[MOD] MagisterModmod

[Qgqqqqq]

I agree that the free specialists is a little extreme - but that's the case elsewhere as well, and could be addressed differently. The whole point of the Lanun is their economy, unlike the Illians who have powerful units, ritual mechanics, etc. Without coves, Lanun would often prefer to settle inland, which is a little sad.

 

[Natch]

I agree that the free specialists is a little extreme - but that's the case elsewhere as well, and could be addressed differently. The whole point of the Lanun is their economy, unlike the Illians who have powerful units, ritual mechanics, etc. Without coves, Lanun would often prefer to settle inland, which is a little sad.

The Lanun economy is still very strong, though? Land is basically irrelevant to them for anything but production, and the Heron Throne mostly covers that. The AI doesn't handle them as well as it does the Khazad (the AI still doesn't understand naval play too well in general), but for the player I'd say they're in the top three economies even after this change, and were easily number one previously. Honestly, I felt bad playing them before, it was like easy mode.

 

[FireBlaze]

high 2 low is gonna be a lot harder now that you can't just start as the lanun and boom to top score in 50 turns

 

[Septentrion]

It seems like way too many things must Align for Illians to start rolling. Auric is consistently the first AI to die in my games(how on turn 3?). Cold terrain is always a death sentence even for civilizations "native" to it. Recently, I got an Illains AI to live, but then Auric built 3 Fire Nodes and the Eternal flame.

It's a bit confusing for me as a player. The bonuses of the Manas are commutative on happiness, but not food? There was a bit of confused Civpedia searching in that game. I even got a pop-up saying I can build Wormhold, when the cult never spread to my civilization.

 

[FireBlaze]

It seems like way too many things must Align for Illians to start rolling. Auric is consistently the first AI to die in my games(how on turn 3?). Cold terrain is always a death sentence even for civilizations "native" to it. Recently, I got an Illains AI to live, but then Auric built 3 Fire Nodes and the Eternal flame.

It's a bit confusing for me as a player. The bonuses of the Manas are commutative on happiness, but not food? There was a bit of confused Civpedia searching in that game. I even got a pop-up saying I can build Wormhold, when the cult never spread to my civilization.

Blocking Illian AI from Fire/Nature mana at all and locking Auric to New Muldur (at least until he goes insane) would probably help their performance at least a bit, imo

 

[Samson]

locking Auric to New Muldur (at least until he goes insane)

This would really hurt the human though, and I think would make it less fun.

 

[Nothrazim]

It should be possible to implement a check in the event handling Auric's spawn to see if he's going to be controlled by players, and if he's controlled by AI then apply Held to him, or maybe Lair Guardian (i believe the latter lets him cast spells still if i recall).

 

[MagisterCultuum]

The Lanun pirate Cove change is actually an unintentional bug.

I meant to let Pirates Ships build Pirate Ports no matter who owns them, while still letting Lanun Workboats build Pirate Coves that could upgrade to Pirate Harbors and then Pirate Ports.

The problem is that shortly before the release I decided that AI players (of all civs) were spamming way too many Workboats and chose to address this by making Workboats National units, forgetting that the Pirate Cove spell's python prereq contains the lines if isLimitedUnitClass(pCaster.getUnitClassType()):return False.

I had been playing around with letting all Seafaring ships build pirate coves, and added that limit to prevent the Lanun from sacrificing the Black Wind or the Barbarians from sacrificing the Sailor's Dirge. I could have used if isWorldUnitClass(pCaster.getUnitClassType()): to only prevent its used by world units, but I found if isLimitedUnitClass(pCaster.getUnitClassType()): first when looking for another spell prereq from which to copy and paste.

(I switched it back to using the Lanun civ as a prereq instead of the Seafaring promotion because I learned that the AI is hardcoded in the DLL to try to use that spell if it is allowed for that player. The code never checks for other spell prereqs, which meant every player was spamming boats and leaving huge stacks of them on tiles where they thought they could build Coves instead of ever actually using them for fishing boats or whaling boats.)


I should probably remove the free specialists from the Heron Throne and Pirate's Ports. It doesn't really make much sense for an artifact of The Order, even if Falamar and Rhoanna are given the Heron Throne by The Order as a reward for protecting the world from Auric Ascended.



Auric's AI defines has:
<ImprovementWeightModifier>
<ImprovementType>IMPROVEMENT_MANA_FIRE</ImprovementType>
<iWeightModifier>-99</iWeightModifier>
</ImprovementWeightModifier>

I thought that a -99 would block an AI from using it and a -100 would block even human players based on how it worked for ReligionWeightModifiers. I guess it doesn't work like that.

I could block Auric from building the wonders that found other religions, but that might be too much of a nerf.

I guess I could reduce or eliminate the penalties for unfriendly manas from the Throne of Hell shrine.

I'll play around with making the Auric unit start with Lair Guardian for non human players.

 

[Natch]

Locking Auric in the city might be counterproductive. He has very high withdrawal chance currently; what often gets him killed is the fact that he can't withdraw if he's in the city, but as a hero with an affinity tends to be one of the first defenders when it's attacked. Something like the Cloistered effect to keep him at the back of his defense stack could help in that scenario?

The other half of the problem is that New Mulyr can spawn so far from the Illian main holdings, and is generally nothing but a burden due to bad terrain and randomized placement. While the Throne of Hell can evacuate Auric via airlift, the AI doesn't understand that kind of strategy and will want to defend its irreplaceable holy city regardless. Maintenance costs skyrocket due to distance and the number of units that spawn with the city, their economy grinds to a halt, and they'll inevitably get attacked by someone and lose Auric because their actual base of power is far away.

Considering the newer religions that relocate their holy city, I wonder if something similar could be applied to the White Hand? Auric is the literal vessel of the faith, so perhaps he could have an ability to move the holy city status (and/or Throne of Hell) to any White Hand/Illian city he occupies?

Assorted notes from recent games:

• Really love the latest iteration on the Foxmen. The path of Sylph Search > Wanderlust promotion > Vagrant > Adventurer's Guild is just complex enough to feel really rewarding when you finally get set up, and the Light promotion finally feels like it found a good role as a balancing factor on mass-produced Adventurers. My only complaint is that the tech tree for further advancement strays all over the place (Feral Bond, Warhorses, and Theology) but the early benefits are good enough and I suppose it's appropriate for Tali. The random alignment changes also serve as a slight penalty since it means you can't reliably retain council membership.
  
  
• A little sad that the Brotherhood of Wardens and Elohim lost their roundabout synergy of building Wardens of the Meek and then promoting them cheaply into Monks. Monks themselves are a little subpar, but giving them a host of free defensive promotions and possible Spirit Affinity felt like a good reward for chasing the Shrine of Sirona.
  
  
• Some of the older high priests do feel underwhelming after losing Channeling IV, as their affinities don't do anything but buff combat stats and I've never wanted to risk a High Priest in a fight save for the Order+Command builds. Undertow probably has it the worst as the others had or got better Divine II spells, but Krakens are just underwhelming summons and Inundation felt more like their true capstone with its Undertow-specific drowning mechanic. It feels weird that both Mind and Water Affinity now have Channeling IV spells that seem designed exclusively around Hemah, as opposed to Trenton and Perpentach.
  
  
• The Barbarians seem to spawn disciples of various religions and then use them to spread religion and found holy Barbarian cities, which is really wacky. In my latest game they somehow kept spawning Techtons and building Artificeries, with Hyol becoming the holy city of a goodly faith. I also spotted a Barb Corporal of Aeron at one point but killed it before it could find a city.
  
  
• I may be the only person to notice it, but I like the changes to favorite civic and favorite wonder on some leaders, as I always try to follow the leader's preferences as a personal rule. Together with more wonders being shrines, a lot of leaders now have clear religious preference! I do wonder about the Bannor though; I can see Capria (Aquae Sucellus) turning to the Unblemished at some point, but surely Sabathiel (Temple of Temporance) would never stray from Junil?

 

[Septentrion]

Okay, I admit that I didn't play attention to which fire nodes were built by the Illians, but I thought maybe 1 was originally fire, but I think all 3 may have been from Clan lands. Eternal fire was definitely Auric, and somehow the Clan didn't build it. It was a very implausible game so that may have happened. I think the Amurites may have built them. I might be entirely wrong about those nodes due to unlikely historical circumstances, so my bad if it's not the game engine's fault. I wasn't playing an Erubus map because tundras and ice are much worse starts there.

I was ready to abandon New Mulyr in that game because of the Lanun deathstack I described earlier, but I think I was a bit lucky in RNG to keep it. Abandoning New Mulyr just seems expected.

The lack of Dragon Cult by Divine Essense in that game was disappointing, but I hardly needed a buff. In a previous Calabim game, Wormholds were much more accessible early on. I thought someone more advanced did Stur from Slumber, but when I went on global conquest, no one was nearly as advanced as that. I still don't know how everything works with dragons, and I don't know what happened in the game. Did the barbarians do it?

Speaking of Calabim, Slavery running Decius immediately was able to make(upgrade from slaves) Emyrs after.capturing one Sheaim City. I know the pedia says they are "utterly evil," but feel like all religious unit should expect some commitment to their ideology. Poor Amurites did not deserve what was coming for them.

Also, would Dragon Cult be a canonical Plan B for the Illains?

Auric's "conceptual" Metamagic affinity seems like the proper way Metamagic affinity should manifest within the game. It just seems like it should be an exception from the 1 Strength per Mana rule.

Is there a guide to using "Govannon's Ethics?" It seems to have a lot of unwritten rules.

Finding Crown of Akharien in lair will just hands over the game to the player. It needs requirements to be given to a city, and I almost feel like Arcane Lore is a low cost to do so.

 

[Qgqqqqq]

In the pedia, it says Succubi require AV to build, despite starting with a different religion. Bug?

 

[Nothrazim]

I agree with the points above that if Letum Frigus spawns far away from the Illians, it usually means they become devastated when The White Hand completes.
I'd also like to mention the Throne of Hell and Temple of the Hand still gives bonus specialists if Letum Frigus is near, which is impossible now as it transforms into New Mulyr, and even if you raze it (to transform it back into Letum Frigus) the city-prohibition near it prevents you from gaining those specialists anyway.

I still believe locking Auric in a city is the best way to handle his suicidal tendencies, and either slap Cloistered on him if he's an AI or give him a smaller flat penalty to city defense to make it more likely other units defend first (after all, they should die for their god-king). The Channeling promotion(s) alone aren't enough to discourage him defending due to his high strength when he gets going with Combat promotions.

I think his huge withdrawal chance isn't enough for the AI to keep him alive; if he's to be allowed free roam out of his cage i think he should be given withdrawal promotions typically unavailable to his unit class to boost it to 100% if that's possible, so he must be cornered to be killed.

Okay, I admit that I didn't play attention to which fire nodes were built by the Illians, but I thought maybe 1 was originally fire, but I think all 3 may have been from Clan lands. Eternal fire was definitely Auric, and somehow the Clan didn't build it. It was a very implausible game so that may have happened. I think the Amurites may have built them. I might be entirely wrong about those nodes due to unlikely historical circumstances, so my bad if it's not the game engine's fault. I wasn't playing an Erubus map because tundras and ice are much worse starts there.

I can't recall an instance of having seen Auric build a fire node from raw mana, but i do know he will build nodes on existing sources.

The lack of Dragon Cult by Divine Essense in that game was disappointing, but I hardly needed a buff. In a previous Calabim game, Wyrmholds were much more accessible early on. I thought someone more advanced did Stur from Slumber, but when I went on global conquest, no one was nearly as advanced as that. I still don't know how everything works with dragons, and I don't know what happened in the game. Did the barbarians do it?

The barbarians nearly always get the Wyrmhold via Acheron's spawning, but now that you mention it i don't know how if it's possible to found the religion if you don't have the cult pre-established (or happen to play as Tebyrn, Cardith Lorda and/or Kuriotates). I am unsure if you can get Dragon Fanatics via lair exploration, as i've personally always just conquered Acheron's city or waited for the Cult to spread to one of my cities (to then build my own Fanatics).

Also, would Dragon Cult be a canonical Plan B for the Illains?

Well, mechanically Winter Dragons still require White Hand state religion (although Drifa actually doesn't), but if you mean from a lore perspective i can't help but think they would still continue to worship Mulcarn / Auric after his death. An Illian society without winter worship wouldn't really be Illian, i feel like. After all, Mulcarn died and Winter found a new host in Auric; what's to say a new inheritor won't arise again?
Still, if you mean other religions to adopt in-game, only the original 7 have blocked features. They can even adopt Ember Legion without issue, hilariously enough.[/QUOTE]

 

[Natch]

The lack of Dragon Cult by Divine Essense in that game was disappointing, but I hardly needed a buff. In a previous Calabim game, Wormholds were much more accessible early on. I thought someone more advanced did Stur from Slumber, but when I went on global conquest, no one was nearly as advanced as that. I still don't know how everything works with dragons, and I don't know what happened in the game. Did the barbarians do it?

The barbarians nearly always get the Wyrmhold via Acheron's spawning, but now that you mention it i don't know how if it's possible to found the religion if you don't have the cult pre-established (or happen to play as Tebyrn, Cardith Lorda and/or Kuriotates). I am unsure if you can get Dragon Fanatics via lair exploration, as i've personally always just conquered Acheron's city or waited for the Cult to spread to one of my cities (to then build my own Fanatics).

The current mechanic is that Acheron's Wyrmhold is just a Barbarian-specific wonder which a random Barbarian city will slowly build. Once it's built, that city founds the Cult and can start slowly building Acheron. If the city is taken before the Wyrmhold is finished, progress is just lost and the Barbs will start over building it somewhere else, but it's possible for the Cult to be delayed indefinitely if they just keep losing cities. If it's taken between the Wyrmhold's completion and Acheron's completion, then Acheron can never be built unless the Barbs take the Wyrmhold back, but the Cult can start spreading via the trade networks of whoever captured it.

Dragon Fanatics can spawn out of lairs if the exploring player has Mysticism, and potentially early enough that you could found the Holy City yourself, though they are Rebellious so you'd have to hurry and evangelize before they go barbarian. Acheron doesn't require the Holy City, but the unique Barb disciple units do. Tebryn and Cardith get free fanatics later, but Acheron's Wyrmhold will almost always be built before they hit Fanaticism. Cardith will just steal the holy city status when he casts Legends.

Is there a guide to using "Govannon's Ethics?" It seems to have a lot of unwritten rules.

Basically if you have non-affinity spell sphere promotions on Govannon, he has a percent chance to spread them to other eligible units on his tile every turn. Speaking of which, another game note:

• The Magister Cultuum Great Sage doesn't seem to work as intended anymore. Previously his Channeling I and passive XP gain would let him take casting promotions to then spread with Govannon's Ethics, but now that all GPs start at level 6, he needs 37 XP to learn a single spell. He can spend what little XP he gets to cast the Laeran Cord Research spell, but that just makes the other problem worse.

 

[FireBlaze]

Is there a world spell for the Balseraphs anymore now that Revelry got moved to a Foxmen specific spell?

 

[Nothrazim]

No, they lost their world spell. The only civs that retain their world spells in this version are the Calabim, Clan, Doviello, Grigori, Hippus*, Khazad**, Kuriotates, Malakim and Sidar.
If there's a new world spell to replace those lost, i haven't found them in civilopedia or in play.

* Hippus' old spell, Warcry, is now a Sons of Discord world spell. Their new world spell (Muster Mercenaries) converts all rival mercenaries to you.
** As with Hippus, Khazad's world spell became a Runes of Kilmorph world spell. Their new world spell is Delve to the Underhome, which gives your Dwarves Mountaineer (a bit underwhelming of a spell in my opinion, especially if you go for Runes).

Minor note also, Raging Seas (formerly Lanun world spell, now Undertow) still references non-Lanun units instead of non-Undertow units (or maybe non-Undertow units of rival civs?)

 

[Qgqqqqq]

Been playing around as Sandalphon and I've found the Eternal Cabal quite underwhelming - silkies don't seem to have a special ability, the neutral hero is quite weak, the religion doesn't give any boost from state religion (perhaps subtract 1 science from the Sidar palace, and give the religion plus 1 beaker for each city it's in with state religion?), the undertaker spell seems worse than the death ii spell (sidenote, should the Sidar/Eternal Cabal civs really get penalties from using death mana?), and graves whilst nice do just mean my neighbours send explorers marching in (perhaps make it so they can't be explored by non-hostile units in eternal cabal land, or if they're hallowed?).

Also, the AI weight on The Slyph Search seems really low, considering how cheap it is. Perhaps increase it?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Shortly after the last release I made it so that all the great persons (now including great commanders) start with as much xp as your units would normally have to earn to be promoted up to level 6.

I made the barbarian state have NONE as a UU for the new disciples like it did for the old ones, so that should stop the weird disciple/priest spawning. I increased the tech prereq for finding the Crown of Akharien.




The main special ability of the Silkies is that they are naturally immortal units, and are available a lot sooner than other immortals.



Khalida the Suicidal may start out weak but she too is naturally immortal and she becomes stronger every time she dies and is reborn. I've had games where I managed to kill her often enough that her power almost rivaled Auric Ascended.


I've been thinking of switching the prerequisites of the Hallow Grave and Halt Undead spells, so that the current Undertaker spell would instead be Death 1 and only the Eternal Cabal can let you Hallow Graves. (Life 1 sanctify could still add hallowed ground to an existing graveyard, but the Hallow Grave spell does that plus creates graveyards on sites of ruins, city ruins, barrows, etc.)

I may also make it so that trying to rob a Graveyard with Hallowed would usually or always causes hostile Tomb Wardens arise to defend it, and so that a hallowed grave in territory of a player with the Eternal Cabal state religion would belong to that player instead of the barbarians.

I don't know that the AI should be weighted too much towards building the Slyph Search wonder since it does not stay put in that city and may quickly move on to belong to a rival.





I still need to go through the process of adjusting all of the religion and state religions yields or commerce.

I also still need to rework or rebalance a bunch of world spells. To be honest I use them so rarely that I've considered just getting rid of them entirely.




I didn't mean to keep the Discord civic as a prereq for the Agonists after I let all the other priests be trained in limited numbers without state religion, so I removed that. Mechanically the Agonists's Disrupt spell would need to be cast in a city, which would require being at peace, which is inconvenient when forced into permanent war. I may try changing the spell so that it can be cast on tiles adjacent to the city. I'm considering removing the discord civic altogether just because it is annoying to be forced out of a council and blocked from making peace. Canonically Kael said the religion should make the player always at war though. I could see about other ways to make the state religion block making peace. I think python can set always war or peace, but I definitely don't want to let it get stuck in always peace because of that. It may also cause issues with teams who don't share a state religion. I could make the state religion just force declaration of war on someone whenever the player is at peace with everyone. It might be more chaotic to be able to make peace with one player only to immediately start a new conflict with a former ally.

I'm not sure it is worth keeping the Grey Council civic either, now that the religion actually has priests with spells.

I'm thinking that one priest per temple of a religion may be better than one priest per city that has the religion present in it. The easy way to code this is to check for the unit's building prereq, but that could cause some complications for the Laeran Cord. Currently Scribes and Saperes require Libraries instead of Archives, because I figured the Cloistered promotion for all arcane.disciple units in the city is too strong a bonus to allow that building to be constructed without a state religion. The Doviello cannot build Libraries. I'm not quite sure at the moment whether that would make them unable to train Laeran Cord priests or let them train them without limit. I guess I could change the Archive to act more like a normal temple if I also changed Cloistered to be granted by an ability that requires an Archive and Laeran Cord state religion instead of being granted automatically. That might make more micromanagement, but since the promotion does decrease the unit's defensive fighting ability maybe applying it to everyone is too much anyway.



I had thought that 10/10/2021 looked like a good one for another modest mod update, but I've been busy enough with work that I'll probably need more time than that.

 

[Qgqqqqq]

The main special ability of the Silkies is that they are naturally immortal units, and are available a lot sooner than other immortals.



Khalida the Suicidal may start out weak but she too is naturally immortal and she becomes stronger every time she dies and is reborn. I've had games where I managed to kill her often enough that her power almost rivaled Auric Ascended.

Oh, that's really cool. Could we get that in the civilopedia?

Actually, I'd be happy to write up some civolopedia articles, if it would help.

(Also, the Crown of Akharien promotion is missing).


I agree re the Grey Council not serving much purpose, though I haven't tried it.

I may also make it so that trying to rob a Graveyard with Hallowed would usually or always causes hostile Tomb Wardens arise to defend it, and so that a hallowed grave in territory of a player with the Eternal Cabal state religion would belong to that player instead of the barbarians

I like the Hallow changes, but I don't think this solves the issue of well meaning allies exploring your graveyards. Perhaps if they spawned on your team and with hidden nationality (also, if they were unlikely to be destroyed by the exploration?).

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Tomb Wardens from grave robbing start with HN anyway as barbarians, lest they be no threat to barbarian trait players, so I might as well keep it when I give them to an Eternal Cabal state religion plot owner.

I'm thinking it may make the most sense to make Rob Grave a <bCausesWar>1</bCausesWar> spell. You could then still use it in your own team or in neutral territory, but using it in anyone else's territory would cause a war with the owner if you are not already at war with them. It would get a warning popup and I think the AI would be hesitant to use it when not already at war.

 

[Natch]

I think the Grey Council just really needs documentation if it's staying in. Player can learn what Overcouncil and Undercouncil can vote on from their 'pedia entries, but the Grey has no information beyond unhappiness from every single religion and is way too deep in the tech tree to 'toy around'. The AI isn't remotely as interested in building the Temple of Temporance as founding the Empyrean or Council, so it doesn't just happen to switch on at a certain point like the other councils do.

Wacky happenstance in a game this morning: a Kuriotate Warrior becoming an Aspect of War pre-turn-20 by way of the random mutation event. I'm guessing that one shouldn't be on the list of random promotions (maybe for units 'born' with Mutated like Freaks, but even then).

On that note however, any plans to add the two missing Aspects of War? Arak is probably too big a deal for anything but a unique unit (Shadow+Sun Affinity and Cannot Cast Spells?), but I'm imagining Surder as a Great Commander starting with Aspect and Cloistered/Pacified, similar to how Waldrun shows up Blind. Spawning him Held in a cage or Committed to Asylum would be cute but probably more trouble than it's worth.

Thinking about that promotion, and how it's made Orthus a little more threatening, had me wondering if the Unraveling should likewise have a shared promotion to indicate their connection. We've got the full set of aspects for Camulos, Esus, Bhall... one for Mammon, I assume Mulcarn's are gone (or is that what Aquilans are?).

The Horsemen have always suffered from a tendency to ram themselves into deathstacks and die of attrition, and along with Abaddon and Apophis are a little underwhelming for how much effort and luck are needed to acquire them (compared to the archangels or Imprimaturs at similar difficulty). Perhaps they could share an automatic Defile/pillage ability similar to Auric's automatic Snowfall, spreading Hell terrain and destroying improvements wherever they go, and thus benefiting from Demon racial bonuses. Letting them all heal on the move would help survivability, a cannibalize effect might be too much?

Meshabber is probably fine? I might suggest giving him Divine II but that's entirely based on playing Hyborem briefly. Using Hellfire to force a slow advance of Hell terrain pairs with Compact-Bound demons in a fun way. [edit: On looking back through some posts, is it correct for Meshabber to be bound, since Aspects are outside of the Compact, or did the Unraveling lose Aspect status when taken from Amathaon?]

On a last note, very fond of the alternate founding paths for certain religions, and the general use of unit religion on civ-specific units. I was concerned with the difficulty of elves getting access to druids/Vitalize anymore, since Construction and Sanitation are kinda do-nothing techs for them, until I realized Fyrdwells can build Groves and thus backdoor the Ljos into the Unblemished. I would suggest that basic Vitalize shouldn't require state religion. Svarts are left out but, well, that's what they get for abandoning Sucellus.

Perhaps something similar could be done for the dwarves and Mammon? I admit I've never understood what's going on with Duergar being Luchuirp-specific and largely identical to Rentiers. If anything the Khazad under Kandros seem much more prone to Mammon's corruption than the Luchuirp, being a neutral race and even mechanically obsessed with gold, whereas Garrim Gyr explicitly rejected Mammon and Beeri would presumably have some bias against after dealing with Balseraphs.