Patch 3.23
 

Well I haven't seen any topic yet... so I created one regarding the new patch 3.23 . Besides all the great new stuff we've been reading from the patch thread I also noticed we have an updated mapedit.pdf and an updated modding.pdf documents!


Kool beans... huge thanks Illwinter! :) Well back to playing Dominions_3:
:fight:

Re: Patch 3.23
 

Oh, it's public. Nice...

How many of you play with the grass enabled? The #groundcol command can be used to create great desert landscape with reddish values, but the unchanged grass really ruins the image.

Map Editor (in Game Tools) can be used to create custom battlefields. Press Space to hide the menu, press ? to see available commands, object placement mode puts in objects, numpad numbers affect the objects. 7 and 1 scale the objects, and I think you can rotate them from other keys. You can't set the custom battlefields not to use grass.

Re: Patch 3.23
 

Everybody, grab your old turn files where your SCs were lost in space and time, and watch the void battles! :)

I really like the announced "Monthly site searching with spells stopped targeting when no more prime targets were available. Now it will search through less likely locations after the good ones have been searched.", too.

Re: Patch 3.23
 

Indeed. I just hope it will start targeting every province - I always seem to have two or three provinces in my lands that the monthly casting AI simply... ignores.

The item-to-lab hotkey also really makes life easier.

Re: Patch 3.23
 

The new site-searching is perfect. It doesn't search your capital (I didn't remember to test for enemy capitals), it eventually cycles through all provinces with less than four known sites that hasn't already been searched by a level 4 mage, and it favours unsearched provinces with few magic sites.

Re: Patch 3.23
 

Some more minor things that aren't in the patch release notes:

• Some more items now help to escape from the Inferno and/or Cocytos hells, like Tome of the Lower Planes does.
• Some nasty evil blood items just got nastier.
• Mandaha and Davana are now named Mandeha and Danava, respectively.
• Yama-no-kami (2097) now domsummons wolves and Black Hawks.

Re: Patch 3.23
 

Anyway to know to which factions belong those new units ? (even if some are quite clear)

Re: Patch 3.23
 

Jomon, exclusively I think.

Re: Patch 3.23
 

Thanks, even if I would have bet the Monk of the Fivefold Path was for Bogarus.

Re: Patch 3.23
 

The underwater Jomon units are mostly available from underwater forts, not as summons.

Monks of the Fivefold Path just happen to have a similar name, but the reason is very different. They have five mixed holy/magic spells, and each Monk can only cast one of them, depending on his random.

Re: Patch 3.23
 

And some of them are rather nice-looking. The H/A AoE2 Arrow Fend effect is a lovely thing for Jomon to be given. With the other spells being equally fun, I can see quite a few benefits to prophetising a Master Shugenja.

It's also nice to see another nation gain the ability to take on R'lyeh. Shrimp Soldiers and Shark Soldiers are pretty handy against indies, although I can imagine the low MR being an issue.

Re: Patch 3.23
 

Endo: _Thank you_ for telling me about the Holy spells for the Fivefold Monks. At first, I was scratching my head as to their purpose.

So the Ryujin is an underwater recruitable, along with the other two?

Are the Tatsu unique summons, or just somewhat random in their picks?

Re: Patch 3.23
 

Making an Onmyo-ji with a nature random a prophet for Jomon results in a scary, scary combat mage.

Reason? The H1N1 holy spell Teaching Sign increases the caster's magic paths by one for the duration of the battle, so a F1S2N1H3 Onmyo-ji casts teaching sign and is suddenly F2S3N2H4 and so forth. The Meditation Sign (HW) halves current fatigue.

Dai Tengu is also scary, because they have a fixed nature pick. Teaching Sign turns them to A4E2N2H3 and then you can crank up reinvigoration with Earthpower and then start spamming Thunderstrike. Pick a bunch of them, give one Staff of Storms and it's Teaching Sign, Storm Power and that's thunderstrikes at A5 and they'll keep going all day...

I'm quite certain that some of these things will make for pretty significant changes to combat effectiveness indeed.

Re: Patch 3.23
 

Sooo... from what I'm hearing, Jomon's battle magic just got kicked up a notch.

Also, I assume that if you have the Onmyoji prophet above, and he leads a reverse communion of Onmyoji, and casts Teaching Sign and Meditation Sign, all of the communicants get +1 to all paths and halve their fatigue?

That sounds fabulous. ;)

Re: Patch 3.23
 

There also seem to be new unit names in the patch, which is very nice to see. Although the generation of 'Kemma #addname' feels like a bit of a bug.

Re: Patch 3.23
 

Kannushi also got bumped to H2, so now Jomon has a cheap H2 Sermonizer recruitable everywhere and can also better deal with undead. Kannushi can also rarely get Five Elements magic, and those can use the signs.

Re: Patch 3.23
 

Very nice! :)

Re: Patch 3.23
 

What does "Increased max number of effects per magic item" mean in terms of gameplay? Was there some magic item not working properly before due to this limit, or is this actually something we can play with?

Re: Patch 3.23
 

Not accessible to modders yet, but some items got extra attributes.

Re: Patch 3.23
 

Edi: Wasn't the Kannushi always Holy-2?

Re: Patch 3.23
 

Just what it says. The item data is now nicely aligned in memory. :)
No, not really. The Gift of Kurgi gained a new effect that now would have used up the maximum amount of effects an item may have, but it didn't go over the limit yet, nor did any other item do that. All items gained two more possible effects.

Re: Patch 3.23
 

I'm not a code diver so I'm going from what I think I remember - but I thought items were limited to four effects in code. This increases it to six.

I .. suspect... that GoK added an ability to escape inferno or what have you .. but .. who knows.

Re: Patch 3.23
 

No, they were limited to eight effects before, now there's room for ten. And items can add flags on top of effects, plus item spells, so you may count this differently.

The Gift of Kurgi didn't gain the effect to escape from one of the hells, it just gained an effect that I expect to be something nasty, I didn't look it up yet. Other items that gained the same effect are Lightless Lantern and The Forbidden Light; and Nethgul actually reduces it a little.

Items that gained the effect to help escape from the hells now are Demon Whip, Sword of Justice, Brazen Vessel, Lifelong Protection and The Ark.

Re: Patch 3.23
 

Can you tell us more about these new effects that some items got?

Re: Patch 3.23
 

For the set listed, I'd guess it had to do with Horrors or the Void somehow.

Re: Patch 3.23
 

I guess I'm a bit late, but OOH GOODY SPACE PROVINCES CAN LOOK LIKE SPACE! :up:

Now all we need to do is get rdonj to get back to slaving away on that map of his. :p

Re: Patch 3.23
 

Stupid question here: will old savegames use the updated data?

Re: Patch 3.23
 

Yep! The process is pretty slick really.

Re: Patch 3.23
 

Mighty yari used by the Kaijin is currently a ranged weopon. Should be a melee weopon instead?

Re: Patch 3.23
 

well, a yari is pretty long...

;p

thanks for another patch guys!

Re: Patch 3.23
 

Do those work in a reverse communion, too...?
Communion Master - Teaching Sign - Power of the Spheres - Meditation Sign Meditation Sign

edit: Should read the whole thread before answering...

Re: Patch 3.23
 

Ah, but you still have to come up with skyboxes for me to use first. Kekekekeke!

Re: Patch 3.23
 

What, the Kaijin is in the game? I thought that he was just a draft because he isn't in the patch announcement. In that case I have a bug report to make: He doesn't grow less powerful in his magics when leaving the water, like advertised in his description text.

Re: Patch 3.23
 

Ok, what we need now is a good Jomon guide by Baalz or AreaOfEffect :) Because honestly I don't feel that Jomon got any singificant power-up with this patch. Maybe I'm just missing something, so the guide would be most useful.

Re: Patch 3.23
 

What..??? This looks huge!

Re: Patch 3.23
 

Well, the basic units aren't powered up. The new national holy spells and the u/w units and commanders are cool though. For instance, Ryujin are great for forging certain items you'll find rather handy. Their battle magic can be impressive, too.

I reckon it'll put Jomon pretty near par with the rest of LA, used properly.

Re: Patch 3.23
 

oh, i love the new jomon stuff. A++++ would play again :)

edit: how does one get Shikome? there seems to be no spell for them... are they some unit's autosummon?

++edit: ah, ok, yomi summons

Re: Patch 3.23
 

Shikome exists as a EA Yomi summon spell.

Re: Patch 3.23
 

So, what's the Lightless Lantern additional effect?

I'm scared. :shock:

Re: Patch 3.23
 

WHAT? Please don't change it! I like it the way it is very much, unless it's a positive effect? :)

Re: Patch 3.23
 

Can you tell us the lightless lantern effect, anyone, please?

If its a bad effect, then I am a little concerned about my 100's of mages in many MP games who are currently holding lightless lanterns. If a increased chance of a horror poping up or something. Wasn't the horror marking it does now and the fact they were reseach 6 enough of a drawback/negative on them?

Re: Patch 3.23
 

Yeah I'm afraid, I've got a bunch of games as abysia right now and lanterns are pretty central to giving them any kind of decent research.. I'm in for a world of hurt if all my lantern holders start copping some serious pain

Re: Patch 3.23
 

I somehow suspect that it's the other way around, and they will help you get out of hell. But this is just guessing (It seems sort of thematic)

Re: Patch 3.23
 

Make a test game with a hundred Lightless Lanterns in it, if that doesn't make you find out the effect I'll take a look. :P The value for it on the Lantern is 10, which I'd expect to be a percentage value for something that may happen during hosting, so it should be quite easy to make out. Lightless Lanterns already had a 3% chance to horror mark.

Re: Patch 3.23
 

The light of a lightless lantern is supposed to attract horrors to the user. Perhaps users occassionally become lost in space and time. It would allow many people, in many games to see lost in time and space battles.:) Another new patch feature, apparently.

Just a guess, but it would be evil, very evil...

Re: Patch 3.23
 

BTW, something that isn't on the changelog, the wolf and werewolf forms of Jotun Skratti and Jotun Skinshifters now cost the same gold as their original forms. I don't really understand the change on Jotun Skinshifters (was there some exploit that managed to keep them in their secondshapes?) but no more upkeep free Skratti research for you exploit users, I'm afraid.

Re: Patch 3.23
 

Actually, Poopsi might be right. There already were effects to escape from Inferno and Kokytos, so it isn't that, but there wasn't an equivalent for the Void yet. Lightless Lanterns would make sense to help escape from the Void, maybe. It probably isn't an effect to get lost in time and space, as there's already an effect for that. Funny that Nethgul would try to keep you locked in, too. :)

Disclaimer: This is all still speculation!

Re: Patch 3.23
 

I just ran a test with 500 lanterns, over 50 turns, and did not notice anything happen other than an average 4 lesser horror attacks per month. None of the units were stuck in the void, though.

Re: Patch 3.23
 

Thanks, vfb. The horror attacks prolly just stem from the 3% horror marking chance. Since the only other changes to items that have been done are increased chances to escape from Inferno or Kokytos with them, and since the void/hell battles are finally being visible now, I'm pretty convinced that this new effect was added to help escape from the Void.

Re: Patch 3.23
 

Cool, I've got a couple mages in Preponderance messing around in some Strange Houses. I'll throw a lantern on each, since they are so cheap, but it'll probably be very difficult to actually notice if they are coming back faster after getting lost in time and space.

The horror attacks from the lanterns are totally par for the course, as you say. Nothing's new there.