[Module]The Myu Collective

[EugeneStyles]

Could always add code to dominate to loop through the promotions of the original unit and the new unit (Best to loop new unit promos, then a nested loop of old unit promos to compare), and remove any promos from the new unit that aren't found.

1) Is there something like "getPromotionList" that can do that? I was unable to find a function for that.

2) The easiest way to do it seems to be to just clear all promotions from the new unit before calling "convert". Assuming I can figure out how to get all of the unit's current promotions. But the question is, should I? I plan to just override the function for Dominate, but if I did so, it would change functionality for other civs that use it. It would change it to what *I* think it should always do anyway, but I'm thinking that's imposing my will outside of the Myu civ, and not appropriate for this module. So, I might just do

 if (newUnit.isHasPromotion('PROMOTION_PSIONIC')): 
    newUnit.setHasPromotion('PROMOTION_PSIONIC', false))
    newUnit.setHasPromotion('PROMOTION_CHANNELING1', false))
    newUnit.setHasPromotion('PROMOTION_CHANNELING2', false))
    newUnit.setHasPromotion('PROMOTION_CHANNELING3', false))

Then call convert. If the converting unit has channeling, it'll get added back in, so should work as intended.

 

[EugeneStyles]

Making a number of changes which will be in the next version (was originally planning to wait until 1.31 to release it, but still no idea when that will be, and I think Myu v. 0.20 should be ready in a week or so).

• Free Mind promotions removed from Arcane line.
• Master Zho kept at Divination (for the time being), Command Limit set to 0 and denied access to Command Limit promotions (so he can only command his dominated units). Removed Channeling 3 and Hero promotions from him. So he's now strictly a dominator unit - he can get some level 2 spells, but no free XP to get there... his XP will come only from dominated units. Planning to add Dominator promotions to increase Domination limit. Still have to modify Domination to not give Psionic/Channeling to dominated units.
• Collateral damage removed from Crystal Guardian. He still can get a very strong kill-capable ranged attack, but pays for it with no collateral damage. Also, in play his ranged attack never seems to kill in one shot, so it would rarely kill anything in a decent-sized stack.
• Kineticist added (see above for Mind/Air spells). Similar to a Dwarven Slinger, but defense lowered by 1, defensive strike increased by 10%. Mental Barrier (Mind 2, Air 2) will be limited to stacking 4 times.
• Warp Beasts added. 3 6 animal unit that requires Animal Handling. Starts with Dimensional 2 (but not Dimensional 1). Gains Untamed if not on the same square as a beastmaster-class unit. Untamed gives a 2% chance of going barbarian and blocks Tame. So when you do move a Phasewalker (Beastmaster UU) onto their square, they lose Untamed and gain Tame, reducing their city attack and giving them the ability to teleport home. Mind 2 / Dimensional 2 spell creates a Warp Beacon (currently, it's just a world unique global variable - not an improvment or feature or anything), to which any psionic units can teleport. It lasts until the end of the turn or until another Warp Beacon is placed.
• Phasewalker is the new Beastmaster UU. Currently the same as a regular Beastmaster, but with access to Dimensional Magic (and because he's psionic and recon, also Mind, Force, and Shadow).

This is in addition to the new (minor) leader and new trait, which are mostly completed.

 

[Oranos]

I gotta say Master Zho sounds kinda...evil. Domination always seemed kind of evil to me anyway. You're taking control of someone's mind. It would, however, be interesting if you could give Zho different inherent abilities depending on which leader you're using, since the impression I got was each leader is meant to represent a different view on the Psionic powers of the Myu.

 

[EugeneStyles]

Version 0.20 released. See first post for details.

Two points to make:
1) I changed Domination so that it does not give free promotions from your civ or leader traits (basically, the dominated unit will only have promotions that the original unit had, modified by any auto-promotions that either get added on or fall off afterward). I was originally reluctant to do this unilaterally, but I decided that the amount that it would change things wouldn't be that big of a deal outside the Myu civ. I absolutely wanted to make sure that dominated units didn't become psionic, and it was starting to look like a pain to enumerate all of the free promos I *didn't* want the unit to have. I was planning on specifically not removing any promotions that *should* be patched on, but as I thought about it, I couldn't think of any. I thought maybe Wretched was given to newly created melee units by D'Tesh, but it turns out it's an auto-promote, so I don't have to worry about it. If anyone can think of any promos that I shouldn't strip off, let me know. If people think it's out-of-line to block all free promotions on conversion... well, I may change it back if enough people feel that way.

2) I wanted to leave Master Zho at Divination because I want the Myu to have compelling reasons to take all 4 of the post-KotE arcane techs. Alteration - for Crystal Works (to partially make up for your lack of metal weapons), Elementalism - for Air... the Mind/Air spells are pretty strong, but require you to research an otherwise mostly-worthless tech and create an Air node, unless you can trade for Air mana (or get it from a unique feature?) and also Water is useful for anyone if you're stuck with a lot of desert, Necromancy - less useful for Zeriadh, but because your tier 4 recon units can all get Summon Mistform, stockpiling Shadow mana is a valid strategy for Nevos, and Zeriadh will need a source of Shadow mana if she's dealing with a lot of invisible units attacking her. And Divination for Master Zho. So, to some extent, even though all 4 techs are strong enablers for the Myu, their strength is partially mitigated by the opportunity cost of all coming available at the same time and not being all that cheap.

 

[Swinkscalibur]

I love how this is coming together

 

[EugeneStyles]

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Swink. I'm kind of disappointed by the lack of activity on the forum lately. I hope there are some people out there who have downloaded my new version and are trying it out. I'm eager for any kind of feedback.

I wanted to mention that I've started work on the next version - 3rd leader. It's gonna be a whole lot of work. One of the Psionic/Divine spells summons a new civ - they have 42 unique units, so that alone is gonna be a ton of work to implement. I may eventually release that civ as a standalone, though I doubt that they'd work well as a playable (from the beginning) civ, so I'd have to figure out how they would be summoned by anyone other than the evil Myu priests.

 

[Swinkscalibur]

Ya, I've been pretty aloof lately as I started school and it turns out it is waayy more demanding than expected. I've barely had time to scoot over to this site once a week.

But I'm definitely impressed by your work. I can't wait to try it out.

 

[Calavente]

Well, I'll DL it soon and try them after I finish my 1st Archos game .. so I may give some feedback before the end of november

 

[Kiebitzer]

Hi there! *Dusts off the thread* First and foremost, I want to express that I utterly endorse this module and the concepts behind it - magical dwarves are an important thing for me, and I can't bear how horrible the Lurchiurp golem graphics look - and second, I want to ask if it's save to use with the current version of RiFE. I tried, but got a bunch of error messages on startup. I could still play, but the in-game pedia was somehow really messed up. Any tips?

 

[EugeneStyles]

Hi there! *Dusts off the thread* First and foremost, I want to express that I utterly endorse this module and the concepts behind it - magical dwarves are an important thing for me, and I can't bear how horrible the Lurchiurp golem graphics look - and second, I want to ask if it's save to use with the current version of RiFE. I tried, but got a bunch of error messages on startup. I could still play, but the in-game pedia was somehow really messed up. Any tips?

Unfortunately, I haven't tested this at all with the current version of RifE. In fact, the fact that the install will copy over the installed version of the flavourstart is a really bad thing (unless you uncheck that option)... I mean, it shouldn't crash or anything, but it will undo the modular flavour stuff that I made and was fixed and integrated by... umm... I think Opera and ANW? It's been too long since I've been around here.

I've been planning on updating to at least a) take advantage of the modular flavour start instead of overwriting it on install, b) add some of the overall changes, like +health on palace that 1.31 was planned to have (and I assume it does?), and c) add a few minor fixes that I was planning: most notably 1) changing the arcane units again to get Mind sphere (I, II, III as appropriate) for free, but NOT get the free promo that most arcane units get, and 2) Adding a skill that increases your Domination limit (requires Psionic and Mind III). Also testing for compatibility with 1.31.

I WILL get to that fairly soon, though I doubt I'll ever end up getting enough free time and motivation to finish developing the 3rd (evil) leader. Unless I just cop out a little and make him MUCH simpler than what I was planning.

 

[Kiebitzer]

I'll be looking forward to your update, then, whenever it's going to be

And that third leader sounds exactly as tempting as you probably intended when you gave that vague hint above

 

[EugeneStyles]

I'll be looking forward to your update, then, whenever it's going to be

Well, the baby napped for a few hours before dinner, during which I almost finished the necessary adjustments (but not quite). I guess I have more motivation when I know that someone else cares whether this module works with 1.31 or not. There's a chance I'll finish it tonight, or at the absolute worst, the end of next week.

And that third leader sounds exactly as tempting as you probably intended when you gave that vague hint above

Thanks. Assuming that I don't end up developing it fully (which it still looks like I won't - there are probably 40 hours of development left on my somewhat ambitious plan, if not more), I'll be happy to give some more detail of what I had been planning. To be honest, it wasn't exactly a revolution or anything, but I think it would add a few interesting wrinkles.

 

[Kiebitzer]

Great I'll be looking forward to it, just in case that wasn't already obvious ^^

 

[EugeneStyles]

Version 0.21 is finished and uploaded. Not many changes except for compatibility with RiFE 1.31. BTW, Kiebitzer - you said that your pedia was screwed up... I'm not sure how screwed up you mean, but you should note that a lot of pedia entries for the Myu don't exist yet. I tried to include everything that was necessary to be able to tell how things worked, but very little lore.

Let me know if you find any bugs or balance issues.

 

[Kiebitzer]

Gee, thanks a lot! Concerning the pedia, I think that was a mistake on my part (have been testing out a whole lot of stuff lately) everything seems fine by now. I'll be sure to try out a few games and give my humble opinion where I find the time.

 

[Kiebitzer]

First observations: Playing as Nevos, the Shadow Chamber doesn't seem to stay in the city where I built it - as soon as a second one is finished, the first one vanishes, and I never get more than one chamber. That seems weird. Also, my Veterans can use Iron Weapons from the Mines of Gal-Dur, and I'm not sure if this is intended. Mutable Landscape and Shoot Stones work fine - for Salt anyway, didn't yet try it with Mana to see if that really doesn't work - as does the modified Acceleration.

 

[EugeneStyles]

First observations: Playing as Nevos, the Shadow Chamber doesn't seem to stay in the city where I built it - as soon as a second one is finished, the first one vanishes, and I never get more than one chamber. That seems weird.

Ugh... that's annoying. This might be a problem that I can't technically fix - I'll have to mess with the settings and see. Currently, the only buildings that have a maximum number of instances are Wonders (including National Wonders) and the Palace. None of them have a max number other than 1. So what you're seeing is the Shadow Chamber acting like a Palace - which obviously isn't right. You should have a max of 3, but if that's not going to work then I'll either have to make it a National Wonder or not limit it at all. Do you think it would be overpowered if it's not limited? It would give the potential for a WHOLE LOT of Shadow Mana.

Also, my Veterans can use Iron Weapons from the Mines of Gal-Dur, and I'm not sure if this is intended.

No, that's not intended. In fact, I can't really see any reason for the Iron Weapons from Mines of Gal-Dur to be any different from any other Iron Weapons. I'll take a look.

Mutable Landscape and Shoot Stones work fine - for Salt anyway, didn't yet try it with Mana to see if that really doesn't work - as does the modified Acceleration.

Yeah, Acceleration and Shoot Stones have been tested extensively, because they're easy to test, being low on the tech tree. Mutable Landscape, I did a bunch of testing on when I wrote it, although it is possible there could be a bug with it that I overlooked.

 

[Kiebitzer]

Ugh... that's annoying. This might be a problem that I can't technically fix - I'll have to mess with the settings and see. Currently, the only buildings that have a maximum number of instances are Wonders (including National Wonders) and the Palace. None of them have a max number other than 1. So what you're seeing is the Shadow Chamber acting like a Palace - which obviously isn't right. You should have a max of 3, but if that's not going to work then I'll either have to make it a National Wonder or not limit it at all. Do you think it would be overpowered if it's not limited? It would give the potential for a WHOLE LOT of Shadow Mana.

I think that could potentially be imbalancing, as there are one or two units with affinity for shadow mana. What about a single Shadow Chamber that grants three Shadow Mana - or, if thats possible, one Shadow Mana now and additional ones at different technologies? Another idea I'm not sure is implementable would be making the chamber unlimited and adding the mana resources for the first three by some kind of event. That would have the advantage of retaining the recruimtent/training option of multiple Shadow Chambers.

No, that's not intended. In fact, I can't really see any reason for the Iron Weapons from Mines of Gal-Dur to be any different from any other Iron Weapons. I'll take a look.

To be precise, I didn't try other methods of gaining the weapon promotions, so there might be a general problem about that.

 

[EugeneStyles]

I think that could potentially be imbalancing, as there are one or two units with affinity for shadow mana. What about a single Shadow Chamber that grants three Shadow Mana - or, if thats possible, one Shadow Mana now and additional ones at different technologies? Another idea I'm not sure is implementable would be making the chamber unlimited and adding the mana resources for the first three by some kind of event. That would have the advantage of retaining the recruimtent/training option of multiple Shadow Chambers.

One of those might be possible, or I might be able to do the building requirements with python to limit it to 3 of them.

To be precise, I didn't try other methods of gaining the weapon promotions, so there might be a general problem about that.

To be honest, I didn't test the weapon promotions for higher level units all that much - since I "knew" they couldn't get them, I rarely even tried to get metal with the Myu and still haven't played a full game with them. I think I know how to fix it though.

 

[Kiebitzer]

That's nice to hear Looking forward to updates as always. I've yet to finish a game, too - Civ4 has always been rather unstable for me (probably the dreaded memory issue that I can't fix due to not having the Pro Edition of Vista) but I'll keep an eye open for bugs.