I had set lairbuilder as <iGroupSize></iGroupSize>, possibly a bad mistake... could this have produced blank units? I have not seen any myself, but who knows? Maybe.

Anyway, this whole thing could be a headache over nothing, if I smooth out any inconsitancies and tidy up code for a new version the problems *might* just go away. I'm not usually that lucky though. I'll try and do this ASAP.

 

[xienwolf]

The NULL shouldn't cause an issue. The game would see there is no value, so load nothing. Then you would be left with the default value, which is 0.

But, I have seen the game be pickier than that before.

 

[Vehem]

The NULL shouldn't cause an issue. The game would see there is no value, so load nothing. Then you would be left with the default value, which is 0.

But, I have seen the game be pickier than that before.

Aye - from a "sensible" point of view - it should default to 0 (or refuse the XML outright would be better), but it could easily be enough to make the game "go have a sulk because it doesn't understand" - especially as it's dealing with the graphics engine.

 

[Marnok]

My current theory is that the Adventurer promo is radioactive, and causes mutations in nearby units.

Testing changes... by popular request I am going to see what happens if we allow Barbarian trait civs to dungeon-delve without being at war.

Will post full current state after I have tested for a while... see if I can recreate these oddities.

 

[Marnok]

OK I think I have solved the gain-adventurer-promo-non-responsive-lose-city-build-options thingy.

Missing text key.

I put the text key in, it works. I take it out, I get the error.#

EDIT:

and now it DOESN'T work again. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaghhhhhhhhhhh!
I *think* there are multiple causes. In this case, I was applying both "named" and "adventurer" promos at the same time, and both set group size to 1. When I made it so that only Adventurer does so, I didn't get the fault. Need to test on a unit which already only has one figure in the group.

 

[WhitewolfIV]

I like this thread, maybe you should post this in the ModMod Section so it doesn't get buried.

I think this is a very interestng project, hope you figure out the bugs and that Kael will implement some of this into FFH2.

 

[Polycrates]

I've been trying this out a bit lately and it's really really fricking cool. Pretty much exactly how I always hoped FFH barbarians and lairs and such would turn out. I love how the settler rush is replaced with a desperate battle to carve out a homeland from the barbarian menace. And I really like how most barbs come from lair-type spawns, so clearing barbs is more a matter of assaulting mini-strongholds rather than just fogbusting/settler spamming. The early game is awesome again!

Couple of thoughts:
-I agree that there's too many really high-level enemies too early. Sounds like you've fixed that up nicely for the next version though (first time I tried it, I had raging barbs on and watched as about 7 enemy empires were destroyed. I was thinking "soft bastards, cant even handle a few lizardmen" until two elementals simultaneously turned up on my doorstep at about turn 40. Even with non-raging barbs, a force of 6(!) str13/17 stoneskin ogres showed up at turn 120 and rained rather heavily on my parade).
-On the other hand, I think the number of lairs (i.e. lots!) seems about right.
- I'm getting a LOT of skeletons, and not so many orcs or lizardmen (and not a single goblin). Some sort of orc+goblin-spawning village would be cool (as separate from goody huts) to make a more interesting balance of enemies.
- I also barely see a single animal, even with wildlands on. Could animal lairs be generated and handled in a similar manner?

Anyway, awesome work with this, and I can't wait for the new version!

 

[Marnok]

Thanks for the feedback!

I am getting close to the latest mishmash being stable enough to release.

Here's what I hope it will do.

Tribal Villages
Can join a nation if within cultural borders. Invite them - they might react badly, but if they accept, they will turn into something useful. If the tribal village was on say, cotton, they will form a plantation... even if you don't have the tech yet.

Can be attacked for gold, but they will fight back.

Can be "visited" - spend 5gp (as a gift to the elders) and they may give you a map, or a warrior, or something - or maybe spit on your gift and go Tribal on you!

Can be guarded. Just sit a unit or two on them. A unit guarding villages will gain a "defender" promotion which increases results from asking them to join / visiting elders. There is also a chance they will pack up their bags and ask to be moved (forming a special "settler" unit which can place a tribal village somewhere else)
(to do : at the moment if they are in neutral territory, another Civ could come along and annoy the elders or attack, and your units just sit there stupidly. I might make it so after a bit of guarding, you gain cultural control of the tile. Let us playtest and see how it goes.)

Act as "Monster Sponges". Because monsters like to guard them, if you are unlucky enough to face a Balor or something early on (chance of that is reduced, but that's another story), then the monster is likely to want to sit on the village and not attack your cities, for now at least.


All Lairs
Barbarian monster units sitting in a Ruin, Barrow or Tribal Village will get a free mini-event... they may gain XP or get healed, or rarely spawn more monsters (in addition to the general spawn from the lair type, if any).
The type of monster could be a Follower type for the monster (if one has been defined), a Boss type (with a special name and free promotions to make them tougher!), or a copy of the unit type. So, Minotaurs might produce more Minotaurs. It is possible to specify a Follower and Boss for any unit type. I won't spoil the surprises.
This helps with balance - creatures can spawn Bosses which are not too much more powerful than they are, and those Boss types can spawn bigger creatures, so things should be more paced.

Another outcome is, a monster might gain Lairbuilder promo. This is a use-once promo which lets them build a new lair - ruin or barrow or village. They won't build within 1 square of existing lairtype, but still, you could end up with a cluster of Ogre lairs...

Hill Giants can convert a lair on a hill into a Fortress, and Liches can convert certain lairs into Lich Towers. These act pretty much like normal lairs, but Liches and Giants get special events in them too. I plan to make more special lairs as I find a case for them.

Names
Some villains will be named. This just indicates they are Pretty Tough, or think they are! Adds some nice colour to the world I think.
When your units are made Adventurer, they will be Named too. Existing heroes have the Named promotion to stop them being automatically renamed.

Treasure
Just testing this now. Where I had the "treasure map" event, now a hidden invisible "Hidden Treasure" unit spawns at a random map location. The unit who received the result gains Treasure Hunter promotion, which means when they are in the same tile as a Hidden Treasure, they can cast "Dig Up" and gain a Treasure Chest unit. This unit acts like a specialist - can go toward a Golden Age, can form a Great Merchant in a city, or can be turned into mucho gold in a city you control. A sort of quest-ette, as you will be "pinged" where the treasure is buried, but of course any opposing unit with Treasure Hunter which stumbles onto it can dig it up, and it might be half a world away. Or, under another lair, in which case you have to destroy the lair before you can take it!

Dungeoneering
Exploring a lair is unchanged, some events might be tweaked and I have started filling in things like Civ Specific fields. Quite a lot to be done still, but it is getting there.

Rebalancing
Some of the Barbarian Ally stuff is rebalanced - now only costs 5 gold to "visit" a lair, for example. Barbarian Allies can also convince normal lairs within cultural borders to Join, a bit like the Tribal Villages do.
I am finding I get quite a good balance of animals, but I need to test on different maps / speeds / sizes to see what happens.

To Do
Lots, I keep thinking of things!
One is, scaling for speeds / difficulty.
Another - still some minor bugs popping up, like the unresponsiveness of unit after becoming Adventurer.
Lots of filling in of currently empty options - keep those ideas coming folks!
General tweaking - numbers of lairs, numbers of monsters, and so on.
I have tidied up a number of functions behind the scenes, and I am sure I can do more, in interest of maintenance and performance.
Realy ought to make more magic items too. I had ideas for items which can found a holy city instead of needing a prophet, maybe we could make unique items for each civ, and more stuff like that!
Graphics might need updating, rather than reusing existing models/buttons for many things.

I will probably release this lot soon - just need to play a game through and make sure I've not left any obvious oddities in (test code and things)

Disclaimer
I may have put other stuff in and not listed it here, due to modding while half asleep, or perhaps by accident. I mean, who among us hasn't accidentally written a few functions in a hazy moment?

 

[Marnok]

http://www.marnok.com/Civ4/Marnok140508.rar

OK, this set of files for 0.31 e wasn't crashing or anything, so here it is for general consumption.

As always, please backup your files before extracting these; please let me know of any bugs or wierdness, and report back with balance notes, comments, and all that.

As usual, I will realise there is a file missing or some other horrible error in the morning

Thanks!