Modders Guide to FfH2

[xienwolf]

Actually the Mercurians aren't more powerful by entering early, as they are unable to build almost every starting unit. If I remember right your only option is to spam workers and go get them killed to hope you spawn an Angel. Once you get a few Angels though THEN you are quite set for power.

But without religions in the game, the ONLY source of angels is death of your own living units (which angels aren't), so worker spam and suicide is required.

Infernals on the other hand do tend to work quite nicely from the start as I recall, though I don't remember if they have a nice source for adding population to their cities before religions exist, so you might be stuck at size 1 for a fair while, which would hurt for them. I just seem to remember when people first enabled them both from the start that something about Infernal was sickeningly strong.

Pretty sure you do not get Basium or Hyborem if you start as either Civ, since those are spawned by Python. If you did start with them, then all other issues are irrelevant, you dominate.

 

[Azhral]

They both get Iron at their palace, so as soon as they get a unit that can use Iron weapons (Axemen or SoK's or Diseased Corpses or something) they dominate. Rushing BW is an effective strategy.

 

[Gédéon]

Does anyone know how to make an improvement upgrade automatically without being worked by a city? Like those magnificent forts/castles/citadels you have in FFH. Thanks!

 

[Pickly]

How exactly does PromotionCombatApply work?

In particular, I'm wondering if the promotion is spread before the battle starts (so the enemy unit fights with the promotion.) or after it ends, though a full description is always interesting.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Does anyone know how to make an improvement upgrade automatically without being worked by a city? Like those magnificent forts/castles/citadels you have in FFH. Thanks!

With the FfH DLL improvements with the <bOutsideBorders>1</bOutsideBorders> do not need to be worked in order to upgrade. This is not the case in mods that have not mae the same changes in the SDK though.


Somehow I initially read this as asking how to make an improvement like a fort upgrade to a city. That would require python. Probably the best way would be to make a dummy improvement similar to a citadel and make def onImprovementBuilt(self, argsList): in CvEventManager.py replace this with a city. This could probably only work within cultural borders though, as it would be hard to decide who owns it otherwise.

Now that I mentioned this, I'm wondering if I should go back to my old idea of having unique fort upgrades for each civilization. Probably the easiest way would be to replace citadels with Citadels of Light, Chancels of the Guardians, Mage Cloisters, etc., fi within the right cultural borders.

How exactly does PromotionCombatApply work?

In particular, I'm wondering if the promotion is spread before the battle starts (so the enemy unit fights with the promotion.) or after it ends, though a full description is always interesting.

I wish it were applied before the battle starts, but it seems to only be applied to a unit that kills a unit with a promotion that applies a promotion through combat. It is useless if the unit withdraws, thus complete pointless for siege units and illusions.

 

[Valkrionn]

That might be the easiest way to have civ-specific improvements, but the best way would be to introduce ImprovementClasses, same as with units/buildings. It's something we've thought of doing a few times, too, but never did.

 

[Tasunke]

Can regular FFH support "double river move"??

(like forest or hill, but tiles that are near a river)

also, how does double move work? It seems to only work if you would normally go 1 space. For instance ... if we have a 5 move critter with +6 terrain move cost ... but had double move on say coast ... would he move 2 spaces on coast or up to 5 spaces on coast?

Equally, if we had a 3 move critter with double coast move, double marsh move, and double river move ... with a universal +1 terrain cost (tied at the racial promotion) ... would he just move +1 on coasts? or does he just ignore terrain costs on coasts?

Does "double move" just ignore terrain costs?? So does a nomad horseman move 3 tiles in the desert?

 

[Tasunke]

I'm trying to edit using Notepad ++ but I keep getting the same error when I try to save!!!

(Please check whether this file is opened in another program)

well guess what? its NOT!!!

Edit: I was able to save it to My Documents ... and then later switch out the new files for the old ones. Kinda lame to take more steps than necessary though

 

[Morlark]

Wild stab in the dark, but are you on Vista/Win7 and Civ4 is installed in Program Files? That would require elevation to edit files, although I'm not sure if that's enough to make Notepad++ give that error message.

Edit: Ah, good to see that you got it sorted. Sounds like it probably was an elevation issue then, in which case that's a rather sensible security feature, even if it does occasionally lead to inconveniences like this.

 

[Tasunke]

Yep, Win7 and Civ IV in Program Files

Incidentally I'm having less UAC problems now ... yet my UAC is the same level as it was when I started ... odd.

 

[Tasunke]

New Question ... Can a Race not give a natural +1 first strike?

I tried to make a Racial promo give +10% withdrawal and +1 first strike but no go? .... maybe it goes by a different tag? or not possible w/o Python?

I mean, I guess I could just tie it to Unit, but still ... That'd be every Unit in the Recon line ...

 

[Tholal]

New Question ... Can a Race not give a natural +1 first strike?

I tried to make a Racial promo give +10% withdrawal and +1 first strike but no go? .... maybe it goes by a different tag? or not possible w/o Python?

Should be able to do this in the XML. Just make sure these two lines are part of the XML for your new racial promotion.

<iWithdrawalChange>10</iWithdrawalChange>
<iChanceFirstStrikesChange>1</iChanceFirstStrikesChange>

 

[Valkrionn]

Well, you'd want <iFirstStrikeChange>, not <iChanceFirstStrikeChange>, assuming you want +1 FS, not +0-1FS.

 

[Tasunke]

I'll try again.

Im gonna assume <iFirstStrikeChange> is for races and <iFirstStrikes> is for units ... cause I tried to do the unit integer the last time.

 

[Valkrionn]

Pretty much, though there's one thing to change: Missed an s.

<iFirstStrikesChange>
<iChanceFirstStrikesChange>

 

[Tasunke]

EDIT!!!

In FFH2, Damage Resist info will only work properly if its *below* the ArtDefine ... when talking about a promotion.


So I tried

<iFirstStrikesChange>1</iFirstStrikesChange> ... didn't work. Same for the others (used in this fashion) FFH2

 

[Tasunke]

So ... in summation Plains dbl move not working ....

can't even add first strikes to race, can't even add withdrawal to race (atm)

 

[Tasunke]

Alright, I'm trying to get DoubleMove to work in Plains ... I got it on the promotion, but it has 0 functionality.

Is that hard-coded or something?

 

[Tasunke]

!!!-Completely New Question-!!!

Does the Shipyard add +4 experience to UnitCombat_Naval or! to Domain_Sea??

Edit: Found, it adds (for now) to Domain_Sea

 

[Gédéon]

With the FfH DLL improvements with the <bOutsideBorders>1</bOutsideBorders> do not need to be worked in order to upgrade. This is not the case in mods that have not mae the same changes in the SDK though.

Somehow I initially read this as asking how to make an improvement like a fort upgrade to a city. That would require python. Probably the best way would be to make a dummy improvement similar to a citadel and make def onImprovementBuilt(self, argsList): in CvEventManager.py replace this with a city. This could probably only work within cultural borders though, as it would be hard to decide who owns it otherwise.

Thanks ! Sorry for the late reply, i've been out for a while.
Thomas SG gave me this code, it seems like i only have to learn how to compile a dll.
The city-growing fort is a good idea, but for the mod i'm working on (dune wars), i love the idea of territorial struggle. I wanted to attribute increased culture levels to upgraded forts, thus expanding spice harvesting capabilities over time, yet allowing flexibility over ground control and game dynamism, because it's fun.
I have one problem though : the ai doesn't defend its forts. I'd love to know how to fix that !