project: a watcher nation
 

Ive just added to the Mappers Wishlist for a command which expands the #cannotwin command to set a nation to unwinnable for scenario purposes to provide a #cannotlose command. That would allow for adding a nation to a game in order to
a) enter the game and check on things from the inside
b) enter to get a map view
c) enter to grab an image of the score graphs
d) enter to send messages to everyone in the game
This might be during a test game, or a scenario, or even a large server game.

However I also understand that we are to the point that most of our desires will need to be handled on our own. So, what might be some MOD features that could be built into a watcher nation which would insure that it stayed in the game against dominion death and AI attacks well into a couple hundred turns? Even if it didnt actively play?

If I gave them a start location in some spot surrounded by mountains, with no neighbors, wouldnt most things we do not affect the "local neighborhood"? Or I could even add a tiny "province" spot to very corner of a map file. A single-pixel sized province.

How about a special immobile god with godview? Can godview be added to a new spell and given as a freeby? Or maybe added to a magic-site starter site for viewing? Some way that it wont take up a global spell slot.

And maybe give it the highest defensive castle and totally cranked PD?

Suggestions?

Gandalf Parker
--
I have a very fertile mind. Just ask me and I can fertilize anything.
(wait, that didnt come out right)

Re: project: a watcher nation
 

I think you could make such a mod nation:

Their units would all be immobile. Give them a national spell that summons a castle defender--1 gem cost. It's a commander designed to be all but immune to remote attack spells, it provides a *BIG* castle defense bonus. It's also got a very high holy level. It also can summon itself.

How would you kill such a nation? It would take a truly insane army to breech it's walls and on preach you're not going to get a dominion kill.

Re: project: a watcher nation
 

Just put them in a province with no connections. Dominion ceases to be an issue. Then give them invicible PD made from 20 doom horrors per point or whatever and various national spells to observe others.

It's not very complex.

Re: project: a watcher nation
 

Thanks Sombre.

From my mapping I thought that lack of neighbors killed the dominion thing.
I would consider automatic domes but I dont want to kill off any AI casters. Id like to avoid having them waste time on trying spells on me at all but I dont think thats possible.

I didnt figure it would be complex. But since Im not the modder you are I wanted to see if I was missing anything that would work well with this.

Do you have a quick example on how to give the nation access to the world view without using up a global slot?

Re: project: a watcher nation
 

you would need to alter each map you'd play on though but I guess it could be worth it in some cases. I'm only troubled about how you could see the entire map.. if the watcher nation takes up one of the already scarce global slots it would be a shame (personally I think 5 slots is not enough for huge games.. 1/ player would be better.)

Re: project: a watcher nation
 

Even without connections you need to be careful with dominion, as there are events which drop your dominion. In Yarnspinners 2 in Dominions 2, our non-playing host ran the watcher nation, and he unexpectedly got dom-killed. One or two preachers would probably enough to avoid that, but you can't ignore it entirely.

Re: project: a watcher nation
 

I could make those preaching statues as part of his starting army.

As to updating each map, thats not a problem for me. It would be nice to come up with a mod that can operate on its own so that others can use it easily. Or have it come up with most of the need covered and written in suggestions on how to use the map to improve on it.

But for me, I tend to blur mods and maps anyway. I think of mods usually in the sense of extensions to maps. Maps and server are home territory for me. I think of this as something I might use in server games and I would probably automate it so just appending the commands to the end of the .map file. And since the game numbers its provinces from bottom left to top right pixel-line by pixel line then I can just change the pixel in the far upper-right corner to a white one then append the commands as if placing me in the province of last-province+1

Re: project: a watcher nation
 

ONE of the many ideas I had for this game would be to create some videos.
I could run an all-AI game except for my watcher nation. Then record the score graphs each turn and turn it into an animation to you can watch things change as the game progresses.
Or record the scores.html frame by frame so you can watch the numbers go up and down in a time-lapse view.
Or (what would need this mod for) a view of the map progressing thru the game. Watching the flags gain ground and lose ground as the game is played out until one nation rules. Then display an image of that god declaring victory!

(or more likely, wait for someone to grab the ideas and do them better than I could):smash:

Re: project: a watcher nation
 

That last post sounds close to my game graphs. You are aware of them? See my Drawing pretty graphs thread, the files are on your server.

http://valhalla.techno-mage.com/scores/scoresgraphs.php for scores.html to chart and
http://valhalla.techno-mage.com/webstats.php for displaying a graph over time.

I have started something else that shows province overship for a map, too, but I didn't complete it. It's on my long backlog list of projects.

Re: project: a watcher nation
 

I totally understand long backlists of projects. I had something like that also. I was working on stripping a map to just the borders, recording the white-pixels as XY locations, and using it to fill in the nations color to show ownership. It was to duplicate the game-progression view of many other games.

Re: project: a watcher nation
 

OK I think I can get most of this but the spell part.
Does anyone want to help out with how to put "Eyes of God" into a magic site?

Re: project: a watcher nation
 

Or does anyone know how to change the gem cost of a copied spell?

Re: project: a watcher nation
 

It's in the mod manual.

Re: project: a watcher nation
 

As always I always count on and fully appreciate your helpful suggestions Sombre

Re: project: a watcher nation
 

OK I have this so far. Its about as close as I can get to what I want.

#newspell 2999
#copyspell "the Eyes of God"
#name "Observance"
#researchlevel 0
#restricted 94
#end

But I cant seem to change some things. It still requires that I build up 50 gems before I can cast it. Giving a gem income to the Watcher god I made helps but not the best answer. Id like to be able to cast it on the first turn and forget about it.

And I cant seem to get it to be non-global.

Does anyone know the "effects number" for this spell?
Or the Spec Number for worldwide if its seperate from global?

Re: project: a watcher nation
 

-rolls eyes-

The first thing you're trying to do (set the cost) is clearly laid out in the mod manual. Under spell modding.

As for making it non global,.... do you mean you don't want it to take up a slot, but still want the full Eyes of God effect? I don't think that's going to be possible.

Heehee. Manual isnt that helpful at finding out you spelled the command wrong. :) Ok changing fatigue cost to fatiguecost helped that alot.

As for the other; I know that few people have played with the eff and spec commands but it appears that the global bit setting is seperate from the spell effects bit setting. Copying the spell might not be a good idea since Im not sure if the bit setting can be used to alter the mask once its in place. But maybe building the spell from scratch and adding the Eyes of God effect without the global added in could work.

Re: project: a watcher nation
 

As I explained in the Spell Guide Beta-0 thread, your current line of thought unfortunately leads nowhere. So here's a more fruitful thing that you could do, simulating the same as the Eyes of God global:

1. Copy the spell "Astral Window" into something that requires no gems and is pretty much impossible to cast (H8S10B10 or something like that), via spell modding.
2. Add a totally inaccessible province with lots of H8S10B10 casters, as many as there are other provinces in the game, via map modding. Set them to monthly cast. Have them target all the provinces that are on the map.

Alternatively, use regular Commanders and give them all Stone Spheres via map modding. A bit of a problem is that Stone Spheres have a slight chance of giving horror marks, which will increase hosting times a bit (horror marking checks, horror attack checks) and might make you lose one of your scrying commanders to a horror over time.

That's probably the closest you'll get with modding only, for a Watcher nation that doesn't take up a global slot.

Re: project: a watcher nation
 

OK. After finally placing an alpha version of this on my website, a couple days later Johan gives permission for me to discuss some of the hidden switches in Dom3. The --comptrn switch in particular will make this project not as big a deal as before.

It will still have some possible use in mega MP games. But I was more interested in letting people watch mega AI games.

But now everyone has a "watcher" on their machine. If you start a game with AIs, and use the --comptrn switch, then Dom3 will create trun files for everyone including the AIs. That means if Ulm is an AI that you can pick up Ulms file and look at it. See what Ulm buys, makes, researches, assigns, etc.

Thank you Johan for releasing some of the NDA (non-disclosure agreement) stuff from the beta group. I have hated not being able to discuss things like the hidden switches before now.

Re: project: a watcher nation
 

OK the Watcher mod on my site has been updated to version 02.
http://www.Dom3Minions.com
I neglected to make the observance spell available on all 3 eras. Since I usually use era 1 to test I failed to notice it for abit.

The mod is still not in its final stage but I have found it useful already. Mostly for testing maps, and nations mods. I can enter the game as Watcher and cast observance on the first turn. That lets me see how the nations have been placed on the maps (far enough, too grouped, or maybe not enough starts). And I can watch the early growth of nation mods as AIs to see if they are "broken" as far as AI play.

I still think the mod will be useful in mega games for the admin. Add a white dot to the upper corner of the map and give it no neighbors. It makes a great home for the watcher nation to see the entire game, interact with messages or rewards, and not affect the game play.

So far the only problem is the Observance spell taking a global slot. Im still working on that but for now you could safely use it until globals start showing up in the game.