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.

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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.