Modding feedback wanted

[Johan K]

This post is for people who have created or at least tried to create mods for Dominions II.

I'd like to know what modding command you find missing, especially minor ones that I might just have forgotten about or some other minor additions that would make your mod better.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

(1) On/off switches for most commands would be great. Eg, I'm working on an "Arabian Nights" mod for Arco and I want to change the Priestess to a non-holy non-sacred nature-1 Healer. I could just edit the Priestess' stats like this:

#selectmonster 242
#spr1 "./arabian/doctor1.tga"
#spr2 "./arabian/doctor2.tga"
#holy off
#magicskill 8 0
#hp 10
#mr 12
#mor 10
#gcost 90
#end

As it is now I can't get rid of the 'holy' status without #clear.

(2) More flexibility with item slots:

#handslots (number)
#headslots (number)
#miscslots (number)

(3) Missing commands:

#researchbonus (+/- bonus)
#forgebonus (bonus)
#healothers (rate)
#corrupts
#inquisitor
#skeptic
#spreaddeath (like the HoS)
#spreaddisease (like the HoS)
#rebel (like the Eater of the Dead)
#unique (for summoned units, like the Djinn from the artefact Lamp or the big bad summons)

[ March 05, 2004, 15:49: Message edited by: Nagot Gick Fel ]

[Ragnarok-X]

uhm sorry for this question, but when will "real" editing be able:

- Editing of Magic sites
- real spell editing, in an effect to alter spells effect (i.e. fires from afar does water damage instead of fire, or the beckoning can only be cast on mountains, or venegeance of dead summons skeletons instead of souless, or certain spells get increases AoE, get magic resitance negation etc


thanks for the afford up to now !

[Wauthan]

Two things besides what poster previous suggested. A #unholy switch to completement the #holy. And a #gender male/female so the warrior women I created stop being kidnapped by succubi. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Weapon modding:

#nbrattacks (number) - for weapons with multiple attacks

#nomalus - this weapon doesn't count towards the total number of weapons wrt ambidextry

Monster modding:

#whenwounded (monsternumber) - when wounded, this unit will morph (eg, Jaguar Warrior -> Werejaguar)

#whenkilled (monsternumber) - when killed, this unit will morph (eg, Freak Lord -> Freak)

[Saber Cherry]

Units:

#ambidextrous <X>
#demon
#sailing <X>
#supplybonus <X>
#pillagebonus <X>
#defendbonus <X>
#siegebonus <X>
#bloodvengance <X>
#summonallies <unit num> <number to summon>
(like Werewolves)

#battleallies <unit num> <number to summon>
(like Mother of Lions / Moloch)

#healcommand
(like Arco priestesses)

#seducecommand
(like Succubus)

#fleeAfterBattle
(like Gladiators)

#mistform
(starts with mistform)

#magicquickness
(starts with magical quickness)

#spr1 <existing unit number>
#spr2 <existing unit number>

(If you could specify an existing sprite for a new unit, based on a the sprite used by a current unit number rather than a tga file, that would be really nice!

**********************

Spells:

#numeffects <X> or <X+>
(to change the number of effects, like "5" for Summon Imps and "20+" for Crossbreeding, or the number of darts for Nether Darts)

#aoe <X> or <X+>
(area of effect)

#summonunit <unit number>
(so that you can change "Summon Imps" to "Summon Gimps" without removing imps from the game)

#gemcost <X>
#fatiguecost <x>
(fatigue and gem effects need to be discrete!)

#ritual
(makes this a ritual)

#combat
(makes this a combat spell)

#castUnderwaterOnly
#castLandOnly
#targetFriendlyProvinceOnly

**********************

Dominion:

#defaultgrowth <X>
(specifies province growth rate for a neutral growth scale)

Additional Dominion features that would be nice:

#magiccost <X>
The cost to increase a pretender's magic by a level. Default is 8.

#luckRareness <X> (default: 0)
Effect of luck scale on "#eventisrare". #eventisrare has a default of 15. if you set #luckRareness 5, then the percentage of rare events would be like this:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">#eventisrare 15
#luckRareness 5

luck scale: 3 2 1 0 -1 -2 -3
eventisrare: 30 25 20 15 20 25 30</pre><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">**********************

Nations:

#clearpretenders
#addpretender <unit num>
#clearthemes
#addtheme <theme name>
#clearheroes
#addhero <unit num>


Themes:

#themename <theme name>
(all the rest would be like nation modding)

[ March 05, 2004, 23:43: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

[Wauthan]

#spellbonus {spellname} {bonus units or damage per casting}

Would make it possible to create animist/vinemen style combinations as well as creating specialist casters who focus on one particular battlespell. Could give rarely summoned units and spells the boost they need.

[Wauthan]

Forgot the #missile {weapon nbr} to give new missile weapons the "in flight" animation of the specified weapon. As far as I know you get no animation at all as it is. Would be really great if one also could add {spell name} to get the animation of a spelleffect.

[Unwise]

Being able to reference #armor by number instead of just by name would be nice.

[Ctennyson]

As usual, What Saber Cherry said.

#addpretender for nations, and #ambidextrous are the two most annoying I have come across.

I want to add pretenders, not replace. Many of em, I want to add to one nation only.

[Vger]

Hi,

Thanks for asking us. I echo what others have said here regarding monsters and pretenders.

I'm not sure this falls into this Category, but when I've modded some monsters (I piggybacked my changes off of the Healing Gods mod) to regenerate, they don't show the ability in game.

Specifically the various Krakens. My other mods seem to work correctly and the spelling matches other pretenders I HAVE given regenerate to.


Vaya con carnage,
V'ger gone

[Teraswaerto]

I addition to what others have said (Magic site modding being the #1 lack IMO), the ability the choose/create the list from which names are chosen for the nation being modded would be great.

Also, when giving random magic/sorcery/elemental picks, it should be possible to make some or all of them linked so they are always from the same path. For example 3 sorcery could be set always to be 2/1, and so forth.

A few more.

Choosing what afflictions a creature may suffer.

Affliction editing in general.

For weapons and/or creatures it should be possible to make being hit by the creature/weapon always cause a specific affliction, MR save (or the lack of it) to be specified.

Attacking a creature causes specific affliction, MR save to be specified.

A creature projects a scale or several scales, with variables up to 6, so that Death Made Flesh could shift a province to death 3 even in dominion of growth 3.

Creature may teleport/gate/astral travel/faery trod/stygian paths at will.

Creature reduces/increases the dominion of enemy pretenders/all pretenders.

Creature causes events to occur, either locally in one province or worldwide, these events may be specified.

Event editing in general.

[Gateway103]

Not really a request, but more of an thought. In the event that this is already possible, please accept my sincerest apology.

Ability to modify available mercenaries. I.e. add/delete mercenaries, cost, and their troop compositions, etc., for use in specialized scenarios.

-Gateway103

[tka]

Units
-Susceptible to fire/cold, maybe shock/poison too.
-Mindless
-Ambidextrous
-Specific item slots

Nations
-Add heroes
-Edit/add themes

[Unwise]

Oh, and as mentioned in another thread, bing able to add and modify the #poptype "nations".

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

weapon modding that includes X0.5, X2, X3, X4 damage versus certain units. E.g. pikes vs. mounted units should do X2 dge; arrows vs. the undead should do 0.5X dge.

This would be good for spell modding as well. A new fire spell that does X2 vs. cold units; or conversely, a new fire spell that does 0.5X dge vs. cold units....

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Morag:
-Mindless<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">AFAIK, mindless units all have a morale of 50, and I don't remember seeing a non-mindless unit with a morale of 50. You should try designing a unit with #mor 50, maybe it gives mindlessness as well.

[Kristoffer O]

50 mrl = mindless. It should work in modding as well.

[tka]

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:
50 mrl = mindless. It should work in modding as well. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It works. Thanks.

[PvK]

Good ideas from others. I may duplicate some, but:

* Ability to add and remove units from the pretenders available to a nation.

* Ability to and and remove heroes from a nation.

* Ability to steal pictures from other units. e.g.
#usepictures <unit number to steal from>

* Ability to add or steal pictures for modded magic items weapons and armor, and of course, ability to forge those items.

* Ability to add or remove items from the list of national items that can be forged.

* Ability to add and remove national spells.

* Ability to add and remove nations and themes from the available list.

PvK

[PDF]

To me the most needed addition is to be able to mod Themes. Themes can be added to other, whereas nations must be replaced, so now if I use Ashikaga it replaces Tien'Chi http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif
Then Spell modding, to be able to remove and add spells (changing existing ones is Ok for balance but not of much use else).

[PvK]

Oh, another good one, if someone else didn't already mention it:

* Ability to specify the kind of undead unit a living unit becomes when it dies and gets resurrected by bless effect or raise dead or whatever. This would allow players to do the work of creating exotic types of undead for all (or at least, some interesting) units...

PvK

[Potatoman]

Apart from general expansion of unit #attribute commands (#summonallies especially), the improvement I'd most like to see would be full spell modding, that includes the ability to create and insert completely new spells and rituals into the game.

[ March 07, 2004, 21:28: Message edited by: Potatoman ]

[Davidious]

most of the stuff I wanted in has already been mentioned so I'll just answer this one...

Originally posted by Teraswaerto:
Also, when giving random magic/sorcery/elemental picks, it should be possible to make some or all of them linked so they are always from the same path. For example 3 sorcery could be set always to be 2/1, and so forth.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You can already basically do that.

#magicskill 52 2
#magicskill 52 1

That gives a random level 2 skill in sorcery and a random 1 skill (it is random so it could add together to make a 3 sometimes). So that would always give you either a 2/1 or a 3 (if the Last random turns out to be the same magic path).

So this:

#magicskill 52 1
#magicskill 52 1
#magicskill 52 1

would be three (3) random 1 skills so it could turn out to be:

1/1/1
2/1
3

[Johan K]

Originally posted by Morag:

-Susceptible to fire/cold, maybe shock/poison too.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">To do that use something like:
#fireres -100

[ March 08, 2004, 12:50: Message edited by: Johan K ]

[PDF]

Maybe it's only partly mod-related, but I'd find useful to be able to make "persistent" Pretender designs for AI use. Currently one can only hardcode pretenders in scenarios.

The AI pretenders are way too much magic oriented (not unusual to see path-9 + path-8 types), and take crap scales. As the AI doesn't make corresponding heavy use of blessed units it gives AI nations a pretty bad start...

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Davidious:
most of the stuff I wanted in has already been mentioned so I'll just answer this one...

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Originally posted by Teraswaerto:
Also, when giving random magic/sorcery/elemental picks, it should be possible to make some or all of them linked so they are always from the same path. For example 3 sorcery could be set always to be 2/1, and so forth.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You can already basically do that.

#magicskill 52 2
#magicskill 52 1

That gives a random level 2 skill in sorcery and a random 1 skill (it is random so it could add together to make a 3 sometimes). So that would always give you either a 2/1 or a 3 (if the Last random turns out to be the same magic path).

So this:

#magicskill 52 1
#magicskill 52 1
#magicskill 52 1

would be three (3) random 1 skills so it could turn out to be:

1/1/1
2/1
3 </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Great!

...it would be even better if it was documented. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

[Davidious]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
Great!

...it would be even better if it was documented. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">lol... true, true

but awesome as this game is that could be said for oh so many aspects of the game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

[Zeikko]

Is it possible to add own sound effects on weapons. If not, it's need to have feature.

[tka]

Originally posted by Johan K:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Originally posted by Morag:

-Susceptible to fire/cold, maybe shock/poison too.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">To do that use something like:
#fireres -100 </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It doesn't work, I tried...

[sube]

Although not essential, I'd like to have something like that, to use with hero modding (when/if hero modding will be implemented):

#addretinue unit_type number_of_units

so that when your hero shows up, he's not alone but he is accompanied by number_of_units units of type unit_type.

I'd like to have that for hero modding, but maybe it can have wider applications.

[Saber Cherry]

Nation/theme modding:

#priestsCanPreach <true or false>
#bloodSacrifice <true or false>
#templesSpreadDominion <true or false>

I mention these because I'm trying to mod Mictlan into Amazonia, an Amazon nation, but the dominion spread acts like Mictlan (in other words, no preaching is allowed, and temples don't spread dominion). I want the Amazon priestesses to be able to both preach and blood sacrifice, like Vanheim...

[Harmonist]

1. A way to remove curses, either as a unit attribute (ie, a unit is immune to curse), or as a dominion effect (% chance to remove, if a unit is in a province with the dominion)

2. The ability to specify a pseudo-random mage pick (ie, a mage pick that is random within a certain list of paths). This would be used to completely remove certain paths of magic from certain mages while maintaining a degree of randomness in their picks. The ? symbol on the screen would be a bit misleading in this case, though.

3. Ability to add new commands for commanders, where (similar to the Dom1 reanimate command for Ermor) the number of effects depend on the unit and the dominion strength of the province the unit is in.

4. Ability to create a new spell that gives a commander the "dominion-spreading" attribute (ie, what the prophet gets when he is named prophet), as well as an increase to a (possibly random) magic path. Of course, such a spell would be a rather high-level one...

[ March 19, 2004, 16:18: Message edited by: Harmonist ]

[Harmonist]

In addition, I'd like the ability to create a spell or commander action that can give units the immortality attribute. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Kristoffer O]

Bump.

IOW what modding tools do you want now (after 2.11).

[sube]

Don't know if it has already been mentioned, but I would like the possibility to mod populations.
Let's say that for instance I'd like to make a map or scenario where in province XXX it's possible to recruit units that I invented, orcs or elves or whatever. I think with 2.11 I could do it if I create these units by modding existing units, for instance replacing jade amazons with orcs. But I would like to add my units as populations without losing existing ones.

Another thing that I would like to have is an additional "send", we already have "send gems", "send money" etc., what I would like is also a "send units". After all, if my ally is in trouble, the best way to help him would be sending him directly units. Where these units will appear once sent (his capital? a neighbouring province?), that remains to be seen...

And... maybe a command to change cost of temples/labs?

Aaaand... the possibility to include special prophet tga sprites (as in the case of a demonbred, who changes sprite when becoming prophet)

And I'm sure I had more... However, sorry if these points have already been discussed, I've really no time to read every post

[PDF]

My priorities would be :
1. Theme modding (still http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )
2. Item modding
3. Site modding
4. Poptype modding
5. Building modding (at least castles..)

[ April 20, 2004, 16:34: Message edited by: PDF ]

[sube]

Another thing that I would like to have is the possibility to mod a unit so that it can cast one spell. I'm not talking about a commander with magic levels, but just a trooper which can cast one single spell instead of attacking.
Or is this already moddable in some way that I do not realize?

Then I'd also like some more magic modding, of course... My personal priority would by moddable summoning spells, that can both summon "unlimited" and "limited" monsters (with "limited" I mean guys like the elemental kings, that are no more tha 2 or 3 per spell - maybe "unique" is more correct). Could be something like that:

#addnewspell name
#level, cost, path etc.
#summon monstername numberofmonsters
OR
#summonunique monstername1
#summonunique monstername2 etc.
#end

(great game, by the way - that has to be mentioned from time to time)

[ April 22, 2004, 08:49: Message edited by: sube ]

[Zeikko]

We're still missing fire-rate and are damage.

[Kristoffer O]

Originally posted by Zeikko:
We're still missing fire-rate and are damage. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Isn't there nbr of attacks?

If nbr of attacks is available use -2 for every other turn and -3 for every third turn. It might work.

[sube]

And do we have 1-hand and 2-hand for weapons modding?

[wombatsSAR]

One command I've not found is the equivalent of "air shield/missile shield". Right now, I've resorted to using "ethereal", which is mostly unsatisfactory.

And to add to the chorus, modding of themes and sites would be convenient, ability to restrict units to capitols or sites, the "usepicture" command for us artistically challenged... Basically, if it can be done already in the game, then being able to modify it to fit the nation/character concept should be available.

Something new? Well, the "addretinue" suggestion was cool - somewhat equivalent to the Etherlord or a troll lord. I'd like to implement something equivalent to a panthyon - more or less multiple gods/pretenders for a nation. hmmm, priority interrupt ... oops.

[Darryl]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this, but how about the ability to apply certain mods only to certain nations. So for example changing spell costs for Man, but having the spell costs normal for other nations in the game. Or changing research for one nation (or more), but not for all nations.

[Tiwaking]

Nagot Gick Fel said:
(3) Missing commands:
#researchbonus (+/- bonus)
#skeptic
&lt;small&gt;[ March 05, 2004, 15:49: Message edited by: Nagot Gick Fel ]&lt;/small&gt;


#researchbonus now exists BUT #research or #researchability does NOT. The only way I can make a unit which has the research ability and no magic ability(like Arcoscephale Golden Age Philosophers) is to overwrite the units with the existing research ability

The same is true for the #skeptic domain lowering ability

I know Dom3 is out, but I like Dominions 2 better. Is there an answer from the Pretender gods to my plea?

[Endoperez]

In Dominions 3, both can be done by copying (#copystats "Skeptic") the units in question.

As far as I know, Dominions II isn't going to get any more patches. No new patches were made after development of Dom3 started. Most vocal members of the community have already embraced Dominions 3, too, and it seems most modders have done so as well.