Re: Good game, but....the AI is very bad.
 

You might wanna avoid militia 999 gold cost. Upkeep from random events will be horrible in this case. Also a problem if a nation begins the game with LI. Replace initial armies to avoid the problem.

Re: Good game, but....the AI is very bad.
 

Perhaps high resource cost would be enough.

Or better: low gold cost, at the correct level to balance them so they are not a bad choice anymore...

PvK

Re: Good game, but....the AI is very bad.
 

Yep thanks and noted Kris. The only thing I'm worried with keeping default gold costs and 999 resources cost is that the AI may try to build a militia unit and in the process will block production in its independent province forever http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif . Am going to test that out now though.


PS: editing the mod text file will take effect during already started games too. (To anyone who tried it out and wanted to avoid the high upkeep syndrome).

[ May 13, 2004, 18:58: Message edited by: delacroix ]

Re: Good game, but....the AI is very bad.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">REALLY? Now as a Random Fanatic that brings some intresting possibilities to mind. Yes, very interesting

Re: Good game, but....the AI is very bad.
 

Ok tested militia / LI at 999 resource costs with default gold costs and the AI built crossbowmen / archers in 2 of such provinces over 20 or so turns that had Militia available instead.

So its safe to assume the AI won't block production in all of its independent provinces due to the high resource unit costs. Maybe 1 or 2, maybe none ever, but never all of them http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif .

Re: Good game, but....the AI is very bad.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yep really. The only thing is you must quit dominions entirely for changes to take effect. I assume dominions reads/checks the mod files on load-up only. Of course the game has to be created/started with the mod file enabled.

I double-checked it again. Initially had the 999 resource militias. Exited game, edited my LI.dm down to 9 resources, restarted game, built 3 or so militia's. Had them appear next turn. Exited game, edited LI.dm back to 999 resource cost and went back into the game and now can't build them again since they changed back to 999 resources.

Haven't tested it, but I would assume that you can change any unit attributes on the fly without problems. Weapons/armor mods likely too. I'm not sure if scales and/or random event frequency can be changed on a per turn basis too, but again, a quick test can answer that.

[ May 13, 2004, 19:32: Message edited by: delacroix ]

Re: Good game, but....the AI is very bad.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yep really. The only thing is you must quit dominions entirely for changes to take effect. I assume dominions reads/checks the mod files on load-up only. Of course the game has to be created/started with the mod file enabled. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hmmmm I will have to look at MODs again sometime. Most of my regrets are based on MAP commands which I play with more. I regretted not being able to change the game thats running based on triggers in the game. Triggers such as the game hitting turn #10 or turn #100, or having a certain player hit a certain number of provinces, or even randomly deciding its the "Season of Dragons" which will run until it randomly decides its that its not anymore. Or "Season of Vampires" or "Season of Trolls" or whatever.

If a MOD can be changed easily by a program (already verified) and the program can do random decisions (my specialty) or based on triggers (all the above are available) and a changed mod will take effect in an already ongoing game (as you say) then WHOOPEEE someone has turned me loose again! (althought I fully expect Leif to beat me to it)

The mentioned triggers are all now available for outside programs to process but didnt do me much good for maps since only graphic changes affect ongoing games in MAPs.

[ May 13, 2004, 20:13: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Re: Good game, but....the AI is very bad.
 

Sounds like you'll be busy then Gandalf http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif . I look forward to any works you may have on the matter.

Existing games don't seem to have any sort of check of whether the mods themselves get modded. I just renamed Unwise's Flag mod to LI.dm in my existing test game and started up the game, and lo and behold all the flags changed and militia no longer cost 999 resources.

Although the "you must quit the game for mod changes to occur" is a little bit of a hinderance. I wonder if there could be a way to have the game refresh mod files during the turn generation process or to have the game auto-quit/restart. But I guess you can't have everything you want lol.

If the mod commands could include some of the map-commands that would be a nice bonus too. Such as the ability to add monsters on a specific province (like the barbarian invasion random event), or change province ownership, or randomly add forts on random provinces to help the AI out, all during the middle of the game could make for some creative scripted scenarios. Although all of the above are 'random events' of the game, so they already happen mid-game and implementation of them into mod commands would not be too far-fetched. I don't know if said features already exist as mod-commands, but they aren't documented if they do.

edit : typo corrections

[ May 13, 2004, 22:17: Message edited by: delacroix ]

Re: Good game, but....the AI is very bad.
 

"And on the 50th turn into the game the sun went dark and a global enchantment gone horribly wrong fell upon the world. No one seemed to claim having tried to cast it."

"We discovered that every province Ruby Amazons had suddenly become Vampires (troops) and Vampire Queens (commanders). Not only did the province I was attacking suddenly change (completely wiping out my army) but the province I already had allowed me to recruit them. Actually this would have been greatly in my favor except that the Onyx Amazons (which my enemy had 2 provinces for) had become various types of Horrors."

"Each turn of the sandclock causes me to fervently hope that this horrible enchantment had run out."

[ May 13, 2004, 23:12: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Re: Good game, but....the AI is very bad.
 

Yup, 999 resource to 'disable' a specific unit for the AI is good enough.
999 gold might cause trouble sometime. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

Re: Good game, but....the AI is very bad.
 

Well there seems to be a more obvious problem with the basic militia which can be purchased on these independent provinces. Clearly no gamer with even some experience would purchase 2 or more of these units.
This indicates the cost of the Light Infantry units as being too expensive. For human players to ever consider using several of these units the gold cost will have to drop.

[ May 14, 2004, 16:38: Message edited by: NTJedi ]

Re: Good game, but....the AI is very bad.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hmmmm.... *ponders* ... Naaah - too much work. You'd basically have to have a program running in the background, analysing the contents of the score files for a particular game to see if the trigger condition is met; replace the mod file and tell you to restart Dominions (and distribute the new mod file to any other players). In addition, there's limits to what you can change with the mod - in particular you can't make any changes to the map (so no adding new units or magic sites anywhere.)

I suppose you could use this to implement "technological advences" though - at first your infantry only has leather armour and pointy sticks, then after a year they get bronze cuirasses and spears, then two years later mail and swords and five years after that they get full plate and zweihanders.

Re: Good game, but....the AI is very bad.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I must be a rotten gamer. I spend most of my money on LI and lite cavalry, especially independent ones. Worse even than the AI does

edit: Hmmm on checking Id be more truthful saying I spend most on the li bowman in independent provinces. But I never let them build up too far before I switch to li to add to it

[ May 14, 2004, 17:00: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Re: Good game, but....the AI is very bad.
 

Hehe, Im doing well with my mod, imho the AI is lot better even now!!!
I have more ideas anyways, I will post more details soon.

Re: Good game, but....the AI is very bad.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Excellent. I look forward to it. Is this an improvment across the board? All nations?
Are you going to make the mod available for others to test with?

Re: Good game, but....the AI is very bad.
 

Indeed, all nations & independent units will be edited. The result will be a mod without weak national & independent units.
I don't plan to edit the summonable creatures yet. However I plan to edit the "low level" summons later on & I plan to do more minor tweakings as well.

[ May 14, 2004, 19:54: Message edited by: MStavros ]

Re: Good game, but....the AI is very bad.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Ahh you are already moving on. This will be a "nastier AI" mod then, instead of a "proof of concept" mod?

I guess I should just get off my mouse and make one of my own to test the LI thing.

Re: Good game, but....the AI is very bad.
 

Yeah, a nastier AI mod. Well said. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
IMHO this will be a great help for the SP fans, until we will have some AI coding improvements. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

Re: Good game, but....the AI is very bad.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Obviouslly I didn't make myself clear enough for some folks...
I was NOT talking about archer types or Lite Cavalry((whole different topic)). I was talking about the Militia and Light Infantry units.
10 Light Infantry means 100 gold which could easily be used more effectively except for a few crucial moments.

[ May 15, 2004, 01:13: Message edited by: NTJedi ]

Re: Good game, but....the AI is very bad.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Very nice, I wanted to do this myself but never found the time/courage http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif .
A nice add-on would be 17 "national" mods that put back each national "LI" in-game (at normal price) for use by the player nation (ie player activates the mod for his own nation and so has normal/full recruiting choices http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif ).
It'll work as well in multi where there are AI nations BTW http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif .
I think you should totally separate the Summons issue (in a different mod).

Re: Good game, but....the AI is very bad.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yeah its going to be interesting but now its going to be in the general MOD Category. I was hoping for abit for a mod that would allow specific testing of a specific AI problem by many advanced players who felt they were beating the AI too often and too easily.

I guess we could start another thread. Such a polished presentation might turn into changes appearing in some patch. The way Saber Cherrys mod did.

[ May 15, 2004, 13:05: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]