Quick question. Playing New Erebus scenario as Hippus, Sheaim are absolutely vast (I auto-played for ages and then switched to the weakest civ), and... the game seems to hang on "Waiting for Other Civilizations" now. I got past it once or twice but I'm now completely locked on turn 350. Only seem to have a BBAILog - Tasunke in Logs, of the mentioned files to check for this error, and can't spot anything suspicious-looking.
Anything I should try doing, anyone know?
Multiple Production is a C++ modcomp; these are more complicated to merge than Python/XML modcomps and this one in particular modifies some key parts of the game. You would need basic programming knowledge and also a setup that allows you to recompile the DLL.
I might look into that. I have some programming background in Python anyway, and I'm secretly as bad as Magister for looking at a brilliant piece of work and thinking: "Hey! I can improve that!" (Fair play to Magister: he absolutely did.) One of these days I'm going to have to make a personal mod-mod-mod of this. At the very least, I can probably pretty easily create new leaders (enjoyed that about Wild Mana) and work toward merging Multiple Production into my copy.
Just a naïve question, having never looked at it: are Civ 4 mods inherently open source? i.e. does the mod folder contain readable source I can fiddle with? I haven't looked beyond the XML files so far.
Early on after building Gibbon he found a ruin that had an ogre guarding it. So he mimicked the ogre. That was a big step up in power that early in the game. And went on to 900 experience points and level 35? Plus all the mimic stolen promotions. But when you get far enough up the tech tree, an ogre becomes an ogre warchief. And so both stronger, and immortal. Plus, if you use Black Mirror, then when the mirror 'dies', it gets reborn. So I have 5 Gibbons.
Ah, I can see that being useful! I played a brief test game to check Changeling, had some trouble with Gibbon seeming to refuse to shift into some barbarian types and picking a Warrior instead of anything useful, and so kind of gave up. I didn't stop to find out what was blocking him.
Do you have any specific suggestions? It is kind of hard to some up with them for a religion which is outlawed in all lands except for the one which refuses to endorse any religion.
One thing I could do is let other players train Luonnotar in cities with Children of The One, but make them (and possibly any unit of that religion) always Rebellious against any player that has a state religion. That might be too similar to the Cult of the Dragon mechanic though.
I think that's not a bad idea. It
would be nice to have some incentive to pursue the Children of the One sometimes. I wouldn't apply Rebellious to any unit of that religion, personally, as you're right that only the Cult should be such a malus. But for Luonnotar it'd be fine, serving more as an incentive to de-facto follow the Children.
Just curious, is it straightforward to code a building that gives a benefit that only applies when not in a state religion? I can't think of any idea for what that might be, yet, but that sort of mechanic
might be useful for making the Children a really viable choice. I'm not that great on the lore but I assume it'd need to be some kind of citizens' forum / lecture hall. If the Children were to be a solid choice, given they can't really offer much unit power, it seems they'd need some kind of economic benefit.
It has always been rare to have the AI use rituals well, but I have seen it happen on the highest difficulty a couple times. Once I even saw Auric Ascended singlehandedly conquer half of the world, and prevent me from completing the Tower of Masterty.
Can't complain much: my current game has the Sheaim spamming Elegies pretty effectively. I'm playing "New Erebus" and desperately wish there were Elohim now! I'm getting pretty obsessively interventionist with Worldbuilder now, anyway, and often hack the Illians ritual progress at various stages.
I guess Engineering is rather late. I think I'll change the Tinkerer promotion to require Construction instead, still leaving it only available for Civilian or Arcane units with the Dwarven race or Enchantment II promotion. Barnaxus can share almost all of his promotions, but only to units nearby. In the base mod he would give fewer promotions but they would automatically go to all golems everywhere in the empire.I'm thinking if increasing their base defensive strength, and/or maybe giving them the Maintaineer promotion so that they can cross Peaks.
I definitely agree with those two changes: Mountaineer wouldn't make an enormous strategic difference (I think), but it does make sense.
Given how many free promotions he can get, I'm thinking I may reduce him to just 1 affinity and only from the Changeling promotionThe python code chooses the "best" target for you, from among the units on adjacent tiles, based on factors like the unit's strength and promotions. The mouseover help text should explain what the unit is by name and what promotions would be gained. I just found a big that makes it sometimes show the promotions for a different unit that the actual target though.
I don't have a good enough spell idea to warrant adding a new high priest unit, but I will remove the extra vote from Agents of Esus and give them to Shadowriders (which require CoE state religion and have a national limit of 4 per player).
Hmm, I'd need to play about and see if 1 Aff felt enough, I can't quite tell. 3 seems excessive, but Mr. Zub might be right that with just 1, the Council would feel a little underpowered. However you may both be right that the answer is to empower them elsewhere. A religion shouldn't derive too much power from their hero, as only one civilisation is going to get them.
just chimming in :
for gargoyles : higher defense is a possibility.
another is "paratrooper + blitz + 3mvt"
thus they can "assault" from a city or fort, attack, and then go fly back. (blitz is necessary only if paratrooping forbids a direct attack in same turn as paratrooping..) it enables "active defense" and thus would be a competitive (in a niche role) over Iron golems.
It's a really cool idea for the 'gargoyle' theme, but perhaps doesn't fit the FFH gargoyle design very well: their current Def > Atk design might render that paratrooping useless. Personally I think I'd rather just have them be more effective stack defenders than Iron Golems, even it just by an inch.
Tholal said:
re: multiple production - I've avoided merging this code in because it makes a rather dramatic change in gameplay. I would consider it as a separate game option but doing so is not high on mypriority list.
Fair enough. I'll look on the bright side: at least I won't be tempted to abuse bloodpet spamming.
MagisterCultuum said:
What do you think about this:
The event trigger would select a random unit, which must be alive, not magic immune, not a world or national unit, not a leader's avatar, not only defensive, and not a unit that would abandon the player based on civic or religion.
Event Trigger text:
"Grave news! We have discovered that this unit has been replaced by a changeling!"
Love this idea. To be clear, if you choose "make the monster pay", does it become a barbarian unit? I also like the idea of ignoring it as an option.
MagisterCultuum said:
I'm thinking of removing the unitcombat_recon requirement for "Steal," the ability that lets Council of Esus units with that state religion take other player's equipment from them.
I am also reconsidering the idea of giving The Council of Esus a High Priest Unit. I think I'd probably go with the simple name "Whisperer," and give them the two already-existing and thematically very appropriate spells known as Trust and Paranoia.
Currently those are the only two cross-sphere spells. At one point I was planning to add many more, but never had enough good enough ideas. They both require Shadow 3, which may be the most overpowered spell sphere promotion anyway due to granting HN status to all summons and allowing you to make whole stacks HN in addition to summoning Mistforms.
Personally, I'd leave the recon requirement for Steal, but perhaps that's just because I haven't thought it through enough. It seems to fit that Assassins and Rangers can do it but Men-at-Arms count, and I appreciate a little perk for focusing on Recon units.
As I said before, I really back the idea of an Esus high priest. But, personally, I'd want to see them gain some kind of economic ability. They
should have a weak economic game (certainly vs. Runes and Fellowship), but they could have a disruptive economy. Stealing cash from enemies, a hostile spell-building (is that possible?) that saps hammers and passes it to a nearby owned city, etc.
I like Trust and Paranoia, and they're certainly thematic, but it's not just human-human games they don't work in: they also don't really work in Always War and they don't mean much in Aggressive AI. I love your proposed changes to Paranoia, though. Personally I'd design Whisperers with your new Paranoia plus something along the lines I'm describing above.
Sceadugengan sound really interesting, but I don't think an Esus summoner high priest is mechanically what's called for. But how about, when you follow Council of Esus, you have a small chance of spawning a Sceadugenga in any unimproved, unworked tile in your empire. If possible, the chance would be increased if a caster with Shadow II or an Agent of Esus/Whisperer was nearby. Thinking about it, though, I think they'd need to have some special tactical role to make sure they feel really distinct from the Treant. HN might be enough though, but Fear would fit too.