MNAI-U: unofficial build & bugfixes

[Vintage Strategist]

can they build work boats in crusade in MNAI? They definitely can't in the base game

 

[Calavente]

oh. I don't know. but if they are classified as military unit, they should.
(I never used crusade ever ^^ )

 

[lfgr]

Finally the promised answers:

I have a few notes/observations for the mod. This is based on a recent Let's Play that's available on YouTube:

1. Hill Giants from Pact of Nilhorn - AI loves to send them to take a look at Acheron city. End result - Hill Giants get roasted by fireballs.

Noted. Probably hard to fix, though.

2. Early AI rushes with Shock warriors are quite disparaging. Immortal+ (where the AI gets 6+ free XP points for units), denser maps, incredibly hard to pull a good game. Big maps with lots of space, not a big deal, but not everyone plays like that. Needs to be balanced somehow.

I atached a patch that changes the AI free XP progression from 1-2-4-6-8 to 1-2-3-4-5 from prince onwards, as suggested by [to_xp]Gekko in this thread. Copy to <Mod dir>/XML/GameInfo/CIV4HandicapInfo.xml to try it out.
If you want to change that yourself, search for <iAIFreeXP> in the CIV4HandicapInfo.xml file. Let me know if you need help.

3. Later in the game the AI loves to promote troops with City Raider and more or less stops taking the op Shock and Cover promotions. Makes it easier to kill their stacks, that can't even reach the cities to make use of those City Raider promotions. In this situation they better have most of their troops with Combat and a few with City Raider.

Noted. City Raider is probably overvalued, and the only reason the AI doesn't take it early is that it cannot do so before reasearching Warfare.

4. AI clearing goblin forts early and aggressively removes the aspect of early rushing with Goblin fort troops as a Barbarian leader by a Human player. So one fun strategy is removed from the game. Consider tweaking the AI to ignore goblin forts unless inside their culture borders.

I will look into the AI for lair exploration at some point, as other mentioned that they do it even without a decent defense. But I don't think I want the AI to consider a particular rushing strategy, they should ideally behave the same way as a human player.

5. Civilopedia models: Correct thumbnails for units in the tech tree and Civilopedia, that's great. But in many cases the 3d models are generic and don't correspond to the thumbnails. As a player: I want to have a cool-looking dude running around from a research, but if the dude looks standard in the Pedia, I'm not sure if I need it. Also Civilopedia states the Clan can upgrade chariots to Knights, but that's not possible, because the Clan has no Knights.

I don't quite get your point about the models, could you elaborate, please?

A minor thing.
In Vintage Strategist's LP, Clan was unable to pick up the wand of wind,since wand of wind is a barbarian unit. Clan need declare war against barbarian to pick that wand up.

I think that is fine. There is some cost to not being at war with the barbarians.

Also a minor suggestion.
In higher difficulty, AI would rather die than surrendering their techs. I think AI is stubborn in this regard. For the sake of realism, I am suggesting a new feature. After conquering cities, player or AI get random tech progress for the techs which city owners know about. It is similar to getting gold from sacking cities. You get some knowledge from sacking others' cities too. It is a feature in Realism Invictus, a civ iv mod. That mod disable tech trading on default and have a 40% tech transfer rate though.

As omegaflames said, this is out of scope for this mod. Additionally, I think it is important that AI is not too eager to give up techs to a conqueror, as this only leads to snowballing.

Did some test games on 'Immortal' (as Capria/Bannor, Erebus Continents, 1 more AI than default, all else default/unset) and happened to get this: I killed an AI (Balseraph) on turn 3 with a Scout because it was too slow to move its units into its first/only city.

Not sure if I can do much about this, it's usually advantageous to found a city in an optimal position and as early as possible. Did that ever happen to anybody else? If yes, I'll have to figure something out.

Mushroom event seems to happen for me almost always directly on the starting city. This may be an older issue. Depending on base tile yields this results in an improvement or not. Note that I almost always build starting city on a hill.

Noted, they probably shouldn't happen on cities at all.

Had at least one instance of getting a unit killed (by a named barbarian unit probably) without getting a message. It still showed in the combat log though. May have the save file still.

I'd need a savegame from directly before that to find out what goes wrong.

 

[Shamira]

I installed the game as the instructions said as I understood it twice now and it tells me "failed to initialize the primary control theme" what do I do? I installed FFh2,, patch O and then this as instructed.

EDIT: No idea what I did, I tried a couple of more times and it's fixed now.

 

[lfgr]

I installed the game as the instructions said as I understood it twice now and it tells me "failed to initialize the primary control theme" what do I do? I installed FFh2,, patch O and then this as instructed.

EDIT: No idea what I did, I tried a couple of more times and it's fixed now.

For the record, this is usually due to a wrong mod folder name.

I forgot to add yesterday that I'm willing to change the AI free XP in the mod itself, but only if I get positive feedback, preferably from multiple players who play at immortal/deity. So, if you have the same problem as Vintage Strategist, please check out the patch in the post above and let me know what you think.

 

[Sezren]

Two more issues found - probably none are new ones though:

1) Stasis eats up one turn of gold cost extra in the beginning somehow. This put me into 'STRIKE' (whatever that does) when low on gold when Illians did it in some game.

2) Samhain spawns Frostling units. I had it happen in one game that shortly after some of them (and probably some other barbarian units too but not 100% sure on that) simply disappeared from the map. Presumably this is due to "too many" barbarian units being on the map which causes barbarian player to randomly dismiss some or something. Can this somehow be prevented? Do temporary units (ones made with newUnit.setDuration() ) also count towards this limit?
Edit: Probably one of the dismissed other Barbarian units was an Archer defending a barbarian town.

I'd need a savegame from directly before that to find out what goes wrong.

Found the savegame but everything is ok in it. If there was a problem (fair chance as I would have had to mess up in multiple manners including running into a clearly visible scorpion with my scout) then it can no longer be reproduced.

 

[lfgr]

For 2) again a savegame would be useful, but I will also take a look at the code at some point. I'm not sure barb despawning is intended in FfH.

 

[Sezren]

For 2) again a savegame would be useful, but I will also take a look at the code at some point. I'm not sure barb despawning is intended in FfH.

I dont have a save for that. And its the only time (trying this version) that I have seen Samhain units disappearing. The one thing that I think was different from the other test games was that there were significant unoccupied landmasses in that game. Presumably these accumulate barbarian units and they then reach critical numbers and when Samhain is done they get over the limit. Just a theory though.

 

[Sezren]

Some more issues - all probably older and not newly introduced:

'For the Horde' can leave Barbarian towns completely empty and it seems Barbarian AI doesnt even remake town defenders reliably if at all. (Probably have a save for this.)

Samhain created units can probably move instantly - this is quite mean. Was posted in other thread but based on my observation also applies to this version here. Original post: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/extramodmod-continued.646778/page-10#post-15912724 (Dont have a save for this.)

 

[omegaflames]

Samhain units being able to move first has to do with the order things are actually built and turns taken. Assuming you are the Illians and since technically everything is built at the end of your turn (projects included) that would create the units during the end turn phase (after you have clicked end turn) so once it becomes the barbarians turn they are then able to move because they were created before it was the barbarians turn. I'm not sure how you would get around that unless you created a custom hold spell that is 2? turns long as unless I'm mistaken a 1 turn long one would also not work as IIRC that would be removed at the beginning of the barbarians turn. If you aren't the Illians then you are still at the mercy of which civ takes turns in which order and I looked that up once but would have to find the information again before I comment on that scenario.

 

[Sezren]

Samhain units being able to move first has to do with the order things are actually built and turns taken. Assuming you are the Illians and since technically everything is built at the end of your turn (projects included) that would create the units during the end turn phase (after you have clicked end turn) so once it becomes the barbarians turn they are then able to move because they were created before it was the barbarians turn. I'm not sure how you would get around that unless you created a custom hold spell that is 2? turns long as unless I'm mistaken a 1 turn long one would also not work as IIRC that would be removed at the beginning of the barbarians turn. If you aren't the Illians then you are still at the mercy of which civ takes turns in which order and I looked that up once but would have to find the information again before I comment on that scenario.

(I dont think this is much of a problem for the (if human) Illian player as they know exactly when they create Samhain.)
I thought in single player human always moves first? So Human -> Illians-AI -> Samhain-Frostlings.
Anyway I dont know enough about civ4/ffh modding to say what would be the best way to improve it. My first idea would have been to spawn the Frostlings not at Samhain creation time but later in the turn order. When Barbarians spawn on lairs for example they dont move right away. They can be seen by the player/s before they get to move.

 

[lfgr]

I thought in single player human always moves first? So Human -> Illians-AI -> Samhain-Frostlings.

Exactly, so it's Human -> Illians-AI build Samhain -> Barbarians move frostlings -> Human again.

I'll add this to my TODO list, it's probably easy to fix.

 

[Alekseyev_]

I feel like this thing is the only thing that makes Samhain remotely useful. For humans, I see little purpose in the ritual, since they are hardly a threat and you basically just hand out free XP to everyone else. Even Mokka is easily dispatched of, and not nearly as deadly as Orthus.

 

[Bickendan]

Two questions: One, are Snake Pillars supposed to be pillageable?
And, if so, are improvements in nuetral land pillageable?

There's a Snake Pillar on the exact tile I'm trying to park a city to infill my borders and correctly capture resources, but I can't build the city on the Snake Pillar nor can I pillage it to remove it. I'll provide a save file if needed.

 

[Sezren]

Sometimes AI will value palace mana extremely high - dont know if this is technically a bug or not but it IMO disrupts gameplay - this has been reported elsewhere here in the forum too. See image. Probably have the save file too.

Edit: Added new image later in same game. Noteworthy is that at some time in between these two Kuriotate AI thought the Law Mana to be almost worthless. Should have saves for that too.

 

[omegaflames]

Two questions: One, are Snake Pillars supposed to be pillageable?
And, if so, are improvements in nuetral land pillageable?

There's a Snake Pillar on the exact tile I'm trying to park a city to infill my borders and correctly capture resources, but I can't build the city on the Snake Pillar nor can I pillage it to remove it. I'll provide a save file if needed.

Snake Pillars are the hell terrain version of corn, rice, and wheat so that is why they are not pillageable. I'm not sure of the reason for them being converted to an improvement instead of a resource on hell terrain but that is what was done (the game also gives you a free farm there when it's converted back to normal terrain). Most improvements in neutral land should be pillageable. You could try converting the land back to normal terrain via life spell, building the city and then letting hell terrain retake the plot. I have no idea how the game would handle having an improvement being added to the same plot as a city though.

Edit: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/ffh2-bug-thread.308020/page-16#post-7757311

 

[omegaflames]

Sometimes AI will value palace mana extremely high - dont know if this is technically a bug or not but it IMO disrupts gameplay - this has been reported elsewhere here in the forum too. See image. Probably have the save file too.

Edit: Added new image later in same game. Noteworthy is that at some time in between these two Kuriotate AI thought the Law Mana to be almost worthless. Should have saves for that too.

Being that mana is a pretty rare and very valuable resource (especially your first one of that type since it unlocks spell promotion paths) I would also consider them worth a lot. That said giving up all that for no guarantee of keeping access to the resource once the trade can be broken does seem a bit off. I'd want that law mana for a lot more than 20 or so turns if I gave away all those techs.

 

[Sezren]

Being that mana is a pretty rare and very valuable resource (especially your first one of that type since it unlocks spell promotion paths) I would also consider them worth a lot. That said giving up all that for no guarantee of keeping access to the resource once the trade can be broken does seem a bit off. I'd want that law mana for a lot more than 20 or so turns if I gave away all those techs.

I canceled the first deal (image #5) after ~10 turns. When I then tried to get new stuff they werent interested anymore and offered almost nothing. Some time later (image #6) however they again offered a lot. Unless they need it to build the respective tower or sth like that I dont think this makes any sense. And even then its IMO out of line with other AI behavior which is deliberately not entirely selfish just to make it hard for the human player.

 

[lfgr]

I canceled the first deal (image #5) after ~10 turns. When I then tried to get new stuff they werent interested anymore and offered almost nothing. Some time later (image #6) however they again offered a lot. Unless they need it to build the respective tower or sth like that I dont think this makes any sense. And even then its IMO out of line with other AI behavior which is deliberately not entirely selfish just to make it hard for the human player.

Yeah, this seems like a bug. One savegame for each situation (AI offers to much, AI offers nothing) would be great. Then I can go through the calculation step-by-step.

 

[Sezren]

Yeah, this seems like a bug. One savegame for each situation (AI offers to much, AI offers nothing) would be great. Then I can go through the calculation step-by-step.

Turn 209 - see image - you have to move the NW scout one tile westwards to contact the Kuriotates. They will then offer lots for the Law mana.
Turn 222 - they offer only 5 gold for the Law mana. Reverse offering doesnt seem to get much out of it either.