MarnokMod .34

[Verdian]

I like your idea, Marnok, for epic lairs: let anything happen, but not cleared until a big event occurs. That way it is like exploring the lair, and finding the boss at the end.

I got the Druid Tomb event a few times in a new game, and nothing seemed to happen when I tried to loot it. Also, you may want to create a timer or something so that the same event cannot occur within 10 turns (or some other number). I got the Grey Lady twice in a row, and the Druid Tomb three times in a row, which ruined the epicness of the results a bit. I am not sure how much that would be a pain to program, or if it would be worth the trouble.

Keep up the good work.

 

[Marnok]

Thanks Verdian!

I am testing a whole new result allocation system, which if it works well, may spread the results a bit better. It also looks a lot neater (to me anyway) so it makes it easier for me to add new results. Good distribution + lots of possible results = less chance of repetition. At the moment there are 78 possible results, if I get time this week I'll add and test perhaps a dozen more. Then I have ideas for places to plunder even more ideas...!

 

[Verdian]

Are you still taking ideas for events and such? I have a few (hopefully) fun ones that I would love to share, but don't want to clog up this thread.

 

[Marnok]

Clog all you want! Clog like a fat Dutchman's arteries!

or post here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=294381

 

[Caradoc]

I think too many outcomes result in the destruction of the dungeon, even for non-epic ones. It's too much of an all or nothing result. I'd like to see more small impact results (animals, minor traps, a few golds, temporary promotions) that leave the dungeon intact but prolong the adventure. Some of these might just be warnings of what might come if the adventurer continues on. There might also be barriers to be removed, such as a lock spell that only an adept could open.

Something also needs to be done about duplicate results. Several times I've been told I have discovered some amazing artifact only to find that I already had one (Torc) and therefore got nothing. Maybe an Adventurer should be able to gain EPs instead.

 

[Marnok]

A lot of events do have a return value of 100, which is used as a percentage chance that the lair is destroyed. I am going to alter that. Also adding multiple many events and a whole new way of choosing the events seems to be helping a bit.

I was thinking about barrier-type events, this would need a system of recording the event on the plot which is actually pretty straightforward in my modmod, it would mean a certain event will always happen in that lair until it is resolved and cleared. This would mean the magic barriers etc. can be implemented but also a "rumours" system can mean a random event sets the lair conditions and tells you about it. "This dungeon is rumoured to be filled with many deadly traps..." this can be used as a fairness thing - some results which can't come up as part of the random generator can be created using this system, like deadlier traps which really can kill.

anyway... need to test new system a bit more beforenext release.

 

[Skitters]

forgive my ignorance....but I think I've installed this now....but have to admit I havn't noticed any major difference to FFH gameplay. Is there something upon loading that I should see that will tell me that I am indeed playing MarnokMod and not core FFH?

Looking in the assets folder of MarnokMod there is a changes text file, but having tried about three games (admitedly each to no more than 300 turns), I can't say I feel like I've experienced anything in game that 'feels' different from the core game... (I've certainly not seen any clans (scorpion clan exluded) stomping around, or come across any items I've not seen before)

If there isn't one already, is there any chance of a note of some sort in the pedia perhaps confirming the version and release date?

 

[Marnok]

forgive my ignorance....but I think I've installed this now....but have to admit I havn't noticed any major difference to FFH gameplay. Is there something upon loading that I should see that will tell me that I am indeed playing MarnokMod and not core FFH?

Looking in the assets folder of MarnokMod there is a changes text file, but having tried about three games (admitedly each to no more than 300 turns), I can't say I feel like I've experienced anything in game that 'feels' different from the core game... (I've certainly not seen any clans (scorpion clan exluded) stomping around, or come across any items I've not seen before)

If there isn't one already, is there any chance of a note of some sort in the pedia perhaps confirming the version and release date?

Hi, this version doesn't have any huge differences from FfH. The main thing is, players can adjust the settings.py to have more or fewer lairs, have lairs more active or less active, etc. Also I have included some new lairs and new events. It is an ongoing process, there are plans for more future stuff and I am testing bits as I go.

Best way to confirm you are really playing the mod, is to step on a tribal village. If it pops and you haven't altered the settings.py, then you are not playing the mod. By default, goody huts are replaced by tribal villages which don't pop.
If you are OK with the worldbuilder, have a look in there at the last few improvements - I added in "explorable tower" and a few others at the end, so you can see quickly there too.

 

[Marnok]

Small update.

I may try and do more for the weekend.

This mostly just reorganizes the lair result selection, and makes Epic lairs only clear on certain results. When epic lairs clear, the landmark remains. I made a copy of the improvement and expanded the "when a lair is cleared, it becomes a different improvement" thing so that any explorable lair can be replaced by an opton in settings.py. I added in Goblin Forts turning into regular forts on clearance. In the future, there will almost certainly be events whereby the epic lairs can become dangerous once more.

There are a couple of new explore events and a few fixes in this too. Oh and watch out for the Kudzu.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

nice stuff. what's Kudzu?

 

[Hanny]

nice stuff. what's Kudzu?

No idea, but aparnatly we should watch out for it whatever it is!!

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Kudzu is a Japanese perennial vine of the pea family that can grow more than a foot (30cm) per day.


Kudzu was introduced from Japan into the United States in 1876 at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, where it was promoted as a forage crop and an ornamental plant. From 1935 to the early 1950s the Soil Conservation Service encouraged farmers in the southeastern United States to plant kudzu to reduce soil erosion as above, and the Civilian Conservation Corps planted it widely for many years.


However, it was subsequently discovered that the southeastern US has near-perfect conditions for kudzu to grow out of control — hot, humid summers, frequent rainfall, temperate winters with few hard freezes (kudzu cannot tolerate low freezing temperatures that bring the frost line down through its entire root system, a rare occurrence in this region), and no natural predators. As such, the once-promoted plant was named a pest weed by the United States Department of Agriculture in 1953. Kudzu has naturalized into about 20,000 to 30,000 square kilometers of land in the United States and costs around $500 million annually in lost cropland and control costs.

 

[Skitters]

whoa....I've definitely got this going now....and have to say I like it a lot! Had a real feeling of being penned in by the lairs and dungeons and their respective spawns. Hunters don't last long in this game!

Couple of notes

First game - got myself an early flesh golem, got a bit cocky and started a war I couldn't finish with the Lanun. Upshot was that I lost on turn 35!... Anyhow, upon losing my capital the game seemed to get stuck on a perpetual 'waiting for other civs' - so I had to CTRL-ALT-TAB to close the game.

Second game - kept me playing until 3am this morning...
- Couple of odd glitches; a unit got transported across the globe to another location as part of a lair result, but it seemed then that there were areas of the screen that were not visible. So for example the area immediately surrounding the unit was fog until he moved (and indeed I think impassable terrain remained under Fog). But similarly there were suddenly tiles of explored territory that were not visible, even with a unit next to them.

Not sure if it's related - but there had been a lot of Muris Goblin activity...the filthy blighters!


- Had a hunter trapped in a cage, but it seemed like the unit was bumped to a surrounding tile by the cage itself. The unit remained trapped...but just not in the cage!

Thoroughly enjoying this though. First time I've seen the Big ape (Getid?), so not sure if that is something you've sorted or just coincidence....that caused a bit of raised blood pressure too considering the best unit I had was Saverous with just a few promotions.

 

[Marnok]

Hi, glad it is working for you!

The trapped-in-cage thing needs a bit of work, there are several situations were the unit can end up being moved and the scripts only check the plot with the cage. I will look into this, perhaps just put a check in - stamp the plot they were Held in on the unit, check the unit each turn and any not on their Held plot are freed (they escaped somehow).

Not sure about the fog of war glitches, I've not touched that area, and the stuck at end of game I can't think that I did anything which ought to cause that breakage.

The Great Ape isn't my doing directly, but I think the larger numbers of barbarians may alter the conditions enough for things like this to happen. I have to put my hands up to the Muris Goblins though.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

Marnok, I've started a thread about lairs in the FF subforum. you may want to check it out http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=301061

 

[Hanny]

Kudzu is a Japanese perennial vine of the pea family that can grow more than a foot (30cm) per day.


Kudzu was introduced from Japan into the United States in 1876 at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, where it was promoted as a forage crop and an ornamental plant. From 1935 to the early 1950s the Soil Conservation Service encouraged farmers in the southeastern United States to plant kudzu to reduce soil erosion as above, and the Civilian Conservation Corps planted it widely for many years.


However, it was subsequently discovered that the southeastern US has near-perfect conditions for kudzu to grow out of control — hot, humid summers, frequent rainfall, temperate winters with few hard freezes (kudzu cannot tolerate low freezing temperatures that bring the frost line down through its entire root system, a rare occurrence in this region), and no natural predators. As such, the once-promoted plant was named a pest weed by the United States Department of Agriculture in 1953. Kudzu has naturalized into about 20,000 to 30,000 square kilometers of land in the United States and costs around $500 million annually in lost cropland and control costs.

Very intrtesting!, ta.

Much like the cane toads imported to Australia to control rats then, seemed like a good idea but turned out bad.

 

[xienwolf]

Marnok, could you create a new category of possible results for your future versions?

You have BigBad, Bad, Neutral, Good, BigGood. But I propose to add Variable. Items in the Variable list will be static spawn units (units with fixed stats) and it will check at the start of the function if the spawns would be a challenge for the stack on the dungeon. If yes, then it is added to the Bad list, if no, then it is added to the Good list. From there your code proceeds mostly as it already does. (This could get extended to more things, like if you design trap type results and promotions which can "solve" them for a reward. Then for a unit without the promotion the trap is bad, but for a unit with the promotion the trap is good)


If you added this category, then all monster spawns which are not listed in Variable would instead be slightly re-written to base their stats on the stack standing on the lair. So if a very weak unit spawns them, they will be pretty weak and not likely have any equipment. If a strong unit spawns them, they'll be REALLY strong and carry NICE equipment. If a large stack is on the dungeon, then a lot of creatures spawn, but if a small stack is on the dungeon, then only a few creatures spawn.

 

[Skitters]

oooh....could you have lair/dungeon result based on equipment? So for example;

You explore the lair and discover a Warboss torturing a captive - what shall we do?
Attack the boss (spawns a boss, reduces AC - but captive snuffs it win or lose!)
Help the boss (requires neutral/evil) increases AC
Bribe the boss (requires item, lose item, but the captive joins your civ)

Similarly things could be using an item to unlock an otherwise unnaccesible part of the lair (the secrets of this lair die with me unless you can provide me with something of interest...(will perhaps turn his nose up at Jade Torc's...))

...or a 'rusty key' could be discovered in a lair, which could later spark a treasure chest event

 

[Marnok]

Marnok, could you create a new category of possible results for your future versions?

You have BigBad, Bad, Neutral, Good, BigGood. But I propose to add Variable. Items in the Variable list will be static spawn units (units with fixed stats) and it will check at the start of the function if the spawns would be a challenge for the stack on the dungeon. If yes, then it is added to the Bad list, if no, then it is added to the Good list. From there your code proceeds mostly as it already does. (This could get extended to more things, like if you design trap type results and promotions which can "solve" them for a reward. Then for a unit without the promotion the trap is bad, but for a unit with the promotion the trap is good)


If you added this category, then all monster spawns which are not listed in Variable would instead be slightly re-written to base their stats on the stack standing on the lair. So if a very weak unit spawns them, they will be pretty weak and not likely have any equipment. If a strong unit spawns them, they'll be REALLY strong and carry NICE equipment. If a large stack is on the dungeon, then a lot of creatures spawn, but if a small stack is on the dungeon, then only a few creatures spawn.

It's a good idea. How I would do this:

Examine my code and you will see that the "good" , "bad", "neutral" etc lists are not just straight lists, but rather Lists of Lists. Like this:

lCategoryBigBad = {
			'DEFAULT': ['PREVENT', 'BOSS_HENCH_CLAIM', 'BOSS_CLAIM', 'LOST', 'BOSS_HENCH', 'BOSS'],
			'GRACELESS': ['JABIE_OO'],
			'IS_ALIVE': ['MIRROR_OF_OPPOSITION'],
			}

What the script does, it calls a function : buildCheckList(caster, pPlot)
buildCheckList examines the plot and the caster and draws up a list of phrases which describe them. So if the unit is alive, 'IS_ALIVE' will be added to the returned list. Only those entries from the CategoryBigBad which match an "aspect" in the built list will be considered for selection.

This works out pretty handy imho, because I can create a list-of-lists with as many or as few aspects as I want and draw a matched list out of it without needing to consider the options which I don't need entries for.

(I apologise because describing how a list of lists is turned into another list by comparison to a list starts to sound a bit mental!)

So what you have :

• a LIST OF LISTS, example "BAD" where wach sub-list is named for a feature of a plot or unit.
• a returned list of aspects
• a final list drawn up only of those parts of the list-of-lists which match the aspects

OK... with me so far?

Right- point is, I can modify buildCheckList() to add in new Aspects easily. So, I could add in "EXPLORERS_WEAK", "EXPLORERS_TOUGH" etc.
Then, in the lCategory list-of-lists, add dungeon events which only turn up if those aspects are present. So we might get this:

lCategoryBigBad = {
			'DEFAULT': ['PREVENT', 'BOSS_HENCH_CLAIM', 'BOSS_CLAIM', 'LOST', 'BOSS_HENCH', 'BOSS'],
			'GRACELESS': ['JABIE_OO'],
			'IS_ALIVE': ['MIRROR_OF_OPPOSITION'],
			'EXPLORERS_TOUGH': ['ARMY_OF_DARKNESS'],
			}

now Army of Darkness will spawn as a Bad event but only if the explorers are considered Tough. Similarly we would add in an event "FLUFFY_BUNNIES" in the Good list, sublist 'EXPLORERS_WEAK'.

Does that make ANY sense? at all? to anyone?

 

[Marnok]

oooh....could you have lair/dungeon result based on equipment? So for example;

You explore the lair and discover a Warboss torturing a captive - what shall we do?
Attack the boss (spawns a boss, reduces AC - but captive snuffs it win or lose!)
Help the boss (requires neutral/evil) increases AC
Bribe the boss (requires item, lose item, but the captive joins your civ)

Similarly things could be using an item to unlock an otherwise unnaccesible part of the lair (the secrets of this lair die with me unless you can provide me with something of interest...(will perhaps turn his nose up at Jade Torc's...))

...or a 'rusty key' could be discovered in a lair, which could later spark a treasure chest event

Abso-diddly-lutely! A Rusty Key item could simply be used to add a sublist to a list-of-lists, with special results which only occur to units with the Rusty Key promotion.

I was saying before, it might be possible to fix things so lair results are preset in some cases. In that case the "stored" event might be one of a series of "lock" events, which simply resolve once someone with the right equipment/skills/etc turns up and explores. So you get a dialog up "A huge, enchanted door blocks your way. An indentation of Jade, about the size of a Torc, is the only visible feature." Option 1 : "buggrit,I can't get in." Option 2 (requires Jade Torc) "Man, I got a bagful of these things, glad I kept them now." (clears stored event, you may now explore normally)