New Map Utils For Dom2 - Now Available

[The_Paladin]

Dominions 2 Genesis Forge Pack Utilities Version 0.7 Beta is now available for download as an attachment to this post. Read the rest of the thread for details.

--- Original Message Follows ---

About a month ago I returned to this great game and it has been consuming much of my free time since (*sarcastically* thanks shrapnel ). Largely I returned because of Zen's and SaberCherry's excellent mods - practically a new game to learn again since a small change causes such a ripple effect in a complex game like dominions.

Anyways I developed a few utils for my personal use on my LAN. If the community is interested, I will iron out the bugs in them, enhance them a bit, and make them available.

Mostly these utils are for SP or CO-OP MP play though I could see use of them for imposing handicaps in regular MP.

The first is a util that takes a Dom2 map, randomly places all the specified nations on the map, and enhances those specified as computer players by giving them a specified number of extra provinces and extra castles in those provinces. Of course the computer provinces are in blocks (not just randomly across the world) and in the proper location (i.e. water nations in the water - though I have allowed the extra provinces to be outside the water or visa-versa for land nations). The util is practically ready for release save that it has a bug that I have been too lazy to fix but as I said if people show interest I will get off my lazy butt... sit back on my lazy butt ... then get to work.

The second is a util intended to further enhance the computer (again though could be used for handicapping humans) by creating a custom mod on the fly for each of the computer nations. At the moment this involves giving all of their national units a supplybonus (for obvious reasons), extra gem income by adding sites to their capital, and all their mages a research bonus (I tried giving them sages as a national commander but the... ever clever computer... wouldn't recruit them).

The third utility is an extension of sorts of the second but in this instance creates another random mod for each of the specified nations that gives them, based on user-specified data, additional abilities either chosen specifically or at random (note for clarity - not all nations get the same abilities - they are chosen on a nation-by-nation basis). Currently my list of such abilities for a nation is:

Note: when I specify something like [+2, +5, +7] it means the ability can be selected from either 2, 5, or 7.

- National troops gain +100 shock resistance
- National troops gain +100 fire resistance
- National troops gain +100 ice resistance
- National troops gain +100 poison resistance
(For these I would like to specify increments but presently modding doesn't allow that it seems)

- National troops gain [+3, +6, +9] to any of their stats
(HP, PROT, MR, STR, DEF, MOR, etc, etc).

- National commanders get standards
- National mages / commanders gain [+1, +2, +3] random magic skill picks
- National troops gain recuperation
- (Some) National troops gain regeneration
- (Some) National troops become ethereal
- (Some) National troops gain immortality
- Nations gain additional troops to recruit (hehe... I once had Ermor able to recruit immortal VQs... that was funny... until they whipped me with them).

Anyway I have a few others I'm sure I've forgotten but I'm sure people get the just of it. Utils 2 and 3 at present I manually change code for but again if interest is shown I will enable them to use a configuration file... if I'm really ambitious I might even make the abilities able to be configured by the user.

To me it makes the AI much more interesting and my CO-OP games certainty much more challenging. Util 1 means you see tons more national troops and Util 2 and 3 give you kind of interesting problems to deal with. For example I was playing as Caelum and Ulm... of all people... gained both cold and shock resistance. That was nasty and I had to resort to flaming arrows to even dent them. And another game I modified the storm spell to a low level without gem or fatigue requirements and every air nation was using storms all the time (just like humans ).

So if you are interested please post and let me know.

Oh and BTW for utils 2 and 3 I use the Recruitable Rebalance mod as a basis for the units before changes. So if I do go ahead with this I would feel obligated only to do so with SaberCherry's permission. So if you happen by SC, let me know if that's ok with you.

[Boron]

Wow your utils sound ultranice .
Please publish them. In a few weeks zen will release his nation mod too so you may have to base your tool 2+3 maybe upon Zen's nation mod too

[Gandalf Parker]

Nice work. What do you write in?

They sound close to the stuff Ive done on my site www.dom2minions.com or that Leif did on his (hmm I forget the site but Im sure its in the links page on mine)

Check them out. Most of mine are half-done unfinished projects. Feel free to snatch and comlete them. Also if you want to set something up for a nightly re-generation and download I can set something up for you

[Saber Cherry]

Using any of my work is fine with me, Mr. Paladin They sound like neat utilities! I only wish I had thought of something like that. I loved the feeling in Master of Magic and Age of Wonders for the first few games, when the capabilities of all the races were mysterious and scary...

[The_Paladin]

Thanks SaberCherry . For utils 2 & 3 I'll probably include a copy of your Recruitable Rebalance mod in the zip as I'll be using it as kind of a null / base unit mod in which to insert the new abilities at random.

[Endoperez]

I was planning to make a program that also edits DomII maps, and posibly mods too. I had different goals, like making independent nations (amazon provinces, new inpeds, indeps ruled by other units (like Lizards ruled by C'tissians)) etc. Also special provinces in spesific terrain that would have site/nation combinations.

Unfortunately, I only know Java. My holiday just started, and I was just about ready to start working on it, both to train my skills in Java and to have a useful util. Would you mind if I asked you for some help, spesifically, how does your program spesify those "blocks"?

[The_Paladin]

The original post has been edited and the first utility attached to it. I have tested it on both the Orania and Faerun maps it seems to work fine. However please let me know if you have any problems or any other comments / suggestions. The attachment contains a Windows executable, config file, and readme.

Installation is pretty simple - just extract the Zip to your Dominions 2\Maps directory and read the readme.txt for further instructions.

I will begin working on finalizing the other two utils as well but they will take longer than just an afternoon as this did. When they are done I will post them here.

I did not know about Zen's upcoming unit balance mod but I may look into that when the time comes as well. Thanks Boron.

Gandalf, I wrote the code in C++. I knew you had done work on random map generation before but I didn't know about all the other projects. It seems to me I've heard about Leif's work as well. At any rate I would say that my utils are in spirit close to your Semi-Random map thoughts you proposed in one of your links. Ironically enough I originally called my util DomMap before I realized that's the exact same thing you have on your site. I temporarily changed my to DomMapMod and when I get the others to a point I'm happy with them, I'll combine all three into a more unique name to prevent confusion.

If people are interested in my utils and once they get out of beta stage I may take you up on the offer to set up a regeneration download. For the time being though if you want to just host my file as well it would be appreciated.

[The_Paladin]

Project Update

It has been an incredibly busy week of work on this project for me. As I know I will be returning to a regular work schedule soon I wanted to get as much done as possible.

I will not delve into all the details but in summary I have mapped essentially 90% of the interesting portions (the portions I am interested in for this mod) of the Dom2.exe. The following items I know how to modify directly now. This is not a complete list - just a summary off the top of my head:

Nations
-------
- Cold Preference
- Recruitable units
- Starting magic sites

Dominions / Themes
------------------
- Design cost
- Scale requirements (no more turmoil for S&A will soon be possible - if you want at least)
- Recruitable units
- Starting Sites
- Restricting nations to specific themes

Units
-----
- All stats
- Some special attributes
- Some additional commands
- Armors and Weapons

(Basic) Armor
-------------
- Pretty much everything

(Basic) Weapons
---------------
- All stats
- Special attributes
- Associated animations / fx
- The special 'Damage Type' field! Should prove interesting but no more details at this point.

Magic Items
-----------
- Construction level
- Path costs
- Extra spell
- Combat spell
- some additional attributes

Magic Sites
-----------
- Gem Incomes
- Type, Level, and Frequency
- Some additional attributes

I haven't bothered with spells (yet) for the reason that it seems many of these items share a list of well over 200+ attribute / fx types that can be assigned. The spells make extensive use of this list and until I have a better idea what more of them do, mapping the spells would prove pointless. Additionally when more of this list is mapped, I will likely be able to modify all the additional attributes of the units, weapons, armor, etc, etc.

At present I am working on a GUI to allow others to implement these mods (partly also because if I have to look at one more piece of hexcode in the next few days I'm going to explode ).

All right - that's it.

[Endoperez]

Will it be possible to edit descriptions? That is my biggest gripe with the official modding tools.

All of this looks very good. And if you manage to make some kind of a GUI for it, it will help people to make more mods faster and much more easily. Great work! Keep it up!

[The_Paladin]

In the initial version I'm working on now I'm not going to include the ability to edit descriptions but in future versions it may be possible.

The issue with unit descriptions is basically that within they are often stored in variable length string buffers (this is probably due to both the complier and intentional development) which essentially means the new strings / descriptions have to be the exact same length as the old ones in order to function properly - either that or alter the entire string structure which then means that every reference to the old strings has to be updated which is rather difficult when hex-editing.

This issue can be worked around - possibly by expanding the data segment... but I hesitate to do that as it would make porting this change to other non-windows OS's very difficult.

I believe however many of the types of descriptions should be easy to alter and I will look into that after I have more of the GUI coded.