Double the Ulm, double the fun!

[Endoperez]

Okay, thanks for that. So we need that program I mentioned earlier. I quote it here:

"For this to be really worth the effort we (= I, hint hint ) would need a program that chooses the starting provinces of the nations by scanning the .map file and clears those provinces, adds a fort of the right type into it, adds special magic sites and new national starting units as well as the right pretender to it (some might not be needed, though). If that program would be made it would be great if you also were able to make .pr files which would contain province info. It would have terrain needed for the province (eg. forest for druids), rarity, defenders by Dominions name/id and numbers in correspondance to each other/changable variable similar to Dominion's indep. power. Also commander orders and rarity.

Program could be used to create a new, modified .map file in which the provinces would be hardcoded to whatever the program had randomized. Each run of the program would make different maps, even with the same choices and files.

This would make it easy to add quite spesial provinces, eg. "Dragonspine Mountains" defended by Beast Trainer in command of some fire drakes, Abysian Infantries and Humanbreds. There would always be two times as many Humanbreds as Abysians and Drakes together, so their numbers would be 1, 1/4 and 1/4 or something similar. There would always be a Volcano in this Common Unique province, so the map randomiser program would only put one of these in the map, but it would be somewhere almost always."

If we got a program like that we could, as an example, define Unique Quaranteed province Ulm that can only exist on forest, mountain or maybe a province bordering mountain. We would also define the map commands that would be written to the .map file, and with this define the starting spell. Mapping and modding put together, added to a quite a deal of randomization... Any volunteers?

[PDF]

About the heroes issues ; IIRC it's easy to have Ulm heroes with modded Ulmish Abysia, this only requires putting the Ulmish heroes stats/icons with the Abysian heroes'ID in the mod file

[Endoperez]

I know, but this would not work if Ulm replaces something else than Abysia. I wish we will get modding commands for easily creating new heroes, but ATM I won't be doing through the hassle of checking all the heroes of all the nations and see if they can be replaced.

[PDF]

Endoperez said:
I know, but this would not work if Ulm replaces something else than Abysia. I wish we will get modding commands for easily creating new heroes, but ATM I won't be doing through the hassle of checking all the heroes of all the nations and see if they can be replaced.

I'm not sure I follow you... Anyway your mod have to be nation-specific, and the hero description you have to put in the mod don't change, only the ID has to... Where's the problem ?
Sure that not getting heroes isn't a big penalty to Ulm and its crappy heroes, but for nations such as Jotunheim it would be more of a problem.

[PvK]

Hmm. If you're going to use a modded map, one approach would be to give everyone the heroes they need there, from the start.

Otherwise, I didn't think you could mod the heroes without hijacking the existing unit numbers for a nation, which meant you needed to create new copies of their bitmaps, which I anyway found to be a big chore.

Anyway, I'd suggest the general approach that if there is something that is hard to give to a clone nation, try giving them something else that is thematic and similar but slightly different. For example, if you don't have a good way to give clone-Ermor Body Ethereal from the start, maybe let them recruit Shadow Vestals instead. Ermor seems like one of the hardest to do though because they have special spells and undead effects.

PvK

[Endoperez]

If there was a program that could write mod files, changing the heroes of nation with heroes of other nation, I might go through the heroes of all nations and create a file(s) for it to work. But I'm not going to do 17 Versions (one replacing heroes of one nation with the heroes of the nation that replaces it) for every nation replacement mod I will do.

[Endoperez]

PvK said:
Hmm. If you're going to use a modded map, one approach would be to give everyone the heroes they need there, from the start.

And no one would take Luck? It would suit some games, but I wouldn't like it so I won't be making it.

Otherwise, I didn't think you could mod the heroes without hijacking the existing unit numbers for a nation, which meant you needed to create new copies of their bitmaps, which I anyway found to be a big chore.

Ouch, I hadn't thought of that. Some new modding commands would be a bLast. If #school -2 didn't take the chosen spell away from its normal place and we had command for adding heroes cloning nations would be much easier.

Anyway, I'd suggest the general approach that if there is something that is hard to give to a clone nation, try giving them something else that is thematic and similar but slightly different. For example, if you don't have a good way to give clone-Ermor Body Ethereal from the start, maybe let them recruit Shadow Vestals instead. Ermor seems like one of the hardest to do though because they have special spells and undead effects.

Ermor is one of the worst, but the fact that makes it *really* hard to clone is rather hard to get around... They have three spells named Unholy Blessing. They can only be modded to have the first. Body Ethereal can be added through map commands, and unholy spells can be modded in without changing anything.

If I were to change something I would change the special unit they get from their two temples to something tougher. Maybe just giving it more protection, maybe special ability like paralyzation, high fear or even awe.

Thanks for your comments!

[Tuidjy]

It seems that many people would like to play a game of Dominions II that would
be more about national armies than about magic and summoned creatures. I do
not think that it would be that hard to have a setting which limits the
research level. For example, with research limited at 3, there would be no
false horrors, no battlefield affecting damage spells, no drain life... armies
would matter a lot more, especially if supercombatant pretenders are forbidden.

[Zooko]

There is a setting for research difficulty. Presumably if you set it to "difficult" or "very difficult" then this would have desired effect.

[archaeolept]

heh no.

going "very difficult" research does increase the longevity of national armies, no doubt.

but, perhaps paradoxically, it almost makes research more important, since if you get behind it is almost impossible to catch up; or if someone researches a devastating combo, you will be unable to research it's counter.