[MOD] MagisterModmod

[Akbarthegreat]

Wow. The peace thing sure is awesome. I've already picked up a decent score lead with the Elohim after 120 turns due to 2 unique features near my capital.

Something that I always forgot to mention earlier:
I've always found the constellation events rather weird. As in if I'm following the Order, and so is my neighbour, why am I the only one getting a golden age with the Shield of Junil event? I really think these events should be made world wide, so all players with a certain religion may get a golden age when a favourable constellation is seen.

 

[Qgqqqqq]

Do the peace spells enforce peace (for 10t or less) or do they simply restore it.

 

[Akbarthegreat]

Will you be merging the new version of MNAI with your mod?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Wow. The peace thing sure is awesome. I've already picked up a decent score lead with the Elohim after 120 turns due to 2 unique features near my capital.

Something that I always forgot to mention earlier:
I've always found the constellation events rather weird. As in if I'm following the Order, and so is my neighbour, why am I the only one getting a golden age with the Shield of Junil event? I really think these events should be made world wide, so all players with a certain religion may get a golden age when a favourable constellation is seen.

I agree, but am not sure how to go about doing that.

The way event work is a bit confusing.

I could pretty easily make the choice of the player who got the event apply to all of the other players, but am much less sure about triggering it for all of the players.

I guess I could make the event callbacks trigger the event for the next player, but it seems like it would be inefficient and likely lead to infinite loops.

The easiest way to make sure that everyone gets them on the same turn might just be to remove the randomness completely. I could use python to make a certain event always occur when the turn number is divisible by some factor (or has some remainder when divided by some factor), which could be modified by game speed. Other limits could be added too, so for instance the constellation might not show up to waste the time of a player who could not do anything about it. It might be boring to have the same pattern recur during all games though.

Do the peace spells enforce peace (for 10t or less) or do they simply restore it.

I could have sworn that I set it so that peace would be enforced for a number of turns equal to the unit' level, but that sure is not how the code looks.

I just tested and it does not seem like anything prevents you from declaring war immediately.

Will you be merging the new version of MNAI with your mod?

I thought I had the newest version. Was there an update?

Edit: I see it now.

(I wish he told me just before the release, because I believe I made a couple more improvements to the World Builder since the last time I shared it with him.)

I am downloading it as I type this.

I'll try to start the merge tomorrow.

If my father doesn't feel better in the morning than he did tonight, I might be too busy taking him to the ER though.

There is also a possible job lead with whom I ought to try to set up a meeting.

I cannot guarantee that this merge will be as quick as the last one, but I except I can get you something within a week.

 

[Akbarthegreat]

If my father doesn't feel better in the morning than he did tonight, I might be too busy taking him to the ER though.

There is also a possible job lead with whom I ought to try to set up a meeting.

I cannot guarantee that this merge will be as quick as the last one, but I except I can get you something within a week.

I wish your father all the best, and hope he recovers soon.

 

[lfgr]

The way event work is a bit confusing.

I could pretty easily make the choice of the player who got the event apply to all of the other players, but am much less sure about triggering it for all of the players.

I guess I could make the event callbacks trigger the event for the next player, but it seems like it would be inefficient and likely lead to infinite loops.

The easiest way to make sure that everyone gets them on the same turn might just be to remove the randomness completely. I could use python to make a certain event always occur when the turn number is divisible by some factor (or has some remainder when divided by some factor), which could be modified by game speed. Other limits could be added too, so for instance the constellation might not show up to waste the time of a player who could not do anything about it. It might be boring to have the same pattern recur during all games though.

Did you try <bGlobal>1</bGlobal> (see here)?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I wish your father all the best, and hope he recovers soon.

He is feeling much better today.

Did you try <bGlobal>1</bGlobal> (see here)?

I tried it, and found that it did not make the event popups appear to each player and give them the ability to choose a golden age, disciple, or anything else.

Instead it made the python callbacks of the events apply to every player. I first suspected this when I saw that the Mulcarn sign event seemed to create more Tundra than usual. It became obvious during my current game (testing The Lord of the Balors) in which the Amathaon constellation event created a dozen new sources of Creation mana instead of only one. (Since I made it so that Creation mana is not valid on hell terrain, all of the resources appeared in the narrow strip below the mountain range.)

 

[MagisterCultuum]

This merge was quicker and easier than I expected.

You may download the Installer here or the Archive here.

 

[Akbarthegreat]

Yay!
Away from my PC now though, I'll have to download it later.
EDIT: D/Led it, will start a game tomorrow.

 

[Acrux]

I notice that although the installer is about the same size as previously (~25 MB), the total size of the unpacked files is much larger than before (about 840 MB). Is there a large difference in content that would lead to that increase?

 

[Akbarthegreat]

Something I noticed earlier : you removed vampires, why is that?
Also another thing: If I want to switch to Basium, how can I take a city from my parent empire? Or will I be better off leaving some space to found Bourne the Gleaming?

 

[Akbarthegreat]

Did you change anything much in the scenarios? It's been a long time since I've played them, so I'm planning to play them again. (Also I know much more about the lore now than I did then).

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I don't think there were any very significant changes in the scenarios.

I did not edit any of the scenario files themselves.

In the ScenarioFunctions.py I switched some things to a more consistent style, but that should not effect game-play. In the process I found and fixed a couple of very minor bugs in that file, which could effect the scenarios in some games but usually would not.

(A also added a few lines of code that Qgqqqqq wanted which would make Infernal units in The Lord of the Balors return as Manes, but commented them out so they won't matter to anyone who doesn't really want to try making that scenario insanely difficult.)


Of course, there were some changes to the regular game do have effects in the scenarios too.

The share maps resolution's mechanism was changed to use changeStolenVisibility count, ( instead of cycling through every tile of the map multiple times to manually change whether tiles are revealed), so in some of the scenarios you may share lines of sights with other Overcouncil players and not experience as much lag between turns as before.

There were some issues with the way I previously made Calabim units with the Empyrean religion abandon their leaders. It was inefficient, and even after I removed the source of a possible OOS issue I found that it seemed like it might be contributing to some AI issues. Empyrean Calabim units may still automatically defect to cities that have the Empyrean religion and are owned by an Empyrean State religion enemy player, if there is not a strong enough Vampiric unit on the tile to prevent this, but they no longer automatically defect to nearby Empyrean units. Instead, the Empyrean player has to actively use Revelation, the Empyrean priest spell, in order to capture the Calabim units of its religion. This can be resisted, but often tends to be more powerful than the old method because it has a larger range and gives the beneficiary more control. This may have an impact on the several scenarios that involve the Calabim and the Empyrean.

I also changed the Feast spell so that it allows the Vampiric unit to go ahead and purchase a promotion as soon as it has enough xp, rather than having to wait for the next turn.

 

[Qgqqqqq]

As someone playing Lord of the Balors currently, you definitely did effect the scenario file (for a start, there are unique improvements and an icy area to the south west).
Speaking of which, why is there 2 copies of the Lord of the Balors scenario (and none of the others) in the relevant folder?

(A also added a few lines of code that Qgqqqqq wanted which would make Infernal units in The Lord of the Balors return as Manes, but commented them out so they won't matter to anyone who doesn't really want to try making that scenario insanely difficult slightly difficult in the late game.)

Do you want a report on how it goes?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I did not make any changes to the scenario files for this release. I don't think I made any changes to those files in the previous version either. I certainly did make changes before that, however, and still included those files in this release.


I do not have multiple version of The Lord of the Balors in my Private Maps folder. I know I played around with multiple versions of that scenario in the past though. I know at least two versions were part of a previous release. I played around a bit with what civilization would fill the empty slot. Eventually I settled on the Elohim, but I think I also released a Grigori version. I had a couple other versions with elven or dwarven civs, but don't think they were ever released.

If you installed a previous version of my modmod and did not delete it before installing the new one, then any files which were formerly included but are no longer would remain unchanged.


Sure, I guess feedback on how the demons' rebirth is going for you could be nice.

After the release I got a little worried that your change could cause serious problems when a demon lord was killed and his units given to another player. Then I remember that he code was place under onUnitKilled rather than onUnitLost, so I think things should be fine.

Now I'm thinking a bigger issue might be related to getting free manes for every summon that is defeated. It also seems odd to get Manes for things like catapults, which would never be living units that could return as manes if they did not already have the demon promotion. I think I probably should have limited it to demon promotion units without limited duration. Since I don't recall whether onUnitKilled works with immortal units, like the Demon Lords themselves, I wonder if I should have excluded world units too. Perhaps the barbarian state should get manes as well, since they are treated like unaligned Infernals in this scenario.

 

[Qgqqqqq]

I did not make any changes to the scenario files for this release. I don't think I made any changes to those files in the previous version either. I certainly did make changes before that, however, and still included those files in this release.

Ah ok, I thought you meant throughout the whole modmod.

I do not have multiple version of The Lord of the Balors in my Private Maps folder. I know I played around with multiple versions of that scenario in the past though. I know at least two versions were part of a previous release. I played around a bit with what civilization would fill the empty slot. Eventually I settled on the Elohim, but I think I also released a Grigori version. I had a couple other versions with elven or dwarven civs, but don't think they were ever released.

If you installed a previous version of my modmod and did not delete it before installing the new one, then any files which were formerly included but are no longer would remain unchanged.

Ah so that's where those came from, pity I deleted them. I'm playing as the Elohim and I think they're perfectly appropriate for the scenario, even if their peace mechanics don't really have a place. I will say that I think the starting Paladin is probably a bit strong - its perfectly possible to take several infernal cities while they have just archers. Some code to encourage the AI to build settlers and expand (especially the infernals) is probably also necessary for a even game.
Restricting the mane production to demon units is likely a smart idea, but it hardly matters given how much they build catapults compared to other units.

 

[Akbarthegreat]

I repeat my earlier question, since I'm planning to play Basium next.

Something I noticed earlier : you removed vampires, why is that?
Also another thing: If I want to switch to Basium, how can I take a city from my parent empire? Or will I be better off leaving some space to found Bourne the Gleaming?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I did not really like the idea of letting the Calabim build so many Vampiric units directly without a more advance tech prereq, since I made the Vampire promotion better than it used to be. (For one thing, the promotion allows access to all 1st and 2nd level spells of the Body, Death, Mind, and Shadow spheres.) It seemed like too much of a nerf to make vampires have a level prereq and thus not let the civ build regular champions. Being able to upgrade any Moroi to a vampire unit reduced the importance of the Moroi's advantage of being able to become vampires at level 4 instead of level 6.

Having both a unit and a promotion both called Vampire caused a bit of confusion in the 'pedia.

The Calabim have a new vampiric UU in my modmod, which replace Royal Guards instead of Champions. Brood Guards still require Aristocracy, which is a thematically appropriate civic for the Calabim but did not fit their mechanics all that well. They do not have as great defensive strength and do not start with Spirit II, but they do have Law I and get Body 1, Mind 1, and Shadow 1 even if you do not have enough of those mana types to get those promotions for free. Their big advantage is of course starting with Vamprism without level prereq. They are also allowed to upgrade to Vampire Lords in addition to Knights and Shadowriders.

----

Basium's Convert City spell lets him take over any city that is owned by a teammate, except for capital cities. The AI will not use it unless Basium has less than half as many cities as does the city owner, or if the city is a mere settlement. Such restrictions do not limit a human controlled Basium taking cities from his AI allies.

The python prereq of this spell also acts like Unyielding Order when Basium is in his own capital city.

I personally tend to prefer to try to capture an enemy city before founding my own capital or taking an ally's city.


If you use the Control Whole Team game option, then you will switch back and forth between playing as Basium and your previous player each turn rather than permanently being switched to being Basium. In this case, you can easily gift your cities to Basium while you are in control of the other teammate. Tholal prevented players from being able to do much diplomacy before they have their first city (in order to prevent newly arisen rebels from having too much diplomacy with other civs), but I got him to remove all such restrictions to diplomacy between members of the same team.


(By the way, I found a minor bug in the Call Mercurian Reinforcements ability after the release. I had added some code to include some of the Mercurian Angel upgrades, instead of merely Angels, of the prerequite technology is known and the units are not maxed out. For some of these I accidentally typed their unitclass instead of their unit type, which makes them point to a completely different unit type. You may thus get a Horseman instead of an Angel of Death.)

 

[Akbarthegreat]

I did not really like the idea of letting the Calabim build so many Vampiric units directly without a more advance tech prereq, since I made the Vampire promotion better than it used to be. (For one thing, the promotion allows access to all 1st and 2nd level spells of the Body, Death, Mind, and Shadow spheres.) It seemed like too much of a nerf to make vampires have a level prereq and thus not let the civ build regular champions. Being able to upgrade any Moroi to a vampire unit reduced the importance of the Moroi's advantage of being able to become vampires at level 4 instead of level 6.

Having both a unit and a promotion both called Vampire caused a bit of confusion in the 'pedia.

The Calabim have a new vampiric UU in my modmod, which replace Royal Guards instead of Champions. Brood Guards still require Aristocracy, which is a thematically appropriate civic for the Calabim but did not fit their mechanics all that well. They do not have as great defensive strength and do not start with Spirit II, but they do have Law I and get Body 1, Mind 1, and Shadow 1 even if you do not have enough of those mana types to get those promotions for free. Their big advantage is of course starting with Vamprism without level prereq. They are also allowed to upgrade to Vampire Lords in addition to Knights and Shadowriders.

So the first vampiric units are at CoL?




Also, I found a minor bug with the Kuriotates. Despite casting Legends, I was not able to hurry Stir from Slumber (I was able to build it though).

 

[A Moon]

Your first vampire could also be Losha(sp?) if you research Fanaticism first instead.