Fun with Anjra, and lots of bugs

[Lord Yanaek]

Hi, making this a separate thread, hope it's OK.
I was playing with v2 hotfix i (last one) as i started before v3 release today. I've been trying to test the destroyer victory for some time, but couldn't build the temples in most attempts. I posted in the Bugs thread but you were busy with v3 so maybe you missed it.

Another test. Someone made Prophecy of Va during the 3-4 turns between me discovering Maleficium and getting second Theism SP so my priest was generated as a Fallen Priest directly rather than normal priest becoming fallen. I founded Anjra and could then immediately build temple to Zariz.
Maybe something goes wrong with GP conversion and a priest that falls after it was "born" is not correctly identifies as a fallen priest for the action script.

So i finally had a game where i could go really bad and try to destroy the world.

How it went

• I've been able to play till year 220 and would have won pretty quickly if not for bugs as i have destroyed 87% of total mana. This was mostly the effect of the first 4 temples. I had a couple of priests in the game but they mostly built the temples and summoned a few demons to protect my territory. Had 2 sorcerers, second turned to a Lich, cast a couple blight from tower with no apparent effect then tried to move to annoying Segoim to blight their land but couldn't reach it yet. I doubt it would be possible to build any temple after 5th one, mana would be zeroed before that.
• Anjra really kills population growth which makes sense (crazed people trying to destroy the world probably won't have lots of children) but i think the 25% growth penalty is in fact a 25% penalty on produced : much more severe.
• Temple give some pretty crazy research. Probably OK as cities will stay so tiny.
• The health drop with mana depletion is pretty severe. My cities were all size 1 at the end, except for cap and couldn't grow (well, they could but would drop back to 1 within a few turns).
• Anjra spread like a disease into neighboring cities.
• Animate dead is pretty useless. 2 turns to cast a spell is too much to cast in the middle of a fight, 50% chance for undead to disappear or turn hostile makes it useless to cast from a tower while you are at war, skellies won't reach the front.
• Same goes for turn undead. 2 turns to cast so undead can still pillage or attack or move away, and apparently they can also leave you (i had one turn hostile with a rather strange effect, see bugs)
• Funny insectoïd demons

The bugs

• You still have work to do on the undead spawning script if you want to avoid strange situations.
  
  Spoiler :

  
• There are still issues with undead turning hostile while on city plots, maybe they can't capture them but, what you see is the result of a "turned" undead going hostile while on my cap. City is both there and razed
  
  Spoiler :

  
• Eidolons couldn't build temples (my priests could) nor take leadership of a temple built by deceased GP.
• Turn to lich was still available for my lich. Casting this one multiple times could give really crazy level i guess.

Here is a Lua log (long) from most of this game.

 

[Pazyryk]

Thanks for the detailed test! Separate post is fine, especially with this much detail.

Bugs:

Hmmm... I thought we fixed the undead going hostile on city problem in one of the v2 hotfixes. I'll go back over the code and see where this is happening (and fix the illegal plot spawns too). [@ls612, don't bother trying to fix this on dll side. It is my spawning Lua that needs to avoid cities.]

It would be nice to know if Blight was successfully blighting plots out at your max range. I assume you saw the float-up text saying the spell was cast? And the Spell mouse-over should tell you your max range. The spell looks for a valid land or coastal plot to blight (your spell mod must overcome Living Terrain and/or Protective Ward) spiraling in from your max range. So perhaps you just didn't see the blighted land? If you run Fire Tuner, you can hit Reveal Map and see everything.

I'll check on the Priest -> FallenPriest conversion. Note that these have same graphic and are both called "Priest" in game. But they are different units and maybe conversion isn't fully completing.

Turned undead should be exactly like Raised Undead. I.e., linked to caster and couting against that GP's capacity to Turn/Raise more, but never going hostile. I'll look at code to make sure they are hooking up to caster properly. (If they are hooked up to caster, then the caster gets xp every time they fight. Did you see this?) Reanimated Dead are unattached, so there is no limit on number but they go hostile after a while.

The Eidolon temple and repeated Become Lich issues should be easy for me to fix.

Balance:

Size 1 cities at 87% total mana depletion is probably OK, though maybe on the harsh side. How was your city situation at 50% depletion?

I'd sure like to see a lot of Blight at this stage though. I want the map to visually show the sorry state of the world.

How was the undead spawning as this game progressed? (Not from your reanimated. I mean spontaneous barb undead spawns as mana depletion grows.)

Proposed adjustments:

• I'm going to tone down the mana burn from Temples. I think this is overwhelming the amount used by spellcasters. Maybe Sum of All Mana needs a boost too.
• I'll reduce reanimated dead disappearing/turning hostile. Maybe 1/10 chance disappear and 1/20 chance go hostile? Keep in mind that there is no limit on casting Reanimate Dead. (Unlike Raise Dead where they are linked to caster and count against more raises/turns.) The question is how large of an army should a single caster be able to sustain by constantly casting Reanimate Dead every 2 turns. The disappearing/going hostile is the only thing that caps this. And yes, that means a reanimated army can't get too far from caster.
• Maybe all religion pressure needs a little lowering. Anra has a boost to range and Azzandarayasna to pressure (w/ appropriate policy), but other than that it is base Civ5 mechanism. Non-religious cities certainly convert faster.
• Crank up Blight spread and/or spawning as mana depletion gets very severe.
• Reduce Health/Happiness sap from mana depletion maybe 2x (more blight will compensate so it is not really a lessening of overall severity).

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Woops, sorry i edited to finish posting a couple bugs and your answer was not there when i did, but probably crossed my edit since it's pretty long.

It is my spawning Lua that needs to avoid cities.

Not only spawning but also when already existing but previously controlled (reanimated or turned) undead go rogue. This is what happened when i lost my cap (and the Eidolon that just turned the skellies).

It would be nice to know if Blight was successfully blighting plots out at your max range. I assume you saw the float-up text saying the spell was cast?

Reloaded an autosave T110 and used my top-secret ctrl-z hotkey that reveals everything (don't know why this obviously debug feature is still active) to check. Blight was successfully applied to ... an ocean plot under ice. Mana depletion was 74% back then so i burned 13% mana in 10 turns with 4 temples and a silly Segoim warring my army of Abyssals Would have won in about 10 turns i guess.

Turned undead should be exactly like Raised Undead. I.e., linked to caster and couting against that GP's capacity to Turn/Raise more, but never going hostile. I'll look at code to make sure they are hooking up to caster properly. (If they are hooked up to caster, then the caster gets xp every time they fight. Did you see this?)

Didn't have a chance, i lost my Eidolon and cap the turn after i turned a skelly and noticed there was an hostile "captured skeleton" in my cap (or it's ruin depending on what part of the screen you trust

How was your city situation at 50% depletion?

Oops, i fear i was a little too carried away with my evil plots to pay attention to such details . have been pretty bad for some time thought, and given how fast i burned mana it was probably already bad at 50%

I'd sure like to see a lot of Blight at this stage though. I want the map to visually show the sorry state of the world.

How does it look like? Even with all map visible i couldn't find one (but didn't really know what to look for)

How was the undead spawning as this game progressed?

They were becoming a real pain. Almost impossible for me to keep improved plots. They were regularly ploping on my workers repairing previous damages and i lost them immediately. AIs OTOH were able to one shot them with their 60 cities. Don't really know how they can get that high or how we are supposed to capture cities with 15 bombards but that's another balance discussion.

I'm going to tone down the mana burn from Temples. I think this is overwhelming the amount used by spellcasters. Maybe Sum of All Mana needs a boost too.

Agreed. Temples are way too powerful, even early ones for burning mana. No need to get to breach to badly damage reality.

I'll reduce reanimated dead disappearing/turning hostile...The disappearing/going hostile is the only thing that caps this. And yes, that means a reanimated army can't get too far from caster.

Yep, pretty difficult to balance. Another option could be to have % chance of disappearing increase with #turns animated, something similar to the aging of GP. More coding but it could ensure that you can get some use of your undead but not too much because of luck on d10 rolls.

Maybe all religion pressure needs a little lowering. Anra has a boost to range and Azzandarayasna to pressure (w/ appropriate policy), but other than that it is base Civ5 mechanism. Non-religious cities certainly convert faster.

And with only 2 religions with enhancement the theistic religions seem overpowering. Pantheism might get some defense from the spontaneous spread of Weave, but not CSs or Dominion civs.

Crank up Blight spread and/or spawning as mana depletion gets very severe.

If it takes longer to get full depeltion, they will also have more time to appear. I think it all went way too fast.

Reduce Health/Happiness sap from mana depletion maybe 2x (point above will compensate so it is not really a lessening of severity).

Oh, yeah, i was also but didn't care as my cities couldn't stay above size 1 and i had nothing useful to produce anyway, just cast abyssals/demon to keep Segs at bay while my temples were eating the world

 

[Pazyryk]

Blight was successfully applied to ... an ocean plot under ice. Mana depletion was 74% back then so i burned 13% mana in 10 turns with 4 temples and a silly Segoim warring my army of Abyssals Would have won in about 10 turns i guess.

I can never remember whether I restricted Blight from open ocean or not. (There are reasons for and against, so I forget where I left it.) It is invisible in open ocean. But it has to include coastal plots (either way) to look right graphically.

It's hard to miss.

But with all that graphic work it is a pity if you don't see it while destroying the world.


Keep in mind also that KM was broken in v2, so you are really zipping up to world-ending techs much faster than you should. Even so, Sum of All Mana boost is needed.

 

[Mafarfloune]

[*]I'll reduce reanimated dead disappearing/turning hostile. Maybe 1/10 chance disappear and 1/20 chance go hostile? Keep in mind that there is no limit on casting Reanimate Dead. (Unlike Raise Dead where they are linked to caster and count against more raises/turns.) The question is how large of an army should a single caster be able to sustain by constantly casting Reanimate Dead every 2 turns. The disappearing/going hostile is the only thing that caps this. And yes, that means a reanimated army can't get too far from caster.

If the objective is to limit the potenitial size of a "reanimated" army as well as its potential distance from a caster, why not have their disappearing/turning hostile odds linked to the number of tiles away from the caster?

Ex : same tile as caster = 0% (he's so close to the caster there is no way the caster is going to lose control of the creature)
1 tile away = 20-30%
2 tiles away = 40-60%
3 tiles+ away = 60-80%

That way, by casting 'reanimate dead' every two turns, one caster could maintain an army of about 5 to 8 active reanimated, with 3-4 of those being in decent attacking position. It could also give a certain realistic sense : the further they are, the harder it is for the caster to keep his monsters under control.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Just have started a game with v3 after doubling the sum of mana (found it even thought you try to hide it in Lua rather than sql file ) so hopefully i'll see how it goes.

 

[Pazyryk]

, why not have their disappearing/turning hostile odds linked to the number of tiles away from the caster?

It's a neat gameplay idea but would require AI work. The AI doesn't know about this "linked to caster" business, so it drives them around just like any other military unit.

I'm not opposed to AI projects, but right now that is focused only on what we presently need (e.g., aggressive chop/lumbermilling by Ag civ to tame living terrain) without creating any new needs.

The current concept is a basic "in out flow-rate" system. Given x/turn generation, and y/turn chance of leaving, then you will have an average z units at equilibrium. I'm not good enough at math to immediately solve that problem though. But I kind of like the way the "distance from caster limitation" emerges from this rule set rather than being an explicit mechanic.

Edit: Tangential but related to this topic, we do need some UI for the summoned/called/raised units telling you what caster they are linked to (if raised or turned) or if they are unattached (and thus have a chance of un-animating or going hostile). The system would be more intuitive to players if that were indicated.

 

[ls612]

I know what caused the UI issues he had. I'll send you a fix for that soon.

 

[Pazyryk]

I know what caused the UI issues he had. I'll send you a fix for that soon.

What UI issue? These all look like game logic errors ... or balance.

Edit: Oh, probably the one in the bugs thread...

 

[ls612]

What UI issue? These all look like game logic errors ... or balance.

Edit: Oh, probably the one in the bugs thread...

No, the one in the second screenshot. The city UI is still there even though the city is dead because I forgot to tell the UI to set the cityinfo bit to dirty.

 

[Pazyryk]

OK, but the fundamental problem is my Lua code putting an enemy unit on a city. I'm worried that you might cause problems trying to allow for that on dll side when there is no reason to do so. In fact, I take advantage of this "feature" for archers, by teleporting them onto an adjacent city that they knock down to 0 hp (thereby conquering it). So you might be thwarting another mod system here.

 

[ls612]

OK, but the fundamental problem is my Lua code putting an enemy unit on a city. I'm worried that you might cause problems trying to allow for that on dll side when there is no reason to do so. In fact, I take advantage of this "feature" for archers, by teleporting them onto an adjacent city that they knock down to 0 hp (thereby conquering it). So you might be thwarting another mod system here.

No, it only kills the city if the barbarian player captures it. It doesn't have to do with teleporting units.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Still, undead turning hostile while in a city can cause real troubles. Players will learn not to leave undead guards (or at least differentiate reliable undead from non reliable ones), but will the AI learn it? As city is insta-razed, we don't even have a chance to recapture it.

 

[Pazyryk]

I'm checking every instance of InitUnit (includes new spawns and owner conversions) to make sure they don't happen on non-owner city. Will be in hotfix b.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Just have started a game with v3 after doubling the sum of mana (found it even thought you try to hide it in Lua rather than sql file ) so hopefully i'll see how it goes.

So, mana depletion was slower of course but i lost T170 to One with Nature. Seems like this one will have to be balanced before we can try other victories

 

[ls612]

Still, undead turning hostile while in a city can cause real troubles. Players will learn not to leave undead guards (or at least differentiate reliable undead from non reliable ones), but will the AI learn it? As city is insta-razed, we don't even have a chance to recapture it.

My vote would be to make undead who turn hostile inside a city get kicked out to a tile near the city instead.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

This would make sense as it would be similar to units kicked out of friendly territory (with Open Border) when civilizations go to war.

I confirm that a priest generated before you fall can't build a temple. Possibly related, the priest won't get the XP from the prophecy when he falls while making the prophecy (either Anjra or Va) but the new fallen priest is generated with full move and can thus make the 2nd prophecy in the same turn.

 

[Pazyryk]

Since there are >20 instances of InitUnit in the code (everything from spells to slave generation to mercenary hires) this fix is taking a little extra work. I'm coding a general solution that I can use for everything, so it will be fixed once and forever. Combat unit will never init on another player's city (even friendly) or other illegal plots (over-stacked combat units, enemy unit of any kind, water, mountain, etc).

With so many files already altered, this will be v4. But I'll try to get it out fast (and it should be compatible with v3). I'll do some balance but only "emergency" fixes (One with Nature apparently).

 

[Vinnz]

I'm posting on this thread with another game targeting the Armageddon victory.

With version Ea III v5 hotfix c, continents map, standard speed, prince difficulty, Man.

I founded Ys, researched the basic techs needed to use the ressources nearby, and pushed most of my research efforts towards the sorcery branch.
Founded Anra early, and the religion converted my 2 nearest neighbours by diffusion only.

I used moderate magic early (mostly maintained 1 stack of abyssal creatures, 1 demon type 2, and built 2 temples of destroyer) and was at about 15% mana depletion at turn 200. I then invested more in the mana burning (got more demons including an archdemon, converted a necromancer into a lich, built 6 or 7 temples and finally breached the lands of the only azandarayasna civ).

the announcements came at this pace
66% mana: turn 276
50% mana: turn 305
33% mana: turn 328
5% mana: turn 362
0% mana: Victory on turn 365

Spoiler :

Armaggedon victory:

No lua errors, no ctd, nothing really weird appeared


- I stayed a rather small civilization (4 cities, all of them size 1 due to the Anra penalty for a part of the game).

Spoiler :

My lands

- Never was at war with anyone (my nearest neighbours were Anra as well and didn't care if I was evil. From the scores I don't think they tried to go for that victory.)
- the undead spaws brought some activity in a peaceful game. Rather nice. They were maybe a bit tough at first and possibly a bit soft at the end: I think the first ones should be a nuisance if I leave them wander and pillage, but not difficult to kill even with low end units. I didn't have many problems with them, but I think some of the AI suffered (permanently pillaged lands). At the other end, they weren't really dangerous during the last turns neither.
- no contacts with the civs on the other continent
- the other civilizations were too passive. I was clearly destroying the world, and even the Anzzandarayasna civ did not really try to stop me (they denounced me, and that's all). I don't know how they could have done much (too far away). From the scores panel, I was the only one near any victory condition at all.
- I could mostly obtain GPs from the classes I wanted (needed to discard a few unwanted). Their number fell down to 0 on turn 165 (to grow up again quickly afterwards).
- Did not check the origin of my research points, but I think most of it was from temples and GPs. The great library and the Ys bonus helped as well.
- not sure of the % of mana: the mouse over of the top UI panel shows I have consumed 288 947.52 mana, or 96% of the sum of all mana, but I get the victory condition for 100% of total mana destroyed (is the difference from the works of other civs?)
- The health and happiness penalties are probably harsher for non-magical civs. Anra civs generate research form temples and units from magic, and aren't so much dependant on their population.
- 35 researched techs: All of the tier 1, horseback riding, stirrups, elephant labor, sailing, irrigation, coinage, masonry, construction, bronze working, and of course all prerequisite of armaggedon rituals (I remember they are about 20). Next one: Armaggedon rituals planned in 58 turns.
- social policies: every policy in (anti)theism, 4 in commerce, 1 in militarism and tradition opener

- possibly a bug: no breached or blighted tiles out of the zones I created (checked from revealing the map with firetuner after the victory). They propagated to nearby tiles, but no new ones appeared elsewhere. I didn't see demons coming out of the breached land neither.

- All together that was a fun experience, just too easy due to lack of opposition. I could feel the fantasy world behind the game.

full Lua log attached (big file).

 

[Pazyryk]

The turns seems about right.

I agree that the major problem now is a lack of opposition. The diplo hit is already pretty stiff, but I think that alone doesn't drive an AI to DoW. And even forcing DoW doesn't cause base Civ5 AI to actually commit anything to a war. It'll take some dll AI work, but this is a case where most AIs should commit everything to stopping you. Maybe at 10% mana depletion for Azzandarayasna civs and 20% for all others. If a civ burns even 10%, then it is likely that they are committed to world end and maybe 50 turns to this victory...

We need more spontaneous blight/breach as mana gets used up - the whole world should look like that at 90% depletion. Demons should be spawning from those breach plots. Maybe it's not working or maybe the spawn rate is too low. You pass through the end stages pretty fast so perhaps spawn rate needs to be kicked up quite a bit to see them. I'll work on that for v6.

There are some high level spells coming that will burn much more mana. Right now the temples are necessary, but the intention is that you could do it in a pure arcane way without religion (with, say, 4 super high level Liches).

The world ends at < 1% mana. In the game above you were responsible for 95% and other players for the rest. Each follower of A&#331;ra is burning 1 pt per turn for the city owner even if the civ isn't Fallen yet, so that might account for the rest.