Master of Magic MOD - In Progress

[Taranthor]

It will be more of a sequel to Master of Magic than a direct translation. I've tried direct translation before, and it just doesn't work. The logistics of transferring the gameplay style bogs me down completely. But, most of it will be implemented as it was in the original. With a few adjustments.

This will be based after the end of the last Master of Magic to accomodate for a few changes

Races :
Race : Barbarian
Racial trait : Thrown weapons
Unique Unit : Berserker
Unit Cost : 100%
Special : Cavalry, Spearmen & Swordsmen cost 150%

Race : Gnoll
Racial trait : +20% Strength
Unique Unit : Wolf Rider
Unit Cost : 150%
Special : None

Race : Halfling
Racial trait : -10% Strength, +20% Defense
Unique Unit : Slinger
Unit Cost : 100%
Special : Swordsmen +20% Strength

Race : High Elf
Racial trait : 2 moves in forests
Unique Unit : Elven Lord
Unit Cost : 150%
Special : Catapults, Galleys & Triremes cost 100%

Race : High Men
Racial trait : None
Unique Unit : Paladin
Unit Cost : 100%
Special : None

Race : Klackon
Racial trait : +20% Defense
Unique Unit : Stag Beetle
Unit Cost : 200%
Special : +50% Producton, +2 Happiness in cities

Race : Lizardman
Racial trait : Can walk on water tiles
Unique Unit : Dragon Turtle
Unit Cost : 200%
Special : None

Race : Nomad
Racial trait : None
Unique Unit : Griffin
Unit Cost : 100%
Special : None

Race : Orc
Racial trait : None
Unique Unit : Wyvern Rider
Unit Cost : 100%
Special : None

Magic Realms:
Arcane
Chaos
Nature
Life
Death
Sorcery

Some general things:
Culture will be replaced by mana.
Mana generation will reduce the further from the capital the city is.
The enchantments & summoned units I will try to have built by mana instead of hammers if I can work out the coding. Any help with this is appreciated.

Civics:
I have not completely worked out the civics part yet, but will be looking more into this soon.

Research & Magic:
There will be 3 types of research areas.
Realms : These will be the basic allowances for what you can research, these realms will be very expensive to research, and you must research EVERY spell currently available from that realm first. The level 1 realms will be cheap so anybody can research then quickly.
Realms will be as follows for example. Chaos I, Chaos II, Chaos III, Chaos IV, Chaos V. Etc. Each being more expensive than the lst.

Each race will start with 2 spell realms for research, arcane spells do not require a realm to research them.

Spells : These will be researchable based on the realms you currently have.

Damage Spells:
These will work as nukes, able to target and damage any unit.

Unit Enchantments:
These will be done as promotions, and will replace the existing promotions.

City Enchantments:
These will work as normal buildings that cost mana to create instead of hammers.

Global Enchantments:
These will work as national wonders that cost mana to create instead of hammers.

Unique Enchantments:
These will work as great wonders that cost mana to create instead of hammers.

Summoned units:
These can only be created in the capital. Or one other city if you research summoning circle and create it there.

Great People:
Great Mage
Build : Magical Sanctum
Sacrifice : Complete Enchantment currently being built in the city
Join : Mana +3, Research +1, GP +3
Great Artificer
Build : Constructors Guild
Sacrifice : Complete Building currently being built in city
Join : Hammers +4, GP +3
Great Sage
Build : Spiral Tower
Sacrifice : Assist in research of 1 spell
Join : Research +3, Mana +1, GP +3
Great Merchant
Build : Trade Quarter
Sacrifice : Add gold to treasury
Join : Trade +4, GP +3
Great Warrior
Build : Warriors Circle
Sacrifice : Complete current unit being built
Join : Happiness +1, Hammers +3, GP +3

Comments and suggestions are welcome

More will come soon when I update.

 

[Psyringe]

Interesting ideas. I hope you've got the standing power to complete your mod, it's certainly not a small feat. (I'm dabbling with a Fantasy mod also, but I'm not at all sure whether it will ever see the light of the day ). In any case, I'll watch this thread.

Having units produced by culture is a very unique idea. It will be difficult to implement though, and it will also require a partial rewrite of the AI.

Races: I somehow expected MoM races in a MoM mod ... the names you list currently don't mean anything to me. However, which races you can implement will depend on which unit graphics you can use. Given that unit graphics are harder to do than in Civ3, this might be limiting your options.

Civics: One way to have leaders stick to default civics is to give each leader a free tech which unlocks this civic for him. You can do this in in Assets\XML\Civilizations\Civ4CivilizationInfos.xml with the <FreeTechs> tag.Then you can set these civics as default and anarchy civics with the <InitialCivics> and <AnarchyCivics> tags.

If you do it this way, you also have to make sure that these techs don't get traded around. In Assets\XML\Technologies\Civ4TechInfos.xml there is a tag <bTrade> which may provide this functionality (I'm not sure of it at the moment).

You are not limited to 5 civics by the way, so if you want to separate the bonuses to life and death magic, you can do that.

 

[Taranthor]

I am considering just having the MOM races yeah. I'll have to think on it, because if I use too much from the original, it will limit what I can do.

 

[MikeC]

Well, I just had to register so I could reply to this. I've been contemplating a MoM mod as well, mostly just at the theory stage so far.

My ideas:

The Spell of Mastery banished the other wizards to the new Civ4 game world, instead of the winner eventually coming here. I was thinking an "alternate Earth' type setting, where the other wizards came here at the dawn of time, so mixing those leaders & races in with the standard Civ types.

I started out by thinking of leader/race designs, then narrowed down to focusing on the Tech Tree. I was wondering if it would be possible to use 'not' logic, along with the Civ 'and' & 'and/or' gates. My main idea was to reach some point where you could research one tech line out of several, but never research (in that game) the others - tech lines being Technology, Life Magic, Death Magic, Sorcery, Chaos, Nature. Each line would give Wonders, Units, Improvements & Buildings specific to that tech (eventually with spiffy unique graphics), balanced against equivelent types in the others.

So, you could have the industrious Germans defending the skies over Hamburg with fighters & bombers, under attack from the insidious Dark Elven dragons & wyverns, while giants & elvish bowmen advance upon the tanks & riflemen below.

Another idea was (if possible) to add "mana" as a civ resource, instead of replacing culture, and adding "mana nodes" as minable resources, required for certain units/buildings, and to have certain magical units built with mana instead of production. Life/Death mana sources being added to the temples, as appropriate. Hrmm... similiar to the way iron & copper mines both add production to nearby cities, but are seperate resources for certain units. My original thought was for each magic tech line to show only the same style node, but then I thought about resource trading, so I think showing all nodes would be good. You could trade the resource & still keep the mana generation boost from tapping the node.

I really hadn't done much thought beyond that - I was focusing on the tech tree, because if we could make a split tree, it would ramp up the replayability & difference between civ's.

I was also fuzzily contemplating replacing religions with "tech preference", not spreading across tech types. Something like "religions" of "Technology, Life, Death, Sorcery, Chaos, Nature", and only cultures who research the Tech lines would practice "Technology". There'd obviously have to be some changes to the Religion Civics for it, but it would also reinforce alliances & enemies between the tech types.

 

[Psyringe]

I was wondering if it would be possible to use 'not' logic, along with the Civ 'and' & 'and/or' gates. My main idea was to reach some point where you could research one tech line out of several, but never research (in that game) the others

Interesting idea. This old certainly add some diversity to the game. Currently I don't see an easy wa to implement "not" logic though. The techs currently have two lists of requirements, and it just checks whether *every* requirement of the first list (and-prerequisites) and *at least one* requirement of the second list (or-prerequisites) are met. So you probably have to wait whether the SDK will allow to implement "not" logic.

You can also try to achieve the effect you want with obsoletion, so that (for example) the discovery of a certain "Life Magic" tech will obsolete "Death Magic" nodes which are necessary for any Death unit or building. This would provide a strong incentive to only follow one line of research. However, I'm not sure whether the AI can cope with it. For example, in such an environment the AI has to *decline* certain gifts because these may deprive it of it's resources. So you might need the SDK after all.

 

[snarko]

There's a cannotResearch function in CvGameUtils which can perhaps be used to create not gates.

 

[MikeC]

The way I was thinking of it, mana nodes would be like ore/stone bonuses - simply having it in your borders (and mine/roads) would allow it's use, but also increasing city bonuses, if within the city borders. I was thinking of allowing any magic tech branch to see all types of nodes, thus allowing trading of node types, in case the one you need isn't in your domain.

I'll have to look into the CivGameUtils & see what it has to say. Even without going to a magical setting, doing some tech branching could be interesting... Hmm, will have to look at Alpha Centauri again, since it's been many years since I've played it.

 

[MikeC]

I've been doing some thinking on this. The "canReasearch" & "cannotResearch" functions in CvGameUtils is probably a check when you have the Tech screen open, also when you complete research, to filter the mini-icons at the top of the screen for new techs you can research. You'd still have to define the requirements to research a tech somewhere else, probably in the CIVTechInfos.xml, with the <OrPreReqs/> & <AndPreReqs/> sections. Unfortunately, at first glance, it seems you can only limit with other technologies.

My first thought was to have a starting "shadow tech", that would allow you to research one of the branches; when the first link of any seperate chain is researched, you'd lose the "shadow tech" and thus be unable to research another branch. But it doesn't seem like this'd work, because I don't see how you could obsolete a tech.

The only real solution I can see (at this point) is to add Techs to the game. Have one of two starting techs added to each leader, as appropriate - Science or Magic. Then, add the AndPreReq (Science) to every current Tech past a certain point, and use AndPreReq (Magic) for the new offshoots. At a rough guesstimate, after Bronze Working, Writing, etc. That way, you'd have some early generic techs that all civs could research, after which the leader/civ being used will determine if the civ focuses on Science or Magic.


Taranthor:
Great People - Great Bard (as Artist)

Hmm, looks like you & I are thinking in completely different directions on a lot of this. Or maybe you've just thought out more areas than I have.

 

[psilontech]

If you guys got this to work, you would be my hero's! (Lol, my high fame attracted you )

I loved MoM, its up on the list with Civilization ][][ & Master of Orion ][][!

(note: ][][ = 2)

 

[snarko]

My first thought was to have a starting "shadow tech", that would allow you to research one of the branches; when the first link of any seperate chain is researched, you'd lose the "shadow tech" and thus be unable to research another branch. But it doesn't seem like this'd work, because I don't see how you could obsolete a tech.

This should work. Make the shadow tech impossible to research, give everyone it on startup and remove it on the first tech they research.

 

[totg_kabu]

My first thought when I saw how moddable C-IV was to remake Master of Magic, then I remembered just how lazy I am when it comes to coding at home and how little enough time I have to play civ as it is.

I was going to recreate the original fairly closely, similar resource managment etc
all city plots autoworked
Industry change to %bonus
Trade change to %bonus
all citizens specialists
Farmer +2 food
Worker +2 Industry
Local Priest +1 Happy +1 Mana
Priest +2 Mana
Fat Priest -1 Happy +3 Mana
Inquisitor -5 Happy -2 Food +5 Mana +10% Industry +2 Gold(only one per city)

A tax rate sets base income (based on population) and base happiness.

Buildings were all going to be available at the start with prereq. (fighter's guild needs armoury, etc...)same with units.

I've not looked too closely at how civ works, but instead of having to build enchantments I was thinking of tallying up the culture in all the cities at the start of the turn, shove it in a variable then reset all the cities culture to 0 +10. After that a nice custom screen with mana, research and skill slider to divide it up and voila! one mana pool.

As for casting spells the only real idea I had was to add a button to each unit/city then have a list of learned applicable spells to apply then just add the wonder to the city or promotion to the unit.

Religion I was going to replace with race, so it would be a fairly simple process to migrate in race x and relocate race y, and can shove in racial modifiers there too.

I might still give it a go but spare time is rare. Good luck with yours

 

[Taranthor]

What I'm planning on doing with this is slightly similar to what you say.

Basically.. culture will be your mana 'pool' if you will. You can at any time, rush an enchantment or summon, by spending culture.

And also, while you are building anything requiring mana, it will stop all culture growth in the city. So sure, you can use up you mana to cast something, but you will reduce your borders, thus perhaps losing a resource.

I'm going to be adjusting the culture border growth too so that the mana usage affects the borders more.


And do you mind if I steal your specialist idea? I've been trying to think of a way of doing that for ages. I have no idea why that didn't occur to me.

 

[woodelf]

Are you planning on banging this out now with the graphics as is or waiting a potentially long time for new units, LHs, ect? Personally I'd rather see you get the core game up and running and then drop in new graphics as they become available.

P.S. Did you play or have you looked at Drift's Master of Myrror game for Civ3?

 

[Taranthor]

I've had a look at that mod woodelf. Was good

I'll be doing all of the core game first. And then dropping in new graphics. I know the graphics take a long time to do, but the graphics mean nothing without the gameplay.

 

[woodelf]

Sounds like a good plan. If you need testing keep us posted! Graphics are indeed worthless without good mechanics and gameplay.

 

[KingTux]

Replacing culture with mana would be a HUGE mistake. Make mana it's own subsystem modeled after gold. Also, using the Master of Magic name might get you sued, so you probably don't want to consider that route. As for it not being able to be done, if you have good enough planning, documentation, and a little patience, it's not too hard to make a mod that feels like Master of Magic (Maybe it's because I've been secretly doing this for a while. I read your intended plan and wasn't too impressed with anything about it. If you do some major overhauls to your plan, this could turn out, but there's a lot of work that needs to be done. My plan of attack would take a long time to accomplish, but that's why I have milestones set up, like milestone 0 being to finish documenting it and releasing the plans to the forums for inspection and review. Then milestone 1 has many subdivisions which just deal with text and XML scripting, to set up a skeletal framework to start off of. Sorry if this sounds hypocritical at this point, as my plan hasn't been released yet, but I just thought that this small input could help.)

 

[Quinzy]

i dont think you gan get sued for using a name in a non profit project. just look at the warhammer mod (civ3) and the master of myrror mod (also civ 3). although it WOULD be better to ask for permission, i dont think it can doo much harm

 

[totg_kabu]

Sure, feel free steal away.

For your tech tree, I was looking through some of the files and I belive it would be possible to set up a custom tree for each player during game initialisation.
eg:
Player01 - nature magic 3, life magic 6 and Warlord as starting traits then have a small script generate and export a tech tree based on nature/life to xml for the player, when it calls to update the tech screen point it towards the player01 tree. should be possible for the AI's too with a little more work
You could randomize the spells during generation give each spell a random % chance of going into the tree - common 95%, uncommon 75%, rare 50% and legendary spells a 25% chance. Similar to the original

 

[Taranthor]

Yeah

I was hoping for a way to be able to have a book/skill selection screen at the start, but I think that would be beyond my abilities. I'm probably going to change quite a few things before I finally am satisfied though.

Already decided to change the civics part and have some of them as traits, and others as civics, and add in a few more.

 

[KingTux]

i dont think you gan get sued for using a name in a non profit project. just look at the warhammer mod (civ3) and the master of myrror mod (also civ 3). although it WOULD be better to ask for permission, i dont think it can doo much harm

Notice that they don't use propriatary names within the mod's name. I've known non profit projects that have gone under because they used proprietary names (or even proprietary art, so beware). There's no problem saying that it's a master of magic mod, but calling it the "Master of Magic" mod IS a problem. There's plenty of fans out there who would like to see Master of Magic make a comeback, but because Master of Orion 3 flopped, we will likely never see a Master of Magic 2. The copyright on it's huge, and Atari probably wouldn't take this lying down (they just lost Civ, so any money that they could get, like from lawsuits, would be helpful).