Mod Project - Metaphysics

[Illuminated One]

Ok, these are some things that have been on my mind for some time, and I'm going to mod them in as far as possible. I'm not really sure if all of these things will ever make it into the game, I don't know when I will finish it, and I've only gotten to experimenting with some of them.
Still I have a good idea how to implement most things, so I thought I'll leave them open for discussion.
If you have any ideas, comments or want to help out, please post.


Goals of this project

a)
The campaign should last longer in turns. Come one this is the nastiest badasses of all time struggling for ultimate power in a world gonne mad!!!
It shouldn't end when real world wars just got warm.

b)
Proportionally turns should be made shorter. What's very important for me is that they don't grow the way they do now. Sure, large armies require more planning than small ones, but your everyday stuff should take approx the same time from turn 15 to 150. "Useless" micro should be avoided whereever possible.

c)
Late game should be given more personality. Mages are rare and expensive, (maybe summons, too?). Thomas the Black Priest is the battle mage of the third army and not some random guy out of your 500 researchers pool.
And he's not just attacking a random province for reducing the opponents income by 2%, he's leading the charge on a strategically important location.

d)
During early game magic should have a bigger impact.

e)
Game should be more dynamic, without troubling the player, though.




The first version of the researcher mod is available.

Researchers SP version all EA nations

Installation instructions
Unzip the file into your dominions mod folder
You will need python (http://www.python.org/) to use the script.

Using the mod
This is a SP version. Since the AI can't adapt to the new conditions I have enabled researching with mages and the magic scales are as in vanilla.
Furthermore you have to prepare the mod in order to play.

Say you want to play as Tir Na Nog. Before you create the game (this is important since it must be ready before the game starts) go into your mods folder and then into the "Meta" folder.
There is a file called Research.dm - open it. At the end of the file is a section called nations.
The entries look like this:

selectnation 13
startcom 2931
startscout 2931
end


Now, look the nation number of the nation you want to play in the modding manual, page 24. As you can see Tir Na Nog is 13.
Next you find the block that starts with selectnation YourNationNumber. In our case it'sselectnation 13.
And then you put # before each line of this and only this block.

#selectnation 13
#startcom 2931
#startscout 2931
#end


(All other selectnation blocks should be without #, if you want to start a game with another nation)
Run the python script with the folder of your savedgames as the first and the name of the game your going to create as the second argument.
Examples:
Main.py ~/dominions3/savedgames/ MyGame
C:\python\python.exe Main.py C:\dominions3\savedgames\ MyGame

Play (you need to use the --scoredump option). Always at late spring close dominions and run the script again with the same arguments to update the mod. It's unfortunate but necessary as dominions doesn't reload mods, unless closed and started again.

[Illuminated One]

All research will be conducted by dedicated researchers (pulling in a huge amount of RP - up to 180). There will be no need to spam mages just to keep competitive, instead it will be most effective to only recruit mages when needed (and you can use the free commander slots for thematic national commanders!).
There's several options to go from here, but I first want to discuss other changes that follow from that.

Random paths

Since you are not going to have enough mages to ensure lucking on the paths you need, many mages will be given different forms with predefined path picks.
So for example you will see 4 fortune tellers on your recruitment screen:
s2, sd, sn, sb
I thought that this should apply to all non-cap and weak cap-only mages.
So fortune teller and mage engineer, yes, archtheurg and oreiad no.

Money

Without having to buy castles/labs/researchers upfront, I'll have to reduce the money income somehow. However I think of doing this via the researchers upkeep and leaving more breathing room early on, while increasing the upkeep as the game progresses.
What interests me how will this effect the balance of the game, any ideas?

Research Boosters

Won't work as items, as I intended the mod. Summons? Full prize or dwarven hammer price?

Research Options
I thought about giving a nation exactly two researchers, but with dynamic output.
There are other options but this will change the dynamics of researcher spamming, has probably the least problems with exploits, and gives access to many other options.

Goal (d) -> research bonus early on
Goal (a) -> limit it later

Base research output on game progress, nation, number of labs, etc
I wanted to base it purely on game progress and nation. I dislike how powerful expanders will ultimately win the research race, thanks to higher income. Fixing output will allow comebacks, etc. and hopefully keep the game more interesting, especially for struggling players.
I also think it's thematically justified to balance nations into research and combat nations. Mictlan will not be better at research than Arco, even with much higher income, as Arco has a rich tradition of philosophers and enigneers to build on, while Mictlan is "a backward nation".
I'm not entirely decided on this, though.

Dynamic research upkeep. Size of nation?


Drawbacks: This will require different mods on server (dynamic) and client (static, for keeping annoyance low).
This means research output and maybe upkeep wont show correctly, it will be most likely a percentual value.

[Illuminated One]

Clams
I will keep Clams and co, however nerving them in some way, like increasing cost for each additional forge. There's only that much earth blood that can be squeezed out, and you have to drill deeper and deeper. :)

The chalice and artifacts
Hmm, whats the main reason for rushing to const8?
I'd like to make some oft hese unforgeable and hand them out to players for special archievements. Maybe winning the first arena battle after turn 40, if possible.

[Illuminated One]

I would love to flesh out the provinces a bit more.
I think I know how to make spells castable only in certain province types.

So, if you have read some strange authors I don't remember, you know that there are magic lines all over the world. Only where these lines cross the most powerful magic is possible.
So I'd like to limit the more powerful spells to be cast only in certain provinces.
Additionally I'd like to concentrate income in a few provinces, the other will be mostly worthless hinterlands.
So you should have more strategic options when attacking an enemy, cut him off his tartarian access, etc.
There could be additional rules like no castles or only wizard towers in high magic provinces.

I'm not entirely if everything of that can be made to work and I'm wondering if it's even worht the effort.
Thoughts?

[Sombre]

Ambitious!

I wish you luck. I think a better strategy might be to focus on one part of this, get it realised and seek feedback from that though. Otherwise it's in danger of remaining just a big idea.

[Illuminated One]

Yes, that's pretty much the plan, first research, then other stuff. ;)

[LDiCesare]

dedicated researchers
IMO what you want (not recruiting mages for research) implies you can't recruit researchers either.
So these dedicated researchers could be:
- unique units of your nation, you'd start with one of these, immortal, so he wouldn't die even if assassinated. However, you run the risk of him getting seduced by a succubus or something like that.
- summons (level 0). How do you avoid spamming mages to spam these? A limited number per nation can work.


I thought that this should apply to all non-cap and weak cap-only mages.
Be cautious. As described, this has side effects: You would transform LA Pythium into a blood nation for instance.


So I'd like to limit the more powerful spells to be cast only in certain provinces.
Why not make these spells very expensive and create magic sites with big reduction for casting?

[Sombre]

Why not make these spells very expensive and create magic sites with big reduction for casting?

Can't make sites like that.

[LDiCesare]

You mean there's no map/mod command to create new -50% enchantment sites for instance? That's what I ment.

[llamabeast]

You could replace the starting scout for each nation with a mega-researcher.

Give all mages a big research malus so they end up being research 1 no matter what you do.

[elmokki]

Make the über researcher an unique unit recruitable from your capital magic site. That way you should be able to get it back even if it dies or gets seduced.

You might have to make a couple of über researchers though, depending on how much rp / turn you want.

[Illuminated One]

If I make them female are they immune to succubi?
Are mindless units, I wanted to make them mindless anyway?
Otherwise immortal, recuperating etc, but not useable in combat, or for magic.
I will need more than one per nation at least (max rp/unit < 200), so unique is not such a good idea.

And probably I'm going to use them as both starting commanders and starting scout, I don't really like the idea of making them summonable, everyone would just summon them whenever he can I guess. Unless they are summonable only on the first turn.

Be cautious. As described, this has side effects: You would transform LA Pythium into a blood nation for instance.

Hmm, good point. I will probably have to deviate from the rule for certain mages.

[Gregstrom]

It's time-consuming, but... If you gave each nation a series of spells that could summon unique researcher units (so multiple spells and unique units would be required for each nation) then you could both cap the number of researchers per nation (i.e. if a nation had 5 summon spells, they could only get 5 researchers) and, by setting costs and/or research levels of the spells appropriately, you could limit how quickly a nation got them.

Inanimate units may well be immune to seduction, I think.
Complete immobility might be a good idea, as it makes them less usable in combat.

[Burnsaber]

It's time-consuming, but... If you gave each nation a series of spells that could summon unique researcher units (so multiple spells and unique units would be required for each nation) then you could both cap the number of researchers per nation (i.e. if a nation had 5 summon spells, they could only get 5 researchers) and, by setting costs and/or research levels of the spells appropriately, you could limit how quickly a nation got them.


Err. Ain't that simply impossible? 70 nations x 5 spells takes 350 spell slots, over the limit by about 220 spells. Only way I could see this happen would be to make a different version of the mod for each era and save spell slots by overwriting nationals from other eras.

But is this all trickery really so necessary? I mean we're playing (mostly) against humans? You could just say that you can only have 3 researcher units, if someone cheats, you could easily tell it from the research graph.

[LDiCesare]

But then you'd have to turn the graphs on all the time.
There are spells that can summon several uniques though (Elemental royalty for instance). Isn't that moddable too so you'd need just one spell per nation?

[Burnsaber]

But then you'd have to turn the graphs on all the time.


Perhaps not. You could houserule that when a player is elminated, the player responsible has to send his turn file for the eliminated player to inspect.

But I find it kind of silly to assume that players would cheat if the mod gave the opportunity. We have a pretty solid community here, right? But I just might be naive, thought.


There are spells that can summon several uniques though (Elemental royalty for instance). Isn't that moddable too so you'd need just one spell per nation?

Sorry, can't do. :(

[Illuminated One]

Well, I will try to monitor the usage of special units and spells.
It's very exploitable and better safe than sorry.
Also this would allow a lot more modding options (a spell that changes, depending on how often it was cast, or gets random results, etc).
This is what will keep me for a time, the researcher units are basically finished, except tweaking them.

So I will probably go along these lines (maybe I'll add the opportunity to boost research with a second shape but with a huge upkeep cost - like when you were only recruiting high level mages):

Good research (Arco, Bogarus, Marverni, Pythium, Man, Marignon, Abysia, Bandar)
Turns-----1-----2 to 11---12 to 23----24 to 35---36 to 48---49+
RP/Turn--200------80-----------140-------200-------270------350

Mediocre research (...)
Turns-----1-----2 to 11---12 to 23----24 to 35---36 to 48---49+
RP/Turn--100------60-----------120-------180-------250------340

Bad research (Niefel, Mictlan, Sauro, Pangea)
Turns-----1-----2 to 11---12 to 23----24 to 35---36 to 48---49+
RP/Turn--0------40-----------100-------165-------240------330

Similarily 3 different costs
Expensive (Pythium, MA Ermor, Caelum, Hinnom, Van, Hel, Abysia, Lanka, Bandar)

Mediocre (...)

Cheap (Mictlan, Lanka, Arco, Ulm, Jomon, Man, Agartha)


Magic 3 scales will mean +30 more rp/turn.

As you can see the distribution favors weak nations, however I tried to keep it thematically justified.

Here are my indicators
Good research - highly cultured, strong progressive movement
Bad research - barbaric, very traditionalistic or even backwards

Expensive - established, possibly decadent magocracy, money/status motiviation for research
Cheap - more down to the earth mages, altruistic or patriotic motivation

Are the differences to big/small?
Would be interesting to compare to score graphs of normal games.

[LDiCesare]

Regarding research, is ti possible to boost a magic item, like skull mentor?
You'd just have to put two or three of these to the starting commanders, and not make them buildable.

[Sombre]

Nope.

[Squirrelloid]

I have some questions

How does pretender research work? You claim they get a +15 bonus - do they still net +1 RP/magic path? Do 'mage' pretenders still get a research bonus (and the great sage a higher bonus yet?) relative to other pretenders? If these aren't the case, have pretender costs been rebalanced to accomodate these changes in the strengths and weaknesses of various chasses?

Have you playtested your changes to the magic scale? Is drain the same but in reverse? Does the magic scale feel underpowered now compared to other scale choices?

[Illuminated One]

Every god gets flat +15 on top of what he'd have in CBM (with the exception of the great sage, he has a bonus of 15 already and 25 is max - I think of making him immune to drain).
I actually don't know how it effects nation or pretender balance, and haven't done anything else.

Drain scale is -5 per tick, yes.
I don't think the magic scale is underpowered at all.
It doesn't give as much rp in the later stages of the game but your total research output will be lower, too. So as you can't force having level 8 or 9 in every path rp will be more valuable (and at magic3 15rp * 2 researchers * 60 turns = 1800 rp). Also you will get the full effect at turn 1 which has a huge impact on early game.
Hmm, maybe I should make it scale with the turn number, too, drain + bad research is no fun early on.

[Squirrelloid]

Wait, why are you penalizing the Great Sage? Yes, he already has a bonus because he's supposed to be that much better at research than every other pretender god. If he doesn't get the same additional improvement, he will not be worth taking relative to the other 'mage' chasses, who will be strictly better or almost so. (Remember, all those other mage chasses get some special ability or two - something the sage gives up for a bonus on research).

I also agree a sliding scale on the amount of research for magic/drain is in order - 5 is a lot early on but next to nothing in the end game.

Further question: In the game thread your table says 'total research' - is that counting your pretender god's minimum bonus, or just your two researchers?

[Illuminated One]

The total research is only from the researcher.

And I'm not penalizing the sage, it's just not possible to boost research by more than 25. He will get compensated, in one way or another.
If you have suggestions...

[kianduatha]

The most straightforward options you have are to either start him off with 4-5 magic paths(essentially giving him a lower cost), or give him a skull mentor.

[Illuminated One]

There's a SP EA version of the mod available on the first page


@kianduatha

Modding Skull mentors on gods isn't possible.
I'm considering the paths, the sideeffect is that he gets a better bless chassis, though.

[kianduatha]

Take away fire, give him air/water/astral/death/blood? That gives him 5 paths, but limited bless options.