[MOD] MagisterModmod

[Conqistador]

Giving Hannah a research bonus towards OO certainly seems to fit from a lore standpoint, but the Lanun already start with Fishing so they are just 3 techs (Ancient chants, Mysticism and Messages itself) from getting that religion. Every other civ is at least 4 techs away, so Hannah doesn't really need it imo.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I'm not really sure how to make the AI not value the Rights of Oghma so much. I guess I could give it a world or team limit, but I do want it to be repeatable at least a couple times.


I think I'll still give Hannah the research bonus, but only make it 10 point instead of 100.

---------

For the past few days I've been playing around with trying to make my own artwork for my mod. I have not been able to get blender to work at all and have no clue where to start at making either models or animations, but I have discovered how to reskin units in Gimp and how to move or remove meshes in Nifskope. I'm still very much a novice, but some of the results aren't too bad.


I thought I'd take the opportunity to give you a sneak peak of the new unit graphics that should be appearing in my next release.

 

[Diavolo Rosso]

sweet! looks good so far

 

[sunbeam]

I'm curious about the Infernals. As nearly as I can gather multiple civs can summon them now right?

What kind of bugs me is that quite often they show up next to each other. I had a Kuriotates game where three of them showed up on my borders and set up cities all right next to each other.

I've seen them split up, but quite often they seem to like each others company.

 

[Acrux]

I want to love this mod. I really do. And for the most part, I think it's terrific. It's just what I've wanted in FFH2, especially how closely it's tied to the lore.

But I'm consistently having problems keeping up with the AI. They are out-teching me, out-growing me, and out-militarizing me consistently. They have multiple large cities, while I'm just starting my second. I even tried lowering the difficulty down to Chieftain (from Noble) just to see if that would help. It didn't. (Yes, I'm publicly exposing my shame...)

Is there a way I can adjust down the AI bonuses in the XML? I've always played CIV4 on Noble because I like the fairness (cough) of neither the player or AI having extensive production bonuses. Except for this issue, this is overwhelmingly my mod of choice.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I'm curious about the Infernals. As nearly as I can gather multiple civs can summon them now right?

What kind of bugs me is that quite often they show up next to each other. I had a Kuriotates game where three of them showed up on my borders and set up cities all right next to each other.

I've seen them split up, but quite often they seem to like each others company.

The ritual can be performed a maximum of 7 times (once for each demon lord), with each team (not just the player, but also his permanent allies) able to perform it a maximum of three times. For all the demon lords to enter Erebus players from 3 different teams must use the ritual. Infernal players cannot perform the rituals. The ritual requires the Ashen Veil religion present in it. The AI will nor perform the ritual unless it has the Ashen Veil state religion, but human player can. (Actually in the versions released so far the Sheaim AI could perform it regardless of state religion, but I decided to change that for the next version.) It will make the player who performs it evil if they are not already. It also grants peace with the barbarians, and a diplomatic bonus, defensive pact, open borders, and embassy with the demon lord that enters as a result of the ritual.


Are the Infernal leaders that are appearing too close together taking over cities, or appearing in the wilderness?

The Infernals take over a city if the can. The city taken will be the best (determined by population, buildings, wonders, culture, number of improved tiles, and holy city status) city that has the Ashen Veil religion present in it that is not anyone's capital and does not belong to the player who summoned the demon lord. It is possible that the Infernals are starting close together simply because the Ashen Veil religion has not been spread far enough abroad.

I just now decided to make it so that cities belonging to player with the Ashen Veil state religion are far less likely to be chosen. If the demon lords keep taking over cities belonging to the same AV player then this should help spread them out.


If they are entering without a city, then the plot chosen is determined about the same way as they are in vanilla FfH2. Here the biggest issue is probably that there are not many unowned tiles in other parts of the map.

I just decided to change it so that the distance away from each existing Infernal capital city is added to the value that is used in determining the best plot for the Infernals entering the world this way. That should help space them out, provided that they are not summoned so close to the same time that one does not have time to build a city before the other arrives.

(I just recently discovered the CyMap().calculatePathDistance(pPlot1,pPlot2) function. It has proven quite helpful in making sure that Portals generated by the lair exploration result tend to be useful, leading to hard to reach locations rather than just a few tiles away.)

I want to love this mod. I really do. And for the most part, I think it's terrific. It's just what I've wanted in FFH2, especially how closely it's tied to the lore.

But I'm consistently having problems keeping up with the AI. They are out-teching me, out-growing me, and out-militarizing me consistently. They have multiple large cities, while I'm just starting my second. I even tried lowering the difficulty down to Chieftain (from Noble) just to see if that would help. It didn't. (Yes, I'm publicly exposing my shame...)

Is there a way I can adjust down the AI bonuses in the XML? I've always played CIV4 on Noble because I like the fairness (cough) of neither the player or AI having extensive production bonuses. Except for this issue, this is overwhelmingly my mod of choice.

You can adjust the AI bonuses by editing C:\Program Files (x86)\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Magister Modmod for FfH2\Assets\XML\Gameinfo\CIV4HandicapInfo.xml

I know very little about programming the AI. AI issues should be taken up with Tholal, as I just borrowed the code from More Naval AI. The only changes to the AI which I can recall making personally were having it treat the 3 new mana types the way it was already set up to handle the other 18, and preventing it from assigning a terraforming unit AI to Priests of the Leaves since the prerequisite of the Bloom spell was changed Nature II.

 

[youtien]

I want to love this mod. I really do. And for the most part, I think it's terrific. It's just what I've wanted in FFH2, especially how closely it's tied to the lore.

But I'm consistently having problems keeping up with the AI. They are out-teching me, out-growing me, and out-militarizing me consistently. They have multiple large cities, while I'm just starting my second. I even tried lowering the difficulty down to Chieftain (from Noble) just to see if that would help. It didn't. (Yes, I'm publicly exposing my shame...)

Is there a way I can adjust down the AI bonuses in the XML? I've always played CIV4 on Noble because I like the fairness (cough) of neither the player or AI having extensive production bonuses. Except for this issue, this is overwhelmingly my mod of choice.

I always play on deity. Just turtle until you have some killer tech and high level units, then you'll smash.

The most difficult civ is Bannor, they have no free specialist and no early powerhouse. Nearly all other civs are buffed to imba in someway. Or you can just turtle until you have Ashen Veil. Sacrifice the Weak is the most powerful civic.

 

[sunbeam]

Are the Infernal leaders that are appearing too close together taking over cities, or appearing in the wilderness?

In the wilderness.

This was the only time I've seen three next to each other, though several times I've seen two side by side.

Curiously enough if my memory is correct two of them were at war with one another, though they never seemed to actually do anything about it. My Kuriotate city had solid culture (of course) and one Infernal had a city on a mountain, and the other two were on coastal tiles. None of them had more than a couple of tiles to do anything on.

I kind of doubt they had other cities elsewhere. They pretty much had to go through me, walk through mountains, or go through my territory with a ship to get anywhere.

(These were three "minor" Infernal leaders btw. Hyborem had something by the Sheim elsewhere.)

And I was giving none of them open borders. The only other guy who was close anyway was Charadon, and he was FoL.

Eurabates pretty much wiped out all three infernal civs by himself. The infernal civs were set up in that configuration for about 100 rounds or so before I got Eurabates summoned. His first stop was wiping out Acheron, then he flew down to exterminate the Infernals. I did have a stack and a couple healers to protect him from Infernal counterattack, but I don't think he needed it. One of the infernal civs had a unit that took him to below 30 strength, but I don't remember which it was.

Also maybe the maps I play on contributes to this. I use the Erebus maps, because I like to build and develop before I have to go to war. The Erebus maps seem to do this the best of all those I've tried.

You can get a weird looking map though. Maybe this wouldn't have occurred with another map.

 

[Acrux]

You can adjust the AI bonuses by editing C:\Program Files (x86)\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Magister Modmod for FfH2\Assets\XML\Gameinfo\CIV4HandicapInfo.xml

Perfect, thanks. Exactly what I was looking for.

 

[youtien]

I tried a Sidar game with Duke Sallos (cre/chm/rai).

Now you can get 13 free unit xp with theocracy-sacrifice the weak-apprenticeship-conquest, and you need only 20 xp to lvl 6 for chm leader, which can easily be achieved by Form of Titan(2), command post(2), training yard(1), stable(2). Nox Noctis provides 8 for recon units, which means 1 scout -> shade each turn.

In early-mid game I defeated Amurite warrior+adepts with horsemen, gained 7 or 8 shades, founded OO (Savorous? Be shade after you lv 6, thanks), then AV, then I became imba.

By turn 190 I bulbed strength of the will via infernal grimgore, my archmage learned law III (unyielding order) + creation III(abundence), which means no unhealthiness / unhappiness for up to 9 cities (4 archmage, 4 archmage-turned-shades and 1 lich), I am now beginning tower of mastery(I switched off that victory), after that, I am going to have no limits, my cities can grow as large as I want, with unlimited great merchants.

I'll see how fast can I complete the tech tree and have 5 of each mana type. By the way, I played on Deity.

 

[Rystic]

I'm not really sure how to make the AI not value the Rights of Oghma so much. I guess I could give it a world or team limit, but I do want it to be repeatable at least a couple times.


I think I'll still give Hannah the research bonus, but only make it 10 point instead of 100.

---------

For the past few days I've been playing around with trying to make my own artwork for my mod. I have not been able to get blender to work at all and have no clue where to start at making either models or animations, but I have discovered how to reskin units in Gimp and how to move or remove meshes in Nifskope. I'm still very much a novice, but some of the results aren't too bad.


I thought I'd take the opportunity to give you a sneak peak of the new unit graphics that should be appearing in my next release.

Is there any way you could pass me Juddeca and Lethe before your release? I'm making a new TweakMod with updated graphics, and I could really use those two to help cover some placeholders.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I suppose I could pass you that art before my release, but I'd rather just go ahead and release the whole thing tonight.

I thought I could have it up by now, but I've run into a bit of a problem. This forum will not let me post .zip or .7z files larger than 10mb. Including the new art work puts the size of my modmod over that limit. (The compressed file structure comes out at around 10.8mb, the installer at about 11.4mb.) I tried to see if compressing the art in a .fpk file would help reduce the size, but it did not (except when I forgot to click Store Full Paths, but I might as well just not include the art for all the good that does.)

I think I need to find another way to host my modmod. What would you suggest?

 

[magzhi]

I think I need to find another way to host my modmod. What would you suggest?

you can divide files.
Make an archive of core files(xml and stuff)
And make an archive of graphics.
This way they are gonna be small enough (probably )

 

[scutarii]

I do not want piece by piece downloads, if possible.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I just made an account at Game Front so that I could upload by modmod there. You may download the files here.


(It seems that I accidentally made a typo in my user name, so there I am called MagicterCultuum instead of MagisterCultuum as I intended. It won't let me change my user name, and I don't feel like making a new email address just so that I can make another account without the typo.)


I put the new art in an fpk file since I read that it makes the game run faster. Those who want to borrow the art can extract it with PakBuild. It is not nearly as large as FfH2's Pak0.FPK, so extracting the art shouldn't take long.

 

[dejancrn]

I'm not able to rebase hawk either to other cities or hunters. Is this a bug?

 

[mcwill123]

Might I suggest once per civilization? Once mana nodes start popping up every few turns the game becomes a joke. I really do like the mod otherwise.

I'm not really sure how to make the AI not value the Rights of Oghma so much. I guess I could give it a world or team limit, but I do want it to be repeatable at least a couple times.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

It should be possible to rebase hawks to other cities, if they are close enough. I'm thinking that there has been an issue preventing you from rebasing birds to hunters since FfH2 moved to BtS. You should still be able to load them while both units are in a city though.



It looks like you cannot limit rituals to a certain number of times per civilization/player, only per team or overall.

In my last release I allow it a maximum of 3 times per team, 21 times overall. I'll see how well that works before limiting it more strictly.


I've noticed that the number of downloads of the attachments to the opening post seems to have increased significantly, but there have been only 19 downloads of the files posted on gamefront. I hope people are not confused, thinking that the attachments are the latest version. I had intended to take down the July 15 version, but forgot. I suppose that some people might want access to it to join multiplayer games already in progress anyway though.

 

[sunbeam]

The ratmen and lamias for the Kuriotates have normal human graphics.

Have I messed up the install? Or is this intended?

The verson from your Gamefront post, a couple entries up on this page.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I switched from using unique units for the Lamias and Mustevals to instead just using unique artstyles determined by their racial promotions.

I added a bit of python code to add the proper races to Kuriotates arcane and recon units (except world units) when they are built rather than when they are created, because I did not want the units that were dominated or otherwise captured to change their race.

It seems I forgot about changing the races of the units granted in the start of the game, granted from tribal villages, hired as mercenaries, built by Decius in cities captured from the Kuriotates, etc.

I just noticed that in CIV4UnitArtStyleTypeInfos.xml I accidentally wrote UNIT_ARTSTYLE_SERPENTINEL instead of UNIT_ARTSTYLE_SERPENTINE, which is preventing arcane units with the Semi-Serpentine promotion from using the Lamia artwork as they should. Recon units granted the Musteval promotion still switch to the appropriate art.

I also just noticed that in onUnitBuilt I accidentally put unit.setHasPromotion(gc.getInfoTypeForString('PROMOTION_MUSTEVAL')) and
unit.setHasPromotion(gc.getInfoTypeForString('PROMOTION_SERPENTINE')) instead of unit.setHasPromotion(gc.getInfoTypeForString('PROMOTION_MUSTEVAL'), True) and
unit.setHasPromotion(gc.getInfoTypeForString('PROMOTION_SERPENTINE'), True). This prevents the units from being given the proper racial promotions, and causes python exceptions.



I'm thinking that it may be best to just go back to having Lamia and Musteval UUs in my next release.