Can a mod limit castle construction?
 

One of the things that really make the endgame a bit tiring is digging out an opponent castle by castle when he has 30 castles and maybe free spawn as well. Yes there is crumble,
and I use that freely. But it takes valuable e gems to crumble, and it puts the onus solely on the attacker rather than the player doing nothing.

And nothing is more maddening then ryleh having a castle in every single water province they own. Try digging them out of those in the late game as a land race! It can be done, but it would be nice if castles could be limited somewhat(id at least like to explore the option).

Is there any mod that could stop a castle from being constructed, or cast(wizard tower, 3 red seconds) on any province that has a castle adjacent to it already?

That would still permit castles to be adjacent if it is "found" in a magical site after a castle was built, but would not permit construction of a capital next to a "found" castle.

Even if a mod could only stop the ones constructed with gold-that would be a help.

Re: Can a mod limit castle construction?
 

No.

Re: Can a mod limit castle construction?
 

Can a mod reassign what castle a nation builds?
Can it change the gold cost?

Re: Can a mod limit castle construction?
 

You can change what castles a nation builds. You can't change anything about the castles themselves.

Re: Can a mod limit castle construction?
 

I probably should remember this myself but are any of the castles in the game expensive enough to amount to the same thing? Making it nearly impossible to build?

A mod in the game, such as making some spells unusable by the players, could be changed to add the castle changes mid-game.

Hmmm come to think castles vary according to terrain so maybe that wouldnt work.

Re: Can a mod limit castle construction?
 

you can change castle prices can't you? Then you could make all but a few very expensive...

Re: Can a mod limit castle construction?
 

good ideas by both Gandalf and Aezeal.

Or this question is more suited to a map expert-on a map that is premade, could the map be coded so that the province would not accept a castle?

Re: Can a mod limit castle construction?
 

You can't change castle prices. As I said above, you can't change anything about the castles themselves.

You could give people expensive castles after the midgame, but my feeling is even the most expensive 5 turns to build castle would get built by nations like Rlyeh. Plus it's a lot of effort to go to loading up and changing a mod just for a minor potential change.

Re: Can a mod limit castle construction?
 

Thanks again Sombre.

It may appear that the answer lies, if it is to be found at all, in coding the map itself.

Or perhaps the easiest solution is to put it to a vote of the players, and if passed, all agree to not build castles next to another castle.

Though it would be a bit of the honor system.

Re: Can a mod limit castle construction?
 

You could mod the castle combat map for some castles, so that they don't have such a small breach, so storming them with troops is easier.

Re: Can a mod limit castle construction?
 

Im not sure that swapping out a mod in midgame is all that much. But if you cant give them a castle they wont want to build then it wouldnt do much. Do we have ALL the stats on all the castles? Even the summoned ones?

As for the honor system, I dont remember watching for castle building in the log file. But if there is an entry when building starts or is completed, then it wouldnt be much to have the post exec grab all the castle lines from the log and send them to you each turn. That way you could easily keep a running list of castles and plot them on a map for game admin.

Re: Can a mod limit castle construction?
 

You don't use Crumble. You forge Gate Cleavers and give them to flying commanders, and tour around your Call of the Winds bird flocks, Soulstone-called wolves and mercenaries to crack castles. But you might be right, people usually tend to go raid the hell out of somebody to make them quit instead of cracking their castles one by one, because that takes time.

Re: Can a mod limit castle construction?
 

Trust me, I know all about flying troops and gate cleavers.
It is still a very long process in the endgame. And when you go underwater it gets even tougher, what with armies being gated in every time you storm.

But I stormed 3 Shin castles in Fallacy last turn, broke their walls in 1 turn, and am storming 2 moreRyleh this turn.

It is still sucks to have to take a castle for every province on a 330 province map(:

Re: Can a mod limit castle construction?
 

My tactic was to take the province the castle was in, crank up the taxes to 200, pillage, blood hunt, etc. Anything to drive the unrest over 100 so he cant recruit troops there for awhile. Then move on to the next castle. Whats he gonna do? Sink a bunch of gold into rebuilding PD on a castle he cant get units and taxes from?

And it doesnt take much of a force in the back of the main force to keep jumping around the unrest castles to drive the unrest back up and keep it high

Re: Can a mod limit castle construction?
 

What can he do? He still gets all of his gems, and in the endgame, most of his army is summoned beings(:

Also, to win you need to take provinces, kill him off, and move on to the next nation. However, I am appreciative of all the endgame advice.

But my primary goal is to make the endgame move quicker-something most veteran mp's agree would be a good thing. Less castles would go a long way to achieving that goal. Though it seems another avenue may need to be found since a mod cannot limit castle construction.

Re: Can a mod limit castle construction?
 

I think probably some house rule is the only way to go. No adjacent castles, or perhaps each castle may only touch one other castle.

Re: Can a mod limit castle construction?
 

As far as modding castles, not doable at the moment, but is in the wishes shortlist. The thing to do would be to change all fort types but a very few to Jervellan Wall for most nations. It is absolutely crap in every aspect and not difficult to breach.

Re: Can a mod limit castle construction?
 

I figured something would fit. Thanks Edi.

So if a game started with a mod in place. Even a junkfill mod with two lines (name and icon). Then around turn 100 it could be swapped out with one making all castles into Jervellan Wall.

Can you make all of the castles that can be built by nations into Jervellan Wall without affecting castles that are already built? Would it affect what castles I build in mountain and in forest?

Re: Can a mod limit castle construction?
 

You know you could answer every question you've asked so far by looking at the forts bit in the modding manual.

Re: Can a mod limit castle construction?
 

Take a look at the UORMM, Gandalf. That has the fort commands all gathered in a nice, tight section.

Re: Can a mod limit castle construction?
 

Nahh Im more interested in the conversation than the answers.
Maybe Xietor will. Or maybe I will after I work on some of my projects.

Re: Can a mod limit castle construction?
 

I second Gandalfs remark that the conversation > answers http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif (my answer was wrong it seems http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif)

Re: Can a mod limit castle construction?
 

Well then neither of you are getting any more answers from me.

Re: Can a mod limit castle construction?
 

What good are experts then? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

If I ironed this out myself it would end up like many other answers Ive done. It would become a cool working version of problem on my machine that I forget to tell anyone about.

Im having enough trouble with that at the moment in testing out map commands like #defence for patrolling, and #god for local game vs network quirks, and #computerplayer (same quirks).

Public conversation is good (even if it does happen ouutside of IRC). I just brought up some variants that I thought you might have an answer already for. Im too old for you to teach me proper methodology now. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Can a mod limit castle construction?
 

I don't mind talking through problems with mods or how to bodge certain things using the existing mod commands.

But it's a waste of time for me to repeat stuff that's in the mod manual if you refuse to look in the mod manual because you don't actually want the answer.

Re: Can a mod limit castle construction?
 

Granted.
So this is the mod manual that came with the game?
Is that still up to date?

Re: Can a mod limit castle construction?
 

The one that came with the game is up to date wrt the fort commands, but they are scattered all through the nation modding section. Download the Unofficial Reorganized Mod Manual v3.17 from the trhead linked in my sig, that has them all in their own subsection. The UORMM will become the official manual in the next patch, so taking a look at it will give you a headstart in using the new document.

Re: Can a mod limit castle construction?
 

That must keep you dancing with the continual flow of new mod commands that keep coming out http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Thanks.

Re: Can a mod limit castle construction?
 

Basic Hack Rule #321:
Test all programmers lists. Particularly if they start with 1 instead of 0.

The Fortresses Chart says they run 1-43
However (at least in map commands) zero does work. The list of forts inside the Dom3 program seems to call it "none". No picture appears and a split between internal and external guards just appear together in the province. It appears to be a way of saying fort, without assigning a fort. Thats not uncommon in programming. But the results are the same for fort 666 so it might just be a fluke.

44 seems to be a partially done castle. It puts a picture there, and divides defender/patroller. But it crashes the game if you try to look at it. I wouldnt use it.

45 is VERY interesting. It creates an info button but calls the castle NULL (computer programmer for nothing). The admin is 0, the supplies are 0, the time to build is 0, and the defence is 0, but the cost is 200. It crashes due to not having a screen for combat so if a .d3m file was selected for it then it might work.

So far I think testing "Fort 0" is worth trying.