Modding tips and tricks

[Burnsaber]

Now that I've gotten back into modding I see that one sometimes manages to reveal a random piece of modding knowledge when trying out stuff.

If you also hold some fruit of usable modding knowledge, please share it. I'll add them to the list on this post.

- When starting on your first mod, it is very helpful to copy as much as you can from nation mods that already work. Sombre's mods are considered highly in this area.

- You can use #onebattlespell with custom spells with this minor hack. Copyspell a orginal dom3 spell (use a spell that is not likely to be used as a #onebattlespell itself) and alter the orginal spell to your liking. Remember to clearly document what vanilla spells you have altered.

- Did you know that to make a pure holy divine (aka school 8) spell, you need to #copyspell a excisting holy spell to make it visible in the scripting screen?

- You can #onebattlespell summoning ritual spells. Doing this will create a "cloud" that will spawn units from the ritual spell at the start of each combat turn. The graphical effect for this cloud is the poison cloud from the C'tis poison slingers, but it can be changed by #selectspelling the ritual summon in question and giving it different #explsprite. You can also get the same effect by using a spell with effect number over 9000.

- There is a bug with giving forts to a new nation: See this useful post from Jazzepi for details. (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showpost.php?p=680331&postcount=42)

- Pure holy ritual spells cannot be monthly casted, doing so will crash the game. Pure holy rituals are also buggy and seem to crash the game on turn generation from time to time. Globu has reported getting a holy ritual work under certain circumstances, but I'd recommend to just forget it, since even he can't monthly cast it.

- If your spell uses #flightsprite that takes effect on the caster, make sure that spell doesn't have huge range. Althought there is no missile sprite, the game will stall until this invisible "missile" hits the target. Very annoying.

- #older accepts negative value, making units younger.

- When using #nextspells, make sure that the #nextspell is researchlevel 0. Apparently the game will not cast the nextspell unless you have it researched! I don't know if this is the case for vanilla spells, but I got hit by this when using my own modded spells. You could also use this to your advantage and make a spell that gains #nextspells as you advance in research.

- Here are some tips from Endoperez on how to easily make good looking new unit graphics (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showpost.php?p=679908&postcount=7).

-See also my guide on the matter of sprite editing (or frankensteining as it known on some circles) in here (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showpost.php?p=683443&postcount=1)

- Weapons and spells use same explosionsprites, but you can't use weapon #flysprites with spells nor can you use spell #flightsprites with weapons. These sprites have also been mapped, see this thread: (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=42262)


- Item Modding is quite limited in 3.23, but here are (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=40166&highlight=item+modding) some tips from Psientist on how to work around the limitations.


- You can assign boots of the planes to an Indy commander and have that commander show up in a random other Indy province during game play. (From Psientist)

- If you create a unit with NO magic paths, and give it a magic leadership, it will still not be able to lead magic units. However, if you give it a #magicpath X 0 (a level of zero in that path), it will then be available for leading magic units in the Army Setup menu. (From Psientist)

- You can assign a #watershape (and probably a #forestshape, etc) to a unit in addition to a #secondshape... but the #secondshape must be the last item listed in the series inside the mode file, and the #watershape only is activated when the unit changes provinces. (From Psientist)

- Did you know that the pictures on magic sites are based on path & level? esd29a has mapped them, see this post for details (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showpost.php?p=689362&postcount=86)


- There are some mystic bugs regarding PD. See this thread for details. (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=42888)

-The spell effect "polymorph" (number 54) allows for different #damage values for different shapes. However, it seems that the transformation spell does not accept damage values over 1000, perhaps because the spell then adds caster level for damage? Giving values over 2000 seems to result in monsters with monster ID under 1000.

-Also, kennydicke noticed that the Ritual of Rebirth can also be modded by changing the #damage value to revive the hero in another shape than the basic mummy.

-You can give a piece of armor negative encmumberance to make it actually reduce encumberance, for example if you have a unit with a -2 encumbernace shield and 3 base encumberance + 1 from body armor and the -2 from the modded shield it will have a net encumberance of 2. (Thanks to Swan for finding this)

-Here's a modding trick by Sombre:

You have a recruitable commander, let's say a "Royal Guard Captain". The recruitable form of this commander comes with a summon5 and a domsummon of "Royal Guard Infantry". It also has a firstshape pointing to another instance of "Royal Guard Captain" which does not have these summons. Now when you buy the Captain, you get some free troops with him, in a limited supply, without the drawbacks of onebattlespell combat summons or endless streams of summon allies or autosummons.

Of course it eats an extra unit slot, possibly two, per commander you use it on. But then you wouldn't use it on every non mage commander. Just some of them. The 'free' troops are a compensation for hiring a non mage commander

He (Sombre) tested this with lizardmen and you don't even need to differentiate the summoning form from the normal form, because when you recruit them, this happens before EoT, as does the summoning of their troops, so they summon the troops, then they change shape and become normal. In other words, no delay between hiring them, them summoning and them turning into the normal version. So you can literally just put in the description that when you buy them you get X free dudes

-Here is (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showpost.php?p=736555&postcount=32) my hack that gives a commander a "battleshape" that it turns into at the start of each battle. Useful for making mages that get weaker in combat, for example.

- If you have too many #tags on a monster, some of them might fail to work. Kennydicke has reported #shape tags being ingored just because of having too many tags on the monster.

- Here is (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showpost.php?p=739899&postcount=70) my report on some spell modding test results.

- Popkill and leper only work on commanders. (by Soyweiser)

- A pretender with the changeshape commmand needs a higher monsternr for his second shape. Or it will not show up in the pretender list (by Soyweiser)

- #nobadevents - tag works on troops. I tested with a troops that had 100 bad event prevention and my single province did not a single bad events during 40+ turns in turmoil and misfotune 3.

[chrispedersen]

That ritual with onebattle spell gave me an interesting idea: a lightning strike that chained a spawned creature.

And I've been bit by that holy spell not showing up in scripts. Wondered what caused it/how to fix it.. thanks burn.

[Sombre]

Might be interesting for Skaven to have a cloud that spawned vermin every turn as a onebattlespell of a hero or something.

[Burnsaber]

That ritual with onebattle spell gave me an interesting idea: a lightning strike that chained a spawned creature.

And I've been bit by that holy spell not showing up in scripts. Wondered what caused it/how to fix it.. thanks burn.

Might be interesting for Skaven to have a cloud that spawned vermin every turn as a onebattlespell of a hero or something.

Well, I haven't tested this very throughoutly, it was just something I figured out by pure accident. I don't know if the cloud stays when the caster dies or flees.

[Endoperez]

You don't need a ritual to get a cloud effect. The value of #effect just needs to be over nine thousand, like in Twan's "Mists of Deception" fix:

#selectspell "Mists of Deception"
#effect 9043
#damage 695
#nreff 2
#nextspell "Phantasmal Warrior"
#end


Seriously speaking, adding x*1000 to #effect value will make a cloud that lasts for x rounds.

[lch]

The value of #effect just needs to be over nine thousand
... trying to resist the urge to comment ...

Come on, that was on purpose! :p

[Endoperez]

Come on, that was on purpose! :p

I actually wrote it that way before I noticed the meme. But I chose to leave it in and to emphasize it. :D



Here are some modding-related tricks:


Sprites. Download an AllView map, download the sprite compilations, try out the different nations. When you have an idea about what you want, go through the game and try to find a sprite that has something you want.

Let's say you want a forest ranger. Tir Na Nog and Tuatha have green-garbed infantry sprites (some of them are units, some commanders) who start all battles with glamour. As long as your rangers don't have glamour, you're fine.

Take a cavalry unit and make it infantry. You'll only have to remove the horse, and do a bit of trickery with the legs. My furman avatar is a Horse Brother.

On the other hand, you can also take an infantry unit and give it a mount. Attach anything on a Wyvern and most people will see a wyvern-rider instead of Tuatha-commander-on-a-wyvern.

Mage sprites follow a formula. There's the robe, hands down and up, bearded or beardless face, and perhaps some ornaments. You don't have to follow the formula, but it's not hard.

Similar sprites are interchangeable. In my Kaleva mod, I used sprites from both Vaetti (MA Jotunheim) and Bakemono (MA Shinuyama). They are small and wear furs, and that's close enough.

Use attack sprite for base sprite, and base sprite for attack sprite. Easy way to make a "new" unit, especially if the original sprite is from a unit that's not too unique.

Changing colors is easy, and will make a huge difference. As an example, if you need to create a female sprite, look through the three ages of Arcoscephale (Priestess, Oreiad, Sibyl), LA Pythium, LA Ulm (Fortune Teller), MA Ashdod and LA Gath (it's easy to resize giant sprite to human-size), MA Machaka (Sorceress), the amazon tribes... The chances are that one of those sprites is close enough, and then you can edit and recolor it and (because Kristoffer is really good at sprites) it will look good.

[pyg]

Changing colors is easy, and will make a huge difference. As an example, if you need to create a female sprite, look through the three ages of Arcoscephale (Priestess, Oreiad, Sibyl), LA Pythium, LA Ulm (Fortune Teller), MA Ashdod and LA Gath (it's easy to resize giant sprite to human-size), MA Machaka (Sorceress), the amazon tribes... The chances are that one of those sprites is close enough, and then you can edit and recolor it and (because Kristoffer is really good at sprites) it will look good.

So this is might be a FAQ, but how do you get a copy of one of the in game sprites to edit. I haven't figured it out yet.

[Psientist]

Sombre -

Re: Modding tips and tricks
Might be interesting for Skaven to have a cloud that spawned vermin every turn as a onebattlespell of a hero or something.

AFAIK you can't #onebattlespell a custom spell, it has to already be in the game. Maybe you can #selectspell mod an existing one to assign to a commander unit in-combat.

Burn - thanks for the notes. I had discovered most of those, and I think most are scattered in pieces throughout the forums... but I learned a couple and it's nice to have them in one place.

Here's a couple tips I've found...

1. I have confirmed that my little trick of assigning boots of the planes to an Indy commander CAN work, and have that commander show up in a random other Indy province during game play.

2. If you create a unit with NO magic paths, and give it a magic leadership, it will still not be able to lead magic units. However, if you give it a #magicpath X 0 (a level of zero in that path), it will then be available for leading magic units in the Army Setup menu.

3. You can assign a #watershape (and probably a #forestshape, etc) to a unit in addition to a #secondshape... but the #secondshape must be the last item listed in the series inside the mode file, and the #watershape only is activated when the unit changes provinces.

I have several other observations in an "item modding" thread somewhere regarding some of the things you can, and can't seem to get away with for crafting custom items.

[Sombre]

AFAIK you can't #onebattlespell a custom spell, it has to already be in the game. Maybe you can #selectspell mod an existing one to assign to a commander unit in-combat.

Sure and copyspell it first so the original remains in the game. I believe that's the standard method.

I don't actually know for sure that #onebattlespell doesn't work perfectly so long as you /define your newspell first/. Someone should test that ;]

[Endoperez]

So this is might be a FAQ, but how do you get a copy of one of the in game sprites to edit. I haven't figured it out yet.

There's a complicated way to get the base sprite I came up for DomII, and then there's the easy way EricM used to extract all the sprites (with permission). Here's (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=39977)all sprites up to 3.17, and I think few others have done small updates to accomodate for later patches.

AllView maps are also great. There are few different versions floating around. Basically, it's a five-province map where EA Ermor starts with units 1-1000 in the first province, 1001-1500 in the second, etc. It's the easiest way to look for sprites if you know e.g. that you want a swordsman, but don't know what kind of swordsman.

[Gandalf Parker]

This whole thread would make an excellent sub-topic on the dominions wiki

[Burnsaber]

Decided to give this thread a small bump, considering all the new modders around.

If you know something cryptic modding knowledge which is not contained here, please post it.

[Foodstamp]

1st trick:

If you give a unit the #unique tag and set him recruitable from a magic site, you actually recruit the unique unit instead of a copy.

This means:

If you purchase him again from the site, he will be teleported there, experience/wounds to boot. If someone else conquers the site, they can steal him away from you by purchasing him. This could lead to some fun thematic sites with powerful summons that people fight over.

2nd trick:

Communicants! I read in another thread that the Communicant's "Communion Slave" ability is hard wired to the unit. So I did a bit of testing and it is hardwired to their index number which is 538.

You can #selectmonster 538,

Then set the stats/sprite to whatever you want. As was mentioned in the thread, the new monster will act like a communion slave, even if he is a basic unit with the exception of healing the master's endurance or incurring extra fatigue himself. But the unit will receive the self buffs from the communion master as if part of a reverse communion.

What this means is you can create cool themed units that get their power from their commanders by giving the commanders #onebattlespell "# for communion master".

For example, I used this trick to create the start of a nation of Slivers based off the monsters of the same name from Magic the Gathering.

[Burnsaber]

Just found out something awesome. If you make a modded remote "Farsummon" by using effect number 10037, the game will automatically GoR one of the units summoned to act as a commander for this army.

Also, I managed to chain these spells with #nextspell. Meaning that you can do a remote summon that summons more than 1 type of units. If you make a remote summon just summoning 1 unit, the game will automatically GoR that one, so you could make a modded version of "Call of the Winds" for example (where the main spells summons bunch of hawks, and the next summons 1 big hawk). Althought one of the small hawks will be a commander too.

I'm going to use this trick to make a spell for bretonnia that summons some Questing Knights and Knight Errants to "Crusade" a distant province.

[Burnsaber]

Also, if you chain some remote summoning spells to a teleport spell by #nextspell, the caster will appear in the remote province with the summons.

Also you can create summon spells that summon more than 1 type of unit by chaining them with #nextspell.

[Sombre]

Just found out something awesome. If you make a modded remote "Farsummon" by using effect number 10037, the game will automatically GoR one of the units summoned to act as a commander for this army.

Also, I managed to chain these spells with #nextspell. Meaning that you can do a remote summon that summons more than 1 type of units. If you make a remote summon just summoning 1 unit, the game will automatically GoR that one, so you could make a modded version of "Call of the Winds" for example (where the main spells summons bunch of hawks, and the next summons 1 big hawk). Althought one of the small hawks will be a commander too.


Your one big hawk would also have 1 big hawk as a troop under his command. There's no way to farsummon just 1 commander.


Here's a nice trick: I believe you can do commander battle summons with effect number 21. Using onebattlespell with this means you can have some commanders who turn up with other spellcasting commanders for the battle - say a 100% random path familiar or something.

[chrispedersen]

Yeah the lack of ability to farsummon just a commander was a real pain for me.

There's also no way to chain to that new unit to kill it.

[Sombre]

That said, if you want to farsummon say 20 of 'Infantry A' with a leader of 'Commander C' and that's /all/ you want, there is a relatively easy workaround (In fact there's a workaround for almost any modding problem in dom3, it's just they aren't all particularly clean).

You make a monster for infantry A and give it shapechange to monster for commander B (commander C clone). Then you give commander B the #firstshape command pointing to commander C - at the end of any given turn Commander B will turn into C. Of course you make sure commander C doesn't have any command to turn him into either commander B or infantry A. So after summoning you can turn the commanderised infantry A into commander B, then wait a turn for him to turn into C and lose that whole 'shapechanging into the infantry guy' thing.

Messy but it works.

[Gregstrom]

That's a nice idea. It lets you use GoR to promote units to more advanced forms.

A random thought: If you GoR the unit 'caterpillar' and shapechange it to 'chrysalis', which has #firstshape 'butterfly'... If the unit is attacked in the turn you turn it into 'chrysalis', does it fight as 'chrysalis' or 'butterfly'?

[Sombre]

Firstshape changes take place at the end of the turn, or at the end of any battle.

[Gregstrom]

Hmm. This gives me an idea or two - a summoned commander who can change shape to a (more powerful?) form at the cost of a turn's vulnerability, or alternatively a set of non-commander summons who can get better stats and equipment after being GoRed.

[chrispedersen]

I have a TC spell
Angel Incognito.. that changes them into Celestial Angel, with a second shape back to celestial master.

So essentially its only useful for the turn.

[Sombre]

How do you get a spell to change the caster's shape cleanly? The obvious way would be a kill self ritual to push them into a secondshape, but that would mean it could be triggered by otehr stuff.

[chrispedersen]

I don't know that its clean...

I do chain a "Kill Caster" after the Angels spell. I create an angel with similar paths to the caster to maintain the illusion.
And the spell hints that the caster must go incognito afterwards, to explain the name change.

[Sombre]

Oh. Well that's more replacement than transformation, but works gameplay wise.

[Illuminated One]

Hmm, interesting, how do you copy the paths?

[Sombre]

He just made a unit with similar paths to the one that he thinks would be casting the spell.

[Burnsaber]

I just figured out something frigging awesome and need to share it now. I've modded this game for almost 3 years and still I'm learning new stuff, God I love this game!

The spell effect "polymorph" (number 54) allows for different #damage values for different shapes. How you can use this? Just attach it to some buffing spell as #nextspell and you can have spell that grants the caster the form of a dragon for the battle or something just as cool.

Also, kennydicke noticed that the Ritual of Rebirth can also be modded by changing the #damage value to revive the hero in another shape than the basic mummy. I'm not sure if it works with giant monsters, but I'll test that shortly.

[Stavis_L]

I just figured out something frigging awesome and need to share it now. I've modded this game for almost 3 years and still I'm learning new stuff, God I love this game!

The spell effect "polymorph" (number 54) allows for different #damage values for different shapes. How you can use this? Just attach it to some buffing spell as #nextspell and you can have spell that grants the caster the form of a dragon for the battle or something just as cool.

Also, kennydicke noticed that the Ritual of Rebirth can also be modded by changing the #damage value to revive the hero in another shape than the basic mummy. I'm not sure if it works with giant monsters, but I'll test that shortly.

Cool idea w/the poly - does it revert after battle tho? I thought polymorph was permanent (never cast it.)

The RoR alternate unit is actually mentioned in the "Black Book" spell modding thread (I'm using it in a personal mod I've been playing with for a while.) Unfortunately, it requires that a unit die AND go through the hall of fame to change unit types...

[Burnsaber]

Cool idea w/the poly - does it revert after battle tho? I thought polymorph was permanent (never cast it.)



In my testing I managed to turn two runesmiths into slingers in the battle and they showed up as Runesmits on the strat map. In hindsight, there might be some cobblestones where this trick might fall flat. I'll report more once I get back home and manage to do some more testing on sunday evening.

[Burnsaber]

Okay, I did some more testing. The thing worked like a charm, but the Polymorph effect is permament, the commander will not revert back after the battle. However, You can counteract this by giving the form they will transform into #firstshape. To make it a lot simpler, here is how the trick works:

You have commander A that you want to transform into unit B for battle. Create a custom #onebattlespell for unit A that transform it into unit B. Give unit B firstshape back to A, so that it will revert back into A after the battle. The dwarf mod is going to use this trick on two commanders to make them lose caster levels in combat.

Unfortunately it seems that the " Form of the Dragon" spell I advertised couple of posts ago is not possible though, since my trick is only going to work if you know what mage is going to cast the spell.

Anyways, below is the bare bones code for the spell. By casting the custom "Summon Earthpower", the caster is going to transform into a slinger (unit nmbr 50) and then transform into a battle vestal (unit nmbr 51) after the battle (because I edited the slinger unit to have battle vestal as first shape).


#selectmonster 50
#firstshape 51
#end

#newspell
#name "Testing"
#descr "..testing.."
#school 4
#researchlevel 0
#effect 54
#aoe 1
#explspr 10030
#damage 50
#path 0 3
#pathlevel 0 1
#fatiguecost 0
#spec 64
#end

#newspell
#copyspell "Summon Earthpower"
#nextspell "Testing"
#school 4
#researchlevel 0
#path 0 3
#pathlevel 0 1
#end

[Stavis_L]

Okay, I did some more testing. The thing worked like a charm, but the Polymorph effect is permament, the commander will not revert back after the battle. However, You can counteract this by giving the form they will transform into #firstshape. To make it a lot simpler, here is how the trick works:

You have commander A that you want to transform into unit B for battle. Create a custom #onebattlespell for unit A that transform it into unit B. Give unit B firstshape back to A, so that it will revert back into A after the battle. The dwarf mod is going to use this trick on two commanders to make them lose caster levels in combat.


Um...the only thing I'll point out is that this could have some...interesting...unintended side effects in a communion.

[Burnsaber]

Um...the only thing I'll point out is that this could have some...interesting...unintended side effects in a communion.



Heh. True. I'm tempted to do a spell for Byzantine Pythium that turns the communion into Angels of the Host.

But yeah, with all those limitations it has to work with, I think that trick would be best as a way to give a commander #battleform, since the communion trick does not work if it is a #onebattlespell.

[Sombre]

This is very cool. Gets around the problems with using damage + secondshape.

I'll have to employ it in some of my mods I think. It could be excellent for any chaos themed mod also, for chaos spawn transformations. Imagine a version of bless that turns your sacreds into chaos spawn instead of blessing them. Fun right?

[Stavis_L]

This is very cool. Gets around the problems with using damage + secondshape.

I'll have to employ it in some of my mods I think. It could be excellent for any chaos themed mod also, for chaos spawn transformations. Imagine a version of bless that turns your sacreds into chaos spawn instead of blessing them. Fun right?

As long as the "destination" form is not overly powerful (like the dwarf units I believe Burnsaber was referring to.) You'd also be restricted to a single "destination" unit type, so no way (that I can see) to e.g. get a crossbreeding-type random assortment of mutated weirdos from your warping. *That* would be cool though :-)

Considering your bless caster is sacred too, don't forget the possibility of self-mutating (probably not a thematic concern for Chaos...)

[rdonj]

This is very cool. Gets around the problems with using damage + secondshape.

I'll have to employ it in some of my mods I think. It could be excellent for any chaos themed mod also, for chaos spawn transformations. Imagine a version of bless that turns your sacreds into chaos spawn instead of blessing them. Fun right?

As long as the "destination" form is not overly powerful (like the dwarf units I believe Burnsaber was referring to.) You'd also be restricted to a single "destination" unit type, so no way (that I can see) to e.g. get a crossbreeding-type random assortment of mutated weirdos from your warping. *That* would be cool though :-)

Considering your bless caster is sacred too, don't forget the possibility of self-mutating (probably not a thematic concern for Chaos...)

I don't know, couldn't you do that with #nextspells? Have the bless #nextspell a basic chaos spawn form, and then do a few mr-negates, then maybe one that's mr-negates easily. That should give you a bit of a crossbreeding type effect.

[chrispedersen]

I just figured out something frigging awesome and need to share it now. I've modded this game for almost 3 years and still I'm learning new stuff, God I love this game!

The spell effect "polymorph" (number 54) allows for different #damage values for different shapes. How you can use this? Just attach it to some buffing spell as #nextspell and you can have spell that grants the caster the form of a dragon for the battle or something just as cool.

Also, kennydicke noticed that the Ritual of Rebirth can also be modded by changing the #damage value to revive the hero in another shape than the basic mummy. I'm not sure if it works with giant monsters, but I'll test that shortly.

I used the RoR effect to create a Reincarnate spell for the pan. It was a blood ritual, which seemed to fit with the ancient druid theme).

[chrispedersen]

This is very cool. Gets around the problems with using damage + secondshape.

I'll have to employ it in some of my mods I think. It could be excellent for any chaos themed mod also, for chaos spawn transformations. Imagine a version of bless that turns your sacreds into chaos spawn instead of blessing them. Fun right?

As long as the "destination" form is not overly powerful (like the dwarf units I believe Burnsaber was referring to.) You'd also be restricted to a single "destination" unit type, so no way (that I can see) to e.g. get a crossbreeding-type random assortment of mutated weirdos from your warping. *That* would be cool though :-)

Considering your bless caster is sacred too, don't forget the possibility of self-mutating (probably not a thematic concern for Chaos...)

I don't know, couldn't you do that with #nextspells? Have the bless #nextspell a basic chaos spawn form, and then do a few mr-negates, then maybe one that's mr-negates easily. That should give you a bit of a crossbreeding type effect.

This would be VERY cool for skaven, for bogarus with its emphasis on mythical units. I like this idea a LOT

HEY I wonder if the Bogarus Zmir would work if you had a screen of fire snakes.

[chrispedersen]

I used this for my arco changes; Arco had a spell dark rituals (actually several versions of it). Essentially what it did was add a blood random to an arco mystic - at the cost of an initiation ritual.

Dark Rituals I, II, III... each added effects.

I didn't say what the effects were.. and the unit had no discernable difference until it was damaged in combat... I dont think anyone ever figured it out...

[Burnsaber]

I did more testing on the transformation effect and I now have a version of the dwarfs mod where both the Runemsith and Runelord get -1 to all paths in combat. However, it seems that the transformation spell does not accept damage values over 1000, perhaps because the spell then adds caster level for damage? Giving values over 2000 seems to result in monsters with monster ID under 1000. I counteracted this by overwriting some of the "empty" monster slots (2 is empty, as is 9) with the battleforms I needed.

[Sombre]

Would also make sense to overwrite monster IDs used exclusively in other eras, if needed.

[kennydicke]

Burnsaber
However, it seems that the transformation spell does not accept damage values over 1000, perhaps because the spell then adds caster level for damage? Giving values over 2000 seems to result in monsters with monster ID under 1000.
Ah, I was was having the same problem with a similar spell I was working on but I didn't put 2+2 together, thanks!

Sombre
Would also make sense to overwrite monster IDs used exclusively in other eras, if needed.
Is there an easy way to find out these era-exclusive monsters?

[Sombre]

Nope. But just take a stroll through the EA and MA versions of nations and note the differences.

Anything Marverni would be fair game, for instance, for a MA mod. Or the same with Machaka for a mod in the EA or LA.

[kennydicke]

Nope. But just take a stroll through the EA and MA versions of nations and note the differences.
Thanks, I have been. I just hoped somebody already had. ;)

Anything Marverni would be fair game, for instance, for a MA mod. Or the same with Machaka for a mod in the EA or LA.
I figured those and Bogarus would be the intuitive ones to use - I'd prefer less obvious choices, to avoid clashes, but I think I found some.

[Swan]

i don't know if this something everybodi know, but i just discovered this yesterday:
when you mod a shield you can give it positive defence bonus by setting negative encumberance,
with this formula
defence= - #enc
parry = #def - #enc

example
#def 5 #enc -2 #prot 2
will traslate to a shield with
parry +3; +2 defense; -2 enc; +4 prot

[Sombre]

Wait, what. A shield with -2 enc?

I get that you can put in -2 enc as a value to get extra def, but the shield ingame actually has -2 enc as well? What does that do, reduce fatigue? Or reduce net enc?

I'm thinking a shield which reduces net enc could be a very cool new item, if that's really the case.

[Swan]

it reduce encumberance, example if you have a unit with 3 base enc + 1 armor -2 shield it will ha a net 2 enc

[Sombre]

Wow, that could definitely be used to add some interesting items and make non enc 0 thugs more viable.

Imagine if weightless shields reduced enc by 2 for instance. They'd be niiice on a mortal thug, or even a caster.

[Swan]

what are the pratical differences between a -2 enc shield and a 0 enc 2 reinvigoration shield?

[Sombre]

There are a lot of differences. You can't really need them explained can you? I mean they're obvious. Enc reduction does nothing against existing fatigue, can't reduce below 0 etc

The most important difference is we can't mod reinvig onto items.

[Swan]

The most important difference is we can't mod reinvig onto items.
I always said you can't live a day without learning something new on this game

[Sombre]

Here's a modding trick that I think could have some use in making non mage commanders worth recruiting. I talked about this in the lizardman thread, but I thought it was also mentioning here, as it's a technical trick.

You have a recruitable commander, let's say a "Royal Guard Captain". The recruitable form of this commander comes with a summon5 and a domsummon of "Royal Guard Infantry". It also has a firstshape pointing to another instance of "Royal Guard Captain" which does not have these summons. Now when you buy the Captain, you get some free troops with him, in a limited supply, without the drawbacks of onebattlespell combat summons or endless streams of summon allies or autosummons.

I haven't tested this, so the method may need a couple tweaks, but it will definitely work. Of this I am entirely sure.

Of course it eats an extra unit slot, possibly two, per commander you use it on. But then you wouldn't use it on every non mage commander. Just some of them. The 'free' troops are a compensation for hiring a non mage commander.

To make this make more sense, the captain you buy could have a big banner, be immobile and have a description explaining how captains will rally troops for a month before setting out to lead them (and others) in battle. The second form (the regular guy you move around as normal) loses the big graphic of the banner (or horn, or whatever) and is no longer immobile.

[Stavis_L]

Here's a modding trick that I think could have some use in making non mage commanders worth recruiting. I talked about this in the lizardman thread, but I thought it was also mentioning here, as it's a technical trick.

You have a recruitable commander, let's say a "Royal Guard Captain". The recruitable form of this commander comes with a summon5 and a domsummon of "Royal Guard Infantry". It also has a firstshape pointing to another instance of "Royal Guard Captain" which does not have these summons. Now when you buy the Captain, you get some free troops with him, in a limited supply, without the drawbacks of onebattlespell combat summons or endless streams of summon allies or autosummons.


How do you make the recruited form only last for 1 month? Also, can domsummon and summon5 point to the same unit type (I thought there was a conflict, haven't tried...)

[Sombre]

You use #firstshape which will trigger at the end of any battle or the end of any turn. This can be used with multiple unit IDs to make something which changes slowly over time, like llamabeast's corpse eating wendigo, or an egg that takes 12 months to hatch (would require,.. 13 or 14 unit ids).

And yes they can point to the same thing. All the summons can.

[Burnsaber]

You have a recruitable commander, let's say a "Royal Guard Captain". The recruitable form of this commander comes with a summon5 and a domsummon of "Royal Guard Infantry". It also has a firstshape pointing to another instance of "Royal Guard Captain" which does not have these summons. Now when you buy the Captain, you get some free troops with him, in a limited supply, without the drawbacks of onebattlespell combat summons or endless streams of summon allies or autosummons.



That's simply awesome!

Major Bretonnia update, here I come!

[Sombre]

I've tested this with lizardmen and you don't even need to differentiate the summoning form from the normal form, because when you recruit them, this happens before EoT, as does the summoning of their troops, so they summon the troops, then they change shape and become normal. In other words, no delay between hiring them, them summoning and them turning into the normal version. So you can literally just put in the description that whe you buy them you get X free dudes.

[Ragnarok-X]

I've tested this with lizardmen and you don't even need to differentiate the summoning form from the normal form, because when you recruit them, this happens before EoT, as does the summoning of their troops, so they summon the troops, then they change shape and become normal. In other words, no delay between hiring them, them summoning and them turning into the normal version. So you can literally just put in the description that whe you buy them you get X free dudes.

Would you be kind of to post your #newunit entry on this ? I would like to use this, but im not sure how exactly you created the unit to come with warriors. Please post your .dm file entry.


On topic: Is it possible to alter or copy the Fires from Afar spell to hit more units and/or alter the message log entry into another text ?

[Sombre]

#newmonster 2305
#spr1 "./Warhammer Lizardmen/Slann Fifth.tga"
#spr2 "./Warhammer Lizardmen/Slann Fifth2.tga"
#name "Fifth Generation Slann"
#descr "Once the trusted servants of the Old Ones and architects of the world, the Slann now rule the Lizardmen as mage-priests. Large and bulbous, the alien Slann are uninterested in physical exertion and rely on their mental prowess instead; indeed they are prone to falling into long periods of deep contemplation, renewing their bodies and honing their minds. When they awake they will often declare an enigmatic proclamation that the Skink Priests do their best to implement. All Slann are linked in mind and their Priests are bound to this network, acting as conduits for their power. In their wisdom, the Old Ones decreed only five generations of Slann; the last of the most powerful First Generation died long ago in battle with Chaos and the weakest Fifth Generation was spawned thousands of years ago. When Slann wake from their slumber, so to do their lifelong guards; the more ancient the Slann and the stronger the dominion of the Old Ones, the more Temple Guard will awaken."
#hp 50
#size 5
#prot 13
#mor 16
#mr 18
#enc 5
#str 10
#att 10
#def 9
#prec 11
#mapmove 1
#ap 10
#gcost 750
#rcost 1
#weapon "fist"
#maxage 50000
#forestsurvival
#magicskill 8 3
#magicskill 4 3
#magicskill 6 1
#magicskill 0 1
#magicskill 1 1
#magicskill 2 1
#magicskill 3 1
#custommagic 8832 100
#custommagic 9472 100
#holy
#itemslots 12288
#poorleader
#onebattlespell "Communion Master"
#nametype 123
#magicboost 7 -3
#summon1 2318 -- Temple Guard
#domsummon 2318 -- Temple Guard
#firstshape 2296 -- normal fifth generation
#end

[kennydicke]

I just wanted to point out that having too many* tags on a shape will cause any #shape tag to fail for that shape.

*Too many being in the 40+ tags total range. It's hard to nail down as some of the tags are apparently not counted.

Though, this only affects the shape with too many tags and 40+ tags is probably more than any reasonable unit has.

[chrispedersen]

Hey sombre..
It would be awesome to use this to cause baby hydra's to grow into momma hydras...

[Ragnarok-X]

Im wondering, how is the command to change shapes after x turns called ? What tag would a small hydra require to turn into a huge hydra after lets 4 turns ?

[rdonj]

It doesn't work that way. You need to give it a number of different forms that it cycles through automatically each turn, and over time it will eventually reach the final form. For an example, download llamabeast's endgame summons mod and see how the wendigo is handled.

[Sombre]

You can't do it with a tag on a single unit. You'd do it like this.

#newmonster 1
#name "Turn 0 shape"
#firstshape 2
#end

#newmonster 2
#name "Turn 1 Shape"
#firstshape 3
#end

#newmonster 3
#name "Turn 2 Shape"
#firstshape 4
#end

etc etc etc

#newmonster 25
#name "Year 2 Shape"
#end

That way you get a transformation that theoretically takes 2 years of game time before you reach that final shape. So you can have gradual growth, or something that goes BAM shapechange after x turns.

HOWEVER - firstshape is also triggered by combat ending, not just turn ends. So any combat will accelerate the movement through the 'shapes'. See the wendigo in llama's endgame summon for a way to thematically explain that (he eats corpses after combat to grow).

Or you could just make a unit that can't get in combat, such as a unit which will kill itself with a #onebattlespell, like an immobile egg or something, which you are supposed to leave sitting in a fort until it hatches.

Everyone got it now?
#end

[Ragnarok-X]

I knew about the way you described, i just thought there would be a another comment which spawns shape 2 (or x) after x turns.

i.e. newmonster 2 2

spawn to monster #2 in 2 turns.

obviously there is no such command, my bad :p


Doing it with 25 forms is kind of boring, its a bad copy/paste job. Basicly, you could make 25 hydra units, and after every 5 you slightly up the stats.

[Sombre]

How is it a bad copy paste job? You make it sound like some ripoff splog or spam email.

It's just the only way to do it. Obviously it's boring to do it by hand, but it's trivial to do it by script or formula.

[Ragnarok-X]

Wow you get offended easily huh. Its a bad copy/paste job because in your example you copy paste 5 templates 5 times each. How can that not be bad.

Obvious it is the only way, but its still a boring nontheless. Im not offending your creatism, because its a great idea, no doubt.

[Sombre]

I am so offended right now

I can barely even type

Hah. It isn't even my idea or discovery. You just sound like you're whining about nothing.

[Calchet]

I saw this mod, once - it was so terribly bad, you probably can't even believe it.

Instead of using a simple mind-reading device to generate a perfect game experience, it contained like, a .dm file, and a bunch of sprites! I mean, who does that? It's such a bad modding job. With a dm file, you're like, limited to stuff you can type or think of!

[Burnsaber]

Have done spell testing in the wake of the CPCS udpate. Just reporting my findings so that no one wastes time testing stuff that is already tested

First, the positive one:

*** effect 17 - song of bravery ***
Evidently is different from Sermon of Courage. Needs experimentation.

The following quote is from the "Spell effects and Damage Combos" file that comes with Dr.P's spellDB. I tested the effect and was suprised at the results. A spell with effect value 17 gives +5 morale to all affected units, but this buff is temporary. The units lose 2 points of the bonus every battlefield turn. Damage value seems to be irrelevant

Then some negative results:


*** effect 10068 - Summons animals. ***
No of effects = number.
Damage probably doesn't do anything.
We should check if effect 68 summons random animals in combat.


68 does nothing. Not even as a #nextspell


*** effect 54 - Polymorph ***

10054 (a'k'a ritual polymorph) does nothing. Not even as a #nextspell

*** effect 101 - Age ***

Does not work. Not even as a #nextspell (the ritual version 100101 works fine thought)

[Swan]

if a make a creature with:
#copystats 1389 the monster who lose 10% of it's hp any month outside his home
#noheal
#magicbeing

will i get a monster who lose 1 hp each month outside his home but will be healed to 100% inside a lab?

[Sombre]

I believe so, yes.

[Swan]

Is it possible to create a monster that kills undead in the province he is in like the site do?

[Sombre]

Nope.

[Swan]

if a make a creature with:
#copystats 1389 the monster who lose 10% of it's hp any month outside his home
#noheal
#magicbeing

will i get a monster who lose 1 hp each month outside his home but will be healed to 100% inside a lab?

It doesn't work, the monster doesnt'lose any hp

[Swan]

I think there is a bug:
in order to obtain a monster with "dies away from home", you have to use
#selectmonster and #makemonster5 using it's name, not his number
1389-->it doesn't work
"blood lord"--> it works

[Ragnarok-X]

#newspell
#name "The Burning Trail2"
#descr "The Burning Trail2"
#school -1
#researchlevel 0
#path 0 0
#path 1 5
#pathlevel 0 3
#pathlevel 1 3
#effect 10001
#damage 2102
#nreff 8
#end


#newspell
#name "The Burning Trail"
#descr "The mage travels to the infernal planes and follows the burning trails to find and submit a flock of Nightmares. Once done, he summons a group of wights to mount some of the Mares."
#school 0
#researchlevel 7
#path 0 0
#path 1 5
#pathlevel 0 3
#pathlevel 1 3
#effect 10001
#fatiguecost 3200
#damage 2101
#nreff 4
#nextspell "The Burning Trail2"
#end





why doesnt this spell work ? it only creates the initial 4 units, but not the nextspell ones.

[Swan]

Doesn't nextspell work only for already existing spells?

[Ragnarok-X]

Weird. Apparently the spell does work as intended, summoning 12 units, 4+8. Whats funny is that the spells description only shows number of effects 4. Apparently subspells effects are calculated beforehand.

[Atreidi]

How do I script a ritual that will summon a random commander from a list?

Do I just add more #damage commands for each different commander I want to be included in the random list? Is there a specific #effect command? TNX.

[Burnsaber]

Doesn't nextspell work only for already existing spells?

No. Modded nextspells work fine. You're thinking of modded #onebattlespells, they don't work without a hack.

Weird. Apparently the spell does work as intended, summoning 12 units, 4+8. Whats funny is that the spells description only shows number of effects 4. Apparently subspells effects are calculated beforehand.

No spell description shows the effects of a #nextspell, modded or otherwise. You should sneak information about the #nextspell to the description of the base spell.

How do I script a ritual that will summon a random commander from a list?

Do I just add more #damage commands for each different commander I want to be included in the random list? Is there a specific #effect command? TNX.

You can't. The only way to mod one in is to overwrite all the summons of a vanilla spell. I did this for my "Byzantine Pythium" mod with overwriting the Grigori summoning spell of Hinnom and all of the Grigori. See my sig for a link to the mod and thus to the code example that lies within the nation .dm file.


Also, with Sombre and then me (eventually) gone from the forums, I'd like to state that IrC is a good place to catch us to ask modding questions or the new forums that sombre made.

[Ragnarok-X]

I dont think random effects, like tartarian gate or crossbreeding are possible.

[Swan]

1)There is a way to reduce the upkeep an unit costs? without making it holy, ofc.
2)Can i make unit with a #forestshape and a #mouontainshape or is it limited to one?

[Atreidi]

I dont think random effects, like tartarian gate or crossbreeding are possible.

,,,,,,,,,,,, :(

[rdonj]

1)There is a way to reduce the upkeep an unit costs? without making it holy, ofc.
2)Can i make unit with a #forestshape and a #mouontainshape or is it limited to one?

You could give the unit a #plainshape that it shifts to after it's built that costs less.

You should be able to make a thing with multiple shapes as long as you are careful with your shapechange commands.

[Swan]

You could give the unit a #plainshape that it shifts to after it's built that costs less.
Looking in the previous pages of this topic i've found the firstshape "trick", i'll use it.
#plainshape works only when you leave a forest, doesn't it?

You should be able to make a thing with multiple shapes as long as you are careful with your shapechange commands.

Do you know which terrains have a #shape option?

[kennydicke]

#plainshape works only when you leave a forest, doesn't it?
I think it still works, even if not leaving a forest. Even if it doesn't, #landshape might.

Anyway, your goal would be served by the #firstshape trick of 'He Who Must Not Be Named'.

Do you know which terrains have a #shape option?
These are the only ones, as of now:
#landshape <-> #watershape
#plainshape <-> #forestshape

[rdonj]

I believe that's all of them, yes. I'd have to look in the manual to make sure there aren't any more. That's not something I've worked with too much.

[Swan]

[QUOTE]
Anyway, your goal would be served by the #firstshape trick of 'He Who Must Not Be Named'.


Sombre is/was You-Know-Who? Why noone told me?

[Soyweiser]

Did you know:
- Popkill and leper only work on commanders.
- A pretender with the changeshape commmand needs a higher monsternr for his second shape. Or it will not show up in the pretender list.

[Gregstrom]

AFAIK it can't be done, except by stealing one of the existing spells that do random summons and overwriting the monsters it can summon with your own monster list.

[Ragnarok-X]

Good Call Greg. I think that really is the only possibility, unfortunally its rather lacking. You cant just overwrite Tartarians or Demon Lords without really ****ing up the game - unless you plan to alter the stock spells as well.

[Gregstrom]

Grigori, Spenta and possibly a couple of others can be overwritten without inconvenience to more than one nation.

[Gandalf Parker]

Another of my many many gonna-do-this involved spending some time in Edi's DB to try and pin down safe territory for modders to mess with. What xxxx can be changed that isnt being used someplace else in the game? At the time I was mostly interested in the idea someone had of wanting to add a poptype to the game, or adding their own mercs. If someone with far more adminstrative skills than I wanted something to twiddle with that would be a great resource. Which mercs are ONLY mercs? Which poptype are ONLY poptype. Which special ability units or mass summons do not show up anywhere else. etc etc

(yeah yeah I know, DIY)

[Soyweiser]

Question, is it possible to create a creature that autosummons units at the start of the battle? Or perhaps just one unit constantly during the battle?

I couldn't find it in the modding manual. But if it is there, feel free to shout RTFM.

[Stavis_L]

Question, is it possible to create a creature that autosummons units at the start of the battle? Or perhaps just one unit constantly during the battle?

I couldn't find it in the modding manual. But if it is there, feel free to shout RTFM.

Option 1:

Copy an existing unit that does this. Only really viable if the unit you're copying summons the right thing.

Option 2:

1) Create a spell (or use an existing spell) that summons units, e.g. "Howl".
2) If you needed a new spell, make sure the spell is in a vanilla spell slot (by copying the vanilla spell to a new spell, and then overwriting the vanilla spell.)
3) Use #onebattlespell to invoke the summoning spell at the start of the battle. Depending on the spell specifics, the units will either continually arrive or arrive in a bunch at the start.

[Soyweiser]

I just noticed that you can't put random paths on a pretender chassis because the game charges the pretender for each pick.

This was related to this fix in Mytheology:

- Did you ever notice that the Pantokrator costs 358 points instaid of 350? This is because he/she/it had a random path. Removed now.

Also two new things I discovered:
- If you create a custom spell. And add a multiple of 1000 to the nr of effects, the amount of paths used in the spell will be included in the base amount of effects of the spell.
So, if you have a 3N spell that summons 'left feet'. With nreffects, 6020. The Spell description will say: 38+ effects (20+18).
- A onebattle summoning ritual which creates a strange vortex like thingy which keeps summoning troops eventually runs out. Don't know how many turns it takes.

[Ragnarok-X]

Some interesting thing, probably known. You can alter the number of effects on variable spells like summon animals and crossbreeding. By increasing the amount of effects of crossbreeding to lets say 500, you get a good sample size on how LUCK scale actually effects crossbreeding. I dont think its possible to add or remove individual units to the summoning palette unless you alter the units itself though.