Final Fixes Reborn

Speaking of centaur lairs, I have one smack in the middle of my territory with my culture slowly creeping in to take it over. Is that ever going to happen? And if it does will the lair become mine or will it still just be a generic explorable improvement that now happens to be in my territory but gives me no benefit ever?

I've been holding off on raiding it or allowing any AI access to my territory so that they don't raid it. But like I want to know what happens.
 
At the moment, nothing will change. I haven't decided yet i want to tackle it but i'm thinking to let the kurio fully convert most lairs by culture alone ( and get access to the spawning units) and some occasional civ/lair combo. For the rest, either a high culture threshold that would convert the tile and raze the lair or keep the current system.
 
Bugs:
1) this one i haven't been able to replicate yet and you're the first to report it on the non-steam version. As far as i gathered, it has to do with the game not loading python files in subfolders for reason unknown. If you activate the python exception, you should get a bunch of error messages. Ideally, i'd like to see them all.

Will do.

2 And 4) I plan to completely clean up the additional culture mechanics. combat influencing culture, i'm tempted to simply cut it, as for cultural control, i intend to unify the system with normal culture .

Sounds good. Combat affecting culture always felt a bit too cheesy to me, especially because it lets you use enemy roads. That said, if it's tuned down to the level of improvement pillaging (singular percents) and doesn't grant the lost culture to the victor, I think it may be interesting enough to keep.

6) it doesn't seem to be happening to me. in what condition was the bonus when it did disappear?

I had a Mithril resource inside my territory with a mine on it but before the discovery of Mithril Working. I think it may also have happened with the Iron resource I had a mine on, because I think this was before Smelting as well, but I don't remember that clear enough to say for sure...

8) i need more balance reports concerning emergent leaders like that. Do you think reorx needs more points per actions, more possible actions giving points or just a lower requirement?

While I think getting to level 2 alone was a slog, I'm not sure if it was unbalanced. That said, right now I'm on turn 343 and have accumulated 581 points in total. At this rate, I'm going to have to wait until turn 2000-ish until I get to unlock Veinhunter level 3, so that limit is way too high. I'd say that the biggest problem though, at least for Reorx, is that his points gain doesn't scale over time the way most other numerics do. Nearly everything which grants points is unlocked in the early game, it's only a few late game wonders and bonuses that can't be accessed right away, and they don't make up the bulk of the points gain (it's easier to built 8 mines than to connect a single Mithril bonus). There simply is nothing to beeline if you want to level fast.

I would probably increase the points gain for bonuses to encourage more expansion to secure these over running around Stonewardens turning your country into a perfectly uneven hillscape. Early game resources could have their point rewards multiplied by a factor 2, Iron a factor 5 and Mithril probably a factor 10 or more. Also, I would add Gunpowder to the list with a reward close to that of Mithril as well. Also, converting from Runes of Kilmorph should probably reduce the counter. And I'd do away with casting Wall of Stone, since it encourages boring cast-walk-cast farming.

I also think the features of Veinhunter level 3 look a bit weak, but I haven't tested them. Acquiring 4 Mithril for a single point of defense is a challenge, since even with the Blessings of Amatheon game option, there'll usually only be 2-4 Mithril resources on the entire map (give or take some depending on world size). The Gunpowder affinity can be nice for your units which already cause collateral damage, but otherwise it'll probably be kinda negligible (by that point, you'll usually have ranged units to weaken stacks by >20% before melee combat even begins.

Thoughts :

1) I don't really want to block a religion based on a civ's presence or not. Later, if i do something with the branch religion idea, i might have the researchable religion be a smaller less powerful cult than the proper auric version.

Fair enough, although if more "minor" religions are added, I think it would be a nice flavour to have it depend. A game option for that would be nice, although I'm well aware that down the path of adding options for everything lies madness.

Speaking of centaur lairs, I have one smack in the middle of my territory with my culture slowly creeping in to take it over. Is that ever going to happen? And if it does will the lair become mine or will it still just be a generic explorable improvement that now happens to be in my territory but gives me no benefit ever?

I've been holding off on raiding it or allowing any AI access to my territory so that they don't raid it. But like I want to know what happens.

No, the tile with the lair itself is never going to flip culture. Feel free to raid it at your own leisure.

________________________________

Some more bugs, issues and thoughts.

Bugs:
  1. Mercenaries lose all their promotions when they "die" and return to the mercenary pool.
Issues and concerns:
  1. Kelp shouldn't block line of sight, it's in the water, not over it. Kelp Forests may block line of sight depending on whether you consider these to actually rise above the surface or not.
  2. Infernal Imps autocasting Sanctify (also goes for other followers of The Ashen Veil)...
  3. (Living) units should preferably not path through Haunted Lands. If I want my units to become undead, I'll place them there myself.
Thoughts:
  1. It would be nice if it was possible to inquisition specific religions from a city.
  2. If Cult of the White Hand reduces the Armageddon Counter, its followers probably shouldn't join the Infernals when they die...
 
Feedback:

Dowsing : Tried again with your info and still have no problem, so i'll keep monitoring it

Veinhunter : most suggested changes to points implemented, doubled the affinity effects if you have other suggestion for lvl 3 i'll take them.

Bugs:
1)fixed next commit

Issues :

1)agreed, fixed next commit

2)i'm still in the middle of merging MNAI magic AI. In particular, the choice of promotions isn't fully in yet ^^

3)tweaked the pathfinder to take that into account, it should decrease the chance of choosing that kind of plot.

Thoughts :

1) I'll think about it

2)that is actually an interesting issue. While Mulcarn during the Age of Ice/ Auric after is more interested in ruling erebus covered in ice and unchanging eternity, he never separated his realm from the demon- factory of the seven connected hells, sending his own followers to become hellspawns. I assume Auric didn't do it by lack of power so that could be an end-game option for Ascended Auric
 
(Living) units should preferably not path through Haunted Lands. If I want my units to become undead, I'll place them there myself.
I find this irritating as well, it requires quite a big of management to avoid. Probably difficult though, to change the pathing algorithm.
 
I haven't yet tried the SVN -- and yes, I know I should -- so apologies if any or all of this has already been fixed or changed, but I'm still playing the last "regular" version.

I played a Sidar game a few months back and observed that several of their units can't pass through Mist, so wondering if that can be changed, either giving all of them the Shade promotion or maybe something equivalent (call it Mistwalker?) for non-living units.

Specifically, here's what I saw (I should have reported this at the time to make sure I didn't forget anything, but this is what I remember):

1) Sidar Siege and Naval units couldn't move through Mist. Presumably the Sidar navel crews would know how to sail through Mist and artillery personnel would know how to move siege weapons through Mist as well.

2) Units that spread Guilds (Farmer, Stonefire Smith, etc.) couldn't move through Mist, making spreading Guilds difficult. I know you said you're probably going to be revamping Guilds, so maybe this issue goes away.

3) Non-Sidar heroes that the Sidar build or otherwise obtain (May Morbus, Duin, Gaelan, Brigit, the Black Duke) can't move through Mist, making them much less useful. I ended up going into Worldbuilder to give them the Shade promotion, since the alternative is to constantly cast Gust of Wind to clear them a path.

4) Units captured by the Sidar as werewolves (I had built Duin in my game) couldn't move through Mist, lessening Duin's impact.

5) I don't remember what happened to units captured by the Sidar in ordinary combat (e.g., capturing workers) or by Dominatino, whether they got the Shade promotion or not. Sorry, it was a while ago.

6) Other than Mistforms, units summoned by Sidar arcane units can't move through Mist. Logically, it seems that Sidar magic-users would be able to tweak their summoning spells so that the units could operate in Mist. I don't know it this would be too difficult a programming change.

That's what I remember, but it was some months back, so apologies for not posing while my memory of the game was fresh.

And again, apologies if any of this has been changed or fixed in the SVN.
 
Veinhunter : most suggested changes to points implemented, doubled the affinity effects if you have other suggestion for lvl 3 i'll take them.

I'll think about it.

A question, though: How powerful should each level be compared to regular traits? Should they be roughly equal, so that an emergent leader more or less progresses as 1-2-3 traits over the course of a game compared to the regular leaders' 2 traits? Or should they be of varying strength (for example 1-2-4 or 1.5-2-2.5)?

Actually, here's another thing: At the end of the game, compounding both Khazad, Runes of Kilmorph and Veinhunter gives you an utterly tremendous production. In fact, in your fully developed cities, prett much anything except for the late game wonders can be built in one round. Having a production of 300+ hammers is nothing unusual, and you'll often add another 200 hammers to that due to overflow from the previous build. Apart from building processes (culture, science, gold), there's no way of spending that many hammers in one round. One option could be to give him bOverflowProduction at level 3, to really cash in on that huge production he's sporting, and to reward you for having held back your expansion enough to get your vaults overflowing. This would definitely make Veinhunter level 3 stronger than a regular trait, though, since all your larger cities would be churning out 3-4 units per round...

2)that is actually an interesting issue. While Mulcarn during the Age of Ice/ Auric after is more interested in ruling erebus covered in ice and unchanging eternity, he never separated his realm from the demon- factory of the seven connected hells, sending his own followers to become hellspawns. I assume Auric didn't do it by lack of power so that could be an end-game option for Ascended Auric

Yeah, I was considering that, hence why it's just a thought...

________________________

Actually, here's some more:

Bugs:
  1. I got a corrupted save, attached it to this post.
  2. Immortal mercenaries (at least thanks to the Phoenix Blood promotion) are both returned to the mercenary pool and reborn when fired (this probably happens when killed as well), and the reborn unit loses its mercenary status (so you can, among other things, upgrade it). The ones which are returned to the pool retain their Phoenix Blood promotion, so given enough money, you can duplicate them as many times as you want by repeatedly hiring and firing them.
Issues and concerns:
  1. Mercenary spellcasters don't start with any spell sphere promotions (probably because they are "created" without access to mana). Interestingly enough, this doesn't seem to apply to Duskbringers, so maybe I'm wrong about my assertion, and the Mercenary AI just prioritises its promotions wrong...
  2. Mercenaries which start with free promotions (notably spellcasters) give you a free promotion every time they're hired, meaning you can repeatedly hire and fire them to give them multiple free promotions.
Thoughts:
  1. Should mercenaries really be unupgradable? Maybe a mercenary who has fought enough battles or stayed in your service long enough will auto-upgrade, to symbolise that they've earned enough money to buy themselves better equipment...
  2. Maybe mercenaries which haven't been employed for long enough should be removed from the mercenary roster to clean out old, useless, or overly expensive units and make the list more navigable toward the end of the game.
 

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I'll think about it.

A question, though: How powerful should each level be compared to regular traits? Should they be roughly equal, so that an emergent leader more or less progresses as 1-2-3 traits over the course of a game compared to the regular leaders' 2 traits? Or should they be of varying strength (for example 1-2-4 or 1.5-2-2.5)?
varying strength is good, we can balance with the difficulty to gain the trait.

Actually, here's another thing: At the end of the game, compounding both Khazad, Runes of Kilmorph and Veinhunter gives you an utterly tremendous production. In fact, in your fully developed cities, prett much anything except for the late game wonders can be built in one round. Having a production of 300+ hammers is nothing unusual, and you'll often add another 200 hammers to that due to overflow from the previous build. Apart from building processes (culture, science, gold), there's no way of spending that many hammers in one round. One option could be to give him bOverflowProduction at level 3, to really cash in on that huge production he's sporting, and to reward you for having held back your expansion enough to get your vaults overflowing. This would definitely make Veinhunter level 3 stronger than a regular trait, though, since all your larger cities would be churning out 3-4 units per round...
that'd be interesting, yes
  1. I got a corrupted save, attached it to this post.
  2. Immortal mercenaries (at least thanks to the Phoenix Blood promotion) are both returned to the mercenary pool and reborn when fired (this probably happens when killed as well), and the reborn unit loses its mercenary status (so you can, among other things, upgrade it). The ones which are returned to the pool retain their Phoenix Blood promotion, so given enough money, you can duplicate them as many times as you want by repeatedly hiring and firing them.
1) i'll look at it
2) should be fixed next commit, but there are enough weird interactions in the death code that i might have missed one.
Issues and concerns:
  1. Mercenary spellcasters don't start with any spell sphere promotions (probably because they are "created" without access to mana). Interestingly enough, this doesn't seem to apply to Duskbringers, so maybe I'm wrong about my assertion, and the Mercenary AI just prioritises its promotions wrong...
  2. Mercenaries which start with free promotions (notably spellcasters) give you a free promotion every time they're hired, meaning you can repeatedly hire and fire them to give them multiple free promotions.
1)Normally, they should have access to all mana, i'll do some more tests
2) fixed next commit
Thoughts:
  1. Should mercenaries really be unupgradable? Maybe a mercenary who has fought enough battles or stayed in your service long enough will auto-upgrade, to symbolise that they've earned enough money to buy themselves better equipment...
  2. Maybe mercenaries which haven't been employed for long enough should be removed from the mercenary roster to clean out old, useless, or overly expensive units and make the list more navigable toward the end of the game.
1)It's mainly due to tracking issue, upgrading as handled ingame actually changes the unit and it causes issues. I intend to add a way for them to upgrade at end of contract.
2)that should already be happening, though i probably need to tweak the duration.
 
2 And 4) I plan to completely clean up the additional culture mechanics. combat influencing culture, i'm tempted to simply cut it, as for cultural control, i intend to unify the system with normal culture .
.

I've actually really like having combat influence culture. You might remember that it originated in a long-ago ModComp by Moctezuma called Influence Driven War, https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/sdk-modcomp-influence-driven-war.188007/. (It probably should have been called "War-Driven Influence," but be that as it may.) There are some good reasons given in there for having such a system, and as you probably know, a lot of mods ended up incorporating it, whether for realism (you win a battle, you extend your territorial control) or whatever other reasons.

So if you want to tweak the formula or something to weaken it a bit, okay, but please don't get rid of the system altogether.
 
Have you ever felt that certain Mechanos units were just a little bit bland? Like the same model used for multiple units or how the Operators look like regular workers (the later being infuriating once you start capturing foreign workers). Well here is a screenshot of a little something I've been working on to fix that.

Would you guys be interested in seeing more and/or potentially including these things in the base mod? I'll also be touching up some of the other models as well.

Civ4ScreenShot0000.JPG Civ4ScreenShot0001.JPG
 
I've actually really like having combat influence culture. You might remember that it originated in a long-ago ModComp by Moctezuma called Influence Driven War, https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/sdk-modcomp-influence-driven-war.188007/. (It probably should have been called "War-Driven Influence," but be that as it may.) There are some good reasons given in there for having such a system, and as you probably know, a lot of mods ended up incorporating it, whether for realism (you win a battle, you extend your territorial control) or whatever other reasons.

So if you want to tweak the formula or something to weaken it a bit, okay, but please don't get rid of the system altogether.
The culture rework is very far away so i'm not taking decisions about that yet, one way or another

Have you ever felt that certain Mechanos units were just a little bit bland? Like the same model used for multiple units or how the Operators look like regular workers (the later being infuriating once you start capturing foreign workers). Well here is a screenshot of a little something I've been working on to fix that.

Would you guys be interested in seeing more and/or potentially including these things in the base mod? I'll also be touching up some of the other models as well.

View attachment 475222 View attachment 475223

Yeah, definitely interested in more model works. In addition to the mechanos models, we do have some other needs. We can discuss that in pm if you want.
 
Have you ever felt that certain Mechanos units were just a little bit bland? Like the same model used for multiple units or how the Operators look like regular workers (the later being infuriating once you start capturing foreign workers). Well here is a screenshot of a little something I've been working on to fix that.

Would you guys be interested in seeing more and/or potentially including these things in the base mod? I'll also be touching up some of the other models as well.

I support this.

________________________________

More:

Bugs:
  1. Catching the sporadic Python erros on load turned out to be harder than anticipated, because apparently Print Screen doesn't actually dump the content of the screen buffer, so the error messages won't be caught on film. Looking at the log files, I assume PythonErr.log recorded the content of these messages as well, but I didn't see them long enough to confirm. I'm attaching all my log files in case there's something to be garnered from them (even though most looked fine, and I may've included some from previous sessions).
  2. Sometimes I'm randomly "granted" mana I don't have access to, meaning the spell sphere promotions become available (but not always actually selectable) to me and the AI relations are affected as if I possessed it. Interestingly enough, it ignores Overcouncil decisions completely, though. I'm attaching a save.
    EDIT: Forgot to mention that I have a newly built adept key bound to #1.
  3. I can't sanctify a Snake Pillar in my land. It seems the protection on improved bonuses (okay, I haven't actually tried improved tiles without bonuses) extends to snake pillars as well, which is a bit inconvenient as you can't actually get rid of them...
Issues and concerns:
  1. When immortal units are killed, the born again message eschews the kill message and you don't actually get to know what killed them, nor where they were killed, as the born again message isn't linked to a location.
 

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Last edited:
Yeah, definitely interested in more model works. In addition to the mechanos models, we do have some other needs. We can discuss that in pm if you want.
My modeling abilities are limited to making new skins for existing models and making mix and match models like that one (worker + hood and gas mask from the techpriest). So like don't expect any custom meshes. But if that's ok for you we can most definitively work something out so feel free to message me.
 
Got another bunch of Python errors on load, and this time it didn't crash after displaying them, so I could check that they were indeed what was written to PythonErr.log. Also, this time, it didn't like Gambling Houses for some reason...
 

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Bugs:
  1. Catching the sporadic Python erros on load turned out to be harder than anticipated, because apparently Print Screen doesn't actually dump the content of the screen buffer, so the error messages won't be caught on film. Looking at the log files, I assume PythonErr.log recorded the content of these messages as well, but I didn't see them long enough to confirm. I'm attaching all my log files in case there's something to be garnered from them (even though most looked fine, and I may've included some from previous sessions).
    .

  1. Thanks for that, i'll check if i can use that to pinpoint a cause.
    [*]Sometimes I'm randomly "granted" mana I don't have access to, meaning the spell sphere promotions become available (but not always actually selectable) to me and the AI relations are affected as if I possessed it. Interestingly enough, it ignores Overcouncil decisions completely, though. I'm attaching a save.
    EDIT: Forgot to mention that I have a newly built adept key bound to #1.
    .
    that's a weird one. Cannot do much from the save, from what i can see, you get access to some free bonus from somewhere which somehow doesn't get displayed (that's most likely a different bug). i cannot do much without knowing where it came from ( what would help is the last save before you see the change).
    [*]I can't sanctify a Snake Pillar in my land. It seems the protection on improved bonuses (okay, I haven't actually tried improved tiles without bonuses) extends to snake pillars as well, which is a bit inconvenient as you can't actually get rid of them...
    .
    is there an example in that save you gave me ?
Issues and concerns:
  1. When immortal units are killed, the born again message eschews the kill message and you don't actually get to know what killed them, nor where they were killed, as the born again message isn't linked to a location.
i'll tweak the message to give more data.

My modeling abilities are limited to making new skins for existing models and making mix and match models like that one (worker + hood and gas mask from the techpriest). So like don't expect any custom meshes. But if that's ok for you we can most definitively work something out so feel free to message me.
I'm pretty sure we can already do much with just skins and mix and match, maybe not all we need but much ^^
 
I'm pretty sure we can already do much with just skins and mix and match, maybe not all we need but much ^^
Mind you, what I say with no "new meshes" I mean I can't rig full models. Like I can't for example make a completely new humanoid or vehicle. I can create custom meshes and link them to existing models like say a new rifle for a soldier or something.

Either way, just message me with a list or something. Also, is Lenora supposed to be a thopter or a zeppelin? It's confusing.
 
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