[Xtended] New Civs (re)design

[Alexej]

Its much harder to terraform lands to forests using FoL mechanics under wintercourt so I do play summer court until forested and only then switch to winter (Repeat after settling new city). Cairn is fun and interesting to play really thanks for your work

 

[Linvega]

Oh, that's an interesting idea! If you care to upload the files, I might take a look and adopt them somehow for the Austrin.

Yeah, I can do that. I have some projects to do right now so it might take some time until I'm finished with Deirdra though.

Its much harder to terraform lands to forests using FoL mechanics under wintercourt so I do play summer court until forested and only then switch to winter (Repeat after settling new city). Cairn is fun and interesting to play really thanks for your work

As I said in one of my earlier posts, empyrean is actually a great religion for winter court, too. You don't care about the health bonus from FoL anyway, and having every city full of nothing but specialists is pretty awesome. Though it's kind of weird lore-wise maybe to have a winter civ adore a sun god.^^
Your playstyle right now imo fits more with larincsidhe since he absolutely needs to change back to summer court anyway, Cairn doesn't need that and it makes sense to take advantage of that.
Of course I don't want to tell you how to play, these are just my design ideas behind the changes.

 

[Alexej]

I am aware that both other leaders are better for my choice of religion and style of play. Since I am last evil leader in game both neutral and both good leaders declared war upon me so I might get overwhelmed and restart using other leader, but I do like atmosphere of my current game. Frozen ancient forests with evil faeries stalking and killing or enslaving every soul brave enough to wander into my territory

 

[esvath]

@Linvega I have played a game as Cairn and it's fun to play! Thanks for making the mod!

I recognise that Winterfeast requires the city on Ice. I think it requires the civ in Winter Court is more interesting? It will tie the mechanism to Winter Court more.

If you agree with this change and if it's alright with you, I'll merge your mod to Xtended.

 

[Alexej]

I am not sure why this is happening but I do very rarely get slave from fighting opposing AIs. Survived against all odds in that Cairn game and now around turn 500(not sure) I can manage to slay entire stack of 12-20 enemy units getting no slave, while most of my units are recon. When attacking barbarians I tend to get slave from every third victory

 

[Linvega]

@Linvega I have played a game as Cairn and it's fun to play! Thanks for making the mod!

I recognise that Winterfeast requires the city on Ice. I think it requires the civ in Winter Court is more interesting? It will tie the mechanism to Winter Court more.

If you agree with this change and if it's alright with you, I'll merge your mod to Xtended.

Well, the idea was that as the faeries, you're not gonna have ice in your borders unless you are winter court, so I obviously don't mind tying it directly to the winter court.
And as I already wrote, I have no problem if you merge it, that's part of the reason I posted it here in the first place!

I am not sure why this is happening but I do very rarely get slave from fighting opposing AIs. Survived against all odds in that Cairn game and now around turn 500(not sure) I can manage to slay entire stack of 12-20 enemy units getting no slave, while most of my units are recon. When attacking barbarians I tend to get slave from every third victory

@esvath, do you have any idea about this and the issue of getting slaves instead of animals? I used the normal UnitClassCreateFromCombat-function is there something wrong with that? Should I use something else instead?

 

[esvath]

I am not sure why this is happening but I do very rarely get slave from fighting opposing AIs. Survived against all odds in that Cairn game and now around turn 500(not sure) I can manage to slay entire stack of 12-20 enemy units getting no slave, while most of my units are recon. When attacking barbarians I tend to get slave from every third victory

Does your enemy has Loyalty promotion? That is one of the reasons that I can think of. The other is the defeated unit was turned into Manes/Angel and killed before turned into Slave but I am not so sure about this.

Well, the idea was that as the faeries, you're not gonna have ice in your borders unless you are winter court, so I obviously don't mind tying it directly to the winter court.
And as I already wrote, I have no problem if you merge it, that's part of the reason I posted it here in the first place!

Thanks! I just find it easier for player to understand if the spell is tied to the Winter Court

 

[Alexej]

I do agree to tie winterfeast to wintercourt You are right esvath as usual, my enemies are Order Bannor and Kuriotates they might have Loyalty buff on stacks and other one attacking me is using lot of golems and thats the reason I am without slave for like 250 turns damn them loyal bastards

EDIT : Started new game as Dural and already in turn 600. If you take them as they are: Builders, Researchers and Artists they play nice. They have some great buildings buffing them nicely where they should be strong. With Priest guild you can have all the college buildings that can buff Sage District city (others too) into real gem. They have no Wow units but some Eternal Guard Archers and Lord Protector melees can protect homeland nicely. I was lucky on 3 additional Mind manas so local legend Professor dominated battlefields for entire game so far. For fast mobile forces I MUST use Explorers recon because of no cavalry. And to equip explorers decently one needs hunters guild which is not fitting them. Advangcing in Merchants guild to get Caravan guards. They should get cavalry unit but they also need all units they have, Archers were big help in defending realm and when Professor Assimilate mind will work, it will be great too Somehow with all their culture buffing buildings i am not generating as much cultrure as recon civs played before (because of all those animal cages)

 

[Linvega]

Hey esvath, how does the "spellExploreLair" spell work in respect to how do they destroy the lair? No matter what I do, even if I remove the "pPlot.setImprovementType(-1)" entirely, the lair STILL gets destroyed. Or am I modifying the wrong spell? What am I doing wrong?

 

[esvath]

Hey esvath, how does the "spellExploreLair" spell work in respect to how do they destroy the lair? No matter what I do, even if I remove the "pPlot.setImprovementType(-1)" entirely, the lair STILL gets destroyed. Or am I modifying the wrong spell? What am I doing wrong?

Which lair is it? If it is Barbarian Lair (Goblin Fort etc), other than regulated by python you are referring to, it is also regulated by <bExploreDungeon>1</bExploreDungeon> in CIV4SpellInfos.xml, which I think automatically remove the lair through DLL.

Dungeons and shipwrecks do not have this line in their spell codes, so your change might affect these.

 

[esvath]

By the way, these are my planned changes for Aos Si:

- [AOS SI] Sprites and Sun Faeries have +1 Fire affinity. Pixies and Moon Faeries have +1 Cold affinity. Eternal Court units have Nature affinity.
- [AOS SI] Pixie and Sprite no longer cost metal.
- [AOS SI] Fixed Sun Faerie's Brilliance.
- [AOS SI] Foxfire is now str 8/8 +2 fire +2 Fire mana affinity.
- [AOS SI] Larincidhe (the hero) is now Melee unit.
- [AOS SI] Merged Linvega's tweaks for Aos Si.
- Aos Si Slave can teleport to Capital.
- On Winter Court, Aos Si Slave can be sacrificed to increase city population.
- [AOS SI] Leaders' traits changes:
- Larincsidhe is Enlightened/Summoner/Nature Magic Mastery.
- Corm Dubh is Charismatic/Philosophical/Fire Magic Mastery.
- Carn Diorne is Aggressive/Hunter/Water Magic Mastery.

 

[Alexej]

Faeries are shaping into nice polished civilization with diverse enough leaders, good job both of you

 

[Linvega]

Which lair is it? If it is Barbarian Lair (Goblin Fort etc), other than regulated by python you are referring to, it is also regulated by <bExploreDungeon>1</bExploreDungeon> in CIV4SpellInfos.xml, which I think automatically remove the lair through DLL.

Dungeons and shipwrecks do not have this line in their spell codes, so your change might affect these.

Ah okay, thanks. Another questions: What is the xml part that decides whether an improvement gets auto-build on the map or not? I'm comparing auto-generating improvements to buildable ones, but can't find the xml portion that makes them distinct.

By the way, these are my planned changes for Aos Si:

- [AOS SI] Sprites and Sun Faeries have +1 Fire affinity. Pixies and Moon Faeries have +1 Cold affinity. Eternal Court units have Nature affinity.
- [AOS SI] Pixie and Sprite no longer cost metal.
- [AOS SI] Fixed Sun Faerie's Brilliance.
- [AOS SI] Foxfire is now str 8/8 +2 fire +2 Fire mana affinity.
- [AOS SI] Larincidhe (the hero) is now Melee unit.
- [AOS SI] Merged Linvega's tweaks for Aos Si.
- Aos Si Slave can teleport to Capital.
- On Winter Court, Aos Si Slave can be sacrificed to increase city population.
- [AOS SI] Leaders' traits changes:
- Larincsidhe is Enlightened/Summoner/Nature Magic Mastery.
- Corm Dubh is Charismatic/Philosophical/Fire Magic Mastery.
- Carn Diorne is Aggressive/Hunter/Water Magic Mastery.

Looks good mostly(like the idea with fire mana, fits well with the summer court!), though I really don't like philosophical on corm. It's a trait that is much stronger in the winter court, which doesn't fit if corm is supposed to be the summer court guy(especially now that you gave him fire mana). At the same time, Larincsidhe has much less reason to change into winter without phil.
With this trait kit, I'd probably stay summer court most of the game with Larinc unless I get attacked/need it to research eternal court, and try to stay in winter court as long as possible with crom. Lacking Enlightened hurts for that, but it is not nearly as much of a detriment as having phil is a boon when switching.

 

[esvath]

Looks good mostly(like the idea with fire mana, fits well with the summer court!), though I really don't like philosophical on corm. It's a trait that is much stronger in the winter court, which doesn't fit if corm is supposed to be the summer court guy(especially now that you gave him fire mana). At the same time, Larincsidhe has much less reason to change into winter without phil.
With this trait kit, I'd probably stay summer court most of the game with Larinc unless I get attacked/need it to research eternal court, and try to stay in winter court as long as possible with crom. Lacking Enlightened hurts for that, but it is not nearly as much of a detriment as having phil is a boon when switching.

I envision Larincsidhe to rely on Summons (which have Nature affinity) early on, since his Summer and Winter units are going to be weaker than Corm or Cairne's, thus, Summoner. He also wants to switch in and out of the Courts to ultimately adopt Eternal Court, thus Enlightened.

For Corm, he should have lots of population in Summer, thus able to field more specialisation, right? That's why Philosophical.

 

[esvath]

What is the xml part that decides whether an improvement gets auto-build on the map or not? I'm comparing auto-generating improvements to buildable ones, but can't find the xml portion that makes them distinct.

I think:

<bOutsideBorders>1</bOutsideBorders> --> for making the improvement valid outside cultural border.

<iAppearanceProbability>0</iAppearanceProbability> --> for making the improvement is placed during random map generation.

<iMinWilderness>5</iMinWilderness>
<iMaxWilderness>15</iMaxWilderness>
--> these two regulate where the improvement will spawn; at least Sephi used to put wilderness value on each tile, higher for tiles closer to the edges of the map.

 

[Linvega]

I envision Larincsidhe to rely on Summons (which have Nature affinity) early on, since his Summer and Winter units are going to be weaker than Corm or Cairne's, thus, Summoner. He also wants to switch in and out of the Courts to ultimately adopt Eternal Court, thus Enlightened.

For Corm, he should have lots of population in Summer, thus able to field more specialisation, right? That's why Philosophical.

Well, in my experience, you have far more specialists in winter court than in summer court because you can completely ignore any and all food requirements.

In summer court, I usually try to have as many cottages/towns/etc. as possible because they (almost) pay for themselves in terms of food, while also giving a decent amount of hammers and gold. In winter I usually have nothing but specialists unless a tile is extremely strong or I can't field enough specialists. The biggest weakness of specialist strategies is the need of food, and the biggest strength of the winter court is the lack of food requirements, that's why both fit so neatly together and that's why imo the winter court synergizes very well with the empyrean religion(even though it might seem weird in terms of lore).

It's true that Larincsidhe is going to rely a bit more on summons with this mana distribution, but enlightened only makes switching traits less punishing; If you want Larincsidhe to actually switch around more often, you need to make the winter court more enticing, too, and phil does exactly that. I really chose and kept these two traits because they're imo both quite critical in exactly that combination to make Larincsidhe play the way we envision him. Cairn is a different beast because unlike Larincsidhe, winter court has almost no disadvantages for him thanks to the hunter trait. For Larincsidhe, winter will always have the huge disadvantage of not being able to grow at all, so he needs to get some kind of big advantage from it.

Overall, it's of course your mod and your decision, but I really plead with you to give Larincsidhe Enlightened + Phil. The traits of Corm and the second trait of Cairn aren't as important, but these two are quite crucial imo.

 

[Linvega]

I think:

<bOutsideBorders>1</bOutsideBorders> --> for making the improvement valid outside cultural border.

<iAppearanceProbability>0</iAppearanceProbability> --> for making the improvement is placed during random map generation.

<iMinWilderness>5</iMinWilderness>
<iMaxWilderness>15</iMaxWilderness>
--> these two regulate where the improvement will spawn; at least Sephi used to put wilderness value on each tile, higher for tiles closer to the edges of the map.

Ah okay, I thought appearance prob was connected to whether the unit protecting it respawns or not. Though if it's set to zero, the improvement still gets spawned ?!
So, in short, what do I need to do if I have an improvement that gets spawned during map generation and I don't want it to? Just take out the appearance prob altogether, instead of setting it to zero?

 

[esvath]

Ah okay, I thought appearance prob was connected to whether the unit protecting it respawns or not. Though if it's set to zero, the improvement still gets spawned ?!
So, in short, what do I need to do if I have an improvement that gets spawned during map generation and I don't want it to? Just take out the appearance prob altogether, instead of setting it to zero?

Try to set the appearance prob to zero? Have you tried to do that? And don't forget to put bForceOverwrite on the entry.

If you have done that and the improvement is still placed during map generation (like the Dimensional Portal), then it means the improvement is placed through DLL or through other file that I am unaware of.

 

[Linvega]

Try to set the appearance prob to zero? Have you tried to do that? And don't forget to put bForceOverwrite on the entry.

If you have done that and the improvement is still placed during map generation (like the Dimensional Portal), then it means the improvement is placed through DLL or through other file that I am unaware of.

Yeah, I've done that.
The dll being the culprit would be really weird because it's happening even with my own, completely new improvements.

 

[esvath]

Yeah, I've done that.
The dll being the culprit would be really weird because it's happening even with my own, completely new improvements.

That is strange. Maybe remove <NativePlane> from your code?