The Frozen

[TC01]

Patch 0.9a has been released. Changelog:

-Combined the two Dedicate Monument event options
-Decreased the rate Tar Demons can spawn in a Frozen city
-Limited the number of Tar Demons that can spawn in a Frozen city
-Frozen now only get 1 Frozen Soul on a unit's death, like Mercurian Angels, unlike Infernal Manes
-If a unit would create a Frozen Soul but also create Manes\Angels, it will not create a Frozen Soul
-Units cannot create both Manes and an Angel on their death
-Fixed a bug where all AI Frozen souls would be assigned as city population
-Fixed a bug in Blizzards, and also lowered creation, raised death, chances
-Blocked blizzards from being created in cities and moving onto water
-Before creating a blizzard, the game will check if too many other blizzards are nearby

The most important change here are the population changes. I decided to switch to the Mercurian standard (1 angel per 1 dead unit) from the Infernal standard (2 manes per 1 dead unit), since clearly population was a problem. I also limited and decreased the tar demon spawning from the Swamp of Souls building, and added some additional checks to blizzards intended to make blizzards less overpowered.

"Too many other blizzards nearby" is a loop ran for each potential new blizzard that looks at other plots nearby, and if there are more than 2 blizzards directly adjacent, a new blizzard will not be created.

I suspect that there will be a lot of v0.9 patches trying to balance population and blizzards.

 

[TC01]

I've released patch 0.9b, and with it I hope to have finally straightened out population. I added a "diminishing returns" system Sephi added in the Wild Mana implementation of the Frozen, which causes less Frozen Souls to be created as Frozen population grows. I also realized something else that could be causing this- the Frozen Soul promotion used to pass itself in combat, meaning that for every Frozen Soul created, another unit would be "infected". I stopped this, so population should be more managable.

I also worked on the Kocrachon, with ideas from DioAurion in this thread. Now, Kocrachon have been made a little more expensive, Dragons are immune to being Nested, Dispel Magic can remove Nested (I wanted to use Cure Disease, but that has a maxmimum of three promotions it can remove, it seems), and less Young Kocrachon will spawn. I also decreased the hatching chance for Nested units and increased the death chance for Young Kocrachon.

Now, hopefully it's just blizzards left to balance, and I have some ideas for that, but depending on when Kael releases patch k they may appear in another patch or appear in the next full version.

 

[Valkrionn]

Any ETA on the new version? Remerging from your current files, hopefully removing most of the bugs, so want to know if it'll be anytime soon.

 

[Tasunke]

so about this Taranis fellow, and the story of him being imprisoned inside the lake, due to the Orb of Sucullus.

Well, I noticed this the last time I played the Age of Ice scenario, and I am wondering if it was in any way actually a part of the Age of Ice lore and scenario in the beginning, or if it was later ret-conned into the game.

 

[TC01]

@Valkrionn: Well, I had gotten everything currently on the changelog done, but I decided to wait for patch k before releasing. And it's looking like patch l will be a quick fix patch (based on the current changelog) so I might wait for that as well.

Plus, there's some other stuff I want to do. The idea of "Ice-Touched Units" from this thread in the RIFE Forum I thought was a good one. I want to update the pedia texts, especially the help texts and strategy texts of various things I've changed. And I've also been considering altering the worldspell- although how I'm not certain. Maybe have it only turn all Blizzards in Frozen territory into the "Winter" feature (which is something that I might want to change the name of as wll).

What bugs did you find?

@Tasunke: Well, the story behind Taranis being used in this mod is pretty simple: I wanted a leader for my ice-themed civ, and since all the other summonables used archangels, I picked the archangel of ice. The only thing I knew of Taranis was his appearance in Age of Ice (which actually was what introduced me to FFH). Since we don't really know what happened to Taranis after AoI, I decided to say that Kylorin refused to use the Orb of Sucellus, knowing what would happen if he did, or Kylorin did use the Orb of Sucellus but then was able to reimprison Taranis with it.

Then I came up with the idea that Auric frees Taranis for a loyal guardian. He is able to get Taranis to obey his orders, but doing this snaps the bonds Mulcarn put in place to prevent him from being able to change, at least partially. This leads to Taranis rebelling against Auric, gathering all the surviving forces of Mulcarn to him, and trying to ascend on his own. The ascension is made possible because of what Auric did.

Does that answer your question?

 

[Valkrionn]

By bugs, I meant issues with the old version in RifE. Excess population/tar demons, for one.

The only actual bug I found was with the kochrachon code.... A : was left off one line, and as I did a straight merge for the python, I think that's in your code as well.

GreyFox said something about not pickling the script data correctly for the Tar demons, but honestly I have no idea what that means. Don't use script data.

 

[TC01]

By bugs, I meant issues with the old version in RifE. Excess population/tar demons, for one.

The only actual bug I found was with the kochrachon code.... A : was left off one line, and as I did a straight merge for the python, I think that's in your code as well.

GreyFox said something about not pickling the script data correctly for the Tar demons, but honestly I have no idea what that means. Don't use script data.

Found the ":", fixed it.

As for the script data... I thought it would work. I was trying to track the number of Tar Demons a city has spawned and used script data. I'm not using pickle- which is designed to convert objects like arrays into strings. I'm using python's built in unit conversion functions to convert from a string (the script data) to an integer (the counter) back to a string (to store as script data). Is this not working for some reason?

 

[Valkrionn]

Found the ":", fixed it.

As for the script data... I thought it would work. I was trying to track the number of Tar Demons a city has spawned and used script data. I'm not using pickle- which is designed to convert objects like arrays into strings. I'm using python's built in unit conversion functions to convert from a string (the script data) to an integer (the counter) back to a string (to store as script data). Is this not working for some reason?

I don't know if it works or not (Uploaded it to our SVN, passed it off to the testers. Just made sure it loaded fine). I believe it works (can't see anything obviously wrong), Grey Fox just said he always uses Pickle. Also said something about not using Pickle means that other script data doesn't work for the city any more? Not sure there ARE any others, though.

 

[TC01]

I've released v1.0. Here is the full changelog:

-Made compatible with 0.41m
-Blizzards will not spawn until someone completes the Deepening
-Added Orb of Sucellus event that triggers after Liberation
-The Orb of Sucellus Shards are given to the strongest player
-Any arcane unit (units with Channeling I) can reforge the Shards at a Forge
-Then, the artifact destroys blizzards and weakens Ice Demon/Winterborn units within a 2-plot radius
-Added new Kocrachon unit art from Lord Tirian
-Reworked Frozen worldspell- it has a 20% chance of giving units Frozen Soul when cast
-Also, it causes all Blizzards in Frozen lands become Winter features
-Updated help text, strategy text, and concept text for Frozen stuff
-Added new buttons for Adult, Young, and Nested promotions from Planetfall mod

The three major new things are the blizzards (which now don't spawn until the Deepening), the Orb of Sucellus mechanic, and the reworked worldspell. Plus I've worked on the civilopedia a lot (I feel like it should be more than one item on the changelog).

I also think I may have stopped the OOS that used to happen when the Frozen cast their worldspell- since their worldspell no longer does terrain changing on the level it did. It only changes features inside Frozen lands. But I don't play multiplayer so I can't confirm it.

 

[Valkrionn]

Damn you, now I have to merge again.

 

[TC01]

v1.01 has been released. Nothing new- just updated for compatibility with 0.41n.

 

[TC01]

I've released the 1.02 patch, download here.

It's a patch because the next full download version will include my Advanced Ice Nodes modcomp, and probably 0.41o compatibility (when it comes out). I know Valkrionn, for one, dislikes my Advanced Ice Nodes system and so to make merging the Frozen updates easier for other modders this is simply a patch.

It makes the following changes:
-Ice Demon units are no longer alive
-The Ice Golem now has Resist Cold
-The Mulyalfar Elf now gets +25% Ice Resistance, rather than -25%
-Taranis can now be Obsidian Gated around the map
-Fixed a bug where both the Illians and the Frozen would create Auric Ascended

The last bug is something I introduced in 1.01 when merging, evidently I missed the bit of code that creates Taranis Ascended instead.

This mod also now has a custom DLL, containing only the code that allows Taranis (or any other Held unit) to airlift around the map. It's not actually necessary if you're trying to merge this.

 

[Skytha]

Anyone using this with FFH patch o?

 

[TheIO]

Does this work with the new MNAI patch?

 

[Tholal]

No. Though it could probably be made compatible with a little work.