Explorable Lairs and other changes I'm trying

[Marnok]

where I am at:
testing the SdToolKitAdvanced based stuff for tribal villages - I'll lose that "guardian" promo. Now each tile stores variables - who the current favoured defender is, and how long they have been guarding. Each turn you have the most units in the tile, you get +1 on the score. Each turn you do not, it's -1 (at 0 it reverts to Barbarian or the current occupier). I might add in +1 for defending a battle, things like that. Also maybe certain units and certain civ/traits/alignments/religions/whatever could have an effect.

When the score reaches a certain level, the village will be "yours". For now that will mean, you can convert them to village settlers.

Looking into this has reminded me of another idea I wanted in the game - see http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=270441:

4. Make towers/forts place a temporary culture footprint based on strength of forces garrisonned there.
What I mean by this, if I have too few soldiers in fort, there is no effect. If I have enough, their strength adds my culture to surrounding tiles. A 3x3 area would gain a culture points value calculated based on total current strength.

So a tile might become 51% "me" if I have a fort on my border and loads of soldiers in it. When I move them out, the culture goes away. In this way I could push the borders back, but only while I commit forces to the task. Or, I could build a mine in the wilderness to gather some vital resource, but only have access to it while local fort it manned.

Coupled with this, I would need the AI to see forces in a fort near their border as quite hostile, and, make them want to garrisson forts. Make them treat fort-building in a similar way to city-building.

Adapting that idea, I could try making Villages stamp the cultural footprint of the defending player, when above certain levels - so, at say level 10 the tile itself flips over to your control, at level 20 the surrounding tiles too. Certainly flipping the village tile will stop other civs strolling their units through "your" village. I might try applying the other changes applied to forts, but that might be a different type of change to the adventuring changes in this modmod so far. So it might not fit in, and I don't want to lumber people with all my odd ideas just so they can explore lairs!

 

[Blackmantle]

You should perhaps rather base the Mod on 0.32. Files then.
Some numbers in your Modmod (like slaves rushing-ammount and War Elephant power) indicate to stem from somewhere 0.30 or even older? and these Changes had their reason. So that players don't get confused. If that means not very much worklaod to be redone / problem by itself naturally.

Otherwise superb Modification.
In my first test i had even to cheat and put an highly promoted Archer with full Drill and Combat in a City to stem the Tide from what must have been about 200-300 Units including at least 5 Earth Elementals as well as some wraiths and other things and tons of skelletons and highly promoted Lizardman. Really makes the Midgame a struggle as well. Second Game i have been prepared. Really trains to gear up your defense and going Fogbusting + exploring / rooting out evil places.

Your modifications even make Archery Units really worthwhile. And you even find most of the problems which one could spot on your own without alot of Feedback.
Although the Villages giving Settlers in a no-Settlers game seems unbalanced and the Tribal Vilages as of now are hardly balanced civwise (to the Sidar for example each result is really powerful. Barbs merly being free EP. Giving them fodder and material for Shades more or less at will if some villages are near.)


Sadly the Ai didn't seem to cope but instead they fell one by one like multihued leaves in a faint autumn breeze. Leaving a very empty world and much barb rampage (leading to the more than hundred Barbs washing against the city mentioned above.). But maybe that will change as well on its own if AI gets redone and can cope with the main-mod better.

And i have to say that i hope eventually at least the Lairs part (or something simmilar) also gets included in the Main Mod in some form (at least as an Option.). Perhaps directly before Ice-Phase as preparation for Scenarios. (I could imagine that goes just in the direction the Team thought about with the Hinterlands.) Just like the creation-mapscript that modmod seems to fit the main-mod very well.

Im not all that enthusiastic about the change to Villages though (since they make really building Workers and Settlers rather a waste and in the current form make building Scouts versus Warrios rather worthless. I think thats worse than a few free techs gained with much luck. It might improve since you have just started yet but i rather like that extension to be only for the Lairs and not the villages as just another type of lair.) and whould greathly appreceate if you spilt the whole thing into 2 Parts.
One being the change to lairs and the one to villages (and perhaps a combined one as well. ). They should work well apart from each other.
It's still a very good idea but i whouldn't be so happy to see that in Vanilla FFH2. That rather stay a Modmod.

All in all very much reminds me of Master of Magic with all those Monsters (and i whould dislike if to few of the big ones get placed. They just need to be a bit less agressive on their own) running around.
People complaining about FFH2 being to easy and Archers being rather useless should really try your modmod on a slower speed like Epic.
Perhaps not let only 1 Monster guard a Lair (and longer) but a whole bunch of them like 4-9 (in tribute to old MoM ) and then from time to time a whole Stack of 4 or 5 going on campaign at once?
If the Lairs are that hard to take you could gear the results a bit to the better and not make em collapse so fast on bad results otherwise it whould to much look like "whak the player with anything you can find".

Also like has been mentioned in another thread more things at sea whould really be good.

And lastly the application need to be made a bit easier (perhaps self-extracting to new folders so that it can be applied / removed more easiely.). Finding the right place for the files and backing them up takes some time. At least if done first.

I know... So much requests and so few effort on my behalf, still i thought they might be worthwhile and hope im not bothering you to much with it. Thanks alot for that quality Modmod which made FFH 2 even more fun and challanging. Not an easy feat.

So unpatiently awaiting your Modmod for 0.32.


About Vampires: In FFH2 / Erebus they are alive (mortal as well, read the entry of the Vampire Lord or Alexis to have elaboration on the matter) and its a ritual of power (taking the victims soul and lifeforce captive in his own body to vitalize their own.) instead of some sort of disease so if anything it should be changed from major bad to major good by finding an old master sharing the secret ritual of vampirism. (It is in the Modmod allready now the best result you might get if you can just transfer Vampirism to at least one other unit before the "initial victim" defects.)
But it will be removed from 0.32 for non-Calabim anyways so that issue has allready been adressed in the main mod (and rightly so imo.). Also Crazed could be circumvented by Loyalty (as well as Undead having its advantages not only burdens) and turned into another quite powerful boon.
Feast ist just to powerful to be gained that way and whould, if freely available, make the Calabin lose to much of their uniqueness.



@ readers here: Test it, it really is fun. (Makes the game take a lot longer though.)

 

[Verily]

Thinking about that fort idea above, couldn't that be used to "solve" the problem of the Kuriotates? Or at least eliminate the need for settlements, which the AI really doesn't understand anyway (but it does understand using cultural boundaries to get resources, as in the Final Frontier mod).

 

[Mailbox]

I don't think the AI can understand things done through Python though, so any cultural footprint via fort (a very good idea that I might try and tackle after .32 is stable) would have to be done inside of the .dll.

 

[Marnok]

You should perhaps rather base the Mod on 0.32. Files then.
Some numbers in your Modmod (like slaves rushing-ammount and War Elephant power) indicate to stem from somewhere 0.30 or even older? and these Changes had their reason. So that players don't get confused. If that means not very much worklaod to be redone / problem by itself naturally.

Please check you are using the lastest version of the modmod - it is possible at some point I had the wrong values, but I rebuilt for the last released version. I did change the filename though, because I wanted to keep the history (wasn't confident!) I will be keeping it simpler in future.

Although the Villages giving Settlers in a no-Settlers game seems unbalanced

In current version, they give a special "village settler" which just lets you reposition the village. I will be looking into settler-events, but I am being more concious of game settings so I already have a "can settlers be built" function in my testing version, which should solve these problems for you.

Sadly the Ai didn't seem to cope but instead they fell one by one like multihued leaves in a faint autumn breeze.

This should be slowed down now - the bigger bigbads will tend to stay in villages/lairs like multihued leaves in a muddy puddle, at least at first. Also bigbad spawning is more scaled, with each unit type beign able to create its own personal boss type, so super-big-bad won't pop up by the dozen on turn 10. This prevents a turn 150 rush with multiple Balors, or the like, which was crushing foolish AIs.

and whould greathly appreceate if you spilt the whole thing into 2 Parts.

I will look into the options/settings, I was already concerned if I started adding my fort changes that it might change the focus of the modmod too much for many players, but I still want to do all "my" stuff, any ideas I personally want. Although, to as Mailbox suggested, this may be better as a DLL change anyway so perhaps I'll leave it.

All in all very much reminds me of Master of Magic with all those Monsters (and i whould dislike if to few of the big ones get placed. They just need to be a bit less agressive on their own) running around.

MoM was an influence of course, as was the old PBM "Adventurer Kings". The aggression will be addressed in next version. There will be a "grace" period where monsters tend to stay put (though not always). Also, I know you want your old villages back but at the moment the newer villages act as a sponge for agggression - the first big monster stepping in them will stop there and take over. I suppose this would happen with Goody Huts too, but in modmod terms it means you have choices - destroy a village for loot, defende the village, or leave the villages to act as monster-traps, but with the knowledge that they will breed there and possibly spawn multiple badness in later turns.

Perhaps not let only 1 Monster guard a Lair (and longer) but a whole bunch of them like 4-9 (in tribute to old MoM ) and then from time to time a whole Stack of 4 or 5 going on campaign at once?

It is something I am thinking about.

If the Lairs are that hard to take you could gear the results a bit to the better and not make em collapse so fast on bad results otherwise it whould to much look like "whak the player with anything you can find".

I am also thinking here, I had an idea a while back for "rumours" where the good result was already generated. Now I have figured out how to stick variables on a tile, this is more possible. It may mean a change in the way the whole thing works - generate a Challenge and a Reward result, when the lair is set... then rumour events could tell the player what to expect, could even be magical methods to scry. Of course this isn't really compatible with the idea of individual result types for each religion/trait/civ. But then there could be "unclear" results for many lairs, which mean a random roll will be required. It is something to think about anyway.

Also like has been mentioned in another thread more things at sea whould really be good.

Yes, I'll dip my toes in the water at some point. There have been some good ideas about sea-lair types.

And lastly the application need to be made a bit easier (perhaps self-extracting to new folders so that it can be applied / removed more easiely.). Finding the right place for the files and backing them up takes some time. At least if done first.

I will be making it a bit easier to extract, but I still recommend backing up your mod folder first.

I know... So much requests and so few effort on my behalf, still i thought they might be worthwhile and hope im not bothering you to much with it. Thanks alot for that quality Modmod which made FFH 2 even more fun and challanging. Not an easy feat.

Glad you are liking it!

So unpatiently awaiting your Modmod for 0.32.

Yeah 0.32 is when everything changes, and you have got to be ready.

About Vampires: <snip>

Yes, I was thinking about the Feral vempires I read about in some lore, but a few people have expressed concern over this event so I can happily drop it. It wasn't essential to the modmod experience, I was just thinking up ideas.

@ readers here: Test it, it really is fun. (Makes the game take a lot longer though.)

Actually often the game is a darn site quicker

 

[mahazel]

I found a tresaure map, but treasure chest location was on the ice.
(I posted it earlier in wrong place, in FF topic I`m starting to think that I`m playing too much different modmod )

 

[Marnok]

OK, I need to amend the "treasure walker" again, or create a promo which lets Adventurers cross uncrossable terrain. Or maybe just give your guy some thermal underwear and tell him to get on with it.

 

[JJR]

@Marnok

Would you be able to provide just the added/changed code for each file in your modmod rar? Just makes it easier to try it out on the latest patches.

 

[WhitewolfIV]

Are you still working on this mod? Well I look at something Xienwolf had posted and I thought that it might be interesting for you to include into your mod for the named monsters:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=238278

 

[feydras]

I haven't read the whole thread so i appologize if this was already answered...

Is the chance of sucess of looting lairs modified by unit level and strength? If not then i can see a player only risking crappy, obsolete units on exploration.

 

[Marnok]

JJR: Sounds like a good idea, I'll try and do that after next release.

Whitewolf IV : Still working, sorry been offline for a while. I'll post a new 0.32 version as soon as I can... I'll eyeball Xienwolf's ideas too, thanks.

Feydras : yes, there is a bonus for unit level, but not for strength. Strength may be more important soon (I will put more "bad" events which deal scaled damage, for example). Strength will be considered when attacking villages.

OK now I have an internet connection again, let me consolidate a new version and post it... I'll try to release before weekend

 

[Marnok]

OK, I have put together a version which SEEMS to work on 0.32d, and started a thread on the modmod forum as suggested:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=6877533

I've played a few hundred turns on these files without problem. Nevertheless I am sure everyone is going to come back with some horrible faults. I'm sure you guys will let me know about them!

 

[giddion]

OK, I have put together a version which SEEMS to work on 0.32d, and started a thread on the modmod forum as suggested:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=6877533

I've played a few hundred turns on these files without problem. Nevertheless I am sure everyone is going to come back with some horrible faults. I'm sure you guys will let me know about them!

I am confused...
This links to the other thread that links back to this thread...

Is the download http://www.marnok.com/Civ4/marnok.rar
The most recent version that works with 32d and sureshot dragons?

Thanks

 

[Sureshot]

ya, thats the most recent download i think, ive downloaded from there multiple times at different dates and it changes to be the most updated

 

[giddion]

hey sure shot I used your dragon pack, it over rides CvSpellInterface.py this has errors at load time and breaks the village/hut function. The error refers to line 33, I thought that this may need to be "import settings as settings" instead of "import settings as s" but that doesn't work as it cant find settings.py. Is this script missing?

 

[Sureshot]

i wouldnt recommend using the download that i posted previously (it was mainly for marnok to grab stuff from if he liked), like i said in the other thread, theres no good way for me to keep it updated to his current versions, as he's good at updating it frequently

i did make a version for someone that i uploaded, you can try that out (its got the current version of marnoks mod with my changes and the dragons and also a svartalfar ranger and assassin), you can give that a try here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=9608

 

[Marnok]

I am confused...
This links to the other thread that links back to this thread...

Is the download http://www.marnok.com/Civ4/marnok.rar
The most recent version that works with 32d and sureshot dragons?

Thanks

That is my most recent upload, and I'll upload newer versions there. Sureshot Dragons aren't in that upload, they are in my testing version ready fo next upload (I went for the "lite" version which just uses existing graphics, otherwise the file goes from ~200kb to several meg)

If you don't have settings.py, re-download the marnok.rar

The reason for the reference back to this thread is so that the history of discussion doesn't get lost.

 

[Sureshot]

cool to hear youre including some of it, been loving your modmod, makes single player fun again