Mod: CBM 1.7 released

[Valerius]

If you'd like to add gem gens back into the game I'd suggest using gem generating summons rather than magic items, since monster modding is much more robust than item modding. Some of the advantages:

Differentiation & Limitation: one of the problems with clams is that anyone could (and did) make them so they didn't just benefit the nations that needed them and that they were forged in quantities only limited by the game engine. If you go to a summons based system using unique national summons you could say, for example, that Jotunheim gets 1 unique gem generating summon, while Bandar Log gets 4. Or you could vary the income per summon so that nations that needed gem gens got more out of their summons. You could also generate gems other than S/E/F in order to better match the character of a nation.

You could also vary the cost/research level of obtaining gem gens. A weak nation might be able to obtain their first gem gen summon at a low research level/cost while a more powerful nation will not be able to obtain any gem generating summons until much later/at a higher cost.

Originally Posted by Zeldor

Tartarians should be removed too and national troops boosted. I really want to see nations being still same nations even in late game. Not some homogenous mass that specialises in S and D. And uses all E to make more and more hammers or gear for tartarians.

I agree completely! And I think using summons to generate gems and even troops could help do this in a way magic items can't. As an example, what about a game setting that doubles your starting cap gem income, has a magic site frequency of around 20% and has gem generating national summons? Your gem income would be heavily skewed towards the paths of your national mages but you'd have some diversity in case you really needed a certain summon/magic item (and trade becomes more interesting since you won't necessarily have the gem income to forge some items or summon some units). As the game went on your gem income would increase but it would be in paths your nation specializes in. Of course you need viable troop and especially thug/SC options to spend these gems on. I think CBM does a good job making the various troop summons appealing and the EDM now provides thug/SC options in paths that didn't have them before (of course the ideal is national summons but not every nation has a good set of those). It's not perfect but I think it can be balanced. For example, one of the really tough things about death/blood nations is that they aren't impaired by darkness. You could remove Darkness as a researchable spell and allow D/B nations one or more unique summons that would autocast the spell. So it would be a tool but not one they could use on a large scale.

Reduce micro: instead of a clam generating 1 pearl and having dozens of clams you could have a summon generate several gems, making management of this resource easy.

Presence on the map: A frustrating thing about gem gens is that you can breach the walls of a castle that you know has clam holders and they'll just be transferred to another location. If the gem generator is an actual unit though it won't necessarily be able to escape. You can make these units of varying strength; perhaps some will be quite resistant to damage while others are vulnerable to even low level remote attack spells. Perhaps some are mobile while others are not. I think you can make the unit immune to being enslaved/charmed/etc so that while an opponent could eliminate your gem generating units they couldn't gain them for themselves (have to test this though). You could make them immobile, no leadership, negative magicboost - basically try to make it so all they can do is stay in one place and generate gems. It's not perfect (for instance you could prophetize them) but I think you could have house rules not to do that kind of thing.

Options: with the range of monster modding commands available you could do all sorts of interesting things. Maybe a summon that generates a large amount of gems for a few turns and then generates only a few gems but also dom summons allies? Or a D gem generating summon that also causes unrest and population loss?


Now the one problem here is that you can only add so many summons to the game. The next patch will help with this immensely. Until then, I still think you could implement something like this (I'd have to check to see how many free slots are available with CBM 1.6 or 1.7) though perhaps you'd have issues if you combined this with mod nations.

[Aethyr]

Originally Posted by Valerius

If you'd like to add gem gens back into the game I'd suggest using gem generating summons rather than magic items, since monster modding is much more robust than item modding. Some of the advantages:

Differentiation & Limitation: one of the problems with clams is that anyone could (and did) make them so they didn't just benefit the nations that needed them and that they were forged in quantities only limited by the game engine. If you go to a summons based system using unique national summons you could say, for example, that Jotunheim gets 1 unique gem generating summon, while Bandar Log gets 4. Or you could vary the income per summon so that nations that needed gem gens got more out of their summons. You could also generate gems other than S/E/F in order to better match the character of a nation.

You could also vary the cost/research level of obtaining gem gens. A weak nation might be able to obtain their first gem gen summon at a low research level/cost while a more powerful nation will not be able to obtain any gem generating summons until much later/at a higher cost.

Valerius, this is a really cool idea.

[Calahan]

Originally Posted by Valerius

If you'd like to add gem gens back into the game I'd suggest using gem generating summons rather than magic items, since monster modding is much more robust than item modding. Some of the advantages:

Differentiation & Limitation: one of the problems with clams is that anyone could (and did) make them so they didn't just benefit the nations that needed them and that they were forged in quantities only limited by the game engine. If you go to a summons based system using unique national summons you could say, for example, that Jotunheim gets 1 unique gem generating summon, while Bandar Log gets 4. Or you could vary the income per summon so that nations that needed gem gens got more out of their summons. You could also generate gems other than S/E/F in order to better match the character of a nation.

You could also vary the cost/research level of obtaining gem gens. A weak nation might be able to obtain their first gem gen summon at a low research level/cost while a more powerful nation will not be able to obtain any gem generating summons until much later/at a higher cost.

Gem generating summons sound an interesting idea in the 'investment strategy' area of the game. But I think the only way they'd work is if each nation was given X national uniques as a way of limiting them. As I doubt house rules (the same as house rules for items) to limit their numbers would work due to genuine player counting errors, and intentional rule bending (plus all the other reasons TheConway pointed out).

And right now 10+ unique summons for each nation will likely overshoot the mod spell limits by quite a way (until the next patch comes out at least).

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Originally Posted by WraithLord

Sounds great
Any idea where to start looking for how to get it done?

No idea sorry. I'm waiting until all my current games are finished before venturing into modding. (as I do have a few mod plans if I can find the time and patience)

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Originally Posted by Dimaz

IMO the whole point of hammers and SDRs is investment, so the idea of adding them at the start sounds really strange to me. In fact, I certainly prefer removing them completely than adding them at the start, as it will only make you scratch your head trying to utilize them most so rushing const will be even more top-priority than with vanilla hammers. Again, as i said, in fact I see no problem with vanilla DH at all, other than few individuals trying to promote their playstyle for everyone else. SDRs are a bit too cheap for what they do OTOH.

X number of Hammers from turn 1 might not fit that well into the 'investment strategy' area of the game, but it would still allow players to choose which gem type to use for maximum forging efficiency, and which type to allow some wastage with. Unique hammers removes that area of the game entirely (along with several others), so at least limited hammers would still allow some skill to remain.

Although the 'everyone rushes Construction' problem might be an unwanted drawback, but personally I think I'd still prefer limited hammers to no hammers. But I also think there is nothing at all wrong with Hammers to begin with, and I wasn't even aware anyone considered them a problem until this CBM version was released.


Right now I'm also firmly in the 'leave hammers alone' camp, at least until someone provides some truly creditable evidence to why they are bad. As the reasons I've heard so far for nerfing hammers is far from credible IMO, and seem more based on some players just not liking them, and/or not liking the extra thought required during design and play with regards acquiring them. In theory, I'm all for modding-out broken aspects of the game (such as unlimited gem gens), but not for modding-out things purely on the basis that someone doesn't like them. But I do accept of course that the owner of a mod is free to do whatever he or she likes. The same way everyone is free to use whatever mods he or she likes for in their games. So if you don't like the changes a recent version of your favourite mod(s) has made, then don't use it basically.

[Aethyr]

Originally Posted by Calahan

Gem generating summons sound an interesting idea in the 'investment strategy' area of the game. But I think the only way they'd work is if each nation was given X national uniques as a way of limiting them. As I doubt house rules (the same as house rules for items) to limit their numbers would work due to genuine player counting errors, and intential rule bending (plus all the other reasons TheConway pointed out).

And right now 10+ unique summons for each nation will likely overshoot the mod spell limits by quite a way (until the next patch comes out at least).

This makes sense. I'm not a modder, so this may be a bad question, but would there be a way to limit the actual number of these "uniques" that could be "in play" at any one time for each nation?

[Calahan]

Originally Posted by Aethyr

This makes sense. I'm not a modder, so this may be a bad question, but would there be a way to limit the actual number of these "uniques" that could be "in play" at any one time for each nation?

As far as I know, and I may well be wrong since my knowledge is limited, modding unique spells is limited to pinching and overwriting the unqiue spells from an already existing unique summom spell, as you can not 'create' a new unique summon spell.

I believe a lot of modders have used the Ashdod spells (for example) for their mod nations, since that nation is never allowed in most games anyway, so it's spell slot won't be getting used. But the Ashdod set of spells can only be used by one nation per game, (again I might be wrong with my knowledge of modding limits), which means it's currently not really possible to mod each nation to have a unqiue set of summon spells (unless it was a very small game, and all the other unique summons in the game were pinched and overwritten in order to get enough unique summon spells for everyone)