Suqqestions for new modding commands

[Endoperez]

I have had few ideas, but at the moment they can't be modded to the game. Because of that, I decided to make this thread. First ones are pretty generic, and the ones concerning heroes can give out many more possibilities when creating new ones. Any comments are welcome. Feel free to add your own ideas.

#copy
usaeable both when modding spells and units. Propably needs two different names, #copyspell and #copyunit would do fine. This command lets one make new spells or units that have many things common with existing ones, eg. to make new Berserker Priestess heroine to Arcoscephale. You just #copyunit normal priestess, give him (auto-)berserk, add one more level of nature magic and few hitpoints. Depending on how the command is implemented you might need to create new sprites as well. #Copyspell would ideally make it possible to make new spells, Earth Meld remake for Water would be easy example. #Copyspell "Earth Meld", change the magics, make it only castable underwater and you've got a new spell! Or if you want to make a series of new Blood spells summoning 1+ devils/ frost fiends etc. instead of current 1, #copyspell "Summon Devil", make it cost some more bloodslaves and raise Blood requirement a little. (And add that plus to it too, if it is possible.) I am not asking for #copyitem or #copysite because they won't be useful before there is some kind of modding for items/ sites too. Does IW have any plans regarding that?


Advanced Heroes Modding:
#addspell, #bodyguards, #ownitem...
With AHM-commands, you have more control over that hero. He might come with a magical item of his own (not something he would give away!), some bodyguards or even new spell to add to your repertuare!
I am thinking those spells as new "national" (level 0) spells, added to the mix when the hero comes forth in the game. This would make it possible to have a heroic Bard to come singing to the Fortress of Man and dish out a new spell song, as an example.

The #bodyguards -command does the same things as it does to the normal commanders when writing a .map-file, give him some guards. I'm not sure if they should be removable or not.

the #ownitem would have the hero come with an item, preferably one that would be considered cursed. Or maybe the hero would act as a mercenary... But mercenaries are greedy in other ways too. I can't really say how hard this would be to add, but for me it would be a nice addition. It would also be used to limit the heroes, as an example if someone thinks C'tis shaman hero shouldn't give C'tis easy access to Astral-3 with a Starshine Skullcap, he could mod him to come with only one level of Astral and a build-in Starshine cap! He could still use a Moonvine Pendant, but that is harder to make...


And a few ideas concerning Item modding.

if a #copyitem command is added, and the type and the cost of an item are moddable, much can be done. A weapon granting regeneration would be done by #copying Ring or Armor giving that ability and changing it to a one-handed weapon...
#firereq, #earthreq etc. adjust the skills needed to forge the item, and #rarity tells the level of construction needed to make it. #rarity could be a number from 0 to 5, level 0 item would be a trinket, level 4 one an artifact and level 5 one unforgeable (like Precious, Hammer of the Cyclops).
#firedamage, #colddamage etc. would make a weapon to dish out that amount of elemental damage when it hits.
Preferably item commands would be same as those that can be used when modding commaders but being added to the original values (of a wearer). I don't know if this fits in with the way items are considered now...
#castspell would let the wearer to cast a spesific spell. I would love to be able to make new items like Nethgul and Green eye, but I don't think that will be worth the work. There are other special powers I would like to see, but most of them could be acquired with #copyitem if it is implemented.


Here they are, some new ideas, most propably too hard to make and few that will hopefully be seen... I will be happy if even one of these comes true, and I have my hopes high as far as item modding goes... I would like to thank Illwinter for all the fun I have got to this day! Your games have been very enjoyable experience, and I still have three new nations to try out... And all the different themes!
(If someone didn't realize, I had a nice moment in a MP game today. )

[Vicious Love]

D'oh, beat me to this.
I was going to make every single suggestion on that list yesterday, along with a few others, such as being able to summon allies, having random battle afflictions upon recruitment, plus about 50% of my lamentations on Theldan's Warhammer thread. Then my girlfriend called, and we spent the rest of the night imitating blue-footed boobies, searching for pictures of Jeremy Irons, finding out who "Neil Barker" is, and giggling uncontrollably. I kid you not.
Of course, all of my suggestions woulda been biased by my own modding goals, all of which are very clearly defined and probably don't carry over well to general-purpose modding, so I'll mostly just let my skavenwhine speak for itself, without cluttering this thread too much.
A few suggestions I think might actually be useful outside skavenmod:

Modding afflictions(Either for specific units, for all units or, ideally, for all units with certain abilities/stats/size/whatever)

The ability to randomize certain stats, rather than just spell picks

Probably some other stuff, but the dog desperately needs a walk, and I've got work to do afterwards. Life's a *****.

Edit: Oh, yeah, merc modding, too. Definitely walking the dog now. Tearing self from forum. I am indestructible.

[ April 19, 2004, 19:52: Message edited by: Vicious Love ]

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by Vicious Love:
The ability to randomize certain stats, rather than just spell picks

Ive been debating moving from the random map scenario area (writing programs which write random surprises to the .map file) into the random mod area. Since the .dm file is a text file it shouldnt be any harder to write a program to randomize as much as possible without adding new units.

I havent really looked at mod commands but dont they allow you to change stats and add abilitys to units in the game without having to dupe them first? The description might say that an experiment into a new global spell went terribly terribly wrong. Count 1 to 1087 (number of units in the game) and randomly alter 1 thing. I think it would be fun to jump into the game and checkout your troops to see what you gained and lost, discover what independents are now easy or hard, find out if all that expense on that summons was a horrible waste or a wonderful surprise.


[ April 19, 2004, 20:27: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[Endoperez]

As always, Gandalf's random are interesting. That wouldn't work for all people, though... And you could of course be just majorly handicapped. Also, what about your pretender? Would you see the randomization before or after the creation?

(I shudder to see what happens if Gandalf ever makes a program that mods EVERYTHING in the game in a random way. Random sites everywhere doing random things, random items everywhere doing random things and giving out random afflictions... That will make interesting singleplayer, though!)

[Leif_-]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:

I havent really looked at mod commands but dont they allow you to change stats and add abilitys to units in the game without having to dupe them first? The description might say that an experiment into a new global spell went terribly terribly wrong. Count 1 to 1087 (number of units in the game) and randomly alter 1 thing.

A quick hack, which only makes changes to the units stats: http://home.Online.no/~rmoldskr/Dominions/RandomMod.pl

[Tuna-Fish]

Well Gandalf...

code:

---

x == 1

for x



write (#select monster) x

write random (#ambidextrous -- #wastesurvival), //perhaps excluding magic

paths and giving predesignated values for those abilities that need them,

like berserk would always be 3 and a standard

 would always be 7



write (#end)

while x < 1087

---

Please excuse my horrible attempt at pseudo-code.

Just adding the abilities wouldn't be hard. You teach me to code and I'll do it myself. Modifying the stats would be a little more tricky, as there's no way one can tell what an unit's orginal stats are. Perhaps one can throw in some predefined stat values that are either very useful, or catastrofic for most units. Like #enc 20 or #enc 0.

Even without real value randomizing, it'll be very fun to find out that your hoplites have a disease cloud, your mystics are beserkers, your astrologers trample, and that standard indy militia is immortal. Oh screw this, make it 2 random abilities/ commander

fixed my screwed code tag

[ April 19, 2004, 21:48: Message edited by: Tuna-Fish ]

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by Tuna-Fish:
Just adding the abilities wouldn't be hard. You teach me to code and I'll do it myself.

Your psuedo code looks close enough to me. I dont think you want an old geezer like me to teach you. But if you want to do it my way just go to www.yabasic.org or the xbasic site (if you prefer a visual environment) and download a free BASIC programming language.
(yes yes I know. Or perl, or python, or scheme, or a hundred other free Languages)

Modifying the stats would be a little more tricky, as there's no way one can tell what an unit's orginal stats are. Perhaps one can throw in some predefined stat values that are either very useful, or catastrofic for most units. Like #enc 20 or #enc 0.

I wouldnt care what it was to start with. The idea is that if it equally messes with everything in the game then it will balance (kindof). I was thinking of something like a random stat being assigned a random number, with a slight chance of getting some ability added.

[ April 19, 2004, 22:08: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[Leif_-]

I've whipped up a simple script to create such a random mod, and included it with my DomScripts.zip file on my homepage.

The script, named RandomUnitsMod.pl, basically changes one randomly selected stat for every unit to a random value, one quarter of the units also gets a randomly selected new weapon and half the units gets a randomly selected new ability.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by Leif_-:
I've whipped up a simple script to create such a random mod, and included it with my DomScripts.zip file on my homepage.

The script, named RandomUnitsMod.pl, basically changes one randomly selected stat for every unit to a random value, one quarter of the units also gets a randomly selected new weapon and half the units gets a randomly selected new ability.

Man I gotta watch out what ideas I leave laying around (just kidding). Great work. I added it to my links page.

[Leif_-]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
Man I gotta watch out what ideas I leave laying around (just kidding). Great work. I added it to my links page.

Of course I do. (Is there a smiley for "breathes on my fingernails and buffs them off on my shirt"?)

Anyway, for those who'd like to try out such a mod, but don't want the hassle of installing perl and mucking about with scripts, I've put up a generated mod on http://home.Online.no/~rmoldskr/Dominions/

Oh, and incidentally, I removed the stand-alone RandomUnitsMod.pl file from my web-page, as it's now included (as random_units_mod.pl) in DomScripts.zip - so you might want to update your link.

[ April 20, 2004, 06:46: Message edited by: Leif_- ]