Magister Modmod

I haven't given goats or camels much thought lately, but I may still use them. I'll wait until I'm back at school with faster internet to look into them.


Right now the modmod seems plagued by WoC errors. I may have to remove the build abilities from Druids, Settlers, Great Engineers, and all FoL UUs.
 
Why is it that in my current Sidar game I had a Priest of the Leaves among my starting units? I've never had this happen before, but I don't usually play classical age games without advanced start. Could this be related to my making the priests no longer require the state religion (but their spells all require state religion)? And/or to making Priesthood come before Philosophy (Priesthood, Way of the Wicked, and Way of the Wise all come straight from Mysticism, and Philosophy requires either Way of the Wise or Wicked)?

I've also seen barbarian FoL and RoK priests running around. (Until I gave the Barbs NONE as a UU to stop that.)
 
Hey, I like the idea of Barb Priests.

(And how's it going? Are you waiting for .32?)
 
Well, if they don't have any spells (since the barbs can't have a religion) most of them wouldn't be bad. Water Walking Cultists and Stonewardens moving through peaks with siege units as cargo could be a bit much though. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to give priests cooler abilities only while owned by civs of their state religion. The bib problem though is if a priest shows up and uses "found temple" before anyone has researched the tech founding its religion. That religion then doesn't get a holy city, and researching that religion founding tech lets you choose a religion; when all the religions have been founded and someone gets another religion founding tech, the game crashes.

Right now I'm thinking the barbs might be denied War Elephants for a reason. When I allowed them they were as common as warriors (well, axemen; it was a classical start).




I'm not sure. I was planning on releasing it by now, but I've be a bit lazy lately. I didn't get as much done as I had planned to in my 1 week break between spring and summer semesters. Also, and I changed more files than usual and haven't documented the changes I have made well at all, so I'm afraid I'll leave out some important files unless I start over again. Also, for some reason I just really don't feel like compiling a DLL again. That is probably in part because it can take so long, partly because my computer overheated and shut down the last couple times I tried, and partially because xienwolf seems to release a new version of his xml modcomp (which I'm including in my modmod) as soon as I compile one. I'm also just tried Fall Further and am trying to decide whether I want to include Fall Further. I'm leaning towards not including the civs or civics, but including all the same modmods as he did (plus more) and maybe the new terrains and equipment. I defiantly want Marnok's explorable lairs. I already included Xienwolf's xml modcomp (albeit not the latest version) and broader alignment (and UnitStats)

It does seem like .32 has a lot of good stuff in it, so I may decide to wait.
 
If you are thinking about bringing back Prophets, that would take care of the problem with building temples. (Can Prophets build Pagan Temples, I wonder?)

As to the next version, don't feel like you have to rush it out -- or put in everything at once. With Kael cranking out new features and Xienwolf and the other modulists adding even more, you're always going to have a moving target. So have fun doing it and when it comes out, we'll have fun playing it.
 
I wasn't planning to bring back prophets (and I have removed Lightbringers), but I may consider adding them and a unit specific spell that makes pagan temples. I probably won't though.

I fail to see how this would take care of the temple problem. Each temple is made by a separate unit-specific spell, which also spreads the religion. The easiest solution is probably to make these spells have the appropriate religion-founding tech as a prerequisite.

Would it be too much to make the found temple spells require the state religion too? That would mean that the only spell priests could cast while not of the state religion would be cure disease, which in my version requires medic 2. This was mostly for the sake of Grigori Medics, preventing extreme abuse of "And Now For Something Completely Different" and stopping then from having unlimited high priest equivalents.

I'm also thinking I'll remove the medic promotions from the priests of the evil religions, replacing it with a more sinister alternatives. I don't want Order civs using Ritualists and Cultists to heal their troops. Their version of cure disease (which good civ's couldn't use, and which would move your broader alignment towards evil) would actually turn diseased units into disease carriers, so your units aren't hurt by it but still spread disease to your enemies. Their version of Heal will probably also Mutate. (The mutate spell itself is gone, since it detracts from the passive effect of Chaos mana and from Freaks. Chaos II is summon Chaos Marauder. Summoned Marauders again start enraged, and enraged is no longer removed by combat and has a higher chance to turn a unit barbarian but may randomly wear off. Oh, and Chaos Marauders now start mutated, just like Freaks.) It will probably work on demons and undead instead of just living units, and might work though killing the weakest living unit to heal the stronger ones.


Hmm...Should I make it so that you can sacrifice a high priest to get a cathedral/advanced temple of its religion, if you have the state religion, tech requirement, and enough temples? Or even so you need to? It might probably be a good idea to do so, since these are very powerful buildings. I''ll probably nerf them an give them more thematic effects, but currently they are all much better than most (all?) wonders, and their bonuses stack the more you build. I didn't implement my real ideas, but basically just copied the same thing, with slight changes. For now, they all boost the yields/commerces of certain specialists (well, I removed this from the OO one when I made it provide hammers for riverside and water tiles, a la BtS's Dike) in all cities (is there a way I could make it only apply to the one city?), provide a very useful promotion (currently the OO one gives melee/disciple units in the city water Walking, Empyrean give disciples Crown of Brilliance, FoL gives Subdue Beast, RoK gives Mountaineer (xienwolf's: allows move impassible), Order gives Inquisitor, CoE gives Sneaky (xienwolf's: allows units to see the details of rival cities), and AV gives extension 2 (it also generates 1 entropy mana). All Cathedrals deny access to an opposed mana type (Order-chaos, Empyrean-Shadow, RoK-Air, OO & AV-spirit), so adepts build there won't get the free promotions.


It doesn't seem like it is requiring 3 temples per cathedral like I intended (once you have 3 temples, you can build a cathedral in each) and I'm not sure why, but if I make them only available though spells with python then I can easily take the number of both types of buildings into account.
 
I'm thinking I probably will wait for .32 for my next modmod. Some spells I've thought of would be better if they took a few turns.


I'm thinking that instead of having a world spell that lets RoK civs discover gems/copper/iron/gold/mithril/marble (with mines/quarries) on peaks, I'll give Stonewardens a new-delayed action spell: Delve. This could be cast on hills or Peaks (Runes priests can move impassible) and would have a good chance to randomly discover a resource (gems, gold, copper, iron, mithril, or marble) and (at least if on a peak) create a mine and road on the tile to connect it to your trade network. There would also be a small chance of other consequences, like extra base gold and/or production yields on the tile, the death or damage of the caster and nearby units, an earthquake, triggering the volcano event, or awakening barbarian Balors. I'm thinking this is better than a world spell that gives you a chance to discover/harness resources on all peaks in your empire all at once.


Summon Tiger will be changed to a spell that summons a random animal, if in its native environment. Caster levels might be requirements for the stronger animals.


Water walking spells for cultists (and maybe mages too) will grant a temporary water walking promotion to units on the tile. (They won't start with water walking anymore so you can't abuse them when not of the state religion.) I might wait until someone adds TerrainImpassibles to promotion infos though.


Empyrean High Priests might not get another spell, but instead have the ability to start golden ages. (The Empyrean is a somewhat great-people oriented religion in my version. Its temple reduces military production and boosts GPP).

Confessors will again have Ring of Flames (I guess it is ok for this militant religion's preists to have only military spells) and Priors Pillar of fire.


I'll look into either implementing espionage or giving Esus units some espionage like spells

Ritualists will probably have their current spells, plus ring flames, and the ability to upgrade to archmages. There will be religion specific mage/archmage spells too, especially entropy/fire/chaos spells for AV. Profanes will probably also gain Pillar of Fire and have a spell that can grant temporary peace with the barbarian state. Either that or a religion specific ritual.



I might leave the world spells unchanged, but just turn them off by default, or try to rework all of them. I find most of them annoying, but can't think of good replacements for most of them which wouldn't infringe on other spell ideas. I was thinking I'm make world spells religion specific, but that usually leads to half the civs casting Gifts of Nantosuelta before any other spell become available, and thus being unable to cast spells that would be better/more thematic.
 
My thoughts:

My assumption was that since Prophets did not have a religious alignment (until upgraded), they would not be able to build Temples -- or only Pagan Temples, which would suit the Barbarians. The idea was to give the Barbs a way to get Medic promotions.

As to requiring the sacrifice of the Great Prophet for a Cathedral, that seems to duplicate the Holy Shrines. And I would not want Disease to be all that common. I'd rather see the Cultist do real healing, but with a remote chance of Mutation. And I'd like to have the Mutation spell stay, perhaps at at level 3 or as a special for OO High Priest. Ritualists are powerful enough without the Disease side effect.

I would not cry if the world spells came out. I could see handling them like Rituals instead of freebies. Summoned animals should not get Hidden Nationality.
 
I'll think about reimplementing prophets (with a build pagan temple spell), but I probably won't do it. Also, the temple founding spells aren't tied to the units religion, just to the unit itself.

If I do add them back, how would adding a Bhall Orc Clan/Barbarian UU (a prophet with Fire I) sound? (Since priests don't have channeling in my version, this would not give Clan Priests access to other fire spells, just let them set fires really early. (Right now I've actually added a Sacred Pyre pagan temple UB, which grants fire 1 to all units built in the city)


I didn't propose requiring a Great Prophet, I proposed needinga High Priest. This would also give High Priests the ability to spread their religion, which they currently cannot do. (Although when I implement the Evangelist promotion they can get that and have a small random change to spread their religion passively.)

Oh, I don't think I'd mentioned that all the Holy Shrines produce twice the mana and are now equipment. Dropping them in a new city (which requires you follow the appropriate state religion) causes it to become the new Holy City of said religion. I tried to make it so that you can't pick it up from a city but could still grab the equipment unit spawned from razing the city, but I had some trouble with that. For now, only high priests of the appropriate religion can pick up the shrines.



Mutation seems way too weak for a high priest spell to me, since it is also a passive mana effect. I might consider making it cultist spell, but I think I prefer removing it. I'll probably make the darker heal spell randomly either heal a disease or make the unit merely a carrier. I don't consider disease to be too strong considering every civ will have units to heal them (normal religious priests for most, plus Grigori Medics for the Grigori and Priests of the Hand for the Illians). AV civs are currently able to use disease against their enemies, using diseased corpses, can cure disease, and can field lots of undead and demonic units that are immune anyway, so I don't think this will be that over powered.


Yeah, rituals seem like a better idea. The game needs more rituals.


Kael has already removed HN from the unit defines in .32. I was considering making animals never be HN, but instead having a "Feral" promotion that makes them always hostile (requiring xienwolf's code) anyway. Hmm...it might be nice if this made the also had a chance of making the unit turn barbarian again, and to let units with subdue animal remove the promotion once you have animal handling (subdue animal was moved to hunting) or Animal Mastery. It might be nice if animals (and beasts?) had a spell to get this promotion back at feral bond. Or overpowered. Would letting you purchase this promotion again with xp be better?



I'm still very open to suggestions for spells, rituals, etc., especially civ specific, alignment specific, cross-sphere, and religious spells (not limited to priests spells: I'm thinking it could be good for mages with religions to have extra spells from the spheres that best fit with the religion. I don't really care about trying to balance out the numbers of spells for different spheres, religions, etc, so don't feel that filling a slot with one spell means you can;t put another one there.). I'd have no problem a spell with several of these requirements either. An Evil, Sidar, Spirit/Enchantment, Laroth-style spell could be cool. Fire/Entropy AV, Sun/Spirit Empyrean, Shadow/Mind Esus, ect, all seem appropriate. I think that Druids and FoL priests should have different spells available for Good, Neutral, and Evil alignments. Powerful Good-AV and Evil-Order spells could be interesting; it is extremely difficult to get these combinations (impossible without Broader Alignments), so it seems there should be an incentive to try.
 
I still think it would be nice to make it possible to have Unique Religions for each Civilization. Then each Civ can have their own "Good" "Good Neutral" "Neutral" "Evil Neutral" and "Evil" religion type. Some would follow the same Gods, but in different ways.

This would be done best in conjunction with making Unique Technologies. Same place in the Tech Tree, but uniquely named and with unique bonuses for each Civ. Primary among them would be that each of the religious Techs would found the Unique Religions for the Civ. Other uses would be to move all the Cavalry Units to be unlocked 1 Tech earlier by the Hippus, to alter research values for various Techs for everybody as appropriate, to unlcock certain Wonders earlier or later for various Civs, and to provide other Tech Bonuses (like Sight Range, Movement, Worker Rate) all over the place.

Minor difficulty with that would of course be when you spread your religion to other Civilizations it would show up as THEIR version of the Good Religion (or whichever one it was that you spread). But personally I am content with that, as you are spreading Ideals, instead of Beliefs. The first is far more likely in a world such as FfH than the second.
 
Well, I don't think I should take it that far, but I have no problem with making religions vary a little from civ to civ (although I not every civ would be unique). I don't intend to have unique techs for founding "different" religions. This would require giving every civ an unresearchable starting tech as a prereq, right? Plus make for a very crowded and confusing tech screen. Or do you mean implementing a new mechanism, similar to how UUs and UBs work? That could be interesting, but is way beyond me.


I don't want the religions to actually be different, just have different regional/cultural/racial emphases. Hmm...it could be nice if Bannor Council of Esus appeared to the rest of the world as the (fallen version of) The Order though.
 
Damnit, I just realized you changed your freaking Avatar :p I thought I had seen that you responded to the post, but the Avatar wasn't yours, so it must obviously have been someone else :p


I did mean a new mechanism similar to UUs and UBs. That would be MY approach to it, but there is another person doing a modcomp which allows you to assign a completely seperate Tech Tree to any Civilization you want. I will probably import that to FfH once he is finished with it, though I haven't got any plans which use it yet (could be nice for the Barbarians though...)
 
Just thought I'd bump the thread to see if there's any news.
 
Well, not really. I was waiting to see if Xienwolf would include some more of my suggested changes in his modcomp first. Also, I've fallen pretty far behind in one of my summer classes. I have to make up two overdue essays and do one new homework assignment by Tuesday, which is also the date of our first test. I'll be really busy until then.

If I don't get everything done by Tuesday, I'll probably go ahead and drop that class. (It turns out that the early assignments were worth more than I thought, so it would be almost impossible to get even a B. Its too late to drop it with no record of ever having taken it, but a W would not hurt my GPA) My other classes are not nearly so time consuming, so I would probably have plenty of time for modmoding, at least for a few weeks. (One of my summer classes is a short-term class which doesn't start until June 16th.)

If I don't drop the class, I doubt I'll have much time for FfH (either modding or playing) this summer. There is a group project for that class (and another one for another class) hat will probably take up a lot of my time, which we are getting started on next week. Tuesday is about as late as I can drop without making the group suffer.

If I don't drop, I'll probably start working on my modmod at the beginning of August. I'd have 2 or 3 weeks off (and stuck with dial-up) with little to do but mod. I'd release it as soon as the Fall semester begins.
 
A month or two after I released the first version of my modmod there was a crash or hacker or something that messed up essentially all the files uploaded to CFF. Everyone had to re-upload their mods, maps, graphics, etc. I was planning to release a new version anyway (I don't think anyone really wanted to back to patch f to play my modmod anyway) so I didn't repost it the old one. (I'd already made changes to that version on my computer, fixing all its bugs but later introducing bigger ones). I kept coming very close to releasing a new version (updated to the latest version of FfH with a released DLL, and with new features), and then introducing some unexplained major errors.
 
Magister, IIRC you got Forrests to "Bloom" without the need to remove an improvement in the tile first. How'd you do that?
 
I used python prereqs and effects.

I think that Kael recently made SDK changes that make this unnecessary (for the elven civs)
 
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