A gift to the modding community
 

The attached file is a "null mod" of virtually every spell in Dominions II, in virtually the same order they appear in the research screen. The only known ways that this varies from perfection is that some national spells are missing.

What is a "null mod"? It means that - to the best of my ability, and Daesthai's ability - if you use this mod, nothing in the game will change in any way. If there are any changes, please tell me, as those are bugs.

Since this changes nothing, its only use is to help modders alter spell costs / paths / research levels from Dominions II's base settings. It is almost like providing all of Dominions II's spells in an editable text format... except that the effects of the spells cannot be changed (aside from summoned creatures), only the parameters (fatigue, gems, paths, research level).

I generated this because I am working on a comprehensive spell mod. And then I realized other people might like it too!

So, please enjoy!

Notes: This is a direct data rip from Daesthai's "The Tome" version 1.5. Some errors (mainly spell name mispellings) were corrected. I spent quite a while designing the correct excel macros to generate this, but Daesthai spent way more time making the original data sheet than I did making this mod.

Edit: Corrected version 1.3 attached.

-- Version 1.3 fixes:
-- Most site-search spells had the wrong gem cost. Thanks, Bummer_Duck!

Edit: Corrected version 1.4 attached. I doubt there are more than 1 or two errors left, and they're probably minor if they exist.

-- Version 1.4 fixes:
-- Fairy Trod cost.
-- Frost Dome cost.
-- Water Ward capitalization.
-- Seven Year Fever cost.
-- Leprosy research level (7 to 6).
-- Vortex of Returning cost (2 to 3).
-- Master Enslave path level (9 to 8).
-- King of Elemental Fire cost (35 to 50).

...That's all I found after 12 hours of working with all the spells. KoEF was the only big one, IMO.

Re: A gift to the modding community
 

Wow, this is great! I knew that the Grimoire had this info, but as a mod it has more use.

Would it be possible to use those macros you created for spells to make weapon and armor null mods, or even UNIT null mod. With that info on easily available files and small program that "compiles" DomII mods it would be easy to make mods like to this:

#selectspell "False Horror"
#researchlevel +1
#end
#selectmonster "Master Smith"
#str +2
#hp +3
#mr -2
#end

that come out as this:

#selectspell "False Horror"
#researchlevel 7
#end
#selectmonster "Master Smith"
#str 12
#hp 13
#mr 12
#end

Re: A gift to the modding community
 

For a while I was working on putting that capability into the combat simulator. It is now capable of inputting mods and outputting mods (to units and equipment only, not to spells). It has the ability to do somelimited things, too, like +X gold cost per Y resource cost, or -X precision per Y protection from armor, and even more advanced things... but currently the source code must be edited to generate mods with these changes. So it never really got up to prime time with easy usability.

I know a bit of excel programming, and I can autogenerate unit costs from their stats (given a formula) and output it in mod format, and autogenerate a mod with spell costs set to 150% for a given school (like blood) or level (like research 7+). This sort of thing might be fun for custom games. But a full mod that is fair and balanced (just like Fox News! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif ) takes a lot of hand tuning...

Re: A gift to the modding community
 

Thank you!!!

Re: A gift to the modding community
 

This is great stuff! Thanks! I'm glad the tome was of help to you.

~Dae

Re: A gift to the modding community
 

By the way, Cherry. You mentioned some misspellings you had to correct. Do you by chance have a list of the edits you made so I can correct them in the tome, too?

Regardless, I'll do a pass over spell names to verify spellings.

Thanks for the heads up!

Re: A gift to the modding community
 

Cherry, would it be easy for you to do this with all of the magic items as well? At the moment I can't remember if there is an excel sheet on them too...

Re: A gift to the modding community
 

Interesting... I'll definitely be using this.

Re: A gift to the modding community
 

Ok, I corrected all the site-finding spell costs, and version 1.3 is posted at the top (meaning, the first post in the thread, not this post. This post contains an excel attachment for Dae). Thanks to Bummer_Duck for noting those errors.


I do not have a list, however, I do have a customized version of The Tome with the corrections and some other special columns I use to generate the mod. I'll post it here ("The Tome Custom", clever name, isn't it?) so that you can easily access the corrections. If you sort the tome by spell name, and sort the modified tome by spell name, you can directly copy and paste columns from one to the other.

IIRC the columns I made corrections to are spell name, path cost, gem cost, and fatigue cost... many of the changes are listed in the "spell null mod.dm" version 1.3.

And thanks a lot for your work! I was typing in data manually, and it took me 4+ hours just to do Conjuration. And I'm sure it had multiple mistakes, as well http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Once I found the Tome, everything became vastly easier!

Re: A gift to the modding community
 

I've revised the version number of the .xls to 1.6 and posted the file (in RAR archive form) to my site as the latest incarnation of The Tome.

Re: A gift to the modding community
 

Thank you and Arryn both for making the edits. I had already started making changes prior to seeing your posts. (So Cherry, you can disregard the pm I sent you. hehe)

Re: A gift to the modding community
 

OK http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

However, I should note to both you and Arryn: What I posted is not a Tome version 1.6... it should not be made available to anyone except Daesthi and modders, since it has a bunch of mysterious columns that will confuse people! It is "customized" for the purpose of auto-generating spell mods and is not nearly as easy to read as the real Tome. It has some advantages, like being easier to sort in (almost) the same order as spells are listed in Dominions II due to some of the additional columns... but most of the columns detract from its usability as a resource to players.

Re: A gift to the modding community
 

Thank you for pointing this out. However, I will keep your version, which I'm calling "1.6", on my site as the current version I host until such time as Daesthai releases a newer one. If people have problems with it, they can always use Edi's docs, which The Tome is based upon, and which from my download logs almost everyone who grabs The Tome also get. Also, since The Tome is a spreadsheet, users have the option to hide or delete columns that bother them. If some users don't know how to do that, they need to learn how to use spreadsheets in the first place. I consider "version 1.6" an opportunity for them to grow in their knowledge about spreadsheet use. heh

Re: A gift to the modding community
 

Ok =)

Re: A gift to the modding community
 

Sounds great. I should be done with my edits and double checking in the next day or two and I'll repost it as v1.7

Re: A gift to the modding community
 

Sounds like a plan ... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: A gift to the modding community
 

I will if you can point me to it. The only one I know of is Zen's PDF, which I can't edit. If he has it in Excel format, I think I'd be able to use the data.

Re: A gift to the modding community
 

Spell Null Mod updated to 1.4 (attached to first post). I think it's probably complete now, unless sombody notifies me of an error, because I couldn't find any http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Happy modding!