[MOD] MagisterModmod

[Calavente]

ohoh... but then it's not a bonus of the Kurios that helps mitigate them having a limited number of cities... and Ljos with city of thousand slums ancient forest city will have same bonus...

but thanks.

 

[yornh]

Hello everyone. First of all thank you very much for awesome mod.

I wanted to try it out but I have question.

My units are huge also map bonuses seems very big, so I wonder is that intended? If not what could cause this. I made sure to follow installation instructions, reinstalled few times even. I have attached screenshot of how game looks like.

If this looks as intended disregard my post, if not what could cause this?


Kind regards

 

[Calavente]

Question to Magister :
I have a question about the reasonning behind putting the "accessibility of mana" at their respsective mana techs (elementalism...etc) instead of available at the start of the game (or at least at adept level).
I understand that it is supposed to have low impacts in the game as usually you should have mana accessible only when being able to build the mana nodes.
however that nerfs 2 things :
- profitering from using the mana nodes that an ennemy built but you don't have the tech to build the mana node for....
- making use of the mana of the World Improvements.

and this nerfs most world improvements IMO : they become like pre-colored mana nodes, but which cannot be changed later using Metamagic 2. (save for the 2-3 W improvements that have really improved tile yields)
previously, settling near a world improvement had the advantage of giving you early access to a new mana.

So while it might seems I'm criticizing the move, I'm just wondering about the reasoning behind.

 

[plasmacannon]

Hello everyone. First of all thank you very much for awesome mod.

I wanted to try it out but I have question.

My units are huge also map bonuses seems very big, so I wonder is that intended? If not what could cause this. I made sure to follow installation instructions, reinstalled few times even. I have attached screenshot of how game looks like.

If this looks as intended disregard my post, if not what could cause this?

Kind regards

Check your resolution.
I bought a new 4K monitor and changed mine to 3840x2160. The city names are so small compared to my old 1920x1200. I had to find a middle ground resolution to make it playable again.
If your resolution was lowered somehow, then the opposite would have happened. It should have made things larger than you were used to.
Also, things sometimes change when we go from a monitor to a television. Usually the monitor is better.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Hello everyone. First of all thank you very much for awesome mod.

I wanted to try it out but I have question.

My units are huge also map bonuses seems very big, so I wonder is that intended? If not what could cause this. I made sure to follow installation instructions, reinstalled few times even. I have attached screenshot of how game looks like.

If this looks as intended disregard my post, if not what could cause this?


Kind regards

You have the invisible Adventure Mode game option activated. Kael made that for certain scenarios, most notably the Cave of the Ancestor's scenario. BtS tries to be helpful by remembering your preferred game options, but when you switch back and forth between different mods this can cause problems. You must have turned on an option in a different mod that is being carried over and being misinterpreted as this invisible option.

As of the BtS 3.17 patch a lot of people have had the adventure mode turned on. I think this is because BtS now saves the game options. I think that the extra game options confuse BtS, and they may be saving options from the main game or another mod. Or, maybe Kael just accidentally turned it on, I don't remember.

Anyway, there are two ways to fix this. One involves editing the .ini, but I forget exactly what you would change because I prefer the other option. That is to edit prefer instead editing the GAMEOPTON_ADVENTURE_MODE entry in C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Fall from Heaven 2 032\Assets\XML\Gameinfo\CIV4GameOptionInfos.xml:

<GameOptionInfo>
            <Type>GAMEOPTION_ADVENTURE_MODE</Type>
            <Description>TXT_KEY_GAME_OPTION_ADVENTURE_MODE</Description>
            <Help>TXT_KEY_GAME_OPTION_ADVENTURE_MODE_HELP</Help>
            <bDefault>0</bDefault>
            <bVisible>0</bVisible>
        </GameOptionInfo>

Make sure the bDefault is a 0, and if that doesn;t work (because it was saving settings) change bVisible to a 1. That means that the option will appear in a custom game, so you can turn it off. (I went ahead and made all the options visible just so I can see what they do.)

You have adventure mode on. Open you CivilizationIV.ini and turn off all the game options by setting them all to 0 as follows:

; Game Options
GameOptions = 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

 

[yornh]

Thank you so much for your replies.

After playing around for longer time installing/deleting/comparing files and trying figure out how to fix it I ended up in copying manually folder of “Art” from “Fall from Heaven 2”
to “Magister Modmod for FfH2”, it seems like it shouldn’t make difference but weirdly after starting new game units were back to normal sizes.

That adventure mode thing blowed my mind lol in so many years of playing I didn’t even know it was created by Kael, I guess cos usually I don’t play scenerios.
First solution to edit mod settings in <GameOptionInfo> couldn’t work cos I had clean installations of mods I checked anyway settings were set to 0.
Then I moved to editing “GameOptions to 000…”, my old save still keeping settings to have big units regardless of that edit.
Anyway it is not important as I mentioned earlier, that I managed to start game with normal sized units.

I have great fun playing your mod atm, so far all working smooth. Your help was very appreciated.

Kind Regards

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I am play testing a few changes now that may make it into the next release, but I thought I'd ask your opinions first.

I never really liked that level requirements in the game tend to be 4 and 6, given that the numerological schema of Erebus is based around multiples of 3 and 7.

As such, I just let Adepts upgrade to Mages at level 3 and Mages require level 7 to upgrade to Archmages.

I thought about changing the national unit limit back to 3 (like it was when Archmages and Summers were separate units), but that seemed too low and 7 seemed too high to I compromised and made the limit 5 instead.

Similarly I let Moroi gain Vampirism at level 3 while requiring level 7 for any other vampires.

I decided that Vampire Spawn should get a randomly selected number of perks based on promotions (like Spell Extension, Arcane, Unholy Taint, Cannibalize, Summoner, Illusionist, Stealth, etc) that its Sire possessed. The higher the Spawn's level relative the Sire, the more of these perks it can learn automatically. I also made it so that a vampire Spawn can theoretically gain its Sire's Affinities, although it would have to know Mastery (from the Tower of Mastery) to gain Affinity instead of normal spell spheres. Rather than always granting all the spell spheres, this too is randomly determined based on relative levels. (This code was too complicated to randomize, so the Body sphere is preferred over Death, over Mind, over Shadow. I'm thinking of possibly including Spirit too, as that is canonically one of Alexis's spheres, but it would be the least common and would require Channeling 1&2 promotions as Vampirism itself does not allow it. )

Vampirism no longer changes Death to Undeath magic automatically, but learning any Undeath magic converts the Arawn Death magic to Undeath. That way a Vampiric Thessa could still try to use Death magic morally to protect the world from corruption.

edit: I am thinking about balancing the power of Vampirism by making it randomly grant a negative promotion which would have to be periodically removed by the Feast or Feed abilities. I am about to test it using the existing Weak promotion, but am thinking about adding a new malus like "Hungry," "Famished," or "Ravenous" (which could also apply to Ravenous werewolves), perhaps combining the weaknesses of Weak with Enraged, Fatigued, or Paranoid. The new promotion could be removed by combat or by staying in a city with a Governor's Manor.

I decided that the Sidar "Grey" racial promotion should increase withdrawal odds, provide 25% death damage resistance, randomly grant Hidden, block access to Undeath magic, be a prerequisite for the spell Wane (at level 7), allow the purchase of the Immortal promotion (at level 7, with Divine Essence), and decrease the odds of units returning as Angels or Manes by 15% per level (so a level 7+ unit's soul belongs fully to Laroth and cannot serve the Mercurians or Infernals after death).

I changed the Sidar world spell "Into the Mist" so that it Hides every unit, makes all living (non-animal) units Grey, and may cause some random units to Wane at level 3 instead of 7. It still deletes rival's maps and resets diplomatic bonuses too.

The Hallowed Ground from the Hallow Graveyard spells now uses Temp Terrain. This does mean it has to be used over again if you want to indefinitely used a Hallowed Graveyard to stop the spread of Hell or movement of Demons/Undead, but the main purpose was so that the spell does not permanently destroy other features like Ancient Forests. The true feature type is now restored when the grave is robbed or otherwise defiled.

 

[FireBlaze]

I like the flavor, and it sounds interesting from a pacing perspective having a longer/larger core midgame force, with a lot of end game **** being rarer and more explosive when they do start coming online.

 

[Calavente]

5 things:
- I am playing with Amurites, and liked that Wizard have 5str instead of 4, 2 free promotions, and the spellstaff is an item, transferable to other units.
- I don't notice the magical affinities/masteries given "randomly" to mages and that increase magical power (at tier 2&3) that were discussed / presented since a few times (how do I see it ?)
- regarding your propositions:
I find that lvl 3 is very low (5xp)(units starting at lvl 1 instead of 0)--> so it's not a real requirement, : getting no requirement would almost be the same . (5xp is easily doable at birth)
and that level 7 is huge... you'll get very few units that get that. It's not a real issue for Vampires (because it's compensated by stronger vampires)... but for High Priests, Archmages, Immortals, Satyrs and Sidar Wanes... it'll be a nerf.
- vampire effects seems interesting and fun
- Sidar ideas are great (modulo the "lvl 7" thing)

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I have merged in mnai-2.8-beta1u and plan to release my new version tomorrow, unless my playtesting reveals major issues soon.

(I almost released this afternoon, but then found and fixed a several bugs that were unrelated to the merge and decided I could use another day of playtesting.)

I decided that I quite like the level 3 and 7 prereqs, but that such a high level prereq justifies expanding the limit on national units like archmages all the way up to 7 per civ. (You can still only have one Lich, at level 10.)

I also decided to make everyone get a free Mage at Sorcery, Archmage at Strength of Will, and High Priest of their state religion at Theology.

I removed the ability of Mobius Witches to upgrade to Mages, but let the Pact with Hyborem trait give them (as well as Ritualists and Profanes) Channeling 2 and free affinities like Mages get. Mobius Witches are physically stronger than adepts and have 1 Psychic damage.

I decided to let Mages upgrade to Profanes.

Adepts costs a bit more. Channeling 1 does not grant free xp as quickly. Divine grants xp a bit faster.

The evil Spirit Affinity Despair spell deals some Psychic damage directly.

(Greater) Destroy Undead has a reduced minimum damage, but is still potentially lethal and gets a range of 2 instead of 1.


I merged the Dragon Bones events. Instead of having one for Tebryn and one for Cardith that both just give one identical Dragon Fanatic, I have a single event with several options. Tebryn and Cardith get a free Dragon Fanatic at Fanaticism, and get the event triggered for them (if it has not happened randomly) at Malevolent Designs or Righteousness respectively. The Kuriotates (if Good and still posessing Creation Mana) have a version that not only gives them a Dragon Fanatic, but grants Creation Affinity to all Dragon Fanatics/Wyvern Riders. The Sheaim (if Good and still possessing Dimensional Mana) have one to give them Unholy Taint. Anyone with Fire mana can use one that gives Dragon Fanatics Fire 1 and Wyvern Riders Fire 2. The Illians (with the White Hand and Ice mana) have one that give them Ice 1, and the Overlords have one that gives them Water 1. Anyone can choose the option that gives a Dragon Fanatic and grants them Scourge instead of anything Dragon Specific. (Dragon Fanatics/Wyvern Riders no longer have Scourge in their XML defines.)

The Abashi Wyrmhold now grants units Vile Touch instead of Unholy Taint. All of the Wyrmholds give their bonus promotions to all unit of the CotD religion trained there (regardless of unitcombat prereqs) and to all Dragon Fanatics/Wyvern Riders on their team.


I decided to change (Greater) Severed Soul spell to a (Facilitated) Severed Soul spell. Instead of letting units with Dimensional Affinity summon unlimited Severed Souls, other units in the same stack as a unit with Dimensional Affinity can summon one Severed Soul each. That could let you send a whole army through enemy lands or across mountain ranges.

The Mirror of Heaven again destroys illusions/dark reflections (including Severed Souls), removed Hidden/Invisible/Blur/Shadowwalk, and damages Vampires. It and Revelation make Vampires Paranoid, Enervated, and Ravenous.

The Ravenous Promotion is like Enervated plus Weak. (It reduces strength by 2, but since Vampire increased it by 1 the two together reduce it by 1.). Vampies get it at random. (Ravenous Werewolves start with it.) It is removed by Feast, Feed, Governor's Manors, or killing a Living mortal non-animal unit in combat.

Agents of Esus (and their upgrades) that have lost their Invisible promotion may get it back through the Embezzle ability.

The Priests' Cure Disease spell can be resisted. The High Priests' Heal ability is not resistible, and so can cure what ordinary priests cannot.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

The new version of MagisterModmod has just been released.

 

[plasmacannon]

The new version of MagisterModmod has just been released.

A new SVN or a new full version?
asking, because I don't use the SVN.
EDIT: Oh, it's the full version.
I downloaded and installed it, but it gave me an unable to run error.
nvm. It worked from the old icon. I'll check it out more tomorrow.

 

[GreedyManul]

Hey Magister! First of all, I gotta say, I'm very impressed that this mod is still going strong for so long. After trying so many FFH2 modmods long ago, this ended up being my favorite by far, in part due to the lore authenticity, and in part due to the utterly ridiculous stuff you can do and reach in gameplay. I recently downloaded your updated versions, and I had a lot of fun despite the roughness on the edges (more on that later). This is going to be insanely long, so I apologize in advance.

First up, the 3 sessions I fired up to try out the mod; first 2 were with the version before the current, the third with the current version.
First session was with the Svartalfar, second with the Bannor, third with the Calabim (still going).

Spoiler First Session: Svartalfar :

The first session was me messing around with an elf civ, see how far you can go with being able to build more than just lumbermills and camps on forested tiles. The end result? Pure madness; the fellowship religion was a natural choice, and with the crazy food production you could achieve with farms + sanitation + ancient forests, your cities' population went through the roof, doubly so due to the generous health bonuses thanks to said forests. However, what I noticed is if you did Apprenticeship (or Arete if you got all your ancient forests and want a round with Kilmorph now) + all workshop-related techs, you could simply spam workshops like a madman to achieve downright sickening amounts of production without the drawback of being pop-limited.

Also, I went with Rivanna the Wraith Lord for that run, simply because the Organized trait was too good to pass up; Military Strategy is infinitely easier to reach than Arcane Lore, and this makes Organized hit much harder than Philosophical much earlier in the game. The Sinister trait was good stuff, it really helps recon units punch just a little bit harder, especially if you need to spam fawns in a pinch. I had to do that to beat down an octopus-worshiping Doviello at bay, whch also had a Saverous that was REALLY levelled up; it was nerve wracking, but it worked. I eventually sacked the Doviello and even managed to get their holy city, giving me 3 new sources of mana thanks to their Necronomicon.

The rest of the game was kinda uneventful, really; I passed everyone else in the game, maintained top position, and eventually got bored. So I fired up the Bannor.

Spoiler Second Session: Bannor :

The second session has me using the Bannor because I wanted to play a good civ for a change. Went with Sabathiel for the same reason I went with Rivanna, plus the fact he has Charismatic, another OP trait that trivializes unit training. This time, I beelined for the Order, and managed to rescue a Vicar from the Pyre of the Seraphic later on to found the Empyrean early. Before that, though, I spammed archers and killed the Illians early because they were a close competitor and they were evil. After the Illians, I decided to sack the Ljosalfar because I wanted to expand, which got Valin Phanuel at a high enough level to free Brigit.

Freeing Brigit was funny as hell. After I freed her, I had a super powerful unit that was perfect for... raiding unique features. Brigit could be a one-archangel army to put everyone else to heel, but what did I relegate her for? Looting her fallen god's little pyramid for free stuff. The audacity of her still unfallen archangel committing such casual disrespect towards her is not lost to me; I think I managed to get a jade torc, a timor mask, that Vicar I mentioned, and a Great Engineer. Good stuff. Valin, on the other hand, got a bunch of shades and great engineers by looting the Broken Sepulcher. At the very end, I just decided the Malakim should stop being baddies and attacking the Hippus, so I used a portal discovered by Brigit looting Bhall's little bonfire as a shortcut to attack the Malakim's unguarded behind. Sacked their Fellowship holy city, reduced them to a rump state, ended the game there.

By the way, Brigit turned from angel to demon at some point for some reason. What could cause such a thing?

Spoiler Third Session: Calabim :

And now I'm currently messing around with the Calabim, led by Flauros, the ultimate in OP traits holder, with Financial, Organized, and Charismatic combining to turn him into a terrifying leader to run against. Seriously, Alexis might be the vicious, arcanely hyperintelligent originator of vampirism, but Flauros doesn't need that. If you let him build up, he ends up snowballing and becomes an unstoppable force of oppression. Anyway, the start of the game was pretty uneventful, barring me throwing bloodpets to goblin bases to stamp them out. Two got very lucky and beat down their foes against the odds; I called the first one who did this Goblin Slayer for this. Both are now vampiric Eidola and happily serve me as I'm beating down the Sheaim for the heinous crime of existing.

By sacking a goblin fort, I managed to rescue a Thane of Kilmorph, founding the Runes religion early; this game me the time I needed to found the Fellowship, Overlords, Council of Esus, and Ashen Veil religions fast and hassle free. Sadly, RNGesus didn't favor me enough to get great prophets, but I did manage to get a great engineer to hurry the Bone Palace, giving me an ez Golden Age. After setting up Aristoagrarianism proper, I REALLY flew above the rest, nabbing techs left and right without a care in the world, eventually nabbing Malevolent Designs through the Infernal Grimoire. One funny thing that happened is that after training Losha Valas and having her use the Infernal Grimoire a few times, she eventually got consumed in the making of 7 Heroic Fire Elementals. I like to think that she got consumed so hard, she got reborn as 7 Fire Elementals in an explosive fashion thanks to the Ring of Fire spell that also happened at the same time. I imagine the two vampiric siblings would sit silent for a VERY long time hearing the news, and just going "well then" in the end. Now those Fire Elementals are burning down the Sheaim for the heinous crime of existing alongside my Eidola.

As I went, I switched to Runes to get the Mines of Gal-Dur, then switched to Octopus Overlords to enjoy Hemah in his insane OPness. He knows all the Dimensional spells, and I plan to make him a Vampire in the near future. Also, I have Cassiel and Ethne as Vassals, with everyone else being Ashen Veil, except the Illians, who have the White Hand as a religion. Also, Auric Ulvin died. So much for becoming the new God of Ice.

For more weird stuff that happened, Rivanna the Wraith Lord is both a leader of the Svartalfar, and a Commander under my employ, and you spawned as a great sage, who promptly became barbarian because I'm Calabim. Don't worry though, I captured you and you became Mikel Dylantyr for some reason. I need my Academy, you know.

With my sessions all showcased, I'll move on to my observations/suggestions/pipe dreams.

Spoiler :

Observations:

1. Workshops are OP once set up right; their +5 and +1 stomp literally every other improvement out there even with the -1 food malus (ancient forests + elves/kurios = gg wp), and if you also have the Financial trait with Arete? Well, where we're going, we won't need cottages. Or Farms. Maybe some Enclaves if you're Kurio, but if you're elven? Just turbocharge your production, what is Cernunnos gonna do, complain you're polluting his forests with industry? Without Ancient Forests, you'll need a few farms to make sure you're not in the negative food-wise, but a few Creation Affinity mages fix that problem VERY trivially, doubly so if they're Earth/Mind affinity for Greater Diligence/Inspiration.
2. On the topic of Improvements, Mana Nodes don't give anything at all in terms of yield bonuses. I understand the bonus is the Mana you're collecting, but something to make them more than just one step above peaks in terms of yield usefulness would be nice. Also, why did you make Creation nodes buildable on raw mana? I thought you shouldn't be able to do such a thing, unless you changed something.
3. Where are the watermills? I kinda miss them. They were probably removed from the base game, but I'd like them to be there; I always found them kinda neat.
   
4. Why are Thessa and Rivanna eligible to lead the Calabim? I'm asking for curiosity, really. I'd like to know of the lore behind this decision, if there's any.
   
5. Svartalfar Archmages look bad. It's just a still model t-posing (probably to assert dominance over its more animated brethren), whereas illusionists are normal. Can you fix that, please? It makes the mod look unpolished. Even a haphazard model swap is fine, really. Same goes with Gosea, and pretty sure with some other units I'm not aware of.
   
6. Speaking of unpolished, the mod in general feels unpolished all around. The Force mana writing tidbits have Kael's and your explanations thrown there haphazardly, the Affinity promotions are cluttered with all those explanation wall of text dumps in their effect list, many links don't go where they should (the abundance spell in the civilopedia doesn't get you to the building, it keeps you stuck there until you go manually), you have Longbowmen with 2-3 first strikes on their own with 3 Drill promotions on top, the unit icons looking enormous on the unit upgrades section, etc. etc. You gotta polish that stuff, man. Adding tons of stuff is fine and all, but polish is the other half of the building process, and equally essential. Would you mind if I tried my hand in doing some polish work? It's still up to you to decide on what to keep and what to discard, but I'd like to help around and make it less rough around the edges.
7. IIRC unlike other religions, the White Hand didn't have an "Era" assigned to it, and always felt a little bit unpolished compared to the other religions. Ashes of Erebus did it some justice on that, did you fix that? Never had much of a chance to play the Illians recently.

Suggestions (small scale):

1. While I understand most Archmages are insanely old due to dedicating their life in studying the arcane, some Archmage models don't/shouldn't look like it (Calabim, Amurite, Elven, Body/Life affinity mages, and probably some others). Instead of being a measly 1 strength denoting their old age, they could be 4 to represent they're not that decrepit (Calabim Archmages being Vampiric, Amurite Archmages being naturals and allowing them to reach that stage more easily than the rest, Elven Archmages just having higher lifespans, Body/Life Affinity Archmages being young and spry due to their sphere connection, etc). Of course, this depends on the civ, race, and model used, and shouldn't be that common.
2. For some reason, I can stack Inspiration and Greater Inspiration together, getting the benefits of both, and I'm pretty sure this shouldn't be a thing. I also have the sneaking suspicion I can do the same with Diligence and Hope. Instead of effect buildings like Inspiration, Diligence, and Hope having only one building, why not split the effects? Like, have the normal effect buildings, and any additional effects are only added to the Greater version of the building. Then, you have the say, Greater Inspiration spell, and this puts down 2 "buildings": the normal inspiration, and its Greater cousin.
3. While we're on the "Greater xyz" topic, why not try to differentiate the effects between each Greater xyz "building"? For example, Diligence gives +10% bonus to , while Inspiration gives +10% bonus to . This would make each effect stand out more compared to its peers. Also, this is more for UI sorting, but instead of having the "(Greater)" text as a prefix, it would be better as a suffix. It'd make sorting much more intuitive, and the lookup of things much less painful.
   
4. Can you make the Necronomicon readable like the Infernal Grimoire? That'd be pretty cool. Gaining power at the expense of madness, with Cultists/Speakers of the Tide having less of a risk would be pretty thematical for the Octopus Overlords. While we're on the topic of Cultists, it'd be a pretty neat touch to have them yell quotes from Blood's cultists if possible (example). Again, it's a thematic touch that'd add to the experience.

Suggestions (large scale):

1. To make things spicier, why not add a second version of affinity that's even more powerful? This could be used to represent Kael's idea of having freakishly powerful mages every once in a lifetime, with the tradeoff that mages spawned with this sort of "super" affinity can only have that, and no other affinity unless they want to try their hand becoming Archmages. Of course, I understand this might be unbalancing and could take a LOT of work, so feel free to discard it if you think it's not fitting, or mutate it to something more palatable.
   
2. Instead of just having one spell for each mana sphere promotion, why not have two? Some mana spheres already have 2 spells tied to them, and this would allow for unconventional and creative spells. For example, Air spells could "lighten" a unit, progressively removing the heavy promotion and adding the light promotion to them, with Earth spells doing the inverse. Death and Undeath could be made into one promotion, with the use of Undeath spells automatically damning the unit to an afterlife in hell. Dimensional could set up "voodoo doll" effects (think the Destiny Bond move in Pokemon), Enchantment could boost a city's best attribute, Law being able to purge or neuter mutations, Mind could tap into its untainted foresight power for research or first strikes, etc. Combining two spheres for compound spells could also be a thing, an example being Body+Chaos allowing for "controlled" mutations (however much they can be controlled because of the Chaos sphere lol).
   
3. I wish Brigit could go to Bhall's vault and nab the sphere of Fire to return it to its pure, untainted form via an expensive ritual. On top of being crazy epic, it could also go a lot of in-game effects related to Agares's manipulations amounting to nothing because a plucky little mortal civ undid all his hard work just like that. Plus, the idea of him sinking to new lows of despair, screaming in never seen before anguish on his pillow because his whispers amounted to nothing is just hilarious to me.
4. It'd be nice to have adventurers decoupled from the Great Person mechanic, and the Ardor World Spell being changed to reset the Adventurer counter. I liked how Rise from Erebus decoupled adventurers from other Great People, though it could imbalance the Grigori. Then again, the mod is already Camulos's playing field with how insane it is mechanically, what's a mechanic more?

Pipe Dreams:

1. I really wish Espionage, Cults, and Corporation-style Guilds were a thing. This requires a ton of DLL work to implement, sadly, but what I liked about the Orbis modmod is it splitting religions into proper religions and cults (putting the council of Esus into cult status), using Beyond the Sword's Espionage and Corporation Mechanics, and its more comprehensive civic system. The civic style can be ported easily (I can probably do it pretty fast), but the other stuff? I'd kill for all that.
2. Another DLL-intensive mechanic I'd like would be the gradual terrain/feature change mechanic from Ashes of Erebus. Seeing Grassland gradually change to Tundra and then to Snow as the Illians makes the effort look more organic than that sudden change that occurs currently. This would also benefit Fellowship civs, with their forests turning Ancient not by chance but gradually and deliberately, and the Hell Terrain mechanic showing a corruption that seeps into Erebus slowly and menacingly instead of just "happening". Better load up those Life mages...

I'm sure I have more to add on, but this is as much as I could think of at the writing of this post. You're free to take into consideration or discard what I've written depending on what you feel fits into the mod; I'm only suggesting things, not dictating them. Maybe you'll find something useful in my ramblings for you to use or implement. In the meantime, I'll be playing more of your modmod, mess around with my copy of it to make it suit my tastes, and even try and polish it as much as I can. If you're willing, I can share any changes I do to my copy so you can integrate or discard them at your discretion. Keep up the good work, you're doing God's work. Or the One's work. Up to you .

 

[lfgr]

(the abundance spell in the civilopedia doesn't get you to the building, it keeps you stuck there until you go manually)

This is a bts problem, the links are by description ("Abundance"), not id ("BUILDING_ABUNDANCE"). Fixing this in all cases would be quite some work, unfortunately.

 

[GreedyManul]

This is a bts problem, the links are by description ("Abundance"), not id ("BUILDING_ABUNDANCE"). Fixing this in all cases would be quite some work, unfortunately.

Oof, thanks for bringing that to light. Guess it's another "pipe dream", as it seems to be DLL-bound.

 

[GreedyManul]

Well, the Calabim game is now finished. Conquest victory, only other civs were the Elohim and Grigori, my session's Erebus is now in a nightmare scenario, one of many that actually came to fruition, and one of the worst ones imo. The Illians really shouldn't have started cooling the world; without that annoyance, I wouldn't feel the need to purge the entirety of Erebus, leaving only my vassals intact. Armageddon counter rests at 19, and will only fall from there post-victory. No entrance for you, Infernals!

This became possible thanks to the 3 MVPs of this playthrough:

1. Hemah - Without him, his 6 ultra strong water elementals, and utterly OP warp bubbles (Dimensional III is on a whole different league from other rank III spells), I wouldn't even be able to start purging the world of all rivals. Him consuming every city he razes, stacking every promotion imaginable, and eventually becoming a lich demands a tale of him becoming the 3rd most powerful person in the Calabim empire, right beside his benefactors, Alexis and Flauros. Not bad for an affective dreamer from humble origins. Hemah receives the "Holy Cow!" award for him single-handedly erasing 5 civilizations from existence, their souls denied a place in any Vault but the one called "Hemah's Stomach".
   
2. The Goblin Slaying Bloodpets turned Eidola - From the most humble of origins to the 4th and 5th most powerful people in the Calabim Empire, they're an inspirational tale of surviving the odds as the most abused of fodder, becoming Moroi and then Vampires, and finally becoming ultra-powerful Eidola, the left and right hands of the vampire siblings before Hemah subordinated them in rank and sheer power. They receive the "Inspirational Tale" award for surviving the impossible and showing that the Calabim don't care how you started off, but how high you're able to rise up to in the end. Can you believe Goblin Slayer #1 was accused of being impersonated by a Changeling when he was a Moroi?
   
3. Losha Valas in the form of 7 Heroic Fire Elementals - In retrospect, poor Losha should've been more careful with that infernal grimoire, but without that mistake, we wouldn't have 7 permanent Heroic Fire Elementals occupying ranks 6-12 in the Calabim hierarchy, ready to slag the souls of anything too powerful for the common folk, but not so important as to warrant the attention of the Eidola or Hemah. She receives the "Happy Accident" award for picking herself back up after splittting into 7 pieces of pure Fire, and pulling the grunt alongside Hemah in burning up every poor soul that stood her way.

Spoiler Post-game fanfiction summary :

In the end? Outside the Elohim and Grigori, who are left to their own devices, the Calabim control every piece of the civilized world. Every other civilization has been sucked up by either Hemah or the Eidola, the Grigori are left alone to be the most blasphemous of heathens, and the Elohim can only try their best in doing some good where the Calabim don't bother being at. Soul flow towards the vaults starts slowing down massively, as the Calabim harvest them in an industrial fashion and leaving all the Gods, good or evil, with just scraps. Not wanting any rogue elements disrupting this cozy peace, Hemah and the two Eidola are sent to Arawn's realm to make Laroth "disappear", this newly established status quo violently defended at all costs. Erebus eventually settles to an era of unprecedented peace, stability, and calm, the Elohim eventually accepting the omnipotence of the Calabim and relegating to doing whatever they can to assuage the suffering of others, and the Grigori being, well, themselves.

Brigit probably gets freed by the Elohim at some unspecified point in the future and claims the sphere of Fire, reverting it to its pure form, but not before deciding to lead the poor Elohim in a violent crusade against Calabim oppression. Being an Archangel, I'd bet tons of gold on Brigit winning this altercation and making true on her desire to get the Fire sphere before Bhall does so.

Poor Ethne probably starts having spells of depression because of this state of affairs, with Cassiel being a shoulder to lean on and making sure she doesn't fall into abject despair. Speaking of Cassiel, the gods being starved of puppets to command is a small solace for the utter inhumanity the Calabim commit on a daily basis, showing him that the only difference between the most depraved of fallen gods and humans is that the former simply had more time to fall to where they were. Eventually, he decides enough is enough and urges Ethne to send Valin Phanuel to free Brigit from her prison. The former vassals, now closest allies, with Brigit as Erebus's greatest instrument of fiery sterilization, eventually tear down the Calabim empire piece by piece, destroying any and all vampires they come across and presenting themselves as liberators to the abused commoners. With Hemah and the Eidola too busy with Laroth to take down the Elohim-Grigori-Brigit alliance, and the 7 Fire Elementals being wrestled to Brigit's command, Erebus is eventually inherited by the meek. The Elohim do the best to assuage the tortured psyches of the now free Calabim commoners, and Cassiel is slowly able to convince Brigit on how divine meddling in the affairs of men brings only dependence and harm.

The Calabim may have been able to conquer the world, but them vassalizing instead of annihilating the Elohim and Grigori proved to be their undoing. After this age of man-made despair, Elohim compassion and mercy and Grigori self-empowerment fuse to usher an age of prosperity, enlightenment, and self-determination. Ethne and Cassiel become inseparable partners, and eventually relegate themselves to guiding from a distance, to make sure humanity won't stray from their path.

That is, until Hemah and the Eidola arrive. If they don't get stamped out as soon as they come back, things will turn ugly. The Grigori would probably provision for such an eventuality though. And with the Luonnotar on their side? Yeah, they have this in the bag.

I included the save file and replay from the finished session. Difficulty was Noble. I'm still impressed at how insane things can get in FFH2; you don't get this sort of thing in any other mod that I know of.

Oh yeah, I forgot 2 things of note observation/suggestion-wise:

1. Observation: Too many civilizations have the same nationality voice lines, with Arabic being used a lot. It'd be nice if each civ had its own nationality voice-wise to ensure they're more distinct from each other.
2. Suggestion: Hemah being able to dream and cause random effects (like Wonder, in a way) would be a pretty cool thing to implement, and make him more distinct than how he currently is. Right now, he's just an archmage with water/mind affinities, a strength of 7, and a damage randomization effect. Pretty sure it'd take a lot of time to implement, though.

 

[plasmacannon]

Is everyone else's Civlopedia working properly?
On mine, if I click on "Units", it shows only units up until Arquebus. When I click on any of those I don't get the specific unit info.
If I click on "Civilizations" and say go to Elohim and click on Monk, I don't get the Monk picture and info.

 

[lfgr]

Please enable python exception as detailed here. You should get a popup with more information then.

 

[GreedyManul]

Ok, I need something to be explained to me. Why did a Granary spread the Empyrean into my city? As a fyi, I'm playing as the Khazad with Kandros Fir, advanced start.

EDIT 1: Even the Svartalfar have the Empyrean all over their cities, obviously by building Granaries all over.

EDIT 2: Unloading and reloading the mod fixed it. I have no idea what's going on. I guess they're very special granaries blessed by Lugus, because his light helps the plants grow, so might as well have his blessings extend to the buildings storing the harvest too.

 

[lfgr]

I debugged MagisterModMod a bit.

The first assert you reported here is caused by <iMinLevel/> tags, one in the PromotionInfos and three in the UnitInfos XML file. Empty int-tags like this are illegal. In the future, if you encounter the same assert again, try searching for the regular expressions "<i[^>]*/>" and ">\s*</i" (case sensitive), e.g. in Notepad++. I already have an idea on how to improve that assertion message, so these problems might get easier to find at some point.
The second assert is due to the commented out section in the <Units> tag for the Kuriotates in CIV4CivilizationInfos.xml. Civ doesn't take comments inside such tags well, and I unfortunately don't know an easy way to fix it.

@plasmacannon's pedia problem was a MNAI (actually, a vanilla bts) DLL bug and will be fixed in the next release. This might also fix the "getWidgetHelp" python exception.

One last thing I noticed: Your TXT_KEY_VERSION doesn't mention "MagisterModMod", just shows the date of your last release, which looks weird when hovering over the flag in the main interface.