Zombie Apocalypse

[MdREV]

Yeah I had that, actually as an update since Barbs already override the Galley. For some reason when the Galley is disabled then they spawn Triremes instead. I just disable both, as well as set a high number for the spawn naval units define mentioned above in my current dev release.

I wish that they allowed point releases for mods, it just seems silly to keep releasing major versions for bug fixes.

 

[Mentos]

Forget this spawn setting in GlobalDefines.xml. The override settings is all you need. It only needs to be complete with all the units you don't like.

The Barbarians are following the tech of the other civilizations at 75% by default. The Trireme is quite quickly researched, that's why you have seen it early then. It's not only when you, the human player, have researched it, but also when any other AI Civ has. You can raise that to 100% if you like Barbs - or Zombies - to be always on par with any other civilization. The setting is also defined in the GlobalDefines.xml but I'm not 100% sure if it actually works.

		<Row Name="BARBARIAN_TECH_PERCENT">
			<Value>75</Value>
		</Row>

Hey, who cares about versions as long as you won't race to 100 too quickly. You can still declare it as Alpha, Beta, whatever in ModBuddy, so everyone knows what's going on. Take your time, test yourself long enough, don't release every day a new version, and all will be fine.

 

[MdREV]

I've had some feedback that the Zombies can feel too tough in situations where you try to take them out with multiple units of roughly equal or inferior strength, because they heal at the end of each combat. I'm going to change it such that the healing is applied at the start of the Zombie turn, which will also stop spawned zombies from combats in the zombie turn from attacking in that same turn.

In addition, OrsonM has been working on some fantastic 2D art for unit icons and such, so I'll be renaming units from the standard "Brute", "Swordsman" etc to something a little more macabre in preparation for the art being ready to release. Still happy for suggestions on where I can lift 3D unit art from, although I'm working on some pitiful reskins of the barbarian brutes in the meantime.

Expect a new release over the weekend, and if you have any other feedback or ideas let me know so I can include them in the next version.

 

[samsmithnz]

This is brilliant. I love it.

Love:
-That ranged attacks are reduced. I also like that attacking a zombie with ranged attacks does not spawn new zombies.
-The spawn rate of zombies.
-The idea of a civilization trying to become relevant while constantly being attacked.

I only played 100 turns, but found it very difficult to get rid of zombies until I got Legions. I am interested to see how other civilizations deal with it. I didn't play all the way past 100 turns because of some of the bugs, but I can imagine colonizing other islands and just finding no (or very depleted) civilizations and hoards of zombies everywhere.

Suggestions:
- Remove zombie ships - I know you said this is a bug.
- Have zombies agressively attack other civilizations, (perhaps this is what the advanced ravaging zombies option does, it's unclear to me), where pillaging improvements produces more zombie units and cities can be captured - perhaps where they then produce zombie units (that act as seattlers, removing one population per unit) until the city is gone.
- As you also mentioned, a zombie graphic would make a big difference.

 

[MdREV]

Version 5 has been released, which includes some of the 2D art for unit icons that OrsonM has been working on. Also included are the following changes/fixes...

- Zombies "heal" at the end of each turn, rather than after each combat. I found this to be a good balance between healing after each combat and the proposal of healing at the beginning of the Zombie turn.
- Zombie Ships should no longer make an appearance.
- Zombie AI has been re-tuned to make them far more agressive, including attacking cities. Zombies are also more likely to "recon" (ie. shamble aimlessly) rather than gather at nests. This has resulted in many multi-directional zombie invasions in my testing.

 

[mutant-enemy]

Ctd while ending the turn after clearing a zombie camp. Does this happen to anybody else?

Aztecs
Random map
Standard map size
Prince, Turn 75ish
No other mods

 

[Deamonpies]

After finishing my current game i'll play another game with this.

The changes look good though.

 

[MdREV]

Ctd while ending the turn after clearing a zombie camp. Does this happen to anybody else?

Aztecs
Random map
Standard map size
Prince, Turn 75ish
No other mods

Ctd = Crash to Desktop?

I cleared several "nests" in my test game, and there is no code changes related to the actual taking of a camp other than killing the unit that was in it, which is itself no different to any other combat...

Did this happen after you ended you turn? There is some code I'm thinking could cause this but it wont be launched until after the turn ends.

 

[mutant-enemy]

Ctd = Crash to Desktop? -> Yes.
Did this happen after you ended you turn? -> Yes.

I cleared the camp with a scout and a spearman and ended the turn immediately afterwards.

 

[mutant-enemy]

Ctd while ending the turn after clearing a zombie camp. Does this happen to anybody else?

Aztecs
Random map
Standard map size
Prince, Turn 75ish
No other mods

Same thing in another game when ending the turn, but after clearing my 2nd zombie nest and thus fulfilling a citystate quest.

France
Random map
Standard map size
Turn 120ish.

 

[MdREV]

Damn thing won't crash for me, even if I put all my effort into killing Zombies...

In any case, I'll throw some more nil checking around and that should fix the problem. At the moment I'm counting on garbage-collection, and can't force a cycle with the neutered Lua available for InGameUIAddins.

 

[mutant-enemy]

In any case, I'll throw some more nil checking around and that should fix the problem.

Many thanks. I really enjoyed playing your mod and would love to continue doing so.

 

[MdREV]

Version 6 is now online. Instead of saving the unit object (table) I now save the player and unit ID and then attempt to retrieve the unit at the end-of-turn with Player:GetUnitByID(), if this returns nil I know not to make any calls against this unit.

I ran a 100 turn game with focus on Zombie slaying, first 20 turns, then 50 auto-play, then another 30 turns manually. Hopefully this issue is now fixed.

 

[mutant-enemy]

It works just fine. Thanks!

 

[MdREV]

It works just fine. Thanks!

You are very welcome!

 

[samsmithnz]

I just finished a game with this Mod. Small map, medium difficulty, and I enjoyed the zombies. They were challenging - until I got iron. Then they were relatively easy to defeat and just like that, they were gone. There was one nest that flourished next to an isolated island city state for another 1000 years, but never did much more than be a pest. I was hoping that they would eventually overpower the city state.

What can we do to make these zombies more relevant in later stages of the game? It's almost as though we need to add random "outbreak" events...?

 

[MdREV]

Did you upgrade versions of the mod since your last post? I hadn't gone in to tweak the barbarians AI until then, and after watching Zombies wander around cities and never attack them I had a look and fixed it. I'm also likely to add outbreaks, in the form of Zombies spawning if a citizen dies of starvation.

I've thought about a scenario mode where the Zombies get all kinds of abilities that disadvantage the AI (because they don't know how to deal with it). In this scenario the goal will be to remove every Zombie Nest from the map or survive long enough to research "the cure".

 

[samsmithnz]

I'm definitely running version 6. I didn't have the rampaging zombies link checked. Does that matter? What settings do you usually test your mod at?

 

[MdREV]

I don't check rampaging zombies, it's just the same as rampaging barbarians normally (faster spawn rate). I definitely need to do more work to make the zombies more than an ancient era nuisance.

 

[Fatmanboozer]

Hi guys im new to the game and the site. Saw the zombie apocalypse mod and had to download it instantly.

I would like to see the zombies a real threat through out the game, where you may even encounter a situation where one continent is completely over run or some thing like that

is there any way to scale their stats with the highest era a nation is at? and possible increasing it every two points of future tech is achieved by the most advance nation. would this solve the scaling issues?