[MOD] MagisterModmod

Has anyone else had trouble getting credit for the achievements? I've killed the dragon a couple of times, but the achievement doesn't register. I've also gotten 100 on the Armageddon counter without it registering.
 
It's really nice to see some people still carry on the legacy and keep the mod active even after all these years. I'd also like to thank MC who is probably the most dedicated mod maintainer, if not the last. The FFH lore is cool and it'd be a shame to see it die with the mod, my craziest hope is that a new game based on it emerges somehow... Just a few comments from a long time lurker who's enjoyed the periodic MC releases.
 
Platyping gave me a new worldbuilder update as a birthday present today (I just turned 27), and so I'm passing the favor onto you.

The main change here is that WorldBuilder can now be used to relocate cities and create new cities with the same stats.

I also added a few new pieces of equipment (which will cause it to break saved games):

The Helm of Darkness: grants invisibility and +1 Shadow mana affinity

The Matron Essendi: Attack multiple times per turn, heal while moving, extra 10% healing, +1 fire damage, immune to fire, can cast Pillar of fire with Fire 2

Seven League Boots: can use enemy routes, +2 movement, -7 terrain movement cost

I decided that I didn't like the look of the split strength from Orthus's Axe, so I just made it +1 fire damage, blitz, and +3 first strikes (previously it was only +2 first strike chances).


I changed the Infernal Grimoire so that the demons it may spawn upon its creation will have the Hidden Nationality and Bound by Compact promotions. It also makes the city tile hell terrain, so the demons can attack that city but should not go on a rampage in other cities unless hell terrain is widespread. I blocked non-evil AI players from constructing it.

I hadn't decided quite how I wanted an immortality granting equipment to work, and so did not include one yet.

You may download the installer here or the archive here.
 
gee thanks !
 
Happy Birthday, and thanks for the new version!

New and interesting side effect of swapping the order in which the lair BigBad and BigGood are resolved has cropped up, though. Before, the Spear of Trenton Majosi was extremely hard to get because if you got kicked out of the tile by a guardian spawn, you no longer counted as being "on Maenalus" and thus no longer qualified for finding the Spear. Now, if you get an item find then trigger a guardian spawn, the item spawns, you get kicked out of the lair tile, and the item immediately vanishes into the aether with a "Your _________ never emerges from the lair" message, effectively making all items just as hard to find as the Spear used to be :lol:. I'm not sure if the spawning and immediate removing of the item blocks them from being found a second time due to uniqueness either.
 
Belated Happy Birthday and thank you for the new version. I look forward to trying them out.
I'm new posting here, but I've been playing Civ4 and ffh2 for years.
I really enjoy ffh2 and magister mod really makes it to a type of game that I love to play.

I have a question. I'm playing the Jan 2015 download version of magister mod with custom option of puppet state turned on (checked), but the option does not show up when I conquer rival cities. I've completed all technologies (researching future tech) and still no show.
Are there some civic or civilization requirement that I'm not aware of? I'm using Amurites and have not had time to try other civilization yet.
I also checked with the WorldBuilder and the puppet state option is highlighted green, so it should be ON...

I also noticed that Evangelist promotion does not show up with Divine 1 and Fanaticism alone, but seems to require the character to be level 4 or greater (Civilopedia does not show this relationship). Are there files that I should check myself to verify prerequisites?

Thanks!
 
I have a question. I'm playing the Jan 2015 download version of magister mod with custom option of puppet state turned on (checked), but the option does not show up when I conquer rival cities. I've completed all technologies (researching future tech) and still no show.
Are there some civic or civilization requirement that I'm not aware of? I'm using Amurites and have not had time to try other civilization yet.
I also checked with the WorldBuilder and the puppet state option is highlighted green, so it should be ON...
Do you have Vassal states turned off? IIRC puppet states only work when vassal states are allowed.
 
Do you have Vassal states turned off? IIRC puppet states only work when vassal states are allowed.

Hi lfcgr, yes I have the vassal states turned on (or should I say that I have not turned it off; Checking the WorldBuilder, "No Vassal States" is colored in red (option off). Capitulation option does come up in diplomacy).

BTW, my install of magister consist of BTS 3.19 + ffh2 latest ("o") + magister Jan archive copy. Magister files seem to include the puppet MOD , so I don't need to install any other MOD, right?
 
Great modmod, MC. Been playing it for a while,and there is only one thing I would like to see added. Towards the end of Master of Mana, Sephi added unique victory conditions for each civ. That one seems to be dead now, but it would be a great feature to add to your modmod. Any chance of this?
 
Happy Birthday, and thanks for the new version!

New and interesting side effect of swapping the order in which the lair BigBad and BigGood are resolved has cropped up, though. Before, the Spear of Trenton Majosi was extremely hard to get because if you got kicked out of the tile by a guardian spawn, you no longer counted as being "on Maenalus" and thus no longer qualified for finding the Spear. Now, if you get an item find then trigger a guardian spawn, the item spawns, you get kicked out of the lair tile, and the item immediately vanishes into the aether with a "Your _________ never emerges from the lair" message, effectively making all items just as hard to find as the Spear used to be :lol:. I'm not sure if the spawning and immediate removing of the item blocks them from being found a second time due to uniqueness either.

I once saw a piece of equipment get lost in a lair, when it appeared the item was doing he exploring after the original caster was ejected. I just added a line of code that I think ought to stop equipment from being eligible for that result, although I'm really not sure how the equipment came to be treated as the caster anyway.

I just added a bit of code to check not only the caster's current tile for an improvement but the adjacent tiles too. That should make it safe to put the order back how it used to be. (It could also allow an Adventurer to find the items if it happens to stop adjacent to the unique feature.)

Belated Happy Birthday and thank you for the new version. I look forward to trying them out.
I'm new posting here, but I've been playing Civ4 and ffh2 for years.
I really enjoy ffh2 and magister mod really makes it to a type of game that I love to play.

I have a question. I'm playing the Jan 2015 download version of magister mod with custom option of puppet state turned on (checked), but the option does not show up when I conquer rival cities. I've completed all technologies (researching future tech) and still no show.
Are there some civic or civilization requirement that I'm not aware of? I'm using Amurites and have not had time to try other civilization yet.
I also checked with the WorldBuilder and the puppet state option is highlighted green, so it should be ON...

I don't usually use that option so I wasn't sure, but in my current game I found Puppet States seem to be working just fine.

What civilization was it whose cities you were taking? What was the dominant culture?

Did those civilizations already have all of their leader's present in the game?

One change I did make to puppet states (a long time ago) was blocking the option from creating duplicates of the same leader type. The existence of Puppet State duplicates of certain leaders (Auric Ulvin, Basium) could really complicate certain features of this modmod. Preventing such situations from happening was a lot easier than dealing with some potential bugs.
I also noticed that Evangelist promotion does not show up with Divine 1 and Fanaticism alone, but seems to require the character to be level 4 or greater (Civilopedia does not show this relationship). Are there files that I should check myself to verify prerequisites?

Thanks!

Evangelist is supposed to have those prereqs. I was a bit surprised to find that level prereqs do not show up in the civilopedia, but that is more an issue for Tholal than for me. I guess I could add it manually to avoid confusion in the shorter term.

You can check all of a promotions prereqs in its xml defines, in C:\Program Files (x86)\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Magister Modmod for FfH2\Assets\XML\Units\CIV4PromotionInfos.xml

Great modmod, MC. Been playing it for a while,and there is only one thing I would like to see added. Towards the end of Master of Mana, Sephi added unique victory conditions for each civ. That one seems to be dead now, but it would be a great feature to add to your modmod. Any chance of this?

I don't think so. That sounds like feature creep/bloat to me. Personally, I wouldn't want a new way to cut the game short; I usually turn off all the normal victory conditions.

I also don't think that I could add a new option to the custom game menu without editing the SDK, and find it much easier to leave all the C++ stuff up to Tholal.

Custom scenarios can of course have custom victory conditions. I don't know whether Tholal will ever figure out how to allow modders to add new game options without needing to compile a new DLL, but I think that the script section of Platyping's advanced worldbuilder might allow some sorts of custom victory conditions even without such game options or modifications to ScenarioFunctions.py.
 
Hi MC,

I'll download the newest version and see how the Puppet State goes.
I did have Challenge - Barbarian World checked as well so maybe some options were clashing with each other...

What civilization was it whose cities you were taking? What was the dominant culture?
Did those civilizations already have all of their leader's present in the game?

I took cities from virtually every civilization that was unlucky to be around me (Svartalfar, Bannor, Elohim, Balseraphs, Luchuirp, Mercurians, Sidar ...) and I did make sure that the cities had 100% culture of the enemy civ, but the option did not come up. As far as I know, AI didn't create any Puppet States either, so I don't think all leaders of the civ came out in 1 game.
Well, worst comes to worst, I can live without Puppet State...
It's just that I usually shut down my borders and end up with everyone hating me, so Puppet on conquest (an ally!) would have been a nice change...

Evangelist is supposed to have those prereqs. I was a bit surprised to find that level prereqs do not show up in the civilopedia, but that is more an issue for Tholal than for me. I guess I could add it manually to avoid confusion in the shorter term.

You can check all of a promotions prereqs in its xml defines, in C:\Program Files (x86)\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Magister Modmod for FfH2\Assets\XML\Units\CIV4PromotionInfos.xml

I did find some level prerequisite info on other techs, but I guess those were written manually.
Thanks for the file pointer. Will check them out in the future if I have similar Qs. :)
 
I just realized that I some poor coding on my part was making it impossible for a player to adopt "No State Religion" without resorting to WorldBuilder.

While fixing that, I went ahead and modified the popup which informs you that some units will abandon you for changing state religions or civics. Now, instead of having the popup pop up for each abandoning unit, it will list all the units that will abandon you by name in a single popup. It will also include Gibbon Goetia on this list, even when shapeshifted when his abandoning you relies on my python workaround.


I also just made a change to the code which gifts Angels and Manes. Before this change, such units could only appear in cities. Now, when the Advanced Tactics game option is active, they may also appear in improvements that act as cities. If an Infernal player enters with a Hellfire plot instead of stealing a city, then it can now get manes there rather than getting nothing before capturing or founding a city.

I'm not positive if I want to keep it working that way or make more changes though. I have not noticed any added lag from my brief tests so far, but I still think the old code was a little more efficient. It might be better if I only check for superforts when the city list is empty. It might also be good to allow such units to appear in cities and/or superforts owned by teammates (especially for Basium before he has any cities).


What would you people prefer in the next release?


Also, what would you think if I made the various racial slaying promotions stronger but caused them to grant a diplomatic penalty with the players with that race?


I'm surprised I had not thought of this much earlier, but I just implemented a new Demon's Altar Sacrifice spell mechanic. It still grants research points based on the caster's level regardless of where it is cast, but there are added benefits if it is cast in a city controlled by the Infernal. In that case it also grants a diplomatic bonus from that Infernal player and makes sure that the casters return as Manes under that player's control rather than being born to a random Infernal player.
 
If a unit abandons you when you change religions, it ceases to be in the game. But if another civ has that state religion, wouldn't it make sense if the unit went over to that other civ?
 
It would make sense in a way, but there would be some difficulties in determining which civ with that state religion would get the unit if there were multiple options.

Abandoning is a Base FfH2 mechanic which works through the DLL, so I cannot easily change it myself. I'd have to get Tholal to do so, and don't really think it is worth it.

Kael made it so that when a unit abandons its owner for changing religions or civics, it triggers a decrease in the unit created count and unit class created counts. Since those are what matter when determining whether a world unit (like a religious hero) may be built, decrementing them will allow any player who still meets the original training requirements to train the unit again.

My modmod's mechanics create a Sluagh dummy unit which stores the information of a hero when it abandons it owner just the same as if the unit was killed in combat. That information should be applied to a newly trained version of the hero just as it would to a resurrected version.

(The Soul Forge could cause complications, not preventing the abandoning hero from being trained again but preventing the new version from inheriting the promotions from the sluagh that the original left behind. I'm not sure there is any way around that.)

As currently written, hero who abandoned you could be resurrected the same as one who died, if it is not built again the normal way first. I may decide to add a couple lines to block that.


I just made some changes to my python workaround for Gibbon (or theoretically any unit with the Changeling promotion which has bAbandon and a religion or civic prerequisite in its xml defines) abandoning its owner while shapeshifted into another type unit. I got the message to send the same way as if it was abandoning through the DLL, but unfortunately it appears that neither gc.getGame().decrementUnitClassCreatedCount(info.getUnitClassType()) nor gc.getGame().decrementUnitCreatedCount(iUnit) are exposed to python. That would prevent Gibbon from being rebuilt like other religious heroes if he is not in his true form when he abandons you. He could still be resurrected as usual.

It also seems that the Assume True Form spell increments the count (as it initializes a new version of the unit before passing on the information) so it is not possible to train Gibbon again after he abandons you even if when he does so in the normal way if he had already used that ability in the past. If I can get Tholal to expose the decrement functions then I would want to use them in that spell too.

I'm thinking that the Illusion and and Mirror abilities, and the Hall of Mirrors unit duplicating effect, would cause similar problems too if I cannot make them decrement the duplicate units they create.
 
Started playing again a couple weeks back, and I think I finally found my favorite spell line: Dimensional. Seriously, these rifts are amazing, they save the late game from tedium. Also it's incredibly fun to have a couple doomstacks warping around the world, eradicating those civs that thought they were safe halfway across the world. It's also nice that they can kill units/capture cities after they're done being a taxi.
 
I don't recall if this was talked about before. But when the player 'kills' a worker, they capture it. When the AI kills it, it's just dead. Why? Shouldn't the AI capture them as well?
 
If I remember correctly the AI technically captures them too, but for for some reason is set to delete them immediately unless they are within their own territory.

I think it is a bit of standard Civ4 code meant to prevent the AI from getting confused over what to do with workers which are too far from their cities to do much and are usually not worth defending on the long trip back home.

It is something handled in the DLL, so it is an issue for Tholal rather than me.
 
Hi everybody.
I have just discovered this mod and I'm really loving it.
Would you suggest me a specific civilization/mapscript/custom option to be able to see and play the most of the new features in a single game?

Sorry for my bad english
 
I've been playing and enjoying this modmod as the Illians, and have been having a lot of trouble with Orthus. I've never played a game of FFH before, so I'm not sure if this is normal, or if your balance changes regarding his axe have made things too difficult. Orthus is attacking my city from a hill. I have Auric, plus the other three unique characters that building the white hand gives, stationed in the city, summoning ice elementals every turn. I then send in all but one of the elementals, (leaving the last one for defence: the barbarians who accompanied Orthus died easily to the first group of elementals I summoned). However, the elementals almost invariably fail to injure Orthus at all, and at strength 6 they're my most powerful units available (barring their summoners, who are irreplacable and don't fare much better). This rather removes the possibility of wearing him down gradually with a large group of units, which is what I'd normally do. Could the extra first strike be killing my elementals before they get to attack?

I've also tried making Auric enchant the other three elementals' weapons instead of summoning a fourth, but that had even more abysmal results. Are there any tricks to make the fight easier? I've managed to contain him for the time being, and could do so with only one summoner if necessary, so am able to use a long-term tactic like "research tech Y and build Z" if necessary. There's no copper in my vicinity, but there is iron. I also have two mana nodes in my borders (one ice, one undeveloped), but sadly they're next to the city Orthus is attacking. I could use elementals to protect units adding improvements to the area, though, if necessary.

Edit: One of my elementals just managed to kill Orthus while defending! Apparently I was either incredibly lucky, or Orthus is much worse at attacking ice elementals than defending against them...
 
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