Hey Magister,
Just downloaded and attempted to play your mod. However, I cannot even get into a game to start.
I started with "Play Now" and got all the way to Launching the game after selecting the leader and race I wish to play. It gets to the end of the initialization, but just before your leader portrait appears and you start your first turn, the game crashed back to desktop.
My machine is 2 gb or Ram and 2.4Ghz speed. Yeah, I know it old, but it runs most mods pretty well. I was playing on a Large Map and with the default settings "Play Now" uses. I am also using Windows XP.
Are there any common things that would make this mod crash? I skipped through the thread, but there is awful lot to go through. Hope you can help. I would like to try this out.
I can't think of what would be causing a crash before loading a new game if it installed correctly. (Often people mistake patches for full mods and think they have it installed when they are actually missing most of the files. Since my installer makes a copy of FfH2 before applying the changes though, there should be a very obvious error during installation if the prerequisite mod is not already installed.) If it happened when loading a saved game I'd first guess that it was from an incompatible older version.
I'm not really sure what to tell you, other than that I'd recommend trying a smaller map. I have a quad core Intel Core i5-2450M CPU @ 2.50 GHz and 4GB RAM, but I rarely choose to play on anything lager than standard. I find that reducing the percent of the map that is water makes it seem bigger without the same performance problems. There is not a big difference in land area between a large map with 70% water and a small map with 30% water.
I'm not quite sure, but I think that sometimes the bAlwaysHostile Dragon Fanatics may cause AI problems related to the issue where they can stop friendly units from entering a city. (Since the last release, I have use python to stop them from entering rival cities an hopefully fixed the issue.) That of course would not be relevent when first starting a game.
Is something screwed up with the Lanun?
I've been playing them recently and have been puzzled over the lack of hammers they seem to have in cities.
I happened to notice that building a pirate cove actually lowers the hammers in the city.
I fired up world builder and deleted my ports, and the hammers came back at least on the city screen.
Is this a known bug? Or is it supposed to work this way?
Edit: I wanted to add, I was curious so I started a new game, and put an engineer in the Lanun capital. The Heron Throne lowered hammers there as well. So I also did it with the Kuriotates. At least on the city screen the hammers dropped. The amount of time it said it would take to build a smokehouse didn't change though. So I don't know what's up.
Maybe it's my imagination, but coast cities are pretty much bad for everyone but the Lanun. Recently they seem worse to me for the other civs I play most often.
That sounds really off... Are you saying that when the Lanun work 10 hammers, they get less? It sounds more like you are letting the AI decide what squares you work?
What I'm saying is this:
Have a Lanun coastal city. Make a work boat. Look at the screen that shows all your cities, what they are working on, the pop, and the hammers.
Make a pirate cove with the work boat in a tile that is workable by the Lanun. The hammers shown on that screen will drop by two.
I can also tell you that building the Heron throne doesn't add more hammers, it seems to take one away. I tried with a Kuriotates city that had its borders popped all the way, and a Lanun city.
I only looked at this because I was surprised at how long it takes the Lanun to do anything. Normally when I play them, it's work boats and one worker, exploration->agriculture->ancient chants->mysticism->message from the deep.
When I get mysticism, I go god king and pacifism, build elder council and pagan temple, and hopefully get a great prophet.
I build the overlords temple when overlords is founded, then asylum and Saverous.
This worked fine for me in the past, but I started playing the Lanun again and noticed how long it was taking to get everything done. I've seen build times of 40 turns for Saverous when I get the Asylum built.
Other than things like farms or whatnot, there really isn't anything the worker can do to affect hammers until you get more techs. Well besides the population of course.
I've done this plenty of times in the past and it went much quicker.
I've been so frustrated I started founding the capital city on an inland tile.
I have a sneaking suspicion that Runes would be a lot stronger religion for the Lanun to have than Overlords anyway. They start out so far behind on the techs needed they'll never found it unless they get lucky on the huts. Still I'm going to try a game where I adopt it without founding the religion.
Also has anyone noticed how quickly the religions get founded? It's crazy. Usually everything is founded by turn 200. I play Noble difficulty and find it very difficult to found one unless I start with the proper techs or get lucky.
Plus I don't get the Great Prophets. Runes apparently can't be bulbed from a Prophet like Message and Leaves can. It's like every civ is racing to found every religion before they do much of anything else.
In the base game it takes the Empyrean, Order, Esus, and Veil a long time to get founded. In this mod if Varn is in the game, Empyrean gets founded before anything else. Then it's usually Runes. I'm starting to think if you want that one, you should just go ancient chants->mysticism->crafting->mining->way of the earthmother before you go for exploration/agriculture. Well maybe not, but usually I forget about calendar or anything like that unless I have great resources until I get my religion founded.
I can't comment on the rest, but can you get a city screenshot of what you mean? Again, it sounds like you are just unhappy with the city governors choices, and not actual game mechanics.
I too would guess that the issue is just how the AI chooses to allocate citizens to work tiles. I didn't have anything to do with how the AI makes its decisions. You may be getting fewer
because the governor prefers more
or
. Even with bonuses like the Heron's Throne, land tiles would often provide more
.
I've noticed that I'm unable to bulb Way of the Earthmother too, but I'm not sure why. I believe that order is supposed to be controlled by the Flavor tags, but from the XML it appears that Way of the Earthmother should be a higher priority for Great Prophets than Message from the Deep.
I played a game on Magister modmod as Kurios on Immortal difficulty. I founded Runes and Leaves both in my capital, and Empyrean and Order both in my 3rd city. Varn was not in the game, but Decius/Bannor was. I think I beat him to Order by 2 turns.
I had a different bug in my game:
http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/3813/civ4screenshot0021g.jpg
I don't know if Acheron ever spawned in this game, but I cast Legends to found the Cult of the Dragon and it created the Sheaim version of Wyrmhold in my capital. Aside from giving me 2 dimensional mana, it just created a bunch of unhappy faces in my capital. Later I was able to use a great commander to create the Kurio version of Wyrmhold in the capital, and then I had 2 Wyrmholds.
Also, later in that game there was a sudden moment where every AI declared war on me, including Decius who was a fellow overcouncil member. I didn't build Altar 7 or Tower of Mastery. I've just never seen every AI declare simultaneously, especially when several of them had wars going on with each other. AC was less than 20.
Some additional questions:
1) Do the blizzards from the Illian ritual ever go away? They are extremely annoying and keep messing up my land.
2) So I see that Bloom was moved to Nature 2. Unfortunately, the automate terraforming button on mages doesn't seem to get them to cast bloom ever. This means you have to do it manually, which really makes the micro very tedious.
3) I popped a great prophet who had the Vitalize spell (Talia Gosam). She cast it once and then vanished? Does vitalize kill the caster?
4) How do I get vitalize normally? Nature 3?
5) What's up with Guild of Nine mercenaries suddenly turning barbarian? This is extremely annoying.
I'm really not sure how that Wyrmhold could have gotten there. The Legends spell changes the holy city, but it does not grant a holy shrine. I think I may have made it give Eurabatres' Wyrmhold in an older version, but I don't see that in the code of the last release. You should not be able to sacrifice a Great Prophet/Great Commander in order to build Abashi's Wyrmhold unless you are either playing as the Sheaim or have captured Abashi herself.
I agree that More Naval AI seems to have more dogpiles than I would like.
There aren't that many blizzards from The Deepening. Blizzards that appear randomly on Glaciers (the hell version of Snow) are a bigger issue. I have since the last release reduced the odds of them appearing, and tried to make them disappear a bit more often.
You can always remove Blizzards with the Scorch spell in my modmod, unlike in base FfH2.
I'm not an expert on unit AIs, but I thought I had changed it so that units with Nature II would be given a terraform er AI in order to cast the spell automatically. I don't think there is a way to do this for units that purchase Nature II with xp after the unit is initialized though. (Nature II is given based on mana before unitAIs are set.)
Vitalize depends on the Druidic promotion. This can never be purchased, but Druids, Dwarven Druids, Lizardman Druids, Dryads, and Talia Gossam start with it. The Druidic promotion also lets a unit get free Nature and Life (and Creation if it already has Creation I) promotions for free based on mana.
Mercenaries are not the most loyal troops, particularly when not paid. The odds of them turning barbarian are as low as possible while still making them turn against you when you cannot afford them.
On a side note, which civs get the most new "stuff" in this mod? Here are a few of the things that stood out for me, although I have only played Luchuirp, Sidar and Kurios so far:
Luchuirp - buffed Garrim, excellent palace, changed barnaxus?
Kurios - modified Cardith, buffed Eurabatres, forested improvements, Wyrmhold, Eurabatres, great palace
Lanun - buffed palace
Sheaim - buffed Tebryn
Bannor - buffed palace, Crusade now combines with social order
Amurites - buffed Valledia, start with adepts and floating eye (full map reveal)
Elohim - buffed monks (spirit affinity!!), lose Tolerant
Decius - gains tolerant
Basium - gains tolerant
Calabim - nerfed? no vampires?
Sidar - badly nerfed (no wane from units)
All civs (except the Sidar) arcane units get the first level of their patron sphere for free.
The Luchuirp also get the Golem Tracks building to make their golems faster.
The Kuriotates also get the Dryad UU, an elemental druid with access to creation magic. They are immune to negative effects of the Cult of the Dragon, and their world spell can move its holy city.
The Lanun Boarding Parties can gain HN to travel in pirate ships. A new post python call lets them capture ships while HN. Seafarng is no longer a tech but a racial trait giving a promotion to ships, which boosts moves, withdrawal, cargo, and first strike chances.Pirate Coves/Harbors/Ports act as superforts when Advanced Tactics is active. They are treted like cities for the purposes of changing crews. Pirate Ports let ships gain HN.
The Sheaim can build training yards and Axemen. Pyre Zombies are now Champion replacements which require Necromancy. Planar Gates give Extension I for free to arcane units and units with Unholy Taint (i.e., Ritualists) built or upgraded in the city. The free units from the gates scale more smoothly. Mobius Witches don't get random free spell spheres, but also don't start at level 4 so they can purchase promotions more easily. All planar gate units get free XP based on the AC. Eaters of Dreams have Dimensional affinity, and gain the Immortal promotion when they use Consume Soul. Abashi is stronger, and has a Wyrmhold.
The Bannor have Valor as a racial promotion. Their Priors are replaced by Patriarchs, which start with Law III and Recruiter.
The Amurite Cave of the Ancestors allows a spell that lets arcane units risk their life for a chance at a free promotion pick, instead of giving adepts built there free xp based on mana. It also allows one unit with Channeling III to become The Caswallawn, gaining Metamagic affinity and spell strength. Govannon can teach more kinds of magic, does so passively, and teaches his students to do likewise. Chanters have more spells. Dain's traits are buffed too.
The Elohim's Chancel of the Guardians building also passively Sanctifies the area nearby, with a range dependent on Life mana. Their Berserkers are replaced by Counselors, which are defensive-only disciples with 3 Spirit affinity and all of the spirit spells.
Basium gains more traits than Tolerant (which has been renamed), and his angelic units receive various boosts.
The Calabim do not have the Vampire UU, and you cannot gift Vampirism before Feudalism, but Vampirism itself is much stronger. It allows access to the first 2 levels of the Body, Death, Mind, and Shadow spheres. (It also grants these promotiions for free based on mana, and will give Arcane or Summoner based on the traits.) Like in early version of base FfH2, feeding on a Bloodpet restores a vampire's ability to attack and cast spells again that turn in addition to healing damage. Feasting gives more XP in larger cities. If you have a vampire in a city you decide to raze (i.e., the vampiric unit captured the city) then it feasts on all of the population first rather than wasting it. Royal Guards are replaced by Brood Guards, which have Vampirism and Law I. Losha Valas has Marksman, and can become Aerons Chosen. The big weakness is the tendency of Empyrean cities and units to revolt.
The Sidar units can still use Wane; it just requires level 7 now instead of level 6. The Sidar palace acts as Nox Noctis does in Base FfH2, giving a very strong kind a invisibility. Stealth is the Sidar racial promotion, so they can always use hide. Ghosts can move through rival territory without requiring open borders. Sever Soul is not as limited as it is in base FfH2. Rathus Denmora has all of the abilities of Ghost and Divided Souls (except I forgot to let him move through rival territory until last week), and his Netherblade is more valuable. Heroes always automatically lose against the Netherblade. It also removes immortality and prevents its victims from being resurrected by the Life 3 spells. The Sidar have 2 Unique Buildings that give GPP for Shades. The Council of Ancients also provides more
than a Elder Council. The Shrine of Arawn removes Death promotions and causes unhappiness with death, but otherwise grants more happiness than a normal Pagan Temple and gives Undead Slaying for free. (I just yesterday changed their world spell so that it does not only remove their own lands from rival maps, but destroys rival maps completely leaving them knowledge of only what they can currently see.)
