"mod" pretenders/nations set to AI after start ?

[CharonJr]

Hello,

I have been thinking about setting up a MP game with some AIs. But since the AI is fairly bad at pretender design I want to create their pretenders and set them to AI afterwards.

Is it possible to simulate higher AI levels by modding the pretenders (better scales/magic) and give boni (income/ressources/RP) to nations after the game has begun ?

CharonJr

[Sombre]

In short - yes.

As long as you know which magic sites and pretenders they have you can create a mod which alters their properties and gives the AI a bonus. For example you could add

#res 100
#gold 500

to an AI controlled site and as long as you had the mod file loaded from the beginning the changes would take place in the save game.

By the sounds of it you might have already started the game, in which case I'm sorry but it's too late. You need to have a 'blank' mod loaded up when you started the game, ready to have extra bits input when needed.

[CharonJr]

Thx for the answer, and nope, I have not started the game yet.

I have not checked this, but I got the impression that on the higher AI levels it gets an automatic boost to all of their sites (effectively the entire nation). Is it possible to add something like this ? Or does the AI only get a boost to their starting province ?

CharonJr

[Sombre]

Hmm. Well I know that the AI fudges resources, possibly research etc at higher levels,.. but I'm not sure in what way it does this, nor do I know the exact amounts.

One thing you could do to boost the AI is make a mod which changes the properties of the scales. For example you could give a much greater effect to the Order scale and then put all the AIs to order 3, while players are limited to order 1, or not using the order scale at all.

I can tell you that I'm 99% sure there's no way to alter or add stuff to the instrinsic AI bonus,.. at least using the normal modding tools. What I'd do is simply give the AI better starting sites with resource and gold boosts - you can, I believe, change these as you go along, increasing the power of the AI if you want it to stay in the game, or weakening it if it's drowning everyone with armies of crud.

[Jack_Trowell]

Do not use a mod for this : use map commands.

There are map commands that allow to preset a nation : you can choose the unit that will be used as their pretender (I think that you can use any unit in the game, even non pretender ones), and you can also chose their scales.

There's no pretender points involved : you could create a AI with all blesses to the max and only good scales if you want.

For exemple this will set for the nation chosen an archmage with dominions 9, S9W9N9 , Order 3 and Fire 1 (he will not have the base Archmage magic paths due to the clearmagic command) :

#god <nation number> "Archmage"
#clearmagic
#mag_astral 9
#mag_water 9
#mag_nature 9
#scale_chaos <nation nbr> -3
#scale_cold <nation nbr> -1
#dominionstr <nation nbr> 9

[Jack_Trowell]

In fact I thnink that you can use any commander command to the pretender (the #god command act as the #commander command, setting the pretender as the active commander for following commands), si you should even be able to equip the pretender with items

[Sombre]

That sounds good, but can you change things on the fly with that method? If you make a 'blank' mod you can boost or weaken the AI as needed during the course of the game (within reason).

On the other hand, the map method is a lot cleaner. Guess it's your call.

[Gandalf Parker]

I like to make a copy of the map and then paste in god files.

Another pro/con is that AFAIK (as-far-as-I-know) any mod changes would have to be loaded by every player. That gives them access to the information. The map method is only one time, at the beginning of the game, but not every player needs the copy of the .map file. In an MP game where the player doesnt have the map, only the .rgb is transmitted.

[CharonJr]

Hmm, interesting, thank you, I might combine both approaches, setup a nation via map commands and boost/lower them during the game if things get out of hand.

Now that I know that what I was looking for is possible I will have to seriously take a look at "how to mod"

Any suggestions where to look ? I am not sure since I might have skipped the section, but is anything mentioned in the manual or is there any .pdf-file on the CD ?

CharonJr

[Sombre]

Modding is actually a lot of fun, although it can be quite frustrating. Dom3 is remarkably easy to mod for and a lot of the time the only limit really is your imagination.

I suggest you try out some things on the modlist, get a feel of what's already out there and then,.. well personally I think a great way to learn modding is to make a replacement nation - it doesn't /need/ to have any new artwork and you can make something other people will enjoy.

Marignon reborn is a good example.

There's a modding manual which is 95% helpful included in your install of Dom3 in the docs folder. You can also glean a lot from rooting around in other people's .dm files. Amos' blood elves .dm file actually taught me as much as the manual did.