Mod Project - Metaphysics
 

Ok, these are some things that have been on my mind for some time, and I'm going to mod them in as far as possible. I'm not really sure if all of these things will ever make it into the game, I don't know when I will finish it, and I've only gotten to experimenting with some of them.
Still I have a good idea how to implement most things, so I thought I'll leave them open for discussion.
If you have any ideas, comments or want to help out, please post.


Goals of this project

a)
The campaign should last longer in turns. Come one this is the nastiest badasses of all time struggling for ultimate power in a world gonne mad!!!
It shouldn't end when real world wars just got warm.

b)
Proportionally turns should be made shorter. What's very important for me is that they don't grow the way they do now. Sure, large armies require more planning than small ones, but your everyday stuff should take approx the same time from turn 15 to 150. "Useless" micro should be avoided whereever possible.

c)
Late game should be given more personality. Mages are rare and expensive, (maybe summons, too?). Thomas the Black Priest is the battle mage of the third army and not some random guy out of your 500 researchers pool.
And he's not just attacking a random province for reducing the opponents income by 2%, he's leading the charge on a strategically important location.

d)
During early game magic should have a bigger impact.

e)
Game should be more dynamic, without troubling the player, though.




The first version of the researcher mod is available.

Researchers SP version all EA nations

Installation instructions
Unzip the file into your dominions mod folder
You will need python (http://www.python.org/) to use the script.

Using the mod
This is a SP version. Since the AI can't adapt to the new conditions I have enabled researching with mages and the magic scales are as in vanilla.
Furthermore you have to prepare the mod in order to play.

Say you want to play as Tir Na Nog. Before you create the game (this is important since it must be ready before the game starts) go into your mods folder and then into the "Meta" folder.
There is a file called Research.dm - open it. At the end of the file is a section called nations.
The entries look like this:

Now, look the nation number of the nation you want to play in the modding manual, page 24. As you can see Tir Na Nog is 13.
Next you find the block that starts with selectnation YourNationNumber. In our case it'sselectnation 13.
And then you put # before each line of this and only this block.

(All other selectnation blocks should be without #, if you want to start a game with another nation)
Run the python script with the folder of your savedgames as the first and the name of the game your going to create as the second argument.
Examples:
Main.py ~/dominions3/savedgames/ MyGame
C:\python\python.exe Main.py C:\dominions3\savedgames\ MyGame

Play (you need to use the --scoredump option). Always at late spring close dominions and run the script again with the same arguments to update the mod. It's unfortunate but necessary as dominions doesn't reload mods, unless closed and started again.

Research
 

All research will be conducted by dedicated researchers (pulling in a huge amount of RP - up to 180). There will be no need to spam mages just to keep competitive, instead it will be most effective to only recruit mages when needed (and you can use the free commander slots for thematic national commanders!).
There's several options to go from here, but I first want to discuss other changes that follow from that.

Random paths

Since you are not going to have enough mages to ensure lucking on the paths you need, many mages will be given different forms with predefined path picks.
So for example you will see 4 fortune tellers on your recruitment screen:
s2, sd, sn, sb
I thought that this should apply to all non-cap and weak cap-only mages.
So fortune teller and mage engineer, yes, archtheurg and oreiad no.

Money

Without having to buy castles/labs/researchers upfront, I'll have to reduce the money income somehow. However I think of doing this via the researchers upkeep and leaving more breathing room early on, while increasing the upkeep as the game progresses.
What interests me how will this effect the balance of the game, any ideas?

Research Boosters

Won't work as items, as I intended the mod. Summons? Full prize or dwarven hammer price?

Research Options
I thought about giving a nation exactly two researchers, but with dynamic output.
There are other options but this will change the dynamics of researcher spamming, has probably the least problems with exploits, and gives access to many other options.

Goal (d) -> research bonus early on
Goal (a) -> limit it later

Base research output on game progress, nation, number of labs, etc
I wanted to base it purely on game progress and nation. I dislike how powerful expanders will ultimately win the research race, thanks to higher income. Fixing output will allow comebacks, etc. and hopefully keep the game more interesting, especially for struggling players.
I also think it's thematically justified to balance nations into research and combat nations. Mictlan will not be better at research than Arco, even with much higher income, as Arco has a rich tradition of philosophers and enigneers to build on, while Mictlan is "a backward nation".
I'm not entirely decided on this, though.

Dynamic research upkeep. Size of nation?


Drawbacks: This will require different mods on server (dynamic) and client (static, for keeping annoyance low).
This means research output and maybe upkeep wont show correctly, it will be most likely a percentual value.

Problematic Items
 

Clams
I will keep Clams and co, however nerving them in some way, like increasing cost for each additional forge. There's only that much earth blood that can be squeezed out, and you have to drill deeper and deeper. :)

The chalice and artifacts
Hmm, whats the main reason for rushing to const8?
I'd like to make some oft hese unforgeable and hand them out to players for special archievements. Maybe winning the first arena battle after turn 40, if possible.

Provinces
 

I would love to flesh out the provinces a bit more.
I think I know how to make spells castable only in certain province types.

So, if you have read some strange authors I don't remember, you know that there are magic lines all over the world. Only where these lines cross the most powerful magic is possible.
So I'd like to limit the more powerful spells to be cast only in certain provinces.
Additionally I'd like to concentrate income in a few provinces, the other will be mostly worthless hinterlands.
So you should have more strategic options when attacking an enemy, cut him off his tartarian access, etc.
There could be additional rules like no castles or only wizard towers in high magic provinces.

I'm not entirely if everything of that can be made to work and I'm wondering if it's even worht the effort.
Thoughts?

Re: Mod Project - Metaphysics
 

Ambitious!

I wish you luck. I think a better strategy might be to focus on one part of this, get it realised and seek feedback from that though. Otherwise it's in danger of remaining just a big idea.

Re: Mod Project - Metaphysics
 

Yes, that's pretty much the plan, first research, then other stuff. ;)

Re: Mod Project - Metaphysics
 

IMO what you want (not recruiting mages for research) implies you can't recruit researchers either.
So these dedicated researchers could be:
- unique units of your nation, you'd start with one of these, immortal, so he wouldn't die even if assassinated. However, you run the risk of him getting seduced by a succubus or something like that.
- summons (level 0). How do you avoid spamming mages to spam these? A limited number per nation can work.

Be cautious. As described, this has side effects: You would transform LA Pythium into a blood nation for instance.

Why not make these spells very expensive and create magic sites with big reduction for casting?

Re: Mod Project - Metaphysics
 

Can't make sites like that.

Re: Mod Project - Metaphysics
 

You mean there's no map/mod command to create new -50% enchantment sites for instance? That's what I ment.

Re: Mod Project - Metaphysics
 

You could replace the starting scout for each nation with a mega-researcher.

Give all mages a big research malus so they end up being research 1 no matter what you do.