Work in Progress - Conquests of Might and Magic III

Thank you all. Once I can get all the missing units done, which is the major hold-up; and will take some time, I will be able to start real testing for balance. Although I am doing so now using placeholder units (with warrior graphic). I finally have the BIQ balanced to an extent to where in the Epic game the AI will pursue building creature structures.

I am playing as the Conflux (Elemental Town per say). The Conflux has very weak Lvl 1 units, but it's Lvl 2 through 5 units are all pretty good (they all could be considered at a Lvl 4 strength). This gives them large advantage, but they are expensive and are not produced as often, so care must be taken with them.

I started this game with that concept in mind, but it is slightly more difficult than I thought. Early in the game, the Erathian's attack with about 10 Pikeman, but my many Pixies (which are very cheap and can be produced in large amounts, but the weakest unit in the game, besides the Peasant) were able to hold them off and peace was made.

Next, around Day 130, the neighboring Fortress civ attacked with a huge amount of Gnoll's and Lizardmen. At this time I had some low level Magic Spells and a few Air/Storm Elementals to hold off that attack. It seemed that many of the units started to leave instead of hitting me with their full force (they likely engaged in another war), but then Bracada (Tower) struck without notice from the North and the West. I made peace at a price with the Fortress to close off a front.

ConfluxVsTower.JPG

Gremlins aren't much stronger than my Pixies, but Master Gremlins are twice as strong, which they were hording in (close to a 100), backed by Gargoyles, and they just started pumping out Golems. In the picture, you can see there aren't many troops in towns, each warrior represents a Pixie (which there only saving grace is their speed), but have mostly been decimated. The mistake on my part was not building creature structures as quickly as I could have, but focusing on economic and research buildings.

Looking at some of Bracada's cities, most are very developed, and I am playing on Monarch I believe.

Here is Calarnen, which has a full fold of creature structures, and thus is spitting out Lvl 1 and Lvl 2 units in full force to bring against me!
CalarnenTowerCity.JPG

From the looks of it, my test game will probably come to an end soon, from defeat... as unless something drastic happens, I may not be able to stop the onslaught... but I shall see :) So far though, this is good, since AI is taking advantage (after some big tweaks) of the buildings it has available to build.

Tom
 
Sounds like you have got the AI working well Tom. I always play on Monarchy and I always find it hard to win (other more skilled players might find Monarchy too easy of course). So this seems well balanced. It's great that you have the AI using the creature structures properly. A hard to beat AI is much preferable to one you can walk all over.
 
Sounds like you have got the AI working well Tom. I always play on Monarchy and I always find it hard to win (other more skilled players might find Monarchy too easy of course). So this seems well balanced. It's great that you have the AI using the creature structures properly. A hard to beat AI is much preferable to one you can walk all over.

I ended up losing 4 cities in that game, but was able to get help from a couple neighboring civ's to avoid getting completely overrun. I checked and it was on Emperor actually, 1 up above Monarch.

I had to re-start anyways, because I ran into a strange bug (one that actually may be very useful to some). Seems that I kept getting 2 free advances every time I built a certain building (Altar of Air). When I finally realized it was this building, I checked the BIQ and although it is an improvement (not a Wonder), there was a check mark still in the '+2 Free Advanced' under the Wonders and Small Wonders section (which was greyed out since the building was an Improvement.

Seems that anything checked still works for Improvements as well, of course none of the other Wonder/Sm Wonder options have been tested, but I had to uncheck it so I don't get all those Free Advances.

DFBATTLER said:
Hm! There are still "Warrior" units, LOL!

Overall, looks very good!

It's tough to get rid of the beloved warrior! The warrior graphic is being used as a placeholder for units that don't have graphics yet (approx 20 or so).

Tom
 
I had to re-start anyways, because I ran into a strange bug (one that actually may be very useful to some). Seems that I kept getting 2 free advances every time I built a certain building (Altar of Air). When I finally realized it was this building, I checked the BIQ and although it is an improvement (not a Wonder), there was a check mark still in the '+2 Free Advanced' under the Wonders and Small Wonders section (which was greyed out since the building was an Improvement.

Seems that anything checked still works for Improvements as well, of course none of the other Wonder/Sm Wonder options have been tested, but I had to uncheck it so I don't get all those Free Advances.

Tom

That could be a very important discovery if it is true for all the wonder options that they still work if checked even when grey out because the improvement is no longer a wonder. I've never seen it mentioned before. Though I guess most wonder options are too powerful for a regular improvement.

Nick
 
If that is the case, I will make a thread to see what discussion comes from it.
Thread created here: Wonder/Sm Wonder abilites work for normal Improvements

Agreed, most are powerful, and not all can be used more than once... In some circumstances, if the mod is properly set up could be useful, such as Doubling Defenses, Doubling Scientific Output, Tourist Attraction, +1 Trade in Each Tile, Reduces Corruption, or even to have a normal improvement requiring a victorious army or an elite naval unit to build them. Of course, these would have to be tested to ensure they work.

Tom
 
Cerberus

The counterpart of the Hell Hound... The Dreaded Cerberus, a unit with great strength in the game due to it's many abilities and three heads. :devil:

Cerberus.gifCerberus-Large.jpgCerberus-Pedia.jpg

Some units of the Inferno Army, raised from the depths of the abyss, ready to cause hell (literally :)) in the peaceful lands of Erathia.

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Tom
 

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Castle (Erathia) Unit Line:

Castles are home to the Cleric and Knight hero classes. Castle armies are primarily composed of human men-at-arms, though these towns have also formed an alliance with the griffins and are under the protection of angels. With two types of ranged attack units and two flying unit types available, Castle-based armies are well equipped to quickly engage and defeat their enemies.

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Rampart (Avlee) Unit Line:

The Druid and Ranger hero classes are native to Ramparts, which are built by creatures in allied defense of the unspoiled wilderness regions of Erathia. With two slow unit types, Dwarves and Dendroids, Rampart armies may be best suited to defensive tactics. Most of these creatures, however, have enemy hampering abilities that can be used to turn the tide against many opponents, especially those depedent on magical attacks.

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Tom
 

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A question to all,
While I am looking around for units to convert over for use in Civ 3 (fantasy units), if anyone knows any games with fantasy units in them that have all 8 directions, could you please make a post of what the game is. I know the Hydra was ported here from Age of Mythology, so I will look there to see what other units I may be able to convert. I was just checking out Age of Wonders (which uses a horde of excellent easy-to-convert units of all types), but unfortunately to my dismay, the game only uses 6 directions (does not use E and W animations), so that was no good.

I suppose Real-time or Turn-Based strategies would be the most likely to be able to convert over for Civ 3 use, but any info would be helpful.

Tom
 
I wish I could be of some help with finding good sprites, but unfortunately my TBS and RTS experience is too limited to provide much useful info. :(

However, you could try Disciples I or II, HoMM's "rival series". I'm not sure how many directions they used, but they were definitely isometric.
 
I forgot about Disciples, I have a version of D2 somewhere, but from a video I watched on YouTube, it looks like the units on the main map have all 8 travel directions, so I'll check out the demo version to make sure before I decide to search the house for the old D2 CD I have (if I have it still). It's been so long since I've played it, I cannot quite remember so well.

It is a shame that Age of Wonders does not use the E and W animations, because the graphics are incredible and the AoW graphic extractor lets you resize all images first, and even lets you put a Magnenta background onto it and then spits out all the BMP's. Then using Steph's Storyboard Maker, a whole unit could be converted in less than a half an hour. A few days could have netted a whole ton of new Civ3 units to use. Whereas, the HoMM4 graphics I have been converting take much longer, since those BMP have a black background which must be changed to Magnenta, and must be resized correctly (it puts the unit in the lower right corner of a huge image file), which takes alot of time when doing that to many many many individual frames.

Tom
 
Warcraft 3? It's been ages since I played it so not sure if the view is the same as Civ 3.

I found a link in an old thread to a site that had heeps of Diablo II (I think - never played it) gif conversions. I'll find it when I get home from work. You could get tons of new units from there.
 
I forgot about Disciples, I have a version of D2 somewhere, but from a video I watched on YouTube, it looks like the units on the main map have all 8 travel directions, so I'll check out the demo version to make sure before I decide to search the house for the old D2 CD I have (if I have it still). It's been so long since I've played it, I cannot quite remember so well.
Disciples2 does indeed have 8 directions. However it doesnt have attack animations. Or anything other than default and move.
 
Unfortunately, Disciples II will not work. The graphics on the main map are 8 directions, but only have move animations, as death, attack, etc animations are on the tactical battle screen (which only show 1 view). EDIT: Thanks Heretic, looks like I crosspost'd, but that answered my question on that.

Diablo II may come in handy, as these conversions are as easy as AoW would have been (perhaps even easier/quicker), can batch export the .DCC images to any file format with Magnenta Background. I'm not sure how much use those graphics would get here at CFC, but many look pretty good for a 9+ year old game.

I'm downloading a demo version of AoM (if there is one) to check out the process of converting those units. I'll look into Warcraft 3 also.

How many would be interested in having all Diablo 2 units converted over for use in Civ 3? If there are many who think they would be useful, I will consider doing them. I am testing the conversion of Izual to Civ 3 format so I can see how long each will take.

Tom
 
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