Work in Progress - Conquests of Might and Magic III

[tom2050]

I fixed it, due to it's size, it could only be displayed directly from Imagehost. The speed of the gif is very slow. I tried using AnimationShop to increase the speed of the frames (which it did), but the gif still played slow online. Anyone know how to fix this? It's annoying watching a very long gif play verrrry slowly

Tom

 

[bigdog5994]

Holy jesus Tom that is one of the best units ive ever seen

and it played at a good speed for me

 

[tom2050]

Thank You, but it is a conversion, so credits to NWN

Initially, I had some problems with AI civ's aggresively building creature structures that auto-produce units; but due to some of thoughts from Ozy's thread here, I decided to give these auto-production buildings a 100% flavor, and it worked too well I think.

Now it's almost scary, here are some screenshots on my test game on Day 241 of the game.

In comparison I have mostly Level 1, 2, and a few 3, 4 unit structures built (but I only have Level 1 and 2 creatures at this point).

A map of my current situation, my territory is the darker red area; as can be seen, other civ's are much larger than I am (I started in a desert area, thus growth was tough initially).


The AI Fortress Capitol, has built a full complement of Level 1 and 2 Creature Structures, plus it has it's Level 6 Wyvern Nest!


The AI Necropolis Capitol, has a fair number of it's creature structures, and continues to build them aggresively.


The AI Stronghold Capitol, has become an extremely powerful force, and as can be seen in the below pic, has almost every structure built all the way up to Level 5! (Which means it is pumping out many units, weak and powerful).


I think, in all fairness, this shows placing a 100% flavor on buildings definitely works, because before I did this, the AI did not build them in this way at all.

EDIT: In the above game, I am playing on Monarch difficulty... and the game is extremely tough. I need to make some adjustments to the Conflux Elemental Town's to fix a few shortcomings they were displaying; but taking towns is a huge deal (and it should be, as capturing a town leaves no buildings remaining; they must be built from scratch - which is needed to avoid a civ becoming overpowered).

I have captured 3 towns so far at Day 294. I will probably gain about 4-5 more towns hopefully (since the civ I am attacking has had it's army mostly destroyed with the help of a neighboring civ). But I will have to do this quick (wars were to acquire resources I needed) because about 5 turns ago, most civ's got the tech which allows MPP, military alliances, etc... and wars broke out by the bundles. Many civ's have very large armies, so playing as in a normal Epic game is a good way to lose; once I realized this, I quickly made big adjustments to my strategy to protect my borders.

One thing to realize though, is that there is not anywhere close to the micromanagement required compared to the normal Civ Conquests game. I got to Day 294 in a couple days of part time playing.

Tom

 

[tom2050]

I'm in a bit of a pickle. Here's the problem.

I have certain units that cannot be directly built, but can only be auto-produced. So let's say for example, there is a Demon unit.

On the units page of the editor, the Demon requires no resources, but is available at an Unresearchable Tech (this allows the unit to be autoproduced, but cannot be directly built).

The Demon's Upgrade (Horned Demon) is set up the same way [requires no resources, and is set to an unresearchable tech]. It can also be autoproduced therefore, but not directly built.

Here is the problem: I want the player/AI to be able to upgrade Demon's to Horned Demon's. But with the way it is setup now, this can't happen since the tech for the Horned Demon is not discovered (unresearchable).

-------

With that in mind, I thought that perhaps making these units known to the player, but requiring a resource could work, but that would make them directly buildable.

If they require a resource that the player does not have, then they would not be buildable, but would they still be able to be auto-produced??? (the auto-production building i.e. requires no resources to make things simple, I think that the answer to this is NO, but can't remember). Also, the player would still not be able to upgrade in this case.

I don't think doing this is possible UNLESS you make the unit a King unit, but then the unit is named after the leader of the civ (I think) if it is upgraded, and forces the unit to be the last defender.

Any thoughts on how this can be achieved? (I should start a new thread in the main forum).

Tom

 

[tom2050]

Special city defenses

I'm currently working on the graphics for each of the city's special defenses that will be available. When you build Forts, Citadels, and Castles; special defenses will become available that will help defend your lands and towns from the vile enemies you may face. The longer you own a city, the more of these will be available to you over time, thus strengthening your defenses significantly.

Each civilization will have it's own unique city defenses. Here is an example of the Necropolis' City Towers (which hold Liches instead of Archers) and they can take shots at enemies at distance to soften the targets up before they attack the city. The AI actively uses these to their full extent, and will unleash a horde of pain on any attacking enemy.

Shown below is the Liche in it's Necropolis Tower (which will appear over the city graphic when it bombards).

Note: Magnenta pixels seen in the image are shadows, and are not seen in game or in Alpha Blend.

A Necropolis Tower stands watch in the citadel of Moulder, with a Ghost Dragon nearby, as a Naga and Naga Queen stray within the Undead's territory.

I will be holding on to all the graphics for making these, so if in the future, anyone ever wants or needs a specific unit to be placed in one of these towers (9 different ones will be available), I can do so for them. Tower graphics thanks to HoMM3.

Tom

 

[nick0515]

Really cool Tom. Are they artillery units? How have you got the AI to actively use them? By giving them 4+ range?

I could well be requesting some unit - tower combinations at some point in the future. Thanks for offering to do that Tom. You really are a generious contributor to this forum.

I'm looking forward to this mod so bad. Do you have any kind of rough ETA for completion?

 

[vmxa]

Going to have to fire up A Homm game or MM after looking at these shots.

 

[Dumanios]

Cool.

 

[tom2050]

Here is the Fortress Tower with a Lizardman firing a couple shots off.

Really cool Tom. Are they artillery units? How have you got the AI to actively use them? By giving them 4+ range?

I could well be requesting some unit - tower combinations at some point in the future. Thanks for offering to do that Tom. You really are a generious contributor to this forum.

I'm looking forward to this mod so bad. Do you have any kind of rough ETA for completion?

I considered making them artillery units, but decided against it. I did this for a couple reasons: in HoMM3:
1. the Catapult could target and destroy Castle Defenses (Walls, Castle Gate, Towers, Citadel Tower, etc)
2. the Castle Defenses did not have to be directly destroyed in order to capture a town.

Therefore to keep along the same line of thought, I made them Sea Vessels The AI will actively use a ship to bombard like crazy. For artillery the AI will usually use them as well, but then there could end up being many Towrs to have to fight individually to capture a town, and this didn't really go with how HoMM3 was.

The range is not dead set yet, but is set at 2 for now (if it's too much longer there will be constant city to city bombardments from these Towers which doesn't really make much sense).

ETA at this point could possibly be in a month or 2. But that is very vague figure; and as we all know, things usually end up taking longer, so I'd have to say 3. All creatures are almost done, and once that happens, I should be able to start getting things done much quicker on many other parts of the mod.

Going to have to fire up A Homm game or MM after looking at these shots.

I have played quite a few myself lately to make sure I remember everything and to find things I may have missed. It is still a fun game to date though!

Cool.

Thank you. Next on the list for actual units is the Gorgon. I have still not decided, but I may go ahead and release it right away. I will not be using the original colours of the Gorgon, but recolours of it, so I probably will do so once done.

Tom

 

[nick0515]

Second tower looks great too. I had forgotten about your ship, city defender units. Yeah that's a much better way of doing it. 2 range seems about right to me too.

Is the vague 3 month ETA for the beta test or the finished game? I'd love to test this as soon as your ready for that.

 

[tom2050]

Second tower looks great too. I had forgotten about your ship, city defender units. Yeah that's a much better way of doing it. 2 range seems about right to me too.

Is the vague 3 month ETA for the beta test or the finished game? I'd love to test this as soon as your ready for that.

It's tough to come up with an ETA. Most things to be completed are graphical once the units are finished. The scenario maps need to be put together also and balanced.

Beta testing will most definitely be needed, since the one test I just did recently showed some big things that I needed to fix; and everything is not even implemented yet (there are still tech's which do nothing, since I haven't added it all in yet).

8-12 weeks should be about right for Beta... but don't hold me to this As we all know, time usually goes by faster than expected, and there always seems to be stuff that needs to be done... but we shall see.

Tom

 

[nick0515]

I'm very impressed by the speed (and quality obviously) of your modding. Just really can't wait to try this out. But it takes as long as it takes. I'm certainly not trying to rush you. Speaking as someone who has achieved very little concrete work on my own projects I can well understand that everything takes a long time and I can see that you are a far more productive modder than I.

Still, fingers crossed you can get it done soon!

Nick

 

[tom2050]

From thinking about some of the input given earlier in the thread (from elenar! Thank You) about making an actual graphic for the resources, I decided to go ahead and do that (was a great idea BTW!, and I had it wrong when I thought the captured unit becomes a worker)

Now there will be the actual large graphics for the resources (can be done for scenarios only). It is a unit graphic that is placed over the actual resource. I found out that this will have many benefits over just having the regular resources on the map... and will make the game MUCH more similar to how HoMM3 was (where you had to flag resources).

Here is a couple graphics, the Sulfur Dune and the Gem Pond; They come with a Civ Coloured Flag, so the player that captures it will display their flag color!

With this in mind, I will also likely place Victory Point Locations on the resources, which will create a big incentive for the AI to actively try to take these locations. Although the player who has the resource in their territory will still get the resource, I will test having the resource outside of borders to see if the AI will aggresively send out workers to set up a colony. If the AI does this, this could create good battle areas to control resources so the civ can build certain structures.

An image of how some of them look in game placed over actual resources themselves.

EDIT: In game when I move my unit onto one of the graphic resources of another civ, my unit does not 'capture' that unit... instead it stays property of the other civ (??), and my unit and the other civ's resource unit are both occupying the same square!
Here is how the resource is setup in the editor... (Image in Spoiler); Resource Holder is a resource no civ can obtain so the unit cannot be built in cities.

Spoiler :

----------------

BTW, I think it may be better to have Battle-created units become Armies right off the bat, this way the AI will have a greater capacity at using Armies (Heroes)... of course, if this is done, then the Military Leader names do not show up.. so none can be named after the Heroes of the game. But if Battle-created units become Leaders, and they are turned into Armies, I don't think the name sticks with them???

Tom

 

[nick0515]

Tom those resource units look great. It is a really nice touch having the civ coloured flag.

That's a known bug that is causing your problem. Hidden nationality units with zero attack/defence cannot be killed (except by bombardment - I think) and they can occupy the same square as another unit. Might pay to check the exact details of that bug, but I think that's how it works.

Do they need to be hidden nationality? Is that so that you can steal someone's resources without starting a war? Or to encourage the AI to go for them?

EDIT 1: More to say...

With this in mind, I will also likely place Victory Point Locations on the resources, which will create a big incentive for the AI to actively try to take these locations. Although the player who has the resource in their territory will still get the resource, I will test having the resource outside of borders to see if the AI will aggresively send out workers to set up a colony. If the AI does this, this could create good battle areas to control resources so the civ can build certain structures.

I AI might pillage the road of a resource square once they capture it within someone else's territory. Then at least no one would get it.

Then AI never seems to build many colonies in my games, but I seen others report differently.

Hope it all works like you want, as it will definitely make for a more interesting game trying to control these resources.

EDIT 2: Unrealated question... What are you going to use for workers? I notice in all your screenshots you still have the original civ worker graphics. Would be nice to have flavoured workers for each civ, but HOMM3 didn't have workers so what can you use... I guess there are enough fantasy worker units around that you could find something that fits with each of the civs. You may have a better solution up your sleeve of course.

 

[tom2050]

Tom those resource units look great. It is a really nice touch having the civ coloured flag.

That's a known bug that is causing your problem. Hidden nationality units with zero attack/defence cannot be killed (except by bombardment - I think) and they can occupy the same square as another unit. Might pay to check the exact details of that bug, but I think that's how it works.

Do they need to be hidden nationality? Is that so that you can steal someone's resources without starting a war? Or to encourage the AI to go for them?

Thank you for the info.

Now that I think about it, hidden nationality is better being left out, to avoid the bug, and because this can only be used in scenarios, many will have locked alliances anyways, so the war deal won't be an issue. Initially I thought that there would be the problem of a civ kicking the units out of their territory (and the Ore Pit along with them), but as long as neutral civ's don't have resources within another civ's territory, this can be avoided.

Victory Point locations will encourage AI to go for these spots, so I've taken HN out and it works perfect now.

EDIT 1: More to say...

I AI might pillage the road of a resource square once they capture it within someone else's territory. Then at least no one would get it.

Then AI never seems to build many colonies in my games, but I seen others report differently.

Hope it all works like you want, as it will definitely make for a more interesting game trying to control these resources.

I'm still not sure if I should give the pilliage ability to units. I suppose I could, the only thing is, the AI will pilliage like crazy, and games will have MANY units everywhere, so this would likely become a major annoyance to players (getting their whole lands pilliaged).

Many AI units can bombard, but I don't think AI bombards improvements either.

Hopefully AI builds colonies; I haven't ever seen it much myself, but perhaps the AI only does so to a resource that it does not have (thus, it won't build 3 seperate colonies on 3 different sources of iron). Will have to test it out some.

EDIT 2: Unrealated question... What are you going to use for workers? I notice in all your screenshots you still have the original civ worker graphics. Would be nice to have flavoured workers for each civ, but HOMM3 didn't have workers so what can you use... I guess there are enough fantasy worker units around that you could find something that fits with each of the civs. You may have a better solution up your sleeve of course.

Good call... I went browsing through the database, and downloaded all of the graphics I could find for settlers and workers. I'll have to see if there are enough to fill all 9 civ's in the game.


NWN Gorgon is being put together currently, and should be available either tomorrow or the next day. This will only have 3 Attacks (and all the rest), but will have 2 Fortify animations (which one or both can be used for a variety of other animations as well).

I will be releasing this Gorgon as soon as it's done...



Tom

 

[nick0515]

Gorgon looks great. But I thought a gorgon was a kind of greek goddess. Does it have other fantasy meanings aswell?

Pillaging AI units can be very annoying. I hate it when the AI floods my territory with crappy spearmen and starts pillaging at will.

 

[tom2050]

Gorgon looks great. But I thought a gorgon was a kind of greek goddess. Does it have other fantasy meanings aswell?

Pillaging AI units can be very annoying. I hate it when the AI floods my territory with crappy spearmen and starts pillaging at will.

It must be more than one creature... I think I've heard Gorgon referring to something like a Medusa as well (It may have been the old movie Clash of the Titans?)... but I'm basing it off of the HoMM3 creature. Perhaps I'll look it up to see what it actually is.

EDIT: You are right. The Gorgon HoMM3 is using is based off what seems to be the Dungeons and Dragons version of the Gorgon; which is closely related to the form of the Greek Mythological creatures Khalkotauroi and the catoblepas.



Tom

 

[tom2050]

The Gorgon is close to being completed... and will be posted once finished. Here is a preview of the Gorgon animations.

Eventually, 2 more versions will be released in different colours, and perhaps a civ colored version as well.

EDIT: Everything is completed, but it still needs to be tested. I will likely post the finished unit later tonight.

Tom

 

[tom2050]

The Silver Gorgon has been posted up! Get it here.

Enjoy! It's a fun unit to watch in game... has some cool animations. I think the above gif includes all the animations, but the actual animation runs much smoother (I had to cut 50% of the frames out of the gif to get it to run at a decent speed online).

Tom

 

[nick0515]

Awesome unit Tom. The animations are really nice. A civ coloured version would be very cool. It looks quite mechanical actually. It could pass for a robotic bull or something too if anyone ever had a need for such a unit.