[race] Malthusite Race Addon r2 (Updated Apr. 19)

A race based on spreading disease. Nice. Haven't tried it yet, but a couple of things spring to mind that you may want to consider.

Blight (AC 30) could be coded to make them stronger. The Malthusites may have developed immunities to many diseases already and are used to eating low yield crops. Perhaps they could automatically get a Golden age if Blight occurs in celebration of the increased virulent plagues assaulting Erebus. Might make an intersting surprise for an ambitious Sheaim player.

There is an event in a dungeon whereby if your unit breaks open a vial they can get a wasting disease. The Malthusites ought to have an option ("Study him!") to gain valauble insight from the lab and gain a science boost.

I have attempted to make them a bit immune to blight by giving them immunity to unhealthiness in many ways and a +16 :health: to counter blight from their palace and temple buildings, but I do like the idea of giving a golden age :goodjob:

I actually had edited events in the addon, but the modular load engine and custom events do not get along well (see posts 4-9ish). I may release a complete race package with overwritten events, custom python for AI, etc once I am happy with the race. They still have problems being a quite underpowered until later in the game, but since I am already editing things I may have a solution for that...I have not touched the recon line yet, have I? :mischief:
 
Really strange error on my end. Improvements take about 25495234561 turns to build as the Malthusites :confused: let's see if a fresh install does any good.

edit: I also noticed that marsh tiles were more likely to appear in mapscripts after playing as the Malthusites, even outside of RiFe (Wildmana) could be a coincidence.
edit2: The blight idea is cool :) it works with their flavor nicely but it sounds like a lot of work. Would it be possible to check the Armageddon counter for the point when blight is triggered(around 30?)-then have the palace or some other building start a golden age? I'm not a modder so please forgive my ignorance when it comes to python/modular stuff.
 
Really strange error on my end. Improvements take about 25495234561 turns to build as the Malthusites :confused: let's see if a fresh install does any good.

edit: I also noticed that marsh tiles were more likely to appear in mapscripts after playing as the Malthusites, even outside of RiFe (Wildmana) could be a coincidence.
edit2: The blight idea is cool :) it works with their flavor nicely but it sounds like a lot of work. Would it be possible to check the Armageddon counter for the point when blight is triggered(around 30?)-then have the palace or some other building start a golden age? I'm not a modder so please forgive my ignorance when it comes to python/modular stuff.

It is the clean blood promotion which prevents work by workers until they choose a disease.

I am trying a fix for that system in r3 by making the diseases more like a standard promotions in which you choose specializations in that work together with the base sickness of the race. This will let me free up some hammers from the primal diseases and prevent instant fully upgraded units late in the game that could be overpowered.

Basically the pathing will be like the following where each unit is in either fevered or chilled mode:

Fevered->Mental->Arcane Virus\
\->Physical->Necrotic Boils-----|
Chills->Mental->Healers Bane---|
\->Physical->Corrupt Vitae-----|
-Physical & Mental together ----> Mastery-> All diseases at once

You can also switch units between the two starting states of fevered(minus defense) and chilled(minus offense) but units are disabled and weakened for a turn while doing it.

Diseases will also have the ability to spread through the stack with varying probabilities. For example, the most spreadable disease is Necrotic Boils and everything, friend or foe, alive in the stack has a 25% chance per turn of catching boils if a unit in the stack has it. The hardest to spread is Healers bane with a 5% chance once every 5 turns.

/Oh, and I think it is coincidence on the swamps, you probably just did not notice them before you were flooded by them :p
 
Here's a thought... What if there was a slight chance for any unit in the Malthusite's land from becoming diseased because of it's swampy nature and prevalent sickliness of the country? This would occur to friend and foe alike.

Also... Just checking. A unit that attacks/kills a disease carrier doesn't become diseased 100% of the time right? It's a chance?

Haven't noticed - but I'm hoping undead or not alive units are immune to the diseases...
 
Just noticed that the pedia says that the Bannor Palace instead of the Malthusite Palace is required to build the Zealous Burster Palma and Spreader Palma.
 
I've built the Overlords Finger in a city and now when I go to the city to change production - I noticed this error. The Spreader Pollux unit is unavailable (as expected because the pedia says that it needs the Overlords Thumb); BUT... when you mouseover the Spreader Pollux icon - it says that it needs the Overlords Finger to be built.
 
Hmmm - think I just killed Gurid (the big honkin gorilla) with a Dire Hamster. I'm pretty sure I gave him rabies and a few turns later he up and disappeared. Didn't see any message that Gurid died though.
 
Here's a thought... What if there was a slight chance for any unit in the Malthusite's land from becoming diseased because of it's swampy nature and prevalent sickliness of the country? This would occur to friend and foe alike.

Also... Just checking. A unit that attacks/kills a disease carrier doesn't become diseased 100% of the time right? It's a chance?

Haven't noticed - but I'm hoping undead or not alive units are immune to the diseases...

The chance is not 100%, just like with normal diseases. Undead and not alive units are immune to many kinds of disease, but are still vulnerable to healers bane, arcane virus, soul rot, and rage taint because these are more magical, mental, or spiritual than body-based (and since it would be vary hard to battle an undead or demon only race otherwise!).

Just noticed that the pedia says that the Bannor Palace instead of the Malthusite Palace is required to build the Zealous Burster Palma and Spreader Palma.

This is a cross referencing issue in the pedia where custom units link to the original building and not the customized replacement building. The base palace is Bannor and every race replaces it.

I've built the Overlords Finger in a city and now when I go to the city to change production - I noticed this error. The Spreader Pollux unit is unavailable (as expected because the pedia says that it needs the Overlords Thumb); BUT... when you mouseover the Spreader Pollux icon - it says that it needs the Overlords Finger to be built.

This has been fixed, there was wrong text in the class define.

Hmmm - think I just killed Gurid (the big honkin gorilla) with a Dire Hamster. I'm pretty sure I gave him rabies and a few turns later he up and disappeared. Didn't see any message that Gurid died though.

That is odd, I have always seen messages saying "so and so has died from losing Rabies". I will see if I can recreate this.
 
7ate9tin11s, just sent you an invite to the tester's group. ;)

Feel free to link an updated version of this for the testers (within the group, of course), and make a wiki entry for the civ. ;)

Thank you Valkrionn, I will start working on porting it up once I finish ironing out current RiFE r3 for those who wait :D. I am in the middle of changing the core dynamic of the race and want to see if it is more or less fun.

However, I do have a question for you or other more accomplished modders; Is there an easy way to make a level limited set of promotion choices, in addition to your normal leveling promotions, where if you take one you cannot take another until the next level? The only way I see to do it is to have every promotion for every level which prevents subsequent levels and current level promotions when taken. For example you can take A, B, or C at level 2, but only take one of them and then at level 3 you can take one of the remaining 2 (Lets say B or C since you took A at level 1). Finally at level 4 you could take the last one. Is there a way to do this without 9 promotions cluttering things up? Otherwise I will just make them take XP and enhance their power slightly to make it a decent tradeoff.
 
Thank you Valkrionn, I will start working on porting it up once I finish ironing out current RiFE r3 for those who wait :D. I am in the middle of changing the core dynamic of the race and want to see if it is more or less fun.

However, I do have a question for you or other more accomplished modders; Is there an easy way to make a level limited set of promotion choices, in addition to your normal leveling promotions, where if you take one you cannot take another until the next level? The only way I see to do it is to have every promotion for every level which prevents subsequent levels and current level promotions when taken. For example you can take A, B, or C at level 2, but only take one of them and then at level 3 you can take one of the remaining 2 (Lets say B or C since you took A at level 1). Finally at level 4 you could take the last one. Is there a way to do this without 9 promotions cluttering things up? Otherwise I will just make them take XP and enhance their power slightly to make it a decent tradeoff.

Hmm... Basically, you want a set of promotions which are parallel to the standard ones?

For now, I'm not sure there is a way to accomplish it other than what you said. Can't think of one off of the top of my head, at least.
 
Hmm... Basically, you want a set of promotions which are parallel to the standard ones?

For now, I'm not sure there is a way to accomplish it other than what you said. Can't think of one off of the top of my head, at least.

Ok, I will just force the player to choose between new diseases or stronger base combat. :satan:
 
Ok, I will just force the player to choose between new diseases or stronger base combat. :satan:

That's likely a better method anyway, honestly. Diseases are strong. ;)

Really need to give these guys a try soon... They sound interesting. Definite merge potential. :goodjob:
 
About the Gurid issue - I wouldn't worry too much - it might have been the next door civ that killed him.

And I just noticed something else odd.

I just got the agriculture technology so I went to build the granary/breeding pit. But it wasn't available in the popup window. It WAS available in the city screen when I selected "Examine City".
 
About the Gurid issue - I wouldn't worry too much - it might have been the next door civ that killed him.

And I just noticed something else odd.

I just got the agriculture technology so I went to build the granary/breeding pit. But it wasn't available in the popup window. It WAS available in the city screen when I selected "Examine City".

That is a known issue that is fixed in the next release of RiFE that is currently being tested.
 
Downloaded r3 a few days ago, and so far I'm liking the Malth. I have a couple questions though. Are the assimilators and spreaders supposed to gain xp over time like the other divine/arcane units? And are the rabid guardians supposed to be attackable by other civs not at war?

Assimilators, no. Spreaders, not for the lowest tier, yes for two higher tiers (I do not recall if r3 has hidden spreaders, team version is r6 right now :mischief: ).

The rabid guardian is a hidden nationality unit so it can be attacked by friendlies and can attack them with the ambushes. It is a little weaker than other fort commanders, but has a chance to spread rabies and disease in combat or via ambush.

Currently I am writing an AI package for the team version so the computer will know what to do with them and they will no longer be a human only race.
 
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