ExtraModMod continued

I haven't seen evil/AV civs underperform and, in my games, the Infernals and Mercurians almost always get summoned. My settings are quite different than yours, but one option I always use is "Last Days" (for the same reason you mentioned, to ensure "a really fun aspect of the game (units dying and being reborn, the world turning to hell, Basium killing demons, etc.)".
For comparison, here are my standard settings:
Warlord difficulty, Quick speed
Huge Erebus Continent map script
Ancient era, High cohesion, Low sea level, all others default
3 extra civs (for a total of 14, including myself). All random, usually "Unrestricted Leaders" but without "Allow Scenario" or "Extra Leaders"
 
Hi, it's really nice to see Extramodmod still being developed :D.

I had a couple of questions on game settings.

I've played 5-6 games recently on the latest beta (no bugs/issues whatsoever). My settings are:
Monarch difficulty, Epic speed
Large Erebus Continent map script
Low sea level, all others default
2 extra civs (for a total of 11, including myself). Out of these, 2 good 2 neutral 2 evil, all others random.

First, in all the games I played, I noticed that the much-awaited AV vs good fight never really came about at all. Mostly nobody bothers founding the Ashen Veil, if they do they don't convert to it, and if they do convert to it they just get pummeled by another AI (damn SoK stacks!) before they can summon the Infernals. Basium never gets summoned either, so it feels like I'm missing out on a really fun aspect of the game (units dying and being reborn, the world turning to hell, Basium killing demons, etc.) Does anyone have any tips on what game settings could bring about this late-game good vs evil, Infernals vs Mercurians fight? Any specific civ combos/map scripts/even maps? One thing I've tried is to keep Tebryn in the game, but even then he very often gets killed before he has the chance to get AV rolling.

Second, out of the games I played, one game particularly stood out because I faced a strong runaway AI. Falamar took an early tech lead, wiped out 2 or 3 civs (incl. AV Tebryn), and went on to win a Domination (Quick) victory (!) before I could stop him. I don't remember the last time I saw the AI win domination in any Civ4 game, so that was pretty impressive! But it turned out this game was an anomaly. In all other games, I didn't really face any challenges from a runaway AI. After pre turn-200 wars, the AIs just seemed to settle into the game and not really do anything much. I want to raise the difficulty, but I'm sceptical of playing on emperor because fighting massive early-game warrior stacks makes it really not fun for me. Any suggestions on how I could increase the chance of getting runaway AIs, without actually raising the difficulty? Sorry this may sound like I'm trying to have my cake and eat it too, but I've abandoned too many games now because there was no challenging opponent by the mid-late game, and I really want to use the cool archmage/high priest spells :)

re " After pre turn-200 wars, the AIs just seemed to settle into the game and not really do anything much": Turn on Aggressive AI. That will also cause the Armageddon counter to increase more and that in turn will help the Sheaim

I always play with that setting and a lot of my games have had runaway Hyboream

Maybe try reinstalling everything? Your installation might be corrupted. If that doesn't help, please post a save.

@Akbarthegreat: I would try the "Last Days" and "Increasing difficulty" gameoptions. Starting in the classical era is also an option to get to the lategame stuff more reliably.

Yeah maybe this is a sign that I should finally get Civ4 on my new laptop instead of the decade old one lol

Feels weird buying Civ4 these days but I haven't been able to find good mods (Rhyes and Fall, Revolutions, Fall From Heaven) for Civ6 last I looked. So that's probably what I'll do when I have time. I'll let you know how it goes
 
Thanks for the replies! Right after lfgr's reply, I created a new game with Last Days and Flexible Difficulty (turned out to be equivalent to increasing difficulty, it got me to Deity by turn 225 on Epic). This game is going well, with AV performing decently well and the other AIs also doing a good job. Kandros Fir seems to be running away, with a big empire and an obcenely high power rating. The AC got to ~60 without the prophecy being built, and AV being present in only 3-4 cities, which was pretty strange. Probably caused by a lot of city razing. Os-Gabella was struggling for most of the game - didn't even found the Veil - but once the counter went high (no thanks to her!), she spiked in power and summoned Hyborem. Sadly Hyborem spawned right next to Kandros Fir and was killed in ~20 turns :lol:

I'm around turn 440 now, and the game looks to be pretty interesting. In particular, the AC went up to 85 (!) and then dropped back down to 70. At this point, I'm afraid 100 is a real possibility, so I haven't built Teutorix yet in the hope that I will do so after the apocalypse.

A few oddities I noticed in the game though:
1. Chalid does not have the pillar of fire spell anymore. Was this removed recently?
2. Yersinia turns floodplains he steps on to bare desert :cry:. Was this feature there in base FfH2? In any case, probably worth mentioning in the wiki
3. Something funny happened with Buboes. He spawned near the Calabim, killed a few units, saw an unguarded Ruins, and promptly decided to become its guardian. He has now been defending that lair for almost 100 turns :lol:
Spoiler :


4. Is the Overcouncil support event supposed to occur even when I am not at war with any civ?
Spoiler :


5. Why does this wolf pack have 10/11 strength? Nature's Revolt hasn't been completed yet btw

Spoiler :
 
Thanks for the replies! Right after lfgr's reply, I created a new game with Last Days and Flexible Difficulty (turned out to be equivalent to increasing difficulty, it got me to Deity by turn 225 on Epic). This game is going well, with AV performing decently well and the other AIs also doing a good job. Kandros Fir seems to be running away, with a big empire and an obcenely high power rating. The AC got to ~60 without the prophecy being built, and AV being present in only 3-4 cities, which was pretty strange. Probably caused by a lot of city razing. Os-Gabella was struggling for most of the game - didn't even found the Veil - but once the counter went high (no thanks to her!), she spiked in power and summoned Hyborem. Sadly Hyborem spawned right next to Kandros Fir and was killed in ~20 turns :lol:
AC is generally easier to raise than lower. Random events might give you options for lowering it and you can sanctify city ruins, but there's no way to directly compensate for e.g. looting a graveyard, so with lots of civs and/or a long game it tends rise even without significant effort on part of AV.
2. Yersinia turns floodplains he steps on to bare desert :cry:. Was this feature there in base FfH2? In any case, probably worth mentioning in the wiki.
All the horsemen automatically leave a trail of destruction, removing most terrain features and sometimes turning tiles into desert. The flood plains interaction is consistent with this behavior, although not necessarily something that makes a lot of sense.
3. Something funny happened with Buboes. He spawned near the Calabim, killed a few units, saw an unguarded Ruins, and promptly decided to become its guardian. He has now been defending that lair for almost 100 turns :lol:
All barbs do that (so you'll never get attacked by a barbarian if it's the only unit in the lair). Horsemen should probably excluded from the behavior, especially with the AI leaving unguarded lairs lying around everywhere.

4. Is the Overcouncil support event supposed to occur even when I am not at war with any civ?
Spoiler :
Yeah, I believe it's a small bonus to make up for OC resolutions being generally weaker than UC.

5. Why does this wolf pack have 10/11 strength? Nature's Revolt hasn't been completed yet btw

Spoiler :
Fairly rare random spawn recently added to EMM, feel free to throw your excess subdue animal recon units at it if you ever get the chance. There are some quirks related to their spawning that are kind of hard to pinpoint, but they're comparable to cave bears with a wider variety of eligible biomes.
 
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Chalid does not have the pillar of fire spell anymore. Was this removed recently?
No, Chalid has been nerfed by Terkhen some years ago.

Yersinia turns floodplains he steps on to bare desert :cry:. Was this feature there in base FfH2? In any case, probably worth mentioning in the wiki
Yeah, that seems to be from FfH. The same is true for the other horsemen and the war machine. But you're right about the pedia.

Something funny happened with Buboes. He spawned near the Calabim, killed a few units, saw an unguarded Ruins, and promptly decided to become its guardian. He has now been defending that lair for almost 100 turns
Do you have a savegame?

Is the Overcouncil support event supposed to occur even when I am not at war with any civ?
Yes. It's just occurs semi-regularly in EMM.

Why does this wolf pack have 10/11 strength? Nature's Revolt hasn't been completed yet btw
That's correct, buy it and check the promotions. :)
 
Gaelan's random event chain can apparently choose any city with a mage guild for subsequent events after the initial one - I had all events in the chain take place in different cities so my capital's mage guild kept the :science: bonus from the initial event while the last one gave me an option for a :science: penalty in a city that didn't get any :science: from its mage guild in the first place.

I did save and load between every event in the chain if that's significant - I've noticed the "Cease bothering us!" diplomatic option at least gets reset on a reload.
 
So I popped the Avatar of Wrath event, and naturally a bunch of my units went Enraged and are bopping around the map looking for something to kill. Any idea why sometimes one or another of them loses all its moves for a turn without moving? I haven't checked to see if this happens outside of a stack, but it has happened at least twice to just one unit in a stack, which freezes the whole stack. Only one shows zero moves, but they all wait for that one. In one case, it seemed to last for multiple turns.
(Although it would be to my disadvantage, it'd actually probably make more sense if the Enraged effect automatically breaks up stacks, but it doesn't.)
 
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AC is generally easier to raise than lower. Random events might give you options for lowering it and you can sanctify city ruins, but there's no way to directly compensate for e.g. looting a graveyard, so with lots of civs and/or a long game it tends rise even without significant effort on part of AV.

Oh- I didn't know that looting graveyards caused AC to rise. Can that be prevented somehow - by, say, sanctifying graveyards?

Do you have a savegame?

That's correct, buy it and check the promotions. :)

I've attached a save, you can find Buboes on the south-west corner of the map.
And unfortunately, all of Amelanchier's animals disappeared a little while after I took the screenshot :/ Os-Gabella's pit beasts must have killed them.
 

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Oh- I didn't know that looting graveyards caused AC to rise. Can that be prevented somehow - by, say, sanctifying graveyards?
Yes, although either option causes the graveyard to disappear so you can't have both. Sanctifying also doesn't get you a shot at gold or a free tech, although you do get a permanent Host of the Einherjar which, while not particularly impressive by itself, is eligible to be sacrificed at Pyre of the Seraphic.

AC increasing or decreasing is accompanied by a sound cue, BTS\Mods\ExtraModMod\Assets\sounds\buildings\Armageddon*.mp3 - you're most likely already familiar with them, although the one that plays when AC increases is just low rumbling that's easy to mistake for ambient noise if you don't know what to listen for.
 
Any idea why sometimes one or another of them loses all its moves for a turn without moving? I haven't checked to see if this happens outside of a stack, but it has happened at least twice to just one unit in a stack, which freezes the whole stack. Only one shows zero moves, but they all wait for that one. In one case, it seemed to last for multiple turns.
(Although it would be to my disadvantage, it'd actually probably make more sense if the Enraged effect automatically breaks up stacks, but it doesn't.)
It's possible the AI code does this. Do you have a savegame?
 
It's possible the AI code does this. Do you have a savegame?
There are two offenders here. There are a pair of adepts, named Elemental Lich and Alterer Lich, grouped but won't move because of one of them. The other is a group of 6 units, one wizard (Diviner Lich), one archer and four adepts. The archer isn't moving.

The game is saved just before End of Turn, and you can see in each of those stacks, the one unit has no moves but the others haven't used any. If you hit End of Turn, since the Enraged units move before anything else, you'll see the same status at the start of my turn.

Curiously, I couldn't reproduce the problem when I loaded turn 230 (I didn't save on turn 231) and hit End of Turn. Those units were in the same locations, but they moved before my moves on turn 231.
Do you also want my save on turn 230, for comparison?
 

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I'm not convinced this unit composition serves the AI's best interests. RoK has the widest spread so I guess he could be gunning for a religious victory, although Cardith Lorda and I have the biggest cities and neither of us is terribly interested in sharing that goal (although Grigori still gets free gold and/or culture for any religions popping up in their cities, go figure). I did wade through a handful of Mages and Moroi but he still has basically more Thanes than everything else combined. Logs + save.

Fancy how the "pacifist" Cassiel's palace doesn't even have a war weariness penalty. Not that it really matters if your hero death blob never suffers any casualties in the first place. :p
 
Maybe try reinstalling everything? Your installation might be corrupted. If that doesn't help, please post a save.

@Akbarthegreat: I would try the "Last Days" and "Increasing difficulty" gameoptions. Starting in the classical era is also an option to get to the lategame stuff more reliably.

I installed on a new computer and I can see combat odds again!
 
It's possible the AI code does this. Do you have a savegame?
If this ever happens again I'll let you know, but since it hasn't been easily reproducible so far, I think we can mark this as a random glitch. I found a work-around for my game.
 
If this ever happens again I'll let you know, but since it hasn't been easily reproducible so far, I think we can mark this as a random glitch. I found a work-around for my game.
Thanks, the save you posted was actually enough to solve the problem. Not breaking up the stacks, if they consist of solely enraged units, is apparently intentional in MNAI. But there was a bug that the head unit of an enraged stack got stuck in a loop, which makes it panic and lose all its moves as an emergency measure.
 
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Not sure if this is a bug or even related to FfH2 or EMM, but thought I'd post it here anyway. I have a massive negative diplomatic modifier with Malchavic yet he's still willing to trade. I'm fairly sure I've never seen a furious non-vassal AI willing to trade. Does his City States + Foreign Trade simply override the massive penalty?

Also, how does the first impression thing work?

E: Got a buggy Bereke event. It should trigger at the start of this save. Apparently it triggered in a city that I no longer own.
 
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Bona fide bug here. This is the first time I've ever gotten the Gela quest. (AWESOME event, by the way!) I chose the Pool of Tears option, and all of my units took death damage... over and over and over again. I stopped counting at six loops of damage dealt, but I think it was a LOT more than that. In the attached savegame, you can see all of the damage in the Event Log. If you want the save just before it go boom, I can provide.
 

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