[MOD] MagisterModmod

[Natch]

The problem with the Aquilan may be that it spawned not from Letum Frigus but from a nearby lair.

elif self.isNearImprovement(pPlot, gc.getInfoTypeForString('IMPROVEMENT_LETUM_FRIGUS')):
                    if not self.grace():
                        lList += [  'UNIT_NIVE',
                                    'UNIT_AQUILAN',
                                    'UNIT_FROST_GIANT',
                                    'UNIT_TAR_DEMON'
                                    ]

The BigBad spawns come with Lair Guardian which is fine when they're on a permanent unique feature, but if they spawn on non-permanent lairs and the lair goes away, Lair Guardian breaks and they're free to run amok.

The uniquely worst offender for this is the Wandering Castle. In one game I unthinkingly flooded the world with boss monsters because I had an invisible Shade exploring the castle over and over, with the monster spawns unable to do anything about it and being left behind every time the castle moved.

To be honest I'm thinking of eliminating the Summon Aquilan spell. I made the units strogner when it was revealed that they are Aspects of Mulcarn, but it doesn't seem right for Aspects of a god to be able to be summoned like that. There should never be more than 7, but the summoning spell could let you have an unlimited number if you have enough Dimensional Affinity casters to keep casting Planar Binding to keep them around. I may make them late game heroes of the White Hand with a world limit (not national limit) of 7 instead of 1.

I agree it doesn't make much sense on Channeling IV but I think it would be a good replacement for White Hand's current Divine II. Tar Demons are pretty useless for a singular defensive summon at that level; I'd consider them about par with a Longbowman and they're not remotely on the level of the updated Guardian Vines.

What if Aquilans were temporary and required a Blizzard to summon, and Create Blizzard was made exclusive to them instead of being a High Priest spell as well? They'd be easily accessible near Temples of the Hand where Blizzards form spontaneously, but using them offensively would require The Deepening and/or using Call Blizzard to drag them into position.

Making Nightmares work more like the Bronze/Iron/Mithril Weapons promotions and applying them on move would require DLL changes. Applying weapons is basically hardcoded, relying on several XML defines and the weapons tier tags for units.

Buildings have a bApplyFreePromotionOnMove tag, but it is misnamed. Does not apply anything when a unit enters a city, but only to units in the city at the start of a turn. It applies the promotion to every unit with a valid unitcombat. It doesn't check for any resources like Nightmares, although I suppose I could work around this by making a dummy building that is added or removed in python based on whether the city has access to nightmares.

Might be simpler just to make the Nightmare promotion one that can be taken on level-up, requiring the resource just like Fear does? It could also require Way of the Wicked or Malevolent Designs perhaps; I wouldn't try to limit it to evil only, but it does feel weird that every civ and religion in the world will switch to hell-horses the moment they become available.

 

[FireBlaze]

missing localization string

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I just removed Aquilans from the lair exploration results.

I will probably let High Priests of Winter cast Summon Aquilan.

I'm thinking of letting Priests of Winter cast Summon Tar Demon when under the White Hand State religion (maybe only in cities with a Temple of the Hand), and also keeping the Call Blizzard spell without a state religion requirement. I'd probably remove the Ice 1 promotion from Tar Demons and maybe reduce their strength a bit, and definitely not make the summoning spell grant them Ice affinity.

For Ice IV I am about to test a spell spell called "Stagnation," which is like Stasis but only for a single player (the owner of the plot where the caster is located) and for a single turn. (The code stasis code mechanics work on a player basis, so there is no way to limit it based on range.) You could indefinitely stop a rival from building or researching anything, but only if the caster casts the spell every turn while remaining in hostile territory.


Canonically speaking Badb is not dead but is trapped in the Wandering Castle. Originally I had the unit guard the lair (which would prevent you from exploring it and generating a lot of monsters thereby), but switched it over to instead needing to resurrect him because he was summoning way too many Aquilans and wiping out most of the world's civilizations by himself. Without the Summon Aquilan spell, I'm thinking of making him guard the Wandering Castle again. It might not be so bad for him to cast Stagnation against players when he winds up within their territory since he would be randomly moved to a different tile and could not effect the same player too many turns in a row.


Treating Nightmares as a top weapons tier would not work. If I implemented a 4th tier any unit that qualified for it would automatically be allowed to use all the lower tiers.

I did not realize I had Nightmare as a resource requirement for Fear. I think that was a mistake and that I had intended to let mounted units purchase the promotion with access to that resource all along. I just make it so, but also made the Winged promotion block access to Nightmare ad demonic horses don't seen so appropriate for the Angelic Ophanim or the Pegasus-riding Wind Knights.

 

[Samson]

It might not be so bad for him to cast Stagnation against players when he winds up within their territory since he would be randomly moved to a different tile and could not effect the same player too many turns in a row.

That could have an interesting anti-superpower effect, as the more land you have the more the chance of the castle being in your territory.

 

[Qgqqqqq]

I think the Wandering Castle is already punishing enough to have go through your territory, as it spawns blizzards which transform you to ice. Because I play on smaller map sizes, and like to have All Unique Improvements on, depending on map configuration you can end up with the Castle nearby every 3-5 turns.

 

[Nothrazim]

The Sapere have Education as a prerequisite which is quite odd, considering their other requirements are Priesthood (which requires Education) and a Library, which is built at Writing and also requires Education. I am not sure if there is a circumstance in which you could get a Library and Piresthood without Education somehow.

The Grigori palace provides 2 Creation, Force & Spirit mana rather than the normal 1.

 

[Qgqqqqq]

Not sure if this is fixed in your updated version, but Falamar has a stack of combat 2 work boats but no improved fishing resources.

 

[FireBlaze]

Had three hanging "waiting on civs" in my game caused by the Hippus, Sidar, and Bannor respectively. Each time killing all their units in world builder would allow for a single turn to progress, but they would cause another hang next turn necessitating a full civ kill in world builder. Will provide specific logs upon request

 

[uff1ee]

Really awesome mod. Love all of the different combinations and strategies the additions make to the game. But it seems like every game, the AI explores a lair and unleashes something that wipes out a few of them. I like the wilderness being a threat, but it hurts the later game when the number of civs is reduced so early on. Is there a recommended minimum difficulty to help the AI deal with early barb rushes? I've also had an Azer set up shop in my territory early on and having no way to counteract it due to flying.

 

[Qgqqqqq]

I generally lose a civ even on Immortal/Deity, so not sure its the problem there.

 

[Nothrazim]

I've been in that exact situation too, had an Azer come into my territory and start picking off my warriors one by one until i realized i was just delaying an inevitable loss. Some civs going down is always going to happen, but bar playing a map that renders them braindead and contained (ai archipelago) the only notably thing that helped in my experience was to disable lairs. That however cuts off some of the risks and rewards in the game, so i usually keep it on.
I also like to throw in a couple of extra civs on the map regardless of map size - so on Huge, i sometimes even play with 19 civs on start. It guarantees some will die off, but in my current game for example i am 280 turns in and there are at least 9 civs alive.

 

[FireBlaze]

I'll second what Nothrazim suggested, with the added suggestion of trying "advanced start" and (to a lesser extent) require full kill. Advanced start will usually let the AI start with enough of a base that they won't get completely wiped from some dumb moves on turn 10, and require complete kill cuts down on the dumb AI moments where they decide to leave all their cities undefended in the early game and die to some wolf rider while still having a dozen warriors. Conversely, do NOT use barbarian world specifically, and not having raging barbarians to a lesser degree, will also help cut down on dead spaces/wildlands.

 

[uff1ee]

Thanks for the replies. Gonna add a few more civs per game and hope things balance out going into the mid-game.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

What would you think if I introduced a new promotion that forbid units from entering any national borders? (Or maybe just rival or enemy national borders?)

It could work a lot like the Bound By Compact with the help of CvGameUtils.py, but the code would be simpler.

If I give such a promotion to units generated from lair explorations, then they would be unable to capture any cities to kill players off early, but could still make exploration and expansion beyond one's borders very dangerous.

I could also use that promotion for the Grey Council's Banish spell.

The limitation could be too significant if it is permanent, but I could give the promotion a small chance of wearing off each turn so that monsters who have been wandering in the wilderness for too long could become a threat later in the game once cities ought to be better defended.

 

[FireBlaze]

Sounds like a brilliant idea to me, should cut down on early game death pops significantly without completely removing them or the general danger that the early game should provide.

 

[Nothrazim]

That sounds like an amazing mechanic for the early game. It could make a significant benefit in keeping the AI alive in the early game to develop later.

On that note, does anyone have any suggestion for making the AI train more versatile units? I find that in most games, the AI sticks to just spamming Warrriors until mid-late game, regardless of civ or (in my experience) game mode when they begin to diversify again (throwing in a few adepts and priests).

 

[FireBlaze]

you tried using the "No (x) requirements for AI" settings? I've found that tends to really help them diversify their unit pool past the early game, and can lead to some spooky mixed deathstacks in the midgame once they can pump out mages and some siege

 

[Natch]

On that note, does anyone have any suggestion for making the AI train more versatile units? I find that in most games, the AI sticks to just spamming Warrriors until mid-late game, regardless of civ or (in my experience) game mode when they begin to diversify again (throwing in a few adepts and priests).

Personally I've just started playing Classical starts exclusively. The normal problem is that the AI builds so many Warriors for lack of anything else to do that it cripples its research rate before it can actually discover better units. With the starting techs letting them at least build Hunters, they'll get less than half the numbers for the hammers spent, so unit cost doesn't strangle them before they have time to develop actual military tech and thus a better hammer-sink.

It also solved the agony of meeting civs through the councils mid-game and finding they never developed basic improvement techs like Exploration because of their slow tech rate and lack of access to tech trading.

 

[Ringan]

Hi, first off, thanks for continuing to update the mod, it is so much fun, and there's nothing like it!

• When someone converts to fellowship of leaves, all the AIs declare war on them. Is this intended? Why FoL and no other religion?
• Orthus is completely unstoppable for the time when he spawns now. I had to turn him off so I wouldn't lose all my cities.

Had three hanging "waiting on civs" in my game

Every game I've played under the new release has been hanging for me as well.

 

[uff1ee]

Limiting barbs from entering borders, even if just for a while, would be ideal. I did once have a game in MNAI where a barb unit grew incredibly strong and eliminated several civs throughout the game. It gave a really interesting dynamic to the game preparing for it to arrive. I like the possibility of that happening, just not every game. The crazy paths a game of FfH can go down is what keeps me coming back to it.