Few ideas for this mod.

[hiphopin]

(This was directly copied and pasted from the bug thread and im to lazy to edit it.)


Hey a few quick suggestions. Since this is seperate from vanilla FFH2 and is meant to improve the experience by adding new things and improving on the old I have this to say.

Please revamp octapus overlords, tweak it a bit, fix drowns and lunatics, seriously this religon is broke atm.

Domination is annoying to use, prior to me using it I save the game because I feel losing the spell due to resists is greatly unbalanced, I suggest that you do one of the following to the spell. Add a cast time to it (2-3 turns sounds fine) make it immobilize you for X ammount of turns after casting(also silencing you in the process) Add a self charm person debuff after casting(can be tweaked a bit, but the idea is you have a random ammount of turns between casting it a second time) and finally just add a base cooldown to the spell.

Another thing I would like to see is a little tweaking in the spell trees, I greatly dislike having most trees (especially offencive ones) end up with a summon for sphere 3, It would be awesome if maybe some (or all) trees got an additional sphere 3 spell that is not a summon, this spell would also (most likely) have a cooldown timer in which you can not cast it for X ammount of turns. I just thought it would be a great idea and im just throwing it out there.

Sorry for putting this in the bug thread, I put it here mainly because this thread seems to be checked on a lot and responded to a lot.

EDIT: As of now the most boring sphere 3 spells are. Water, sure the ele splits in two when killed, cool, but the sphere 2 spell blows, hard. Fire, Fire elemental with, OMG collateral damage! Thats so exiting! Earth, quite possibly the most dull one, earth elemental, has one more strength than fire ele but loses collateral damage, woopdewoop.... Sun, Aureals(or whatever) are a joke, its another dull attack summon with lower strength but with, *gasp* +2 affinity for sun mana. BOOORING. Air, the air ele is probably the most unique of the elemental summons however it still has a dull factor, the dullness would be removed if it was one of the few summon spells, but since there are like 86 different summons its not as cool. Metamagic, Djinn, seriously, nothing special just +1 affinity to all mana, big friggen deal, completely underwhelming. Shadow, mistform=typical summon with hidden nationality, wow.....

Only sphere 3 summons that are worth keeping: Ice, defencive summon=good. Death, wraiths kick arse. Body, super unit with multiple uses. Air, fast and cool=useful. And Shadow, Mistform, I don't like it that much ATM but if its tweaked a little bit to be more unique it would be awesome.

I would like to see the summons listed above either 1. Be removed and replaced with different spells like there own versions of fireballs or some other cool effect(BTW even though fireballs are technically suicide summons, they feel completely different, so if these spheres were just replaced with waterballs, mudballs, lavaballs ect each with a unique and cool feature, that would be sweet, in fact they wouldnt even need to replace the eles, just be an additional spell.)
2. Tweak the eles and make them cooler and more unique. 3. Do both, tweak the eles and add new spells to each sphere.

It would be so awesome if this would be actually seriously considered, these things are getting so repetative, magic is getting duller, and it needs to be freshened up. Anyways thanks.


EDIT2: By the way is there anyway to turn off the explore dungeon thing added to this mod, it makes it so much harder to destroy barrows and barbarians are OP at the start, OP for FFH2, and since FFH2 already has OP barbs this is just rediculous, seriously. I find myself constantly going into world builder just to delete the barrows, I don't want to turn barbs off because of the dragon barb unit. But I also don't want to send 2 warriors with combat one out to attack a skeleton killing one warrior, and then only to see my other warrior die when exploring the barrow and having another skeleton summon. Woot 5 turns of production down the drain.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Well, it will be a long time till I have time to work on my modmod, but most of your complaints would be addressed in it. Vehem is always welcome to steal my ideas before I actually implement them, so I can just steal his code.



I'm thinking I'll move Tsunami to be a water spell. It would probably be water 2, but I might move weakened water elementals to water 2 and make tsunami a level 3 spell that can temporarily turn land to water. I'm also considering the possibility of making it a water-dimensional cross sphere spell (probably water 3/dimensional 1) and having some other water 2 spell. If so, I'll go back to letting water elementals carry ships as cargo across the land.


Cultists new spell would be "Call to the Deep Ones," which would have a chance to summon various creatures (which sometimes wouldn't be friendly) or to convert various sea monsters. (I'm thinking their need to be lots of water lairs that spawn such beast)

Since I'm thinking I'll double the number of priest spells overall, I may also give Cultists Mutate (like in earlier versions). Otherwise I'd remove the spell entirely, bringing back Summon Chaos Marauder (which was one of the most interesting summons, as they usually betrayed you to turn barbarian pretty quickly.)

For Speakers, I'm thinking their two spells would be Hastur's Razor (currenty Hemah's unique spell; I'm thinking Hemah would have Divine too, so he would be an archmage and Speaker combined) and Water Walking. This version of Water Walking (obviously this would not be water 2 anymore) would grant a temporary version of the water walking promotion to (probably only melee and disciple) units in the stack. Water walking land units (including Drowns and Stygian Guards) would be unable to enter the ocean until Malevolent Designs.


Drowns would no longer upgrade to anything. Any living, non-immortal melee unit could be drowned, to create a Drown of similar strength. (Drowning units too soon wouldn't be wise. Drowned Phalanxes are much better than drowned Axemen. )

Saverous might gain water walking. I'm thinking I'll rename him "Saverous the Thrall" and allow good civs (maybe only Order civs, or Valin Phanuel?) to capture him as a weaker "Saverous the Penitent."




I'm thinking Fire elementals will autocast scorch perTurn/on winning/on loosing.

Djinni definitely will be UNITCOMBAT_ADEPT and begin with Channeling I & II and 1 free promotion, giving them access to mage spells. Note that this would also make them automatically get the free sphere promotions based on mana you own.


I'm thinking that Lightning elementals should not be permanent, but should start with all the promotions of the Air Elemental that created it.


Earth Elemental should be able to bombard city defenses. I'm thinking I'll also give them a chance to cause earthquakes (probably when defeated, maybe when they win, maybe per turn), and I may give earthquakes a chance to raise and lower hills.


Aureales should be able to target recon units in stacks (like Balista Elephants in BtS target Cavalry, or like how my Luonnatar target disciples), see invisible, and have bonuses vs. HN, invisible, stealth, shadow spheres, etc.


Treants should gain the abilities of Priests of the Leaves and be able to bombard defenses slightly. Balors should gain the abilities of Ritualists and have their base strength decreased but gain both Fire and Entropy affinity.

I'm thinking I'd give Wraiths and some other evil units a promotion that (as a pyPerTurn effect) increases the plot counter, so you can purposefully spread hell even in good lands by using these vile creatures.

I'm thinking Mistforms should be able to make other units in their stack invisible.

Most summons should have unitcombats, so they can get promotions when they stick around under summoner trait/dimensional magic using leaders and get free promotions from their summoner's traits too.


I was planning a Tesseract Dimensional summon that can teleport over a large range and carry lots of cargo, but I think I'll just stick with Vehem's spells. However, I definitely think that the dimensional promotions still need summon perks. In my version I'll probably remove the summoning trait and make dimensional promotions add perks that boost duration. (By the way Vehem/Xienwolf, could you make it so that SPECIALUNIT_SPELL units don't have their duration altered by promotions? Its weird to have fireballs that stick around for 4 turns if they don't fight.)

 

[hiphopin]

Dude..... Nice ideas seriously. I would be eternally grateful if Vehem used at least a few of these (all of them preferred) By the way magister, what would you do with the Lunatic units? Oh by the way I absolutly love your idea for fire eles, that would make them cause even more destruction, but it would make it less favorable to use against a civ you are trying to capture, do you really want to capture a civ covered in desert? Great idea.

 

[Saytr]

Oh by the way I absolutly love your idea for fire eles, that would make them cause even more destruction, but it would make it less favorable to use against a civ you are trying to capture, do you really want to capture a civ covered in desert? Great idea.

1) If you have the ability to cast fire elementals, you probably have at least 1 water node for spring.

2) Some spells are made to make your enemies lands less profitable, not better. If you are at war but don't want to capture other empire's cities, send your archmage and guards to destroy their economy, much like the Ice III spell.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Did I say scorch? I think I meant Blaze. We know that fire elementals think only "hungry" (I believe that civilopedia entry is still in the game. The same two brothers summoned the fire elementals as who summoned the Chaos Marauders, which were some of the best spell entries), so they should spread fire and consume everything around. Scorch would probably be a bit too permanent, and it is really more fitting for the Sun sphere. (Hmm...if we want to be really cruel, we could make Fire Elementals create Burning Sands.)

I guess it might be nice for Aureales though. Auto-casting (pyPerTurn) Revelation might be good for them too, instead of a bonus vs so many promotions (I still like them targeting recon units though, and being strong against vampires).


Oh, for those who haven't played around with it yet, I've found that summons with pyPerTurn effects have these effects trigger the instant they are summoned, plus at a seemly random point in all future turns that they stick around. (At one point I'd given Aureales Crown of Brillance, but quickly found that they were quite overpowered. Nothing could stand up to a twincasting Sun III caster.)



I'm not really sure what I'd like done about Lunatics. I wasn't really planning on changing them, apart from letting them be drowned. I had thought of some things to consider though. Most would require that Vehem/Xiemwolf first borrow some code from Dom Pedro II's Conqueror's Delight modcomp and give units a nationality (and maybe home city). I was thinking it could be cool if enraged units went barbarian, but returned to thier real civ when they calmed down. (I don't like enraged wearing off from combat either.) I was also thinking it could be cool to let them be AlwaysHostile units (letting you attack/be attacked by enemies, but not hiding whose they are), maybe with a diplomatic penalty for having them near rival cities.


I was also thinking it would be good to change Loyalty to a level 2 spell, and to make it not kill a unit that betrays you, but brings any unit that was originally yours back under your control. This would also be very nice if they implemented Dom Pedro II's Conqueror's Delight's mercenary mechanic, since you could trade away your troops to rivals though diplomacy, and then get them all back if you need them again. It could also be used to counter Domination, as you could get dominated units back under your control. (I was also thinking that it might be good for Domination to add a promotion to the dominated unit that has a small chance to make the unit return to its original owner on its own.)



I guess I forgot to mention that my OO ideas were pretty dependent on implementing Dom Pedro-style invisibility. I was thinking that all those sea monsters (which range from Sea Serpents to Krakens to the Leviathan, with several new creatures we haven't seen yet) would normally be dormant and would have INVISIBLE_SUBMERGED, which would only be visible to OO priests when on Ocean Tiles. (Most the monsters would probably be water walking, but painfully obvious to anyone who meets them on land or in shallow water. Not even Hawks or Empyrean UUs could see this type of invisibility though, and Cultists would of course not be able to normal forms of invisibility. I might move Floating Eyes to be an OO spell and make them able to see such creatures too though, as that is thematically much more appropriate than metamagic. I think Metamagic I should be Ring of Warding, which would create a building of the same name that gives resistance to magic for units in the city, or, if I can get them to implement temporary improvements, might be an improvement than can have the same effect out in the field.) The Call to the Deep Ones would basically use the same code as Mesmerize, so the priest would have to be pretty strong to have a chance to capture the stronger sea monsters. Speakers would have a much better chance of having this spell work than mere Cultists would, plus they wouldn't need to travel by ship to get to these beast.




I also think prefer to stick with my old implementation of Ice.
Ice I: Frost - temporarily turn the caster's tile to tundra or snow
Ice II: Summon Frost Giant - summons a frost giant, an unusually strong (for the level), very slow permanent summon that is extremely vulnerable to fire and restricted to moving on tundra/snow (and can only be summoned on such tiles.)
Ice III: Blizzard - ranged cold damage spell that also temporarily changes nearby tiles to tundra/snow. This includes water tiles, so you can create temporary land bridge. (That is probably too strong, and I think I'd prefer to instead make it create the Ice feature in water, but not until someone implements a TempFeature function like the TempTerrain function.)

 

[Mailbox]

How about a promotion for Doviello units in Neutral territory that gives Always Hostile? That would be flavorful and give the Doviello an interesting boost in stifling other players expansion.

 

[xienwolf]

Oh, for those who haven't played around with it yet, I've found that summons with pyPerTurn effects have these effects trigger the instant they are summoned, plus at a seemly random point in all future turns that they stick around. (At one point I'd given Aureales Crown of Brillance, but quickly found that they were quite overpowered. Nothing could stand up to a twincasting Sun III caster.)

Yes, as soon as any creature is generated via spell is performs ::doTurn, which normally only happens at the start of your turn for each unit. Not entirely certain why Kael set it up this way, but I would assume it is to allow any effects on the player to take place on the summon.

I'm not really sure what I'd like done about Lunatics. I wasn't really planning on changing them, apart from letting them be drowned. I had thought of some things to consider though. Most would require that Vehem/Xiemwolf first borrow some code from Dom Pedro II's Conqueror's Delight modcomp and give units a nationality (and maybe home city). I was thinking it could be cool if enraged units went barbarian, but returned to thier real civ when they calmed down. (I don't like enraged wearing off from combat either.) I was also thinking it could be cool to let them be AlwaysHostile units (letting you attack/be attacked by enemies, but not hiding whose they are), maybe with a diplomatic penalty for having them near rival cities.

The chances of us using any other MODCOMP are fairly slim to be honest, unless it was something written for FfH to begin with (Wiser Orcs, I'm lookin' at you!). I can generally write something which suits us far better, and if I write it myself I can be assured that either there are no bugs, or I at least understand where to look for them when it turns out we DO have some bugs. Overall my experience with untraceable crashes when I was importing lots of MODCOMPs was not a pleasant one which I desire to ever deal with again.

So while pushing for us to incorporate another mod will be difficult, getting ideas from them to request is not a bad idea. The tracking of City/Civ of origin could be useful someday, but thus far not so much so (and it is terribly easy to write as well)

I guess I forgot to mention that my OO ideas were pretty dependent on implementing Dom Pedro-style invisibility. I was thinking that all those sea monsters (which range from Sea Serpents to Krakens to the Leviathan, with several new creatures we haven't seen yet) would normally be dormant and would have INVISIBLE_SUBMERGED, which would only be visible to OO priests when on Ocean Tiles. (Most the monsters would probably be water walking, but painfully obvious to anyone who meets them on land or in shallow water. Not even Hawks or Empyrean UUs could see this type of invisibility though, and Cultists would of course not be able to normal forms of invisibility. I might move Floating Eyes to be an OO spell and make them able to see such creatures too though, as that is thematically much more appropriate than metamagic. I think Metamagic I should be Ring of Warding, which would create a building of the same name that gives resistance to magic for units in the city, or, if I can get them to implement temporary improvements, might be an improvement than can have the same effect out in the field.) The Call to the Deep Ones would basically use the same code as Mesmerize, so the priest would have to be pretty strong to have a chance to capture the stronger sea monsters. Speakers would have a much better chance of having this spell work than mere Cultists would, plus they wouldn't need to travel by ship to get to these beast.

Can't say that I have read his code anytime recently, but last time I looked at how he handled invisibility it looked considerably less versatile than what we have set up here in FF. Care to explain what is possible with his and not with ours? (other than using Hills as a prereq)

How about a promotion for Doviello units in Neutral territory that gives Always Hostile? That would be flavorful and give the Doviello an interesting boost in stifling other players expansion.

That could be quite interesting indeed. Would need some testing first to see how well it worked in practice, but would be quite a change and terribly fun in my opinion. Though any changes to the Doviello will be waiting to see what Oct. 10th brings us to become permanent.

And in case anyone else likes the idea and doesn't realize it, you can easily set this up with the code as it is now. AutoAcquire, NoXP, MustMaintain, PrereqOutOfBorders, bAlwaysAggressive promotion (some tags might be remembered wrong, but only in wording, not in function)

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I didn't mean you should borrow the code directly, just to come up with something similar perhaps using the existing code as inspiration. (I would really like to have things like the way he lest you trade units though diplomacy added as a game option though.)

By Dom Pedro-style invisibility I mostly meant the ability to let units (though promotions) have and see multiple types of invisibility.






I'm thinking it could be nice to let the Doviello units get a promotion that gives AlwaysHostile, I don't think it would be good for it to be automatically given out. That would pretty much neutralize the barbarian trait (although I assume you'd make it so only certain types of units, probably melee and certainly not settlers, would get the promotion).

I still prefer giving the Doviello a spell that lets their units fight each other (sort of like Arena for 2 units, probably in which any Doviello melee unit could challenge your strongest unit in the stack to a fight ), but they could gain both abilities.





What about blocking duration-altering promotions (or just their duration altering effects) from SPECIALUNIT_SPELL units, so my fireballs don't get their duration boosted though my dimensional sphere promotions' summon perks?

Any comments on anything else in my first post?

 

[hiphopin]

What exactly does AlwaysHostile do? How is it different than Hidden nationality?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

With Hidden Nationality, the nationality is hidden. The units look barbarian, and you can attack and be attacked without war.

With Always Hostile, everyone can see who owns the units, but the units can still attack and be attacked without war just as well as if they were hidden nationality.

 

[MaxAstro]

Always Hostile is, IMO, a dangerous tag to use because it's function is not obvious. With Hidden Nationality, the unit is obvious dangerous. With Always Hostile, the only way you could know the unit is capable of attacking you is to be familiar with the specific unit/promotion.

 

[xienwolf]

By Dom Pedro-style invisibility I mostly meant the ability to let units (though promotions) have and see multiple types of invisibility.

Yes, we have that, only better than he did it since a single promotion can grant multiple Invisibility/See Invisibility types.

I also forgot to mention in my earlier response that temporary improvements are highly unlikely, as that will only lead to people complaining that they cannot ast the spell over their town/farm/whatever, or if it functions like temporary terrain complaints that it is macro intensive (if it wears off each turn), or that they need a way to disable the temp improvement on demend (if it has a duration).

Far more likely would be to create a new "Aspects" system, which would work like Promotions/Buildings work for Units/Cities. Multiple aspects would be allowed per tile as "buffs" to the status of the tile itself.

What about blocking duration-altering promotions (or just their duration altering effects) from SPECIALUNIT_SPELL units, so my fireballs don't get their duration boosted though my dimensional sphere promotions' summon perks?

I am actually considering blocking all summon perks from special unit spell types. It only makes sense in the case of Empower, and only moderately so then. I would probably tweak it so that a spell range enhancement will give bonus mobility to a specialunit spell, and the spell damage modifiers would possibly be capable of granting percentage bonuses to strength as well.

I'm thinking it could be nice to let the Doviello units get a promotion that gives AlwaysHostile, I don't think it would be good for it to be automatically given out. That would pretty much neutralize the barbarian trait (although I assume you'd make it so only certain types of units, probably melee and certainly not settlers, would get the promotion).

Always Hostile is, IMO, a dangerous tag to use because it's function is not obvious. With Hidden Nationality, the unit is obvious dangerous. With Always Hostile, the only way you could know the unit is capable of attacking you is to be familiar with the specific unit/promotion.

Max Astro has the precise reason why it would be an "all or none" aspect. Either every doviello is always hostile outside of any borders, or none of them are. Then players are aware of what they are getting involved in when they encounter a doviello, instead of having to guess if this one will be the one to attack them.

Settlers (anyone without a unitcombat, so great people too) and workers would be excluded from the trait of course.

And it would not neutralize the Barbarian trait, Barbarians would still be friendly toward you when they enter your territory, so not pillage your stuff nor attack your cities. In fact, if all Barbarian Trait leaders were switched to apply an Always Hostile tag when not in the cultural control of any civilization, it would eliminate the need to place Hidden Nationality on animal units, because you would remove the biggest flaw of the Barbarian trait (inability to gain free XP off of barb units). It would even still allow Rantine to claim Barbarian cities, as the always hostile would be disabled in Barbarian Broders as well.

 

[MaxAstro]

it would eliminate the need to place Hidden Nationality on animal units

Personally, I would prefer animals stay hidden nationality; it is kind of the advantage of capturing animals early on. They aren't strong enough to be truly useful, but they are an early game hidden nationality unit for anyone who puts the work into capturing them.

 

[zup]

And what is hn good for for animals?

 

[Shakiko]

HN for animals ?
If you tame them early (ie. go the huntnig line etc) they are still HN and you can try to ambush your opponents worker/settlers etc.

(That is, if your difficulty level is not that high that the AI gets tremendous bonuses vs Animals and punds them into a bloody pulp first)

 

[zup]

But I don't understand the point from non doviello point of view. If doviello keep pestering you always hostile, just dow and wipe them out (easier said than done I know). On the other hand, if a human played doviello, they could exploit the dumb ai, invading them without having to worry about a counter attack.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Well, its not always hostile. That would only be true in unowned land. Once cultural borders have expanded enough there is no wilderness where they could attack you. With open borders you can still safely move through eachother's lands.

Ironically, trying to wipe them out would lead to more unowned territory as conquered cities would not quickly regain their cultural borders, and so would make more land where they would be alwaysHostile.