Monster SCENARIO Project

[Gandalf Parker]

PROJECT

Im trying to gather all my thoughts and get some feedback on what would be the largest possible scenario project possible using all of the programmable features of Dominions 3. One big zip file which would include much more than usually offered.

[Gandalf Parker]

STORYLINE
I have no idea yet.
"Beware Global Swarming"?
"Dominions Civil War"?
"the TimeLine has Ruptured!"?
"We have created a Pantheon. Well we created one also!"?

[Gandalf Parker]

SCENARIO
A scenario is not just a mod, and not just a map, and not just a 3rd party program you can run to modify something. A scenario is a storyline chain of events, which in this case you can take part in when you play it.

It could be a mod with more storyline than usual, or a map with more storyline than usual. But in this case, Im kindof going for all of the above.

A desktop icon (shortcut) to start the game putting you right into it. Seperarate from your Dom3 shortcut. This would take you directly into this game when you click it. It would also insure that the correct parameters are run. The mod, the settings, preexec, postexec, stats, log, scores, backups, etc.

The pre-exec program (prior to each turn being hosted) would check to see if things have happened in the game which the scenario needs to act on. Im not sure yet what those will be. Maybe reaching a certain year, specific spells being cast, independents down to a certain percent meaning everyone has grown to a certain point, etc.

The map (graphic) might come in multiple flavors which will be used as the game progresses.

The map (.map) will mostly setup specifics such as AI players and independents.

The defaults mod will need to list everything that is not only modified for the game, but anything that we might want changed later in mid-game.

The post-exec program (after each turn is hosted) might just have places for each person to figure out and insert whatever method they want for making backups, notifying the player that the turn has processed, etc. But maybe we can figure out how to get some of the options to work in a generic manner.

Mod 1, Mod 2, Mod 3 would be variations and changes which need to happen later. Possibly, because I love to do such things, we will go with a program to randomize some of this to increase re-playablity of the scenario.

[Gandalf Parker]

SHORTCUT
An icon specific to this game.

A shortcut which calls Dom3 generically. Without an actual install program this might be difficult but generally something like...
"C:\Program Files\dominions3\dom3.exe" -fwacd --magicsites 65 --renaming --indepstr 7 --hofsize 15 --eventrarity 1 --
--statfile --scoredump --preexec pre.bat --postexec post.bat --mapfile scenario.map scenario

[Gandalf Parker]

PRE-EXEC
Some of the things that can be "seen" and reacted to would be:
1) what turn or year it is
2) what season it is
3) certain nations failing to upload turn files, or failing to upload a turn for X number of hostings
4) how many nations have dropped out
5) how many are owned by a nation or by all nations:
provinces, forts, income, gem income, research, dominion, army size, victory points
6) all of the above as it applies to Independents to gauge the progression of the game. Such as when there are less than 10% provinces held by indepts.
7) largest change in any of the above
8) how many of something has entered the game:
assassins, horrors, global spells
9) certain specific provinces being attacked (when the home of xxxx is attacked then act)
10) certain spells being cast (meaning a way to check if a certain research level has been reached, or to know that AI Ermor is now capable of xxxxx)
11) what random events have run
12) specific items gotten from combats
13) overkills (such as a 2000 army killing a 200 army)

[Gandalf Parker]

placeholder

[Gandalf Parker]

MAP (graphic)
The map can be changed after a game has started. However Dom3 does not reread the file between hostings. If you quit the game, and restart it, then the changed image will appear. I might be able to find some way to hot-swap it. But even as "the next days play" there might be some use of this. It does open doors for a time-progression map. That way we can not only alter units, but the image of the land too.

[Gandalf Parker]

MAP (.map file)
As always Im tempted to include my own scattered monsters. Or maybe something with Ballbarians SemiRand program.

Probably the storyline will involve some AIs with predefined pretenders, scales, etc.

[Gandalf Parker]

DEFAULTS MOD
Its very important that the initial mod at LEAST include a placeholder for each item, unit, pretender, independent that we plan to change later in the game. If the mild mannered lore master is going to become a huge raging demon later in the game, then the initial mod must contain the mild mannered lore master even if it only dublicates him with no changes. He must be in the mod.

[Gandalf Parker]

post exec

[Gandalf Parker]

mod 1

[Gandalf Parker]

mod 2

[Gandalf Parker]

mod 3

[Gandalf Parker]

place holder

[Gandalf Parker]

documentation

[Gandalf Parker]

accreditation

[Gandalf Parker]

anyone have any thoughts so far?

[Aezeal]

Sure..

THe Pantheon idea seems easy yet flexible.

3 good, 6 neutral, 3 evil

3 of the neutral would be played by computers and would be the sea nations trying to overrun the lands. (this might be seen as evil.. I know http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif but they will be a separate team none the less)


In the course of time you could have the 3 player controlled neutral nations choose sides for either good or evil. (maybe not a real choice but create an event in their nation that would make it look like one of the other sides was really insulting them (though they'd probably be at war anyway .. but I'm sure something can be thought of) so they'd join the other side.

Then in the progress of the game you could have some lands turn to sea (change map) to help the computer races a bit and make it look like the water races are conquering the lands. If you give computer controlled waternations a boost and don't give player races that can easily acces the water they might put up a decent fight.

In the end good or bad would win... and then maybe be forced to fight eachother.. or something. Or let a final deathmatch decide which god will rule the Pantheon.

Not terribly original but it would work

[Aezeal]

Other things that could happen
- a vulcano erupts, creating a barren waste where an AI controlled abyssian empire is spawned..

- You could increase the map while leaving the original lands intact --> exploration all players (or at least parties) would have to be situated somewhat equal to map edges to make this fair

- in the same thing you could add portals to the world later (just new map connections connecting far away lands) so standing defences would be less valuable (though end game has magic to do this so probably need to do this in mid game)

- and via same options you could even unlock new worlds (just place a new map beside the current one with a few connections as done in underworld maps or multi-layer maps)

[Aezeal]

Or suddenly have MA rhlyeh turn into LA dreamlands... would certainly change a game... ro turn MA ermor into LA ermor..

or just make all nations evolve to another age...

[Zentar]

The scenario could consist of parallel series of mods (good vs good, evil vs evil, neutral vs neutral) meeting in a final conflict..... or

You could use a sequential series of mods with increasing difficulty. Perhaps you could carry over a small retinue or treasure from the previous mod.

I hope my vague suggestions help.

[Gandalf Parker]

Wouldnt that be "Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam"?
"Otherwise argue that Carthage be destroyed"?
and we dont talk about hosts that way in my threads http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

You both need to change your sigs.

[Endoperez]

I'm pretty sure maps are onnly read once, when the game is created. Mods can be changed. The map image could, perhaps, be changed, but the .map can't be, so changing terrain is impossible but adding more provinces might work.

[LDiCesare]

Changing the map image as LA Ermor's dominion grows would be fun. For better effect, you'd have to know in which province it is (or check population numbers/income/unrest) but I don't think this info is available, although we can know who Ermor attacked, so you could turn all provinces attacked by Ermor into something ugly...

Unlocking horrors as spell research evolves could be thematic, if random events can be used (like replacing barbarian attacks by horror attacks if someone reached XXX in research).

A simple thing could be blind research, although it could hinder strategy somewhat.
Make many spells impossible to cast until spell research has reached a certain level. That way, the spells wouldn't be documented until someone unlocked the corresponding spell research level. You'd probably know the 9th level spells when someone has researched 4 paths at 7, but it's not much of a problem. This suggestion would only work if the content of the mod isn't known to the players, however, or if the added spells are created randomly (stuff like changing 1 level for fireball, or never allowing a summons spell, or limiting it to a random nation or a nation with the least current number of provinces...).

[Ballbarian]

Graying of terrain under death dominion, greening under growth, whitening under cold, etc... could be very cool. It would have been really nice if the game would reread the terrain and neighbors information in the map file. Regardless, the idea of time progression reflected in the map image really peeks my interest in this project. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Edratman]

I have absolutely no idea how to do this, but I always envisioned a scenario that starts EA, goes for say 30-40 turns and switches to MA and then a similar sequence to a LA switch. Players would start the next age staying with the same national lineage (ie EA Mictlan, MA Mictlan and LA Mictlan)and same provinces they ended with, maybe have a 10% random change in province ownership to add an unknown variable to the era change. Keep the same pretender, capital province, carryover gems and gold, and research tree. Not a single good idea how to deal with armies and commanders when the era changes.

Probably would be best to start on an enormous 1500 province map with a limited number of nations so the EA expansion has a limited probability of knocking a nation out.

Probably rerandomize (is that a word?) sites just for the heck of it at the era changes. That would at least get rid of carryover castles, but I don't know if that is good or bad.

I think it could be done with a tedious map edit after the end of each era, and the carryover research tree is totally beyond me.

[Agrajag]

Ballbarian said:
Graying of terrain under death dominion, greening under growth, whitening under cold, etc... could be very cool. It would have been really nice if the game would reread the terrain and neighbors information in the map file. Regardless, the idea of time progression reflected in the map image really peeks my interest in this project. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


If there was a way to gain access to that information with a 3rd party program, it would be quite easy to change the map accordingly, with the help of the preexec/postexec, but somehow I just don't see it happening http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Edratman]

Endoperez said:
I'm pretty sure maps are onnly read once, when the game is created. Mods can be changed. The map image could, perhaps, be changed, but the .map can't be, so changing terrain is impossible but adding more provinces might work.



I am almost 100% sure you are correct. I have altered map files during a game without effecting any changes.

[Endoperez]

Yeah, that's what I've done as well. Tried to edit #maptextcol and the icon size value, but the changes didn't take effect before I created a new game.

[llamabeast]

You can change the map image of course (as I think someone said above), just not the terrains, neighbour lists and so on.

[lch]

So this is how Gandalf managed to accumulate over 9k posts. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Aezeal]

If you can't change neighbours I guess you can't add province either..

basicly you can't change anything really fun or game changing then.. too bad.. I like the idea of cold, ermor etc getting visuals with it.. but it really doesn't change much.

You could make a REAL huge mod file and add units later in the game depending on scales.
To be really fair about that you'd have to have settings for all scales in advance though and 90% of the wouldn't be used.. seems a bit like a waste. (This idea is derived from the summons thread where someone wants the ulm warwagon unlocked at prod 3... which is a real nice idea. but as I said.. a lot of work.. for a lot of races... and not much would be used.)

[LDiCesare]

Adding national spells based on how the game evolves could be fun:
1st to reach level X in research unlocks national spell Summon Nasty Djinn.
Whoever controls DeadRat Province unlocks unlocks national spell Summon RatLord.
Nation controlling least number of provinces, and, if tied, best in research, by turn 12 unlocks Summon Meek Paladin.
etc.

Longer to code, nation specific events could be done too, like:
Any nation controlling less than 12 provinces by turn 10 and the 2 smallest nations (more if tied) by turn 10 get a permanent discount of 10% in gold and +1 attack for their best non commander unit.
Nation with best dominion by turn 15 gets its weakest national priest gain H2 if it was only H1, with a cost increase of +20 gold.

[Gandalf Parker]

The .map file is read once, but the image is read each time you boot up Dominions.
The MODs are read each time but it does cause problems if you try to add things to the game later. But you can CHANGE things already in the game. So units, items, spells, pretenders, etc can be changed. A spell could be put in at the beginning of the game which said something like "a mistery" and then later changed to do specific things depending on how the game had progressed. Such as, a "Spell of Balance" and if there is too much Order dominion then it becomes a spell of Chaos, and vise versa.

[iceboy]

It would be awesome if this scenario was a gigantic map that created the "World of Dominions" that you could play the three different ages with!

[LDiCesare]

It could be possible to progressively, as turns increase, make units unrecruitable and replace them with new ones, thus faking a change of Ages. The only problem is Ermor and R'lyeh LA dominions are probably impossible to change in-game?

[Gandalf Parker]

For a single game to progress thru the ages would require that the intial mod include all of the units for all of the nations for all 3 era's. The units for mid and late eras would start out "zero'd out" in abilities. And I guess the national magic sites would have to be included also, with mid and late eras also being zero'd out. Each nation would start with 3 home castles with the appropriate magic sites. As the game moved to mid era the early units and national sites would become zero'd and the mid age would become filled in. There would be some problems with nations which did not progress in a direct line thru all 3 ages but the game could include those as pop-up AIs and only allow human-playing of the ones that do have a 1-2-3 progression.

That would he a MASSIVE project. I think I would leave something like that to someome abit less A.D.D. than I am. But I would love to see it done Mostly, because along the way it would create the "mods which simply duplicate a nation" which I have been asking for to allow big games to allow nations to play the same nations. To prove who's strategy for that nation is better. Could you see games where 20 players all play Ulm against other Ulm's?

[Edratman]

The way I was thinking to have a single game progress through the ages was to run 30 turns or so EA. The game stops at that point, someone with a lot of time and patience edits the map to reflect the changes from the EA phase and the MA game starts a new game on the edited map. The sequence repeats on the MA to LA transition. This is manageable within the editing parameters as they exist now.

The game would probably have to limit itself to the nations that do segue through the ages, although things like EA Helheim and Vanheim could both be assigned a Vanheim MA nation.

Excluding the time it would take to do the map edit, the largest hurdle is figuring out how to do the troop/ commander transitions from era to era.

Gandalf, I also am surprised that no one has played a MP game with everyone playing the same nation. Someone has made a map where all provinces are hexagons. That would level the field a bit more. The only chance factor would be sites and province type distribution. A game like this would definately provide maximum bragging rights for the winner.

[Gandalf Parker]

There are maps which take care of the province type problem. And Im not sure if anyone has but it would be possible to also take care of the magic sites distribution. Also population density, types of independents, etc etc. About the only thing left random would be the events which could be set at low for the game if that doesnt factor into some peoples pretender builds (like it does with many of mine).

And as I understand it, the mod would be very doable. But apparently boring. Instead of creating anything, you would just be trying to use mod commands to duplicate each nation into a mod.

I feel such mods would serve the community strongly. Not only for the strategists to fight out "my Ulm is better than your Ulm". But as starting points for new modders for example. It would certainly help me to see how mod commands would create a nation I already know pretty well from playing it. How is each ability granted by mod commands. Then I would SEE exactly where to try small changes such as national spell or the armor of a particular unit.

I can also see some fun scenario games such as "the Brothers Ulm take on the World". Or "The 7 Kingdoms of Ulm. The Ulm Pretender was on the road toward becoming The One. He had 7 sons when he was finally killed in a stupid arena combat."

[Gandalf Parker]

lch said:
So this is how Gandalf managed to accumulate over 9k posts. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


Heehee. Actually padding the beginning of the thread with placeholders was something I saw someone else do and it struck me as a good idea for something like this.

On the other hand, this is beginning to show people why I have that post count. I tend to post idea threads that create a ton of conversation. And (hopefully) get half a dozen people to start projects since most of my talk ends up just being talk. Many of our best projects from Dom1, Dom2, Dom3 started that way. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

My brain is active but my fingers are lazy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Gandalf Parker

[Aezeal]

So what is the plan then Gandalf in which direction will this mod go?

[Gandalf Parker]

I dont have one yet. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/stupid.gif
That was part of why I laid out a post for each step of it. I created the "Scenarios, Maps and Mods" forum and have always regretted the small number of scenarios compared to Dom2.
Ive done fancy shortcuts, preexec, postexec, and maps. I dabbled abit in mods and was fascinated at the information that they could be changed in mid-game. Ive written many scripts which modify any and all of the above.

I had various notes about how they could all be tied in together but nothing that jumped up and screamed to be done. At least, not that I felt in my power. Of them all, MOD is my weakest so anything extensively built around the mod part I will be happy just to have spurred someone else to create it for us. Even if they use the whole scenario package idea, I would have no problem with that.

I was hoping for some other ideas in each of the various pieces about what would be impressive "if it could be done". Thats one of my favorite subjects "if it could be done".

[Aezeal]

Hey my scenario type of map (gangwars) got so few feedback I can't really work on it anymore.. I think it's just not really a scenario kind of game.

The best idea's I had (idea's I liked most I mean) above where then ones where you could change the map.. but I heard that is out.. so that kinda sucks.

Still I think it might be worth modding rhyleys and ermor so they change from MA to LA, if you do it for only 2 nations it will be less trouble and it will have a huge impact on the game. Personally I think that should definately be in this scenario. It is nice if they are played by AI and the AI might even be pretty decent with hordes of chaff. (not to mention giving them to a player is always somewhat unbalancing certainly if there are pantheons so the nearest neighbours can protect him a bit to get started)

So if you have no plans my main suggestions would be

1. Pantheons
2. MA Ermor and Rhyley changing to LA

another thing.. I read a bit about scripting events.. I have not heard about it before and never read about it in the mod files (I think) can that really be done? and to what extend... it would be very kewl

[LDiCesare]

There was a Civ2 scenario that I loved, Prince of Darkness.
It was more of an RPG than anything, but it was quite fun and I think something along the lines could be done:
Roughly, you had to move your character here and there in order to be given a Fireball which you could use to destroy the gates of Dis and vanquish the Devil nation before they started summoning devils so strong that the combined armies of all other civs couldn't beat one.
Additionally, it required some cooperation between civs as some techs could only be researched by certain civs.

So this could be adapted somehow:
Have Big Bad Player on one side (LA Ermor anyone?). If it reaches a certain research level or turn, boost the strength of its national only units. Undead legionaires, lictors and such would be nice for instance, because the ai would have many of them. Basically, something another player cannot wish for becomes extra strong. The problem is you should prevent players from charming/enslaving/... these before they become strong.
So the rest of the players should team to get rid of Ermor (or R'lyeh or whoever).
To that end, the event that causes the undead to become hyper powerful can be delayed if certain spells are cast, preferably national only spells, each spell having an effect only once. So Ermor becomes unbeatable by turn 40 unless someone casts spell X which gives 10 more turns, spell Y which gives 12 more, etc.

In addition, that civ2 scenario provided you with angels and such nice fighters if you managed to do some quest, so it would be possible to have some unit become reruitable and worthwhile if a given province was attacked/controlled, helping fend off the hordes.
Spells could also become stronger under certain conditions (gain x2 against undead if...)

[Gandalf Parker]

Hmmmm not bad.
I really like the thing about visiting certain sites. That would be really easy to do. And not allowing sneaks to do it would be easy. Have the pre-exec check the log each turn "watching" for combat results for certain provinces. It could even keep track of who visited so that you still got credit even if another player "visited" (took over) the province later. Visiting 5 ancient sites would "unlock" an item or a spell by having the 3rd-party-program rewrite the games mod file to give powers to them (they would have been in the game all along but with little or not powers). Hmmmm you could even have many sites, but have the powers granted depend on WHICH sites you visited. Or even have it be incremental as each site is visited. "You have visited City of Death and your pretender crown now allows the summoning of xxxxxxx".

And the thing about casting a spell to add time to a timer would be quite possible also. Another thought is that it could add a nice scenario feature to a multiplayer game. Ermor is going postal unless the xxxxxx global is cast and gems are used to maintain it. So now, do you let another player do it and trust them to maintain it, or do it yourself? I can even see a forum conversation charging the other players gems to help you maintain the shield.

[Gandalf Parker]

Another remembering of old ideas I could incorporate in this.

Adding mid-game messages. Give each nation a "town crier" unit, or maybe an Oracle, or a Standing Stones with Runes. As the game progresses, the unit can provide information from the scenario, or the person running the game.

OK as cool as this sounds, I cant seem to come up with a reason for it. I dont know what info from outside of the game should be transported to inside the game. Some info on the game which cant be gotten from the score graphs inside the game? What info would that be?

Maybe "gossip" on who is in the lead if you wanted to run a game without scoreboards or any nation info. Instead of getting comparison info on everyone all game, or no info on anyone, maybe just a gossip list of who is at the top in each category?

I guess it could be done up to do game hints. Like the ones you see at each hosting, but this one could read randomly from a file that the players can create. That might be a cool thing to package and make available for a download seperately but not as part of this project.

[Gandalf Parker]

OK. How about this idea. What nations can be given a decent "change of tactics" in midgame?

The first that comes to mind would be Ermor. But I dont think I can get Ermor to switch tactics by changing the mod of the units in mid-game. It would be sweet though. When the game log file shows Ermor losing many battles then that means a nation has their number. Attacking with many priests against undead. So shift Ermor to a units base instead of undead? Im not sure that would work for Ermor. But maybe some other nations?

Make it more cost-reasonable for Arcos to make armies until they hit other nations, then shift to a more mage-oriented research mode?

Make it cost reasonable for Oceania to make fully-aquatic more-efficient water fighting units until it starts hitting land, then shift it to making amphibious units?

Make castles cheaper for all of the AI until they start meeting with each other then make castles for AI expensive to keep them from using funds filling their area with overlapping castles?

[LDiCesare]

Gandalf Parker said:So shift Ermor to a units base instead of undead?


Why not do it the other way around?
Start MA Ermor without reanimation ability on their priests and give it to them later. Give them a summons spell that mid game becomes able to either generate undeads automatically or 'summon allies'.

You'd start with a Roman nation using little or no death magic and then increase the death skill of its mages mid-game (not sure if it works on existing commanders), give the priests reanimate, provide summons that spam undead chaff automatically.

You might even mod a spell for 2 or 3 turns only so Ermor would have the ability to suddenly summon hordes of undead for cheap, but this ability wouldn't last long and afterwards you'd just reanimate.

[Gandalf Parker]

Im not sure if an added spell is used by the AI. One of the more experienced modders might let us know.

But changes would definetly be a good answer. I hadnt thought of the reverse. That would make a good game and be logical. As the armored nation of Ermor starts getting its *** kicked, the mages come up with a solution and start cranking out undead.

Im not sure how much of Ermors undead comes from its units though. I got the impression it was kindof a built-in thing just from being the nation Ermor. I dont know if thats touchable by mod.

[LDiCesare]

I don't think you can mod the dominion free spawning units, but you could add freespawn to some units like a cheap 0 move priest who previously was useless and expensive. By becoming cheap, the priest would be hired, not move, just reanimate and freespawn some unit.
IT's definitely not the dom-killing Ermor dominion, but you could use MA Ermor and make it look like LA that way, except it wouldn't destroy its population.

[Gandalf Parker]

Hmmmm that might work. Good thinking.

Not sure if its enough to build a big project around by itself but if we can come up with others then we might have an interesting scenario game.

What other middle age (era 2) nations can someone come up with a mid-game change of tactic that would make sense.

Ulm shifting from nationals to independents?

Pangaea shifting from nationals to carrion?

Oceania shifting from aqua units to amphib units?

Arcos shifting from expansion to research?

Bandar discover cave men and start using them?

Mictlan shifting to or from a blood-base?

If we did them all then we could put watches for indicators on all of them to switch in the change file for each as they reach the indicator. And it would be a different game when you played it again because in one game Ermor might never hit its indicator and in another game Arcos might not. They could even be different for a winning indictor or a losing indicator.

[Gandalf Parker]

How about this...
In case Ermor gets too powerful, the mid-game mod will change Ermors pretender into an Eater of the Dead? Seems to match the theme.

[Gandalf Parker]

NT Jedi said in a post in the Dom2 forum:
Map Makers asking for placing timed events

As listed within the title... this is for Dominions_3
many more interesting maps can be made if map makers can setup timed events. Examples listed below:

1) Timed Event: Day_20 Give Ermor 50 Pale Riders and 2 Devils
Published Time Event: Yes
Comment at start of turn: Ermor has begun war on the realm

2) Timed Event2: Day_27 Heal all afflictions for territory_21
Published Time Event: No
Comment at start of turn: ((Not used))

3) Timed Event3: Day_33 Give Marginon 8 angels
Published Time Event: Yes
Comment at start of turn: Help has arrived from the sky

4) Timed Event4: Day_40 Assassination on province_35
Give Assassin to independents and activate
Published Time Event: Yes
Comment at start of turn: Hired Assassins are on the move


This would greatly increase the type of single player games which can be created.
For a more detailed list of types of events which can exist I recommend viewing the map editor of Heroes_3.



Some of these would be pretty cool. But I think that due to the limits on things like the number of units you can mod with a mod... they might have to appear in batches. I could see creating 10 versions of an assassin unit. Then scatter unit assassin1 to a random 100 provinces, assassin2 to a random 100 provinces, etc etc. Then at random times during the game the groups could attack. When it comes up for assassin1 then all 100 of them will suddenly become active assassins. The in-game message could be something along the line of "A band of assassins do a united strike." which wouldnt be too hard to do for a scenario-map.

Since there are so few ideas popping up, does anyone have the Heroes_3 map editor he mentioned?

[Gandalf Parker]

another NT Jedi example

example:
Event: Give ERMOR
Commander: Demon Knight
Items: Marble Armor; Amulet of Antimagic
Units: 30 Demon Knights
Guards: 2 Devils
Province: Ermor Capital
Day: 58



This is doable altho the clutter it would create in the home province might make it only a nice thing to do for the AI, not players.

[HoneyBadger]

It would be fun if, when an early nation was defeated, a new middle era of the same nation suddenly popped up, and then again for the late age version. Sort of a nation secondform. Or for a scenario, that it happens on a certain turn.

[Gandalf Parker]

HoneyBadger said:
It would be fun if, when an early nation was defeated, a new middle era of the same nation suddenly popped up, and then again for the late age version. Sort of a nation secondform. Or for a scenario, that it happens on a certain turn.


Im not sure if I can come up with a way to do that.

The closest I can think of would be something like...
1) Play the EarlyAge Map for 100 turns.
2) Parse the info on each nation still in the game (debug log and scoreboard).
3) Create a version of the same map and name it MidAge.
4) Place the nations the same, give them the same provinces, as much as possible replace the units with appropriate units and extra experience bonuses.
5) Play the MidAge Map for 100 turns.
6) Rinse and Repeat for the LateAge Map.

[Sombre]

You could use a mod file and change all the recruitment options and national spells of whichever nations you wanted at a certain point in the game. That wouldn't be hard at all.

[Gandalf Parker]

Sombre said:
You could use a mod file and change all the recruitment options and national spells of whichever nations you wanted at a certain point in the game. That wouldn't be hard at all.


That would be great!
Do we know if those will work with mid-game change?

So far my thinking has been tied into the idea of putting a unit in at the start of the game, then changing its parameters in the mod file in mid-game. I have some ideas on how to do game-events, Bogus groups, and in-game messages that way.

If a nation could simply be switched from era to era that would be great. Hmmmmmm.... we might still have to create magic sites in the mod in order to modify them on the fly. Create Ermor-A and Ermor-B magic sites to assign to Ermor, then change them from early age to middle age to late age.

[Sombre]

Yeah they work with midgame changes just fine. You just wipe their recruitment options and add in all the new ones, move the national spells to different nation numbers etc.

You can't change which magic sites are at the cap using a mod, at least not halfway through a game, but you can easily change the properties of those sites - cap only commanders and troops, gem income etc. No problem.

[HoneyBadger]

Or, maybe on a larger (1500 province) map, at some point adding in the middle, and then the later era nations, on close by provinces, while still keeping the original ea nations, and making those middle and late nations allies to their ea nations, atleast to begin with. This would not only simulate growth and diversity, "new blood": new strategies and techniques for old nations, but also the potential to "split off" into separate colonies, which may become independent. It would also make huge maps more interesting to play. This could later be expanded to include modded in nations, for the sake of interest and diversity-for instance, if a province formerly occupied by independent cavemen suddenly transformed into a strong Ogre Kingdoms nation on the 50th turn and started taking the piss out of you.

If the human-played nation or nations in the game could come to control their middle and late eras, as close allies, that could also be a lot of fun.

[Gandalf Parker]

Suggested by Dr Praetorious for Timed Events:

Firstly, it'd be cool (and more balanced, I think) if all of the "rainbow" pretenders had common, keyed events that give you commanders (mostly indie mages):

- Mother of Monsters. (thanks to QM for giving me this idea, btw) Gives an Abomination who is also a commander, kills 1,000 people, and spreads dominion 5 times.
"The Awakening God has born a son! He is terrible beyond men's worst nightmares, and when he devours 1,000 people, his wrath inspires the people to a frenzy of worship."

- ***** Queen. Gives you a dire wolf and hundreds of wolves.
"The king of the wolves has sought out the Awakening God and challenged her dominance. Because she triumphed, she is now alpha of all the wolves in the world, and the wolf king has vowed to serve her along with his entire nation."

- Great Sage. Gives you a loremaster.
"A scholar of great reknown has travelled from a distant land to study the sage teachings of the Awakening God. Having finally found the true path to wisdom, he has pledged himself to the new God."

- Frost Father and Skratti. Gives you an unfrozen mage.
"An ancient sorcerer has awoken from the icy slumber of the ages. He pledges his art to the true Lord of the Cold."

- Archmage. Gives you a wizard or a deep seer if you are aquatic.
- Great Warlock. Gives you a (MA) warlock.
- Master Lich. Gives you a lich.
- Smoking Mirror. Gives you an (EA) priest of the sun.
- Fomorian Sorcerer. Gives you a Fomorian Druid.
- Arch Seraph. Gives you a (MA) Seraph.
"The True God has finished training an apprentice. He will wield his powers in the service of his master."

- Druid (various kinds). Gives you a presence and a host of vinemen.
"An ancient presence has stirred in %s; coming upon the awakening God, it is so impressed by his love of the land that it pledges itself and its minions to your cause."

- Crone. Gives you a spectral mage.
"In her youth, many centuries ago, the Awakening God had many lovers, all long dead. Now that her ascension is nigh, one of them has returned from the next world to woo her again."

- Parthalonian Sorceress. Gives you a
"In her youth, long ago, the Awakening God had many suitors, and she thought them all long passed from the world. But

- Great Enchantress. Give you an ether lord.
"In a dream, the awakening God has sought wisdom among the higher spheres. Amid a vast ruin in the flickering aether, she comes upon an empty suit of armor atop a crumbling marble throne. A voice from within the armor challenges her to a contest of riddles: if she loses, she must give up her body and take his place on the throne. Having accepted the challenge and won, the dweller of the place must now serve her."

- Freak Lord, gives you a Succubus
"On a strange whim attending a travelling carnival, the awakening God finds one of his old companions from his wandering days, eating the still-beating heart of the carnival barker in the midst of an act of passion. Down on her luck and hunted by mutual enemies, she accepts the awakening God's generous offer of servitude."

- Divine Emperor, gives you a Prince General, 500 gold, an open ended die / 2 of gems of 3 random types, and up to 4 magic items as equipment on the prince general.
"One of the many sons of the awakening God has reached his majority and left the care of the harem. His martial skills and fanatical loyalty to his father are such that his paternity is acknowledged at once, to much celebration and accclaim; gifts of gold, gems and magic are presented to commemorate his majority."

- Ghost King, gives you a Wraith Senator and a host of longdead horsemen.
"An ancient vassal of the awakening God has returned from the underworld with his knights to renew his vow of fealty."

I'll finish later.

- Master Alchemist
- Void Lurker
- Polypal Mother
==============================
FoodStamp suggested:

I would like to see rare random events where an independent monster attempts to conquer a province, if successful he moves around the map randomly taking provinces until he is slain.
============================
Endoperez suggested:

I like the idea of wandering monsters, but I like the idea of wandering groups even more! I haven't tested if it's possible to give an independent mover (like the Unfettered) units, but if it works:


Druid with N3H3
guarded by a Kithaironic Lion, Great Eagle, Fall Bear, Dire Wolf
10 Great Lions
10 Dire Wolves
10 Moose
10 Giant Spiders (MA Mictlan, spawned after a rider dies)
15 Horned Serpents
various Wolves, Black Hawks, Great Eagles, Spring Hawks, Jaguars etc
Message: A druid has lead the animals of the province in crusade against their oppressors. 2000 people have been killed and unrest has increased. (Growth 2+, Magic 1+)
Alternative (Kailasa, Bandar Log, Patala only): A druid with an army of animals has decided to serve your cause. (Luck 1+, Magic 1+)


Troll King
Trolls, Moose Knights, War Trolls etc
Message: A Troll King has declared war on your land, and lead a suprise attack through a previously undiscovered tunnel. (Misf 1+, Magic 1+, adds an Earth site that increases unrest).


Skratti with Brazen Vessel, Blood Thorn
2 Niefel Giants (EA Niefelheim)
4 Jotun Skinshifters
4 Jotun Hirdmen
Message: A renegade Skratti has experimented with forbidden knowledge, and has managed to reawaken some of the ancient Niefel Giants. Now he's wandering in the countryside, capturing virgins to summon Illwinter!


Incanus the Shadow Seer (ethereal mage from the Tower of Nexus) with F4S4, Sword of Swiftness, Ring of Wizardry
guarded by two Hoburg Champions and one Ivy King
30 Heavy Horsemen (MA Tien Chi, light lance, comp. bow, prot 14)
40 Vine Ogres
60 Vinemen
Message: A strange wizard clad in grey garb has lead an army to free the world from your tyranny. The locals claim that he's been protecting them for centuries.


Telcontar the Warden with Fire Brand, Wraith Crown, Stone Sphere, Pendant of Luck
guarded by a Black Plate Infantry (MA Ulm, battleaxe)
guarded by a Defender (LA Man, HI, sword and crossbow)
a Yavana Archer (EA Kailasa, immortal magic being with awe and bow)
20 Wights
20 Wardens
20 Banes
40 Woodsmen
Message: A man who claims divine ancestry has declared himself the King of all humans, and his army of the dead has started carving his kingdom by conquering yours!


Also, if stealthy independents are possible:
Underhill the Horticulturist (hoburg independent, stealthy N1 mage) with Duskdagger, Weightless Scale Mail, Precious
a unit Hoburg militia (hoburg independent, stealthy)
a unit Likho (Bogarus summon, old hag that causes misfortune)
Message: Strange events are occuring and superstition among the people is increasing.


Also, what would be more fun than:
Message: A Doom Horror has decided to wreak havok on this world! (needs Misf 3, Magic 3, can't appear before turn 50).
=======================================
my own stray though (Gandalf's) for
-- Bogus Group:
If I wanted MY DnD adventurers party to show up in the game like Johan and Kristoffer have done, can I? Yes but the overhead for that would probably make it something that is best done as a seperate mod than as part of this big-scenario project.
======================================

[Gandalf Parker]

LordChance reports this:
Poked around in your ideas for the scenario earlier noticed that you asked about AI using custom spells it does...
By chance I made a really mean and cheap spell (was intended as a ritual not a combat spell ) and in the following test that AI killed everyone (including me) was a summon spell and likely there is a reason that most in combat spells are resonably bad or cost gems.

[Gandalf Parker]

To answer Azael from another thread...
Actually one of my many partially done projects was the testing of mid-game mod changes, with an offshoot into what does and does not have to be part in the mod that the player has. (as far as I know Ive finished testing host map vs player map, now on to mods)

So far it appears that for an AI a player side mod (programmers use the term stub-file so I call it stub.dm) must name the nation, assign it a nation slot, and should set the color that the nation uses in the scoreboards. Maybe also set the name and slot of magic sites (not done testing that part). The host stub.dm controls the units that can be recruited, and maybe the features of the site. So it would seem possible so far to do what you want. Have a game where the AI nation would be bare and unfeatured until a certain thing is seen in the game.log such as a number of turns passed or a particular site attacked or a global cast. Then the host can swap in the stub.dm that has the AI as a full featured nation able to recruit.

The nation would be active before that so it would build up gold and possibly gems. But that might be controllable also. It still needs some testing to find out the full capability but the early tests seem to indicate that SOME level is going to be possible.

That also applies to the random AI nation project I was working on. Not the mid-game part but seems to show that the player only needs to download a bare stub.dm file in order to play games over and over on my server where the nations they are playing are completely changed with each game.

[Gandalf Parker]

Hmmmm come to think of it..
an AI nation could have all versions of units geared toward a very specific style of playing. All expensive elites, defensive, minimal movement, possibly high on research to create a nation which the AI (even the stupid AI) would be forced to play as a slowly building up and "preparing" sort of nation. And then when it is attacked, the units all switch to cheaper, possibly less armored, good movement troops better oriented toward a barbarian horde style of playing. Ticking them off would suddenly cause them to "burst forth onto the landscape".
That might be fun.

And the reverse could be tried also. One that starts out aggressively expansive. And when attacked switches to a more lock-down and defend version.

[Aezeal]

So how do you add units or a nation during a game then, and have you actually tested it?

I can see how you could change a nation by having a zillion extra unitnumbers which could even have a greyed out version with unavailable over it as the pic, 999 gc and 999 rec cost, and 0 for each stat and thus making them quite unappealing to recruit and then later change the mod and give those units stats, a good pic and price and either grey out the original ones or just have the newer (improved versions) have a better price/power ration. (I think this is more elegant than using 3 castles (which would imho recruit the same units anyway so I'm not getting that at all anyway).

Anyway I could see that work.. but how to add a new nation or place units during the game.. I'm not seeing which commands I could use.

[Gandalf Parker]

There are some things the game reloads during each bootup and some it doesnt.

The map for instance is not used except for the initial creation of the game, and then only by the host. In direct connect games (like mine) the user receives a map graphic and never needs to see the .map at all.

On the other hand, a mod is loaded everytime the game brings up a game using that mod. So it can do some changes. So the "commands" is just restarting the game with the changed (but named the same) mod in place.

I have only gotten as far as testing the use of units that the users copy of Dom3 already "knows". If I grant abyssia infantry and caelums mages to a nation then Dom3 knows how to show the battles to the user.

Im guessing that if I make up a unit then the users copy must list the new ID numbers and some basic info on how to display it. Graphics can be a problem. If the player already has the graphics then its ok. In other words you could probably change units with #copyspr but referring to a self-made image would mean it has to be included in the copy that each user gets. Im afraid I havent tested host-only mid-game changes yet either. This is all based on "bugs" reported by others that differences in the mod versions caused strnge things to happen if the mod doesnt have a #ver to tell the game that the version has changed. Im trying to turn a bug into a feature before Johan fixes it.

But, at least it SHOULD work (or at least have the best bet) if you want to create the the entire unit in the users mod. If unit 3456 is fully defined and graphiced, and unit 3457 is also, then the users copy will know them both. If 3457 is all the nation can recruit at the beginning of the game, and later the recruit list removes it but puts in 3457, then thats something only the host is really caring about on an AI nation.

Properly tested (which Im not good at) it would start with everything in the users mod and then gradually see how much of it can be changed at the hosts end. Even better to find out which items can be deleted entirely from the users mod without affecting battle replays and what happens when you take the AIs castle (most of my tests crash at the taking of the castle)

[Aezeal]

I'm willing to believe you can change units (by modding in a .dm file) in a game.. since I've been doing that a lot lately.. same for graphics.. no doubts there. But you said it would be possible to place units (which are already in the .DM file just not used (or even once already in use) somewhere, and nations even.. and THAT would be most interesting (since else there would have to be a unit on the map.. somewhere from the start of the game which would make it much less playable (I can think of solutions though.. a nation with only a commander/pretender and army with a teleport army spell on a seperated province no connections which I could then teleport to a province where I want them... maybe even with that nations nation only sites there so it could even build from there.. now I think of it this is a VERY good option) anyway.. you said it would be possible to ADD nations and troops and I wonder how (if you said it in the previous post I didn't get it and I'm sorry) the thing I mentioned just now might really work though so that is nice too :D.

[Gandalf Parker]

As far as I can tell, adding troops as recruitables to a nations list should not be a problem as long as its a unit that the player will be able to see.

OK lets say that the mod file of Stub.dm:
#newmonster 2345
#newmonster 2346
#newsite 4567
#newsite 4568

And it also
#selectnation 94
#startsite 4567
#startsite 4568
#addreccom 2345

So at the beginning of the game, player and host both have the nation defined and able to recruit 2345. Unit 2346 is defined but not in use.

At midgame, the hosts stub.dm is edited and
#addreccom 2345
becomes
#addrecom 2346

Any of the 2345 units still in the field will stay the same. The game, both at host and player end, understand what that is. But at the nations capital its no longer on the recruit list. Now, 2346 is recruitable so that AI begins filling its armies with that unit.

[Aezeal]

yeah I see how that works, but actual troops placement on a province... an army out of nothing coming to take your world

[Endoperez]

yeah I see how that works, but actual troops placement on a province... an army out of nothing coming to take your world

Watcher nation and spell that makes custom units independent that stay in the affected province. I don't know of any easy way to do it, unfortunately.

[Aezeal]

ah well the watcher nation I've already mentioned.. and for what I want to know (and Gandalf said he though was possible) I get no replies (and though I'm by no means a modding genius I have worked through the manual multiple times and read nearly all threads in here so..)

As I said the watcher nation wouldn't even be that bad of an option you'd just need to adjust the map for it and that is sort of annoying.

[lch]

ah well the watcher nation I've already mentioned.. and for what I want to know (and Gandalf said he though was possible) I get no replies (and though I'm by no means a modding genius I have worked through the manual multiple times and read nearly all threads in here so..)
I usually only skim-read posts, especially if they are lengthier and not broken up into paragraphs, but I don't know what question you're referring to and I won't look through 8 pages to find out... You might try pointing to the question, or asking it again. As for watcher nations, I wrote something for that yesterday, and as for independent farsummons a la Ghost Riders, this can be done via spell modding already.

[Aezeal]

well it was more directed to gandalf who was more involved with this thread but in another thread he said it was possible to add new nations and place new units on a province DURING a game (by modding or editing mapfiles). His replies though are aiming at something different (also interesting no doubt about that, but I was already convinced by his previous posts that that would be possible :D) and not at what actually asked (probably due to my too short posts and too brief explanations in broken english).

I know you can do farsummons have a few nice ones in my mods actually.. (no indep yet though but once I have enough nations for dom 3K I'll start on one of these to create more "volume" on the existing nations). On a different but related note: I'd be interested to know if you can do farsummons without making one of the units into a commander (since I've also added a commander (which in turn also gets a non commander of the same type)) I've asked this before though and the answers seemed to be that it was not possible (though I'm starting to think that it MUST be able to do commander summons without a troop of the same name) have to look into that better, probably need another effect number). For troop summons I think you always get a commander and it will only be differnt for the wolves, crows etc and that those links are hardcoded since they are certainly not in the modding manual (the spell guide seems to implicate this too)

[Gandalf Parker]

Well I had a concept for mid game events...
If I can create a unit which is majorly stealth, cannot move, basically nothing but a place holder. And then midgame the mod changes it into an attacking unit. But Im not sure if units can be placed in stealth mode. And if its placed as a national unit, will it have to fight for ownership? If its placed as an independent (nation 25) then I cant see a way to change it into another nations unit.

[Gandalf Parker]

Hmmmmmm.......
if I can find a unit that when placed will start out as stealth then how about if the unit it changes into is a major AoE charmer? Can I make it a single-shot? Maybe invent a spell which is very powerful, and costs 50 gems, then give the unit 50 gems? And change it into something diseased or dying of old age.

That way, on turn 50 or whatever, it suddenly changes everyone in the province (indepts, my army, your army, whoever owns it) into an army for their nation. But it wont change me when I send my army to take the province back.

[Gandalf Parker]

OR it could change into something with major summoning ability. It summons a commander and 50 troops "each turn" but has built in safegaurds so that the unit it changes into can only live one turn.

[Gandalf Parker]

Is there a spell effect that causes teleportation to a random province?

[Aezeal]

Since we seem to agree you can't place stuff during the game then I'd say that the best option would be as I and others (you I think) mentioned before, use a not connected province and place the army there (no need to stealth them since noone can get there anyway) if the commander can cast a transport army spell (which should be hard since you'll just give that nation a cheap nation specific transport army spell you mod in) Then you can just let the nation be player controlled (by the DUNGEON MASTER :D) and dormant (do give them income plz) and when you think the players need some extra action you let the commander/pretender teleport to a certain province (which was very attractive to other players since it had a nice magic site for a decent amount of gems and HIGH pop).. and where.. how fortunately his special nation specific sites (with his overpowered cap only recruitables) and a castle also are situated but which the others coulnd't use (like any capitol).

Gandalf, lets do this :D. It shouldn't be hard and could be entered in any game (just pick an out of the way province and delete all it's connections in the .map file and add the needed sites on the target (invasion) province (hey problem..... can you add sites in the MAP file if they are not in the vanilla game but only in a .dm? might be since it reads .dm before .map I think) and then add the needed units and commanders there and make the province the starting capitol for that nation.

and then you only need to make a .dm file with that nation (and it's transport spell) which it easy, for a test I could use my dragons and just drop most of their cost so it'll be overpowered :D

hmm a farsummon with the ability to then summon an army (easily done) might indeed be just as easy. I think the key is they NEED a start province.

[lch]

Well I had a concept for mid game events...
If I can create a unit which is majorly stealth, cannot move, basically nothing but a place holder. And then midgame the mod changes it into an attacking unit. But Im not sure if units can be placed in stealth mode. And if its placed as a national unit, will it have to fight for ownership? If its placed as an independent (nation 25) then I cant see a way to change it into another nations unit.
That might work, in theory, though not with map modding alone if you want it for independents, as there's no command to have it start stealthy and all the map information gets encoded into the fatherlnd file, you'd have to do that by hand for a nation before setting it to AI or so. No guarantee that the AI would keep the Hide order. What you could do, if you already have one such "watcher" nation, is to use remote farsummons that count as independent attack. I haven't looked into that Monster Boar spell, but it might be possible that they even start stealthy then, unless that spell has those effects hardcoded for it.

Hmmmmmm.......
if I can find a unit that when placed will start out as stealth then how about if the unit it changes into is a major AoE charmer? Can I make it a single-shot? Maybe invent a spell which is very powerful, and costs 50 gems, then give the unit 50 gems?
The unit AI will be highly likely to waste the gems on much better spells like Astral Shield and Blink instead, I'd guess. ;)

[Aezeal]

to a RANDOM province... hmm no but if you make it a player controled nation then you can just pick it.. works better with my idea of the target province having that nations specific sites anyway.

Why would it need to be AI.. palyer controlled is much better.. I mean.. AI might screw up everything.. a dungeon master (like DnD) might give just enough resitance to make ti fun.. and then let himself die anyway.

[Gandalf Parker]

as requested...

I know that the IRC channel seems to be a pet peeve of yours for some reason,
This confuses me. Where have I done anything but praise the IRC group and refer people to it? As far as suggestions that I carry thru.. Ive done maps, mods, servers, scenarios to completion not to mention collaboration on many. As for the ideas I feel that some of the best accomplishments here to date were spurred that way. Shall we compare scores?

[Gandalf Parker]

to a RANDOM province... hmm no but if you make it a player controled nation then you can just pick it.. works better with my idea of the target province having that nations specific sites anyway.

Why would it need to be AI.. palyer controlled is much better.. I mean.. AI might screw up everything.. a dungeon master (like DnD) might give just enough resitance to make ti fun.. and then let himself die anyway.

I tend to like random, and AI, and special events.
I dont have a clear picture of the "nation" version.

So a nation would be placed. And the game would progress 50 or 100 turns. Then the nation would emerge? Im not sure how mid-game mod would make that different than just allowing the game to progress to 50 turns before having the nation take part? Ive done games where it was force-advanced thru some of the game before starting in. Are you seeking to "hide" the nation and allow another nation to roll over it before it erupts?

[Aezeal]

Well they player playing the nation just doesn't do anything on its secluded (no connections with other provinces) and his invasion army is just there.. waiting.. till the dungeon master decides it time to throw in that army and you teleport that army to where you want (which could be a province where there is his nation specific site :D)

The best thing for this however (since I agree your idea is nice too) is that it will almost certainly work.. whereas a hidden commander might just attack... or be discovered.. or NOT do what it's supposed to do after it changes to what it should be.
If it autosummoned units that would work for sure.. BUT that couldn't be commanders..

I agree that for SP my idea isn't usefull and since most play is SP we need to see how we can make your idea stick best.

[Gandalf Parker]

Hmmmm creating a nation in a locked province would work.
Granting it a free gateway spell of some sort would work.

But Im not sure about the sites. As I understand it, home sites are not modded to a nation. They are modded to grant certain benefits to "the original owner". So if you invade your new location then you wont get them.
Someone more knowledgeable in standard modding like Sombre might know.

Maybe a site could be midgame mod-changed into a startsite? So the ownership is recorded and set AFTER you get there? It could be a blank do-nothing site until then. I guess we would have to play with that.

[Aezeal]

hmmm I don't know about how start sites work actually so you might be right.. in that case your suggestion will probably work it seems like any change in a .dm file. But original owner.. won't that count the owner of the site (the number) from the start of the game?

You could even change the site name: first like "high crystal palace of the elements" (a site you would want) and then "dark ruin with astral gate to the netherworld" (obviously there needs to be some more thoughts about those names but you get the idea)

We could just try it.. annoying thing is that trying changes in mods is not easy for me since when I leave the game and start again I OFTEN have the game lock at the start of my turn (when restarted) which only resolves after restarting the comp.. which is quite annoying. (and one of the reasons I'm testing my own mods less than I should)

It still won't do anything for SP though it's more a MP sort of move anyway I guess..

[Gandalf Parker]

MP is fine if its something I might add to my server games to make them more interesting :)

[Sombre]

But Im not sure about the sites. As I understand it, home sites are not modded to a nation. They are modded to grant certain benefits to "the original owner". So if you invade your new location then you wont get them.

I'm not sure what you mean by home sites.

If you mean the sites a nation starts with (ignoring the set up of the province it starts in), the ids can be defined in nation modding. As for the benefits they grant,... I'm not sure which you're referring to. Clearly gems/resources/gold go to the current owner and you can't recruit any #homecom or #homemon units assigned to them. What other benefits are there? The void gate? I don't have much experience with that - I would assume anyone can use it, if they capture the cap.

[Gandalf Parker]

Ahhh so its only the homecom and homemon that is specific to the original owner. That could be a problem.

Altho I think Azael might have wanted it unobvious about where his home-to-be for his invading nation was located. So homemon and homecom might not work well. Anyone can see those if they captured the site.

Oh well, back to wondering if midgame modding can make a difference. IF midgame mod adding a unit to a specially created site will work (which seems like a fair chance that it will) then we wouldnt need to worry as much about homecom and homemon. We could use regular mon and com.
Hmmmm other than a problem if it gets captured by someone else then.

[rdonj]

You could put it there and it not do anything special until you reach whatever point you want. Say, give 1 gem income. Then later mod it to do what you actually want it to.

[Gandalf Parker]

semi-SUCCESSFUL TEST

I created a site named stub that gave gems and added it to my watcher nation (which is what Im testing the heck out of at the moment). I took it one turn then quit.

Then I changed the mod to change the name of the site to Stubby and add a recruitable unit. On re-entering the game it was now named Stubby and gave gems and the recruitable unit.

I call it semi-successful because at this point it has been test-proven for solo games and not for mp games

[Aezeal]

nah that should work..

try it on a indie province though.. place it in a indie occupied province from start of game, they conquer it and 1-2 turns later change site and see if you can recruit. (and make the site nation specific)

[Gandalf Parker]

WOW
I created a new unit to try out the thing about summon&die (havent gotten to that part yet) but just to see if I created a unit correctly I added it to the startsite and re-entered the game. It worked.

No no, the neat part is that IT WORKED! I didnt start a new game. I reentered the old one. This units ID number, and everything about the unit had not existed when I started the game. Its a mid-game change inventing an entirely new unit and adding it to the game. This is going to be fun to add to my SemiRandom AI-nation project

[Aezeal]

I'm not surprised really :D I've added units etc dozens of times during a game :D I usually just start a game and continue it when I have made changes to a mod.. usually works (and with usually I mean I can't remember it not working, except sometimes the mod doesn't seem to have updated but then it will later, new sprites work too.)

I still wonder about changing a magic site in an indie province (on start of game at least) which was not your capitol into a capitol site (nation specific) since I never tried that.

[lch]

I know that the IRC channel seems to be a pet peeve of yours for some reason,
This confuses me. Where have I done anything but praise the IRC group and refer people to it? As far as suggestions that I carry thru..
My sarcasm and irony senses are probably just a little too sensible, then, as they go off when there's too thick praise that seems misplaced. There really shouldn't be any room for pet peeves, no. :)

[Aezeal]

yeah you are a bit prickly these days ich.. I wasn't even allowed to talk about vampires in dom 3K in a vampires thread :D, and I even ended that post with saying I couldn't use it so it was ended there anyway.. not like those 2 lines made much difference, my real message was above that.

Anyway Ich since I read just now you are the creator of the spell guide I was wondering if you knew the answer to a question I put up somewhere on this forum about remote summons and getting commanders when summoning troops and vice versa.. can that be stopped?

[Gandalf Parker]

Ahh crap. I found a hangup on this project.
I can change it to summon 5 (apparently thats the max outside of your dominion?). But they rout. I tried to take the unit out of hiding at the same time so it could command but you cant seem to do that.
I had it as #stealthy 125 when I move it. Then I tried changing it to #stealthy 0 but it stayed hidden. Same with #stealthy -1. And I tried -stealthy 125 (removing stealth) which kindof worked since it took the stealth icon off the unit but the unit stayed hidden.

[rdonj]

Try removing the #stealth line completely? It should be forced to attack the next turn, I think.

[Aezeal]

it's only a hangup for your project really :D my idea could still work.. most probably will. Anyway if you give it like E 1 and a summon spell for an army castable by a E1 mage... (a large army + commanders) and it's immovable (?) etc so it could probably only cast that spell and be useful....

[Gandalf Parker]

But to throw it into combat you have to make it visible unless you plan to move it and have it erupt at the same time. In that case you might as well just gate in an army

[Gandalf Parker]

Try removing the #stealth line completely? It should be forced to attack the next turn, I think.
Thats what I was thinking. Changing the # (command) to - (remark) should have done the same thing. But just to make sure I removed it also. Still didnt work.

I think its part of some of the other bugs that have been found where Dom3 doesnt recheck things after the initial action. It was hidden, so next turn its still hidden even though it has lost the ability. If I try to move it then its unhidden, but I cant "unhide" it from the mod as far as I can figure out.

I cant think of any ability to grant it that would force it out of hiding either.

[rdonj]

Maybe if you gave it a #terrainshape? If it is supposed to be a different unit at the province it's at, it should change. Which might get rid of the hide command if said form can't hide.

[Gandalf Parker]

That might work. But then Id have to know each time what terrain its in.
Hmmmm maybe if I gave it both a water shape and a land shape. That would force it to change no matter where it is

[lch]

Anyway Ich since I read just now you are the creator of the spell guide I was wondering if you knew the answer to a question I put up somewhere on this forum about remote summons and getting commanders when summoning troops and vice versa.. can that be stopped?
I am not the author of the Spell Guide, DrPraetorius is. I just had a look at the data that he prepared and compared it against the other data tables that I already identified, since the design is pretty similar. I should get back to DrP about that at some time.

As I said before, if you want a question answered then either ask the whole question again in full, or give me a link to where that question is. I don't know what you're referring to and I can't read minds, yet. :re:

[Aezeal]

well that was the whole question really: when I remote summon I get a commander with the troops (which I didn't specify, a trooper just as commander) and when I summon a commander I get a troops with it (the commander just as trooper) I don't really want either, can it stopped/helped?

[lch]

Well, it clearly makes no sense to farsummon units without a commander, as they'll instantly route then in the resulting battle. But you can of course farsummon only a single commander if you send the numeffects to 1, the spell "Send Horror" is an example of this. Does that answer the question?

[Aezeal]

hmm well the spell I had was summoning a commander... and then troops of a different type (clearly since unlike wolves we don't have commanders beloning to troops (well for me he does but probably not for the game)

one of the troopers thus automatically becomes a leader..

by setting commander summon to one I'm pretty sure I still got a trooper and a commander. I'll need to check it again though I guess since it's been a while

#newspell
#name "Drop Pod Strike Force"
#descr "The Black Knights are the elite troops used in behind enemy lines drop pod attacks."
#school -1
#restricted 75
#researchlevel 0
#path 0 4
#pathlevel 0 1
#path 1 3
#pathlevel 1 1
#effect 10037
#fatiguecost 100
#damage 2583
#nreff 2
#end

#newspell
#name "Med Priest Strike Force"
#descr "The Black Knights are the elite troops used in behind enemy lines drop pod attacks."
#school -1
#restricted 75
#researchlevel 0
#path 0 4
#pathlevel 0 1
#path 1 3
#pathlevel 1 1
#effect 10037
#fatiguecost 100
#damage 2623
#nreff 1
#nextspell "Drop Pod Strike Force"
#end

#newspell
#name "General Strike Force"
#descr "The Black Knights are the elite troops used in behind enemy lines drop pod attacks."
#school -1
#restricted 75
#researchlevel 0
#path 0 4
#pathlevel 0 1
#path 1 3
#pathlevel 1 1
#effect 10037
#fatiguecost 100
#damage 2621
#nreff 1
#nextspell "Med Priest Strike Force"
#end

#newspell
#name "Deploy Black Knight Strike Force"
#descr "The Black Knights are the elite troops used in behind enemy lines drop pod attacks."
#school 2
#restricted 75
#researchlevel 7
#path 0 4
#pathlevel 0 1
#path 1 3
#pathlevel 1 3
#effect 10037
#fatiguecost 3000
#damage 2602
#nreff 15
#nextspell "General Strike Force"
#end

This was the spell, if I recall correctly I getmy black knights AND a black knight commander (which I don't want) a general (commander) and a general trooper (which I don't want) a med-priest (commander/mage) and a med priest trooper (which is also pretty useless) and then a droppod (which is a trooper and should be)

I guess the command I use for the summoning of commanders should be different and that might remove the troopers I don't want.. but I can't think how I could remove the excess black knight commander (which is just a trooper with leadership and who I don't want there since they are provided with ample leadership in the form of the general and med-priest.

[lch]

The spells like Ghost Riders and Send Horror use #effect 10038, try that.

[Aezeal]

I will, I've never used either spell but I was under the impression that it would summon multiple thingies at least with ghost riders, it won't be come independant then?.

[Sombre]

I'm pretty sure you can farsummon a single commander unit that isn't an indy. I'll look it up when I get home from work.

[Aezeal]

That would be great Sombre since I can't think of a spell which farsummons an owned commander (so I could check the spell guide for the code)

I just tested and Ich and I where both right: 10038 does summon single commanders, but they are not owned by you, they are "special monsters"

[lch]

Ah, now I understand what you want. Farsummon a commander, but under your control. Have you tried setting the number of effects to 0 for that?

[Sombre]

Is the Bukavac an indy? I forget.

[Aezeal]

strange idea to summon 0, but in the game logic it might be a very good idea ich I'll try. I'm also gonna try if summoning the commander first maybe doesn't give a commander with the troops (but I'm 99% sure it won't work since now it summons first 15 troops, then commander 1, then commander 2, then 3 other troops and that last one still gives a commander.)

[Aezeal]

it doesn't work though same results as with summoning 1 and trooper still get their own commander

[Sombre]

You can't stop the farsummoned troops from getting their own commander afaik.

You might be able to do a farsummoned commander on his own though, to go with the troops as a nextspell.

What exactly was the result of setting effect to 10037 and nreff to 0?

[Sombre]

Actually one trick you might like to use to get an interesting effect is to start out with a teleport spell, then chain a nextspell summon commander and nextspell summon monsters.

I haven't tested it but I think it would give you a unique effect. Teleport somewhere and arrive with a load of troops and a commander.

[Aezeal]

0 just gave a commander and a trooper.

Adding teleport would be interesting.. but also a completely other spell than intended here.. the mage casting this usually is meant to stay savely behind enemy lines. On the other hand it WOULD give you one powerfull mage in addtion to this force which you could script (I there is a small mage priest coming with the spell but it's unscripted and thus in effect pretty useless (though in my test he DID cast healing spells which is what he's about :D)

[Gandalf Parker]

Maybe you could follow it with a return. Jump in, drop them off, jump back.

[Endoperez]

#onebattlespell "Returning" on the mage?

[Sombre]

There's no clean way to follow it with a return afaik.

I can't seem to find a way of farsummoning friendly commanders individually. I'll turn it over in my head this weekend, but I think there's no perfect way to do it. You already have the imperfect way.

[Aezeal]

yeah I've pretty much searched the spell db.. there are some spells which I think are summons with other numbers but I don't think they are friendly commander farsummons.

The spell works well enough.. just a few guys which aren't what they shouldn't be, no real harm, a commander without leadership is just a trooper and those extra commanders you get are not overpowering the spell in anyway either. (I could probably give the troop types I summon leadership 0 to cancel out the extra leadership I get but that would not be fair if I'd want to GoR one (which is pretty useless anyway :D) for some reason.

[Endoperez]

I have few untested ideas for how to create a force in enemy province. Basically, you use either #nextspell or #onebattlespell to create a chain that goes like this:

1) teleport effect
2) summon units/commander effects
3) returning (that only affects the caster)

It might go like this:
i: ritual teleport, nextspell ii
ii: farsummon/summon 1, nextspell iii
iii: farsummon/summon 2, nextspell iv
iv: returning

Or like this:
i: ritual teleport, nextspell ii
ii: farsummon 1, nextspell iii
iii: farsummon 2, nextspell iiii
The commander that teleports with the force has #onebattlespell "returning". This is a way for the watcher nation to insert troops without losing mages.


I don't know if these work.

[Gandalf Parker]

That will be great.

To also use it as as an event generator, is there anything that does a random placement for that initial teleport?

[lch]

To also use it as as an event generator, is there anything that does a random placement for that initial teleport?
Yup. Put them into the Void, Inferno or Kokytos. :D

[Gandalf Parker]

Those are the spells I was thinking.
Has anyone dismantled them? DrP or Endo maybe?

[lch]

Do a teleport / gate effect to their province IDs. The Arena is province number 0 (actually named Ladakh Sanctuary in the fatherlnd files for some reason, maybe KO or JK were on a spiritual journey once?) and those others have the province IDs -1 down to -3.

[Gandalf Parker]

Interesting. That must be why the 1500 province limit never seems to get me anything above 1495

[Aezeal]

hmmm will you move back after summoning though since I guess the magic movementphase has already passed then (or not happened when summoning)

needs to be tested, but not by me today. Dom 3K has a nice multifarsummon spell though which could be easily adjusted for your purposes.

[Gandalf Parker]

My apologies ahead of time to the DIY crowd. Some stray thoughts on the subject of modding events which has come up again. I guess Im supposed to just make notes on my own computer but Id rather keep public notes in case someone else wants to go with it.

ANYWAY what I was thinking was this....
Most of the events come as messages. Some nice story-line text along with a gift of some sort.

The messages could be easily duplicated by having an admin-run nation in the game (such as the Watchers mod I created) to send them. But it wouldnt be very random that way. Especially for solo play.

But the program AutoHotKey can duplicate the action of typing in a message and sending items. Ive already used it in some Dom3 situations to program long actions to a hot key such as WindowsKey-A or MetaKey-B. But it doesnt have to be a keypress. It can be a playback recording of all mouse movements, clicks, and keyboard typing. Im thinking that an external program could be written to randomly decide each turn to run one of the playbacks.

Besides the usual fairs and merchant gifts and pirate ships, we could expand also. I think that one of the spells that summon an attack group to a far province uses fairly unique units that are not purchasable by others. That means that the mod could keep changing the units between attacks. But Im thinking this would only work for solo play or mp players would have to receive a copy of the new mod each turn.

Some things can be gotten from game logs and used as events. Such as a message saying that a wandering merchant brings a tale of a great fight in xxxxxx province between xxxxx and xxxxxx. Or maybe that the merchant was part of a caravan delivering a gift of xxxxxx sent from one player to another.