Re: Magic Site Mod version 0.80
 

Yep yep, that's definitely good, we just didn't understand why you'd want to split the updated mod into two:

Re: Magic Site Mod version 0.80
 

I just meant something like version 1.00a. I've made the new sites and the new units, but I'd rather release the mod than make six new sprites. If I add custom sprites later, I'll just make the units refer to new sprites. It won't break compatibility between 1.00a and 1.00b, because custom sprites don't affect hosting. So, those who care get better sprites, don't who care see copied sprites, and they can play against each other just fine.

Speaking of release, check the first post.

Re: Magic Site Mod version 1.00
 

Ahhh, I see. 1.00b will be standalone. I thought you meant it would be a mini-mod just to change some sprites, which didn't sound good.

New version! Great, I'm looking forward to it. Unfortunately this evening's dom3 time is going to be trying to repair games that have been killed by the hosting issue with the new patch.

Re: Magic Site Mod version 1.00
 

Null post: I reported an error with an older version of the mod, then found it was fixed in the new version.

Re: Magic Site Mod version 1.00
 

Minor issue: a couple of the sites that are supposed to increase scales do not because the numeric values are instead represented by the name of the scales. The sites are:

#newsite 891
#name "Sarmizegetusa"
#path 7
#level 2
#rarity 1
#loc 16388
#com 3088
#gems 7 1
#incscale (turmoil) -->should be 0
#end

#newsite 888
#name "Rainbow Cove"
#path 4
#rarity 1
#com 3090
#loc 135
#level 1
#gems 4 1
#incscale (luck) -->should be #decscale 4
#end

Re: Magic Site Mod version 1.00
 

Question: When adding sites with recruitables that are usually summoned via spells, did you give the existing creature a gp cost, or did you copy the creature and give the new version a gp cost?

Sea Serpents, Krakens, Bog Beasts, etc... having an upkeep when summoned would be a rather major change.

Re: Magic Site Mod version 1.00
 

IIRC they're mostly copies.

Re: Magic Site Mod version 1.00
 

In addition to the issues Stavis L pointed out (which still exist as of December when I DLed the mod), I found the following errors, likely errors, and seemingly non-sensical locmasks:

-------
Errors
-Garden of Crystal Fruit (#914) has rarity 17119! (Clearly 17119 is a locmask, but site has a valid locmask)
-Ruins of Kusasthali (#872) has a rarity of 256. (same issue)
-There are two Laccadive sites (#871 and #869), recommend renaming.
-Dylath-leen has gem income listed as 8 1. There is no holy gem, so... presumably 4 1 (1 astral).
-sites 891 and 888 need scale commands fixed (see Stavis L's post above)
-sites 927 and 933-936 have the locmask 16654. This means (unique) in forest, mountains, waste, and deep sea. This is clearly in error. Likely supposed to be 17119 (any land) or 16607 (any non-cave land), although 16388 (mountain) would make sense for #935.
-Deviant Laboratory (#894) has level 5, which is not in the permitted range (0-4).
-One of the Laccadives (#871) is listed as a blood site with a sea location mask. Given you can't use blood magic underwater, this is inappropriate.

--------
Likely Errors:
-Nameless Rock (#853) has 1 fire income and 25 gold income, but its clearly an astral site related to otherworldly creatures. Listed gem and gold income makes no sense.
-Decayed Palace (#940) has 1 air income. Presumably this should be 1 death?
-The ridiculous proliferation of H underwater sites is just silly.
-There are an awful lot of X4 sites, which mostly means that said sites will often not be found, even if they do occur. The existence of uncommon X4 sites is especially silly. Recommend re-assessing level for X4 sites, especially as similar sites are often available at X2 in the regular game.

--------
Inappropriate site-masks:
-Rainbow Cove (#888) not forced to be coastal. Given a cove is a coastal feature...
-Equinoctial Dial (#944) and Sundial (#943) have site mask 735 (any land). Should be 223 (any non-cave land) because you can only use them *outside*.
-Similarly, Persistent Aurora (#950) and Wailing Aurora (#929) have site mask 735. As the Aurora is a sky phenomena, these should also be site mask 223.
-A number of tree sites (#987, #983, #982, #977) are listed as site mask 735. Again, access to the sky is kind of important here, and these should be mask 223.
-Field of Blackened Stones (#991) has mask 512 (cave). Since a cave would certainly not contain anything describable as a field, this is almost certainly wrong. Presumably should be 223.
-Tears of the Moon (#963) has mask 735 and given the moon is an astronomical phenomena, its tears should probably be found in non-cave lands (mask 223).
-Isle of the Sarandib (#874) is listed as deep sea, which is really strange considering its an island. Recommend it be made 16672 (any ocean). Similarly, Barren Island (#860).

---------
Over-specific or otherwise strange site-masks:
-Ancient Glacier (#962) currently has mask 12 (waste, mountain). Waste is a really weird spot for a glacier - recommend mask 4 (mountain).
-Garden of Crystal Apples (#986) is listed as mask 512 (cave). Should probably be either 223 or 735. Note that the separate and similar Garden of Crystal Fruit is listed as 735.
-Highland Refuge (#931) is listed as 735 (any land), should probably be 223 (non-cave land) or even more specific. (No highlands in caves).
-Academy of Dark Fire (#913) is listed as mask 8 (waste), but there's really no reason it shouldn't be 735. Similarly, Deviant lab (#894) is listed as 223 (any land), but there's no reason it couldn't occur in a cave (and thus be 735).
-A couple of tree sites (#981, #979) are restricted to forest, which is a weird contrast with the other tree sites whose masks were too general. Recommend making them mask 223 to match the other trees. Similarly, some other sites (#930, #851) are restricted to forests for no apparent reason. Recommend 223 for these as well.
-Many ocean sites are inappropriately restricted to sea instead of being permitted to both sea and deep sea. Ones that I noticed: sulfur vent, temple of the fish, dead zone, The Source of All Waters, Quicksilver Pond (arguably this one should be any terrain, land or sea), and fars deep.
-Forest in the Clouds (#920) has a really strange mask (23, mountain + forest + farm + plains). Not sure why it has that site mask other than to be weird.

Re: Magic Site Mod version 1.00
 

Endo has been away for a long while. Not sure if he's ever coming back to do a update.

Re: Magic Site Mod version 1.00
 

I suggest just doing your own updated version of the mod.

Re: Magic Site Mod version 1.00
 

In that case, does anyone else besides me think that the Shadow Priests (U3092) are just a tad OP?

Can we at least get rid of their #onebattlespell "Darkness"?

About the "Deep Sea" thing: all "Deep Sea" on maps has both the "Sea" and "Deep Sea" bits set. So any site that can appear in a Sea can also appear in a Deep Sea.

Re: Magic Site Mod version 1.00
 

If I take on maintaining the mod, I will certainly look into this. I hadn't gotten around to looking at all the possible recruitable commanders yet...

Really? So you can't have sites that are sea only? Because some of them (eg, collapsed lighthouse) are certainly appropriate as sea only...

Re: Magic Site Mod version 1.00
 

Squirreloid - I was in the process of editing your changes in (where they didn't conflict with the original input) however, I really don't want to create a fork. I'll cease if you're really intending to take this on.

Re: Magic Site Mod version 1.00
 

If you use the game's map editor, setting a province to Deep Sea also makes it a Sea. If you manually set the terrain type to "Deep Sea only" in the map file by giving it a 2048 terrain type, it will be a Deep Sea without also being Sea, but only land-based units will be able to enter it: it won't be a water province as far as the game's concerned.

So there's no way to keep your collapsed lighthouse out of a Deep Sea province.

Re: Magic Site Mod version 1.00
 

Stavis - I'm certainly thinking about it. Probably want to see what other goodies I find or problems I notice since i'm currently in two games using the mod before i make any serious changes.

Re: Magic Site Mod version 1.00
 

Well, I had already added most of the fixes you noted anyway, so I went ahead and finished, in case you'd like to use that as a starting point, or if anyone else wants in the meantime.

* Fixed per original description
* Fixed (made rare)* Renamed one* Per HB's description, was supposed to be blood slave. Fixed.* Fixed* Fixed* Changed to original input of 2.* Perhaps, but I think this was intentional. Left in.* It's implemented per HB's original description. Probably a Lovecraftian reference somewhere...* Per original description, was supposed to have none. Removed. Also was supposed to increase unrest; added turmoil.* Part of the point was to make H searches more important* Part of the point was to make higher level searches more important* changed to coast* changed* changed* changed* changed to mountains, plains, waste per original input* changed* this is per original input, but I agree and changed anyway :-P* this is per intent, think cold desert, e.g. Antarctica* changed* changed to 4 (mountain)* supposed to be Abysia lite :-P* left alone, the site lets you recruit dark angel types (who like to fly - no caves)* not done - the intent was for these to represent "the oldest tree in the forest" sort of thing, I think* changed 930; believe the white river was a specific reference, so left alone* changed as above, except Source of All Waters made deep sea* basically excluding water, coasts, swamps, and wastes. This was intentional.

Re: Magic Site Mod version 1.00
 

Having a blood site underwater is unthematic.

Also, having a blood site possible in the water is broken, since LA Mictlan is pretty much the only nation that will ever find it (while looking for H). It screws with the real UW nations because they aren't supposed to be able to blood hunt UW, so if the site appears, it's replacing a site that could be found and eating up a site slot.

Re: Magic Site Mod version 1.00
 

A similar complaint can be made about holy sites. Without any way to remote search for them short of acashic record they aren't likely to ever be found

Re: Magic Site Mod version 1.00
 

No, it's not similar at all.

You can manually search for holy sites with a priest. Every nation gets priests, and every nation has at least one H3. UW nations do not get blood on their mages at all, because there is not supposed to be any blood magic or blood hunting underwater.

And there's nothing unthematic about underwater holy sites.

Re: Magic Site Mod version 1.00
 

Except that manual searching is incredibly micro intensive of course.

Re: Magic Site Mod version 1.00
 

Stavis, for reference purposes did you make any other changes?

Re: Magic Site Mod version 1.00
 

In the zip file, there are 2 .dms. The first has only the changes that were referenced in your post, plus I changed the version to 1.01 and indicated that you and I had add'l input in the description. There are no other changes.

The 2nd (which was done primarily for my own purposes) removes all units that were not just copies of vanilla units, and sites whose only attribute was to allow their recruitment (may have missed some of those, but hopefully.) The unit recruitment lines in the sites are still there, but commented, while the monster/weapon/armor stat blocks are deleted.

Re: Magic Site Mod version 1.00
 

Have you considered changing the number of some sites to allow this be used with no conflicts along custom nation mods?
Pwetty pwetty pwease :D

Re: Magic Site Mod version 1.00
 

The problem is that there are a great number of custom nation mods, and they are not at all consistent about which site ids they use. See Gregstrom's mod compatibility index for specifics (although I don't think it's been updated for the latest CBM.) Getting this many sites to not conflict with *any* nation mod is a difficult, if not impossible, task.

That said, for a specific set of mods it's fairly easy to renumber the conflicts in either this or the nation mod.

Re: Magic Site Mod version 1.00
 

The site in question is 871, which is, now that I look again, actually path 8 (holy). HoneyBadger's original submission was for a blood site though; perhaps (since I think this was supposed to represent a set of small, low lying islands) it would be better to make the site coastal and change back to blood? Anyway, I don't see any water based blood sites in the latest version.

Re: Magic Site Mod version 1.00
 

If you pick a block range of site IDs that conflicts with the fewest number of the /popular/ mods (CBM, Nation mods, etc) then post in the threads of the conflicting mods where they are still active, asking for a site ID to be moved and suggesting a currently free alternative, you could make the mod clash free with the minimum of hassle.

Making it clash free with every mod is impossible, so I'd only worry about the popular ones. I think this mod could happily lay claim to block range of about 200 IDs or something and the mod manual/user documentation on this forum could be updated to reflect that those are reserved for giant site mods.

After all 99% of mods use like 1 or 2 site IDs, so it's no big deal to move them or have less available.

I'd happily edit my mods to move the IDs to avoid clashes if you pick out a specific range that belongs to site only mods (not just this one, but any further compilation site mods). This isn't something I'm willing to do for other nation mods, but as I say this would represent very little work on my part and since this mod could potentially be very popular, would be worth it.

Re: Magic Site Mod version 1.00
 

The compatibility index has IIRC a set of suggested block ranges.