[MODMOD] Elohim, guardians of the holy places

[Opera]

How will you fix the UF resources issue? Using Valkrionn's spells idea? If so, I think it is a good take. Elohim should need to visit the UF to gather the Holy Relics. I guess you should link these spells to the monk units, as it would make a lot of sense.

Also, I really like your modmod. I'll keep it updated to mine, if you don't mind. Very cool tweak to the Elohim. By the way, can I get you to take a look to the Peacekeepers trait I did for them for the new version of my mod?
Basically, it gives Melee, Archer and Disciple units City Garrison 1 for free and gives them +30%, and while at peace. It's very very powerful, especially combined with the UF but you must avoid war at all costs to keep it running well.

 

[Pazyryk]

Thanks for the support Opera! I like Valkrionn's spell idea except that I don't know how to make the AI visit the UFs. Also, I'm trying to avoid feature additions when possible (except when I don't).

I don't really understand the current problem. I just added Holy Relic to all UFs and made it only visible to Elohim (through Elohim-specific tech). Why does this make Fruit of Yggdrasil unavailable to non-Elohim?

 

[xienwolf]

There can only be 1 resource on any tile. If you place a new one, old one goes away. Doesn't matter if you cannot see one of them, only one (visible or not) can ever exist per tile.

 

[Opera]

You could do it with a building: if you have a UF near one of your cities, you would be able to build a Holy Shrine/something in the city, granting it 1 HR. I don't know if it would grant it to the whole empire though or only to the city. You would have to create one building for each UF though, so that if you have 2 UFs near you, you would be able to build the two buildings. So they would need each a different buildingclass. It would be easier for the AI to build a building than to make a monk go to an UF and cast a spell on it.

 

[Pazyryk]

Ha! I guess it would be fitting to link it to an existing building:

rel·i·quar·y
n. pl. rel·i·quar·ies
A receptacle, such as a coffer or shrine, for keeping or displaying sacred relics.

 

[Opera]

Yeah, but remember that if you have multiple UFs near your city, you'll need to be able to build at least two reliquaries.

 

[Cylnar]

Yeah, but remember that if you have multiple UFs near your city, you'll need to be able to build at least two reliquaries.

You might need to make an Elohim-specific national wonder or something for each UF, requiring that particular UF to be in the fat cross or whatever to be built, unless the game can be made to allow two or more of the same building per city without exploit or error...

 

[Pazyryk]

It's easy to add multiple different buildings that are all called "reliquary" that auto replace each other and give different bonus numbers (this is how Ki works, with up to 18 Ki from one building). Or, similar to Cylnar suggestion, I could have a different building for each UF, all called "reliquary" and each giving 1 holy relic. Whatever the mechanism, it has to allow for UFs owned via forts. I also wanted this to depend on trade network (unlike Ki) so that an isolated city or group of cities would only benefit from local relics. (The flavor here is that pilgrimages to holy relics is a kind of trade.) I could perhaps program it so each owned UF counts toward the nearest city, but this is tough and may be computationally expensive (would have to trigger search for nearest city for each Elohim owned UF each turn).

A simple solution that occurs to me is that I could drop the Holy Relic next to the UF at start (in any passable plot that doesn't already have a bonus). Could be accessed by mine with road? This works but may be a little annoying as it removes a tile from other uses.

Another possibility is to only add Holy Relic to UFs that don't otherwise have a bonus.

Getting back to the spell idea, there could be an Elohim spell that is castable on an owned UF that puts a Holy Relic producing building in the nearest city. This would allow Elohim to get the relic and other UF bonuses. Same problem as above: I won't do this unless I can think of a way to make the AI visit the UFs. Another way might involve a spell castable in Elohim cities (conditional on a nearby UF) but I think the spell checks would be computationally expensive.

I'll have to think about this some more. I want it to be as simple as possible.

 

[Pazyryk]

Opera, I do like the peacekeeper trait. I'll incorporate that for sure. (Are there any un-obvious files I need to look in to add this?)

Also, a long long time ago (perhaps Ffh 0.23? -- it was when world spells were first implemented) there was a modmod that made the Elohim world spell create a cool blue glowing wall, instead of the generic Great Wall. There was also a discussion about making the wall update each turn. I'd also like it to surround all borders and not just the capital. Has anyone seen any of these things in a recent modmod? If I can do it outside the dll I'll try.

 

[Opera]

No, it's just done in the TraitInfos file (and in the CivilizationInfos, obviously).

As for their worldspell, it's in the dll. At least for doing it for each city.

 

[Pazyryk]

Updated to 0.23 (breaks saved games)

This fixes reported bugs. It also changes the Holy Relic mechanism. These bonuses are now given to individual cities (through reliquary building) based on number of nearest UFs. Reliquaries are auto-generated in Elohim cities with nearby, owned UF(s) (no longer buildable). Holy Relics are no longer placed on map.

Opera, I wanted to include Peaceful trait but I noticed that you didn't add this trait for Ethne and Einion (only for the minor leaders). Is this intentional? I'll add to next version if you think this trait should be included for the non-minor leaders.

Regarding settler spawning: I haven't decided yet whether to move away from settler spawning mechanism (alternative would probably be some kind of ritual series). Someone mentioned above that spawning doesn't scale with map size or game speed. It actually does in an indirect way, because it is linked to average city number for other civs (which are influenced by map size and speed). So, assuming I keep spawning mechanism, I don't think any additional map size or speed adjustment is needed.

1. [py] Fixed so that Elohim can't build setter in any city regardless of culture (Opera)
2. [XML] Removed unnecessary Elohim-specific settler unit
3. [py] Elohim now spawn normal settler; Starting Settler promo added to spawned settlers
4. [py] Elohim can't build palace in cities with other civ's culture (Opera)
5. [XML] Removed Reliquary building (from BuildingInfos and CivilizationsInfos)
6. [XML,py] Added Reliquary buildings and building classes. Same as before except:

• no unhealth
• not buildable
• each owned UF provides 1 Holy Relic to nearest Elohim city (up to 5 maximum per city)

7. [XML,py] Removed previous XML and py that added Holy Relic to UFs (reverted to Orbis original CIV4ImprovementInfos.xml)
8. [py] Added Aifon Isle, Aifon Isle explored, and Maelstrom to list of UFs tested (unlikely but possible for these to be in borders)

 

[Opera]

I added a Peaceful trait that some leaders use (Ji, Futiro, for example) and a Peacekeepers trait that is the Elohim CivTrait. I also gave Ethne the Peaceful trait in spite of the Defender trait... So Ethne will gain +45%, and during peace.

Did this answer your questions?

Nice update. I will most likely update it for .4

 

[Pazyryk]

Ah... I see. I was looking for peacekeeper and found peaceful...then I got confused. I was sure that I saw only Tolerant as the Elohim CivTrait in your modmod, but I may be mistaken (I don't have file to look at now). I'll probably add Peacekeeper CivTrait but not Peaceful (seems redundant to me). Elohim may be over-cultured with my changes and your changes combined, but maybe not...

 

[Opera]

Peacekeepers isn't in a released version yet.
The main difference between Peacekeepers and Peaceful is that the former isn't made to be used with anyone else but the Elohim. It gives them City Garrison I for Melee, Archer and Disciple units and boost their commerces during peace. Peaceful only boosts commerces (and less) and is available for any other leader.

 

[Pazyryk]

Minor bug fix 0.24 (works with 0.23, not earlier versions)

1. [py] Removed BUILDING_RELIQUARY from list of buildings affecting spawn rate.


For any programers out there, it seems like:

pPlayer.countNumBuildings(gc.getInfoTypeForString('BUILDING_RELIQUARY'))

was recognizing BUILDING_RELIQUARY_1, BUILDING_RELIQUARY_2, etc. (there is no exact match BUILDING_RELIQUARY in my current modmod). Is this normal behavior? Rather annoying if so.

 

[Morni]

Good to see this mod shaping up. Gonna try it out again today, I think

 

[Pazyryk]

All, could you please give me feedback on settler/monk spawning vs. creation by ritual? I can change this for the next version, but I've been enjoying the current system and I'm seriously undecided at this point. If I change it to ritual, it will have to be very expensive. One idea is to have one ritual that starts cheap (maybe 200) and scales up depending on how many Elohim cities are present (so maybe 400 for city number 4 or 5). (I can implement this though several different rituals that appear in game and civolopedia as one.)

Here are some of my thoughts:

Current spawning mechanism:
Not too original (mechanism stolen from Scions).
It's fun, and a big change from other civs, to be able to focus on city development and ignore expansion (feels like OCC).
Conversely, it removes expansion from player control (except for some minor influence through buildings), which is a bad thing.
It's easy for me to balance, since it is tied to other civs average city number.
Very strong "rubber band" mechanism, which is good for keeping AI in game (percent goes up to 10% if city number low compared to others).
This system is forgiving for the settlers or new cities that inevitably get hammered by barbs and animals (spawning percent goes right back up if settler or new city killed).

Alternative ritual mechanism
Original unique civ mechanism.
Tough to balance: first city might be powerhouse or not, which pretty much determines the course of the game (but this problem exists for all civs).
It will be brutal to loose settler and monk on 1st turn after spending 360 production (new players will throw things and post nasty messages at me).

 

[A Golden Dragon]

in late game, a monk can be killed easily if spawned at the wrong place. can be really annoying when you finally spawn a settler.

 

[Pazyryk]

Dragon,

Do you think this is a bigger problem early or late game? Monk power scaling is supposed to balance this to some extent.

One partial solution would be to make the monk and settler invisible (for a turn or two or until the settler makes a city). You can still get the conga line of barbs coming for the new isolated city, so some new cities are gonna die.

 

[A Golden Dragon]

certainly late game, situation was that there where around a dozen strength 5-7 animals surrounding my monk and settler, it could handle a few.. but because there where so many it was killed.