Work in Progress - Conquests of Might and Magic III

[DFBATTLER]

Any updates, Tom?

 

[tom2050]

Unfortunately, no... There is a bunch of stuff that I probably haven't shown on here, but tonight I finally got everything setup in 3ds Max to finish off some conversions I need for the final units for the mod. BUT! These will take alot of time to do, purely because each BMP needs to be rendered to create the sprite, and with 340 renders per direction, and 8 directions comes out to 2720 renders for all animations to be put together for a unit (at least for the current one I am doing).

But I will time about how long it takes each Batch Rendering to complete so I can try to keep it going constantly to get it done as quick as possible, but hopefully I can have the rest of the missing units in the game in a week or 2.

I am going to have to take this time off from converting any other units like I have been in the unit conversion thread, until I can complete this, because I have been a bit short on time this week. And I need to get all the units in the mod so I can move on to other things (unit's are the major hold up right now), but they will be worth it, as there are some awesome looking ones.

Most of tomorrow I will be gone, but I will try to give some type of update as soon as I can.

Tom

 

[tom2050]

I've been trying to determine the best way to make creature structures in Civ3 as they were in the Heroes III game. In Heroes III, on a map, there were creature structures scattered around the map, and if you flagged that structure, it would provide you with a certain number of those creatures every week. So if you flagged a Dragon Cave, you would get a Dragon every week from it.

In Civ3, making creature structures is possible but has some upsides and downsides.

Method #1: If they are made as cities that any player would have to conquer to get the benefit of the creature producing building, then although it is possible to have a certain graphic to represent that creature structure, once the player captures it, the game will change that graphic to the player's city graphic. And then the player would be able to build whatever they want in that new city. This seems to have more downsides than upsides, since it may unbalance a scenario.

Method #2: Another way to do this, would be to have the creature structures made as another Civilization (neutral civ in locked alliance), but they would be gaurded by some neutral units so that the Civ could not get it's units out without the player defeating these guards. The problem here is that in order for the player to get use from it this way, that Civilization would either have to be in locked alliance (which means that if the enemy attacked and took this structure, I could make it so that the structure is always razed), but this also means that only certain creature structures could be used by certain players.
This method could provide an additional means of strategy though, since opening these structures up would give you an ally of troops that will steadily attack your enemies, and the enemy would be doing the same. And it would also make it necessary for you to seek out the enemies creature structures and destroy them, to weaken their army.
Also, this would make sure to retain the specific creature structure graphics, so the player knows what they are, and what they do.

Right now, for scenarios (this can not be implemented into an Epic game), method #2 seems the best way to go... any suggestions or comments on this are welcome (unless you have played Heroes III, the point of this may seem a bit strange .

Tom

 

[DFBATTLER]

Suggestion:
How about a civ-specific resource for each creature? [Then you can add the effects to the improvement ( C = R + I where R is resource quantity and I is the number of creatures that the improvement alone should give you (per a specified period of time)]

 

[tom2050]

Suggestion:
How about a civ-specific resource for each creature? [Then you can add the effects to the improvement ( C = R + I where R is resource quantity and I is the number of creatures that the improvement alone should give you (per a specified period of time)]

That could very well work, but the resource overflow problem happens if there are more than (was it 64? or 32 I think) strategic/luxury resources. But I suppose in scenarios, this may not be a problem since there are not likely to be that many creature structures. I will keep it in mind to try to get the best result for creature structures.

From the info that has been found by The Guardian in his Campaign??? thread, it seems it may be possible to have scenarios that must be successfully completed in order to unlock the next scenario.

This could be extremely useful since that was used in almost all Heroes III Campaign games, and would allow a much greater game experience. Hopefully if it works out, I will implement this into the mod as well.

Tom

 

[vmxa]

I have not looked at the editor in some time, but what about making a goodyhut that contains the creature. The hut could be in plain access for low level stuff. The better units, could be in a corner with LM flavor terrain that is not passable, until a certain tech is learned?

Not sure, if that is even a possibility though.

 

[tom2050]

Manticore Unit

I just finished converting the Manticore from NWN. I have also made a recoloured version to use as a Scorpicore (not shown here). It has 3 Attacks, Run, Death, Default, Fidget, Fortify, and Victory. It will be posted for release when the mod is released.



The animated GIF is below in the Spoiler, I put it there because it is approx 700 KB large. The speed of the gif plays slower than the actual animation.

Spoiler :

Some of the units of the Dungeon Army.

Next is the Bone Dragon to be completed.


Tom

 

[vmxa]

Why not use the Manticore from HommIII Warlock castle? It stays with the theme.

 

[tom2050]

It's not possible to convert units from HoMMIII over to Civ3 (if that is what you were referring to) because those sprites are not isometric, do not have 8 directions, and are missing many of the animations. If they did, it would have been much easier to get all the units I need .

I have not looked at the editor in some time, but what about making a goodyhut that contains the creature. The hut could be in plain access for low level stuff. The better units, could be in a corner with LM flavor terrain that is not passable, until a certain tech is learned?

Not sure, if that is even a possibility though.

That is an interesting idea, when units spawn from goody huts, I believe it is the basic barbarian unit that is spawned from them. In regards to the LM terrain idea, I don't think it is possible in the editor to change if it is passable or not at a certain tech, but it could be made to perhaps have a workers be able to cross that terrain at a certain tech so they can build roads, or something of that sort. I will check it out and see if that could be used.

Tom

 

[Wolfhart]

That is an interesting idea, when units spawn from goody huts, I believe it is the basic barbarian unit that is spawned from them.

If you mean those units spawned by popped goodyhuts that join your army, then they're any units marked as buildable by the barbarians in the unit editor. The one appearing first in the editor seems to be the one spawned most often, with units appearing later in the editor being more rare.

Note that in order for a unit to be spawned by goodyhuts it must also be buildable by all civilizations in game, so if you want a certain unit to be available only through goodyhuts then you'll either have to make it upgrade to units available to all civs from the start of the game or make it require a resource not available to the civs.

Oh, I almost forgot: wheeled units will never be spawned.

 

[nick0515]

Tom, method 2 for creature structures sounds like the better choice to me. So you have 8 civs right, so that means you can have another 12 creature structure civs all with different creature structure-city graphics. Though I guess if you play around with the graphics for size 1, 2, 3 and with walls you could have many more creature structures. Good plan. I think its not a problem that each civ will only have access to certain structures. I always thought it was a bit dumb having a variety of units from totally different armies all fighting together. Though fun when you had several different level 7 creature types in one army.

Manticore looks really great.

Re vmxa idea also LM terrain is exactly like it's normal version I believe. You can't set anything for an LM terrain it just follows the settings for the normal version. I believe you are already using all the LM terrains anyway right?

But if you were doing something like that you could have the terrain only crossable by non-wheeled flaged hero units. I believe you said you were having hero units in the game. But anyway the goody huts could only produce 2 types of unit right and you need many different creature structures.

 

[tom2050]

If you mean those units spawned by popped goodyhuts that join your army, then they're any units marked as buildable by the barbarians in the unit editor. The one appearing first in the editor seems to be the one spawned most often, with units appearing later in the editor being more rare.

Note that in order for a unit to be spawned by goodyhuts it must also be buildable by all civilizations in game, so if you want a certain unit to be available only through goodyhuts then you'll either have to make it upgrade to units available to all civs from the start of the game or make it require a resource not available to the civs.

Oh, I almost forgot: wheeled units will never be spawned.

Thanks for the info, that is incredibly useful to know... as I had no idea they worked like that. For units spawned by goodyhuts that attack you (opposed to joining you), are those treated the same way? That they must be buildable by every civilization?

I could use this as an interesting side-effect, by providing a special unit that cannot be made any other way (by using the resource requirement method you mentioned). So this would make it worth going after goodyhuts like crazy, to get an early strong conscript unit.

Tom, method 2 for creature structures sounds like the better choice to me. So you have 8 civs right, so that means you can have another 12 creature structure civs all with different creature structure-city graphics. Though I guess if you play around with the graphics for size 1, 2, 3 and with walls you could have many more creature structures. Good plan. I think its not a problem that each civ will only have access to certain structures. I always thought it was a bit dumb having a variety of units from totally different armies all fighting together. Though fun when you had several different level 7 creature types in one army.

In some scenarios, I could have an occasional structure that allows different creatures from other civs', but since there is no such thing as Morale in Civ3, there is no way to make a downside to having too many different types of units. But it could provide some refreshing aspects.

Re vmxa idea also LM terrain is exactly like it's normal version I believe. You can't set anything for an LM terrain it just follows the settings for the normal version. I believe you are already using all the LM terrains anyway right?

Well, the way LM terrain works, it can't really be used for completely seperate terrain, since it has to fit in the it's normal terrain counterpart. So I still have many LM terrains open. I had to get creative with all the normal terrain's to get all the terrain types I needed (which I still have to make many of them).

But if you were doing something like that you could have the terrain only crossable by non-wheeled flaged hero units. I believe you said you were having hero units in the game. But anyway the goody huts could only produce 2 types of unit right and you need many different creature structures.

Goodyhuts usually don't last too long, the chances of one spawning a late unit (spawning a Archangel or something) are probably close to impossible if I understand Wolfhart's explanation correctly. Right now for Epic Game, flying units are set this way which can cross Mountains, as well as workers... but non-flying units cannot cross mountains. This had to be done, because otherwise on random maps, civ's can become trapped in mountains.

In sceanrios, no units will be able to cross mountains, but flying units still ignore movement terrain costs, so they have a big advantage.

I will use goodyhuts though, and make it where they can spawn better units over time. Hero's will be in the game (I still need to convert the graphics for them) as Armies, but to make sure they are not overpowered for the human player, they may be auto-produced.

Great help! I will use these ideas.

Update: Bone Dragon should be ready by tomorrow to show here, it will have 5 Attacks, Run, Default, Death, Fidget, Fortify, Victory, and Build (Paradrop) Animations.

Tom

 

[vmxa]

Disclaimer, not thought through, just a idea.

Make a wonder that generates a unit periodically. How often, depends on how strong the unit. Tie the wonder to a tech late in the game for stronger units. Tie the wonder to a religion and lock the religions to limit who can get the units.

Tie it to a trait is another option and you could give extra traits to each faction you want to make it. They would still have to research a tech and build a wonder. Small wonder for allowing wider use of the unit.

 

[Wolfhart]

For units spawned by goodyhuts that attack you (opposed to joining you), are those treated the same way? That they must be buildable by every civilization?

No, the hostile goodyhut units (the ones chosen as Basic Barbarian and Advanced Barbarian under General Settings in the editor) does not have to be buildable by anyone, not even the barbarians, and these can be wheeled.

 

[General 666]

Update: Bone Dragon should be ready by tomorrow to show here, it will have 5 Attacks, Run, Default, Death, Fidget, Fortify, Victory, and Build (Paradrop) Animations.

WOW ! Good to hear ! Very promising thing.
You will make a (more than) full set of animations ? Coooool !!!
Can`t wait to see him.
Very good work in general ,Tom2050 !

 

[tom2050]

Disclaimer, not thought through, just a idea.

Make a wonder that generates a unit periodically. How often, depends on how strong the unit. Tie the wonder to a tech late in the game for stronger units. Tie the wonder to a religion and lock the religions to limit who can get the units.

Tie it to a trait is another option and you could give extra traits to each faction you want to make it. They would still have to research a tech and build a wonder. Small wonder for allowing wider use of the unit.

Actually, most of the whole game is setup this way. In Heroes, there were 7 levels of units, and an upgrade for each level as well. The Level 1 and 2 units are directly buildable (and can be autoproduced as well), but units from level 3 through 7 must be autoproduced by building certain buildings in your cities. This is the closest setup to how Heroes III acted, in which you build certain structures in your towns and they would produce creatures each week.

Since Heroes didn't really have culture, and culture flipping won't be enabled here (since it's more of a wargame), I may call culture 'influence' or something. I'll have to dig around in some Heroes Lore and see if I can't come up with an appropriate word.

But to take your idea of using Wonder/Sm Wonder, that could possibly be used in this situation. There was a fan-made expansion to Heroes III, in which they added additional units (Level 8 units, very powerful), as well as many other types of units. I could use the method you described to put those in (but would probably be done later, after the base mod is released, as an add-on). I wasn't sure what to do with them at first, because they are so powerful, it could unbalance the game, but using that method would keep it from becoming unbalanced.

No, the hostile goodyhut units (the ones chosen as Basic Barbarian and Advanced Barbarian under General Settings in the editor) does not have to be buildable by anyone, not even the barbarians, and these can be wheeled.

I meant the passive barb huts, that when taken, sometimes 3 barbarians pop out of it and it says you disturbed an angry tribe I always thought that those were the basic/adv barbarians, as well as the active barb huts. I don't think that passive goody huts ever have angry barbs pop out of them for expansionist civs.

It would be somewhat cool if those acted as you described earlier, but I suppose since goodyhuts aren't around that long in the game, it wouldn't make a difference.

WOW ! Good to hear ! Very promising thing.
You will make a (more than) full set of animations ? Coooool !!!
Can`t wait to see him.
Very good work in general ,Tom2050 !

I will also make the Ghost Dragon (a white version of the above Dracolich/Bone Dragon). 1 of the extra attacks can be used as the Defend animation also.

I may go back eventually and do the same with the Manticore, as there was some other animations that could have been used as well, but the other Attack animations were pretty much the same as the ones I picked, so it wouldn't be worth it IMO. There were many others that could be used as Fidget, Fortify, or Victory animations, so I may do those one day.

After Bone Dragon/Dracolich, I will do the Gorgon (and may release the Gorgon right away, because I won't be using the original colours it has, but will be recolouring it twice to match it up with the Heroes versions). It is a silver colour, and I will be using Greenish Brown/Reddish Brown versions.

I am very close to getting all the units I need, I think there is only 5 or 6 left to do (along with their upgrades, which will likely be recolourations), and then I can get back to finishing the mod itself.

Tom

 

[tom2050]

Dracolich / Bone Dragon

Dracolich from NWN. It has 5 Attacks, Run, Death, Default, Fidget, Fortify, and Victory, and Build (Paradrop). It will be posted for release when the mod is released along with it's recoloured counterpart.

The animated GIF is below in the Spoiler, I put it there because it is approx 1.3 MB large. The speed of the gif plays slower than the actual animation (and I don't know why).

BoneDragon.gif at Imagehost

The Shadow on the Paradrop came out a little (or alot) large while the Bone Dragon is landing (my inexperience with lighting can be seen ), I may fix it in the future, but for now it can be said to be just a strange Necromancy side-effect of the Bone Dragon's dark side.

In the Death animation, a bit of the Dragon goes 'under the ground', but at normal animation speed it's not really too noticeable, and there wasn't anything I could do about regardless.

Tom

 

[Roland Ironfist]

If you need to rename Culture, you could use Fame - it's an attribute used in the accompanying Might and Magic games to denote your influence and renown across the continent. But I also think Culture is fine as-is; it doesn't contradict or clash with any Heroes lore I know of.

 

[nick0515]

It might be just my comp but nothing happens when I try to look at the spoiler for your bone dragon post.

 

[bigdog5994]

i dont see it either