Good game, but....the AI is very bad.

[Kristoffer O]

You might wanna avoid militia 999 gold cost. Upkeep from random events will be horrible in this case. Also a problem if a nation begins the game with LI. Replace initial armies to avoid the problem.

[PvK]

Perhaps high resource cost would be enough.

Or better: low gold cost, at the correct level to balance them so they are not a bad choice anymore...

PvK

[delacroix]

Yep thanks and noted Kris. The only thing I'm worried with keeping default gold costs and 999 resources cost is that the AI may try to build a militia unit and in the process will block production in its independent province forever . Am going to test that out now though.


PS: editing the mod text file will take effect during already started games too. (To anyone who tried it out and wanted to avoid the high upkeep syndrome).

[ May 13, 2004, 18:58: Message edited by: delacroix ]

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by delacroix:
PS: editing the mod text file will take effect during already started games too. (To anyone who tried it out and wanted to avoid the high upkeep syndrome).

REALLY? Now as a Random Fanatic that brings some intresting possibilities to mind. Yes, very interesting

[delacroix]

Ok tested militia / LI at 999 resource costs with default gold costs and the AI built crossbowmen / archers in 2 of such provinces over 20 or so turns that had Militia available instead.

So its safe to assume the AI won't block production in all of its independent provinces due to the high resource unit costs. Maybe 1 or 2, maybe none ever, but never all of them .

[delacroix]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
REALLY? Now as a Random Fanatic that brings some intresting possibilities to mind. Yes, very interesting

Yep really. The only thing is you must quit dominions entirely for changes to take effect. I assume dominions reads/checks the mod files on load-up only. Of course the game has to be created/started with the mod file enabled.

I double-checked it again. Initially had the 999 resource militias. Exited game, edited my LI.dm down to 9 resources, restarted game, built 3 or so militia's. Had them appear next turn. Exited game, edited LI.dm back to 999 resource cost and went back into the game and now can't build them again since they changed back to 999 resources.

Haven't tested it, but I would assume that you can change any unit attributes on the fly without problems. Weapons/armor mods likely too. I'm not sure if scales and/or random event frequency can be changed on a per turn basis too, but again, a quick test can answer that.

[ May 13, 2004, 19:32: Message edited by: delacroix ]

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by delacroix:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
REALLY? Now as a Random Fanatic that brings some intresting possibilities to mind. Yes, very interesting

Yep really. The only thing is you must quit dominions entirely for changes to take effect. I assume dominions reads/checks the mod files on load-up only. Of course the game has to be created/started with the mod file enabled.

---

Hmmmm I will have to look at MODs again sometime. Most of my regrets are based on MAP commands which I play with more. I regretted not being able to change the game thats running based on triggers in the game. Triggers such as the game hitting turn #10 or turn #100, or having a certain player hit a certain number of provinces, or even randomly deciding its the "Season of Dragons" which will run until it randomly decides its that its not anymore. Or "Season of Vampires" or "Season of Trolls" or whatever.

If a MOD can be changed easily by a program (already verified) and the program can do random decisions (my specialty) or based on triggers (all the above are available) and a changed mod will take effect in an already ongoing game (as you say) then WHOOPEEE someone has turned me loose again! (althought I fully expect Leif to beat me to it)

The mentioned triggers are all now available for outside programs to process but didnt do me much good for maps since only graphic changes affect ongoing games in MAPs.

[ May 13, 2004, 20:13: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[delacroix]

Sounds like you'll be busy then Gandalf . I look forward to any works you may have on the matter.

Existing games don't seem to have any sort of check of whether the mods themselves get modded. I just renamed Unwise's Flag mod to LI.dm in my existing test game and started up the game, and lo and behold all the flags changed and militia no longer cost 999 resources.

Although the "you must quit the game for mod changes to occur" is a little bit of a hinderance. I wonder if there could be a way to have the game refresh mod files during the turn generation process or to have the game auto-quit/restart. But I guess you can't have everything you want lol.

If the mod commands could include some of the map-commands that would be a nice bonus too. Such as the ability to add monsters on a specific province (like the barbarian invasion random event), or change province ownership, or randomly add forts on random provinces to help the AI out, all during the middle of the game could make for some creative scripted scenarios. Although all of the above are 'random events' of the game, so they already happen mid-game and implementation of them into mod commands would not be too far-fetched. I don't know if said features already exist as mod-commands, but they aren't documented if they do.

edit : typo corrections

[ May 13, 2004, 22:17: Message edited by: delacroix ]

[Gandalf Parker]

"And on the 50th turn into the game the sun went dark and a global enchantment gone horribly wrong fell upon the world. No one seemed to claim having tried to cast it."

"We discovered that every province Ruby Amazons had suddenly become Vampires (troops) and Vampire Queens (commanders). Not only did the province I was attacking suddenly change (completely wiping out my army) but the province I already had allowed me to recruit them. Actually this would have been greatly in my favor except that the Onyx Amazons (which my enemy had 2 provinces for) had become various types of Horrors."

"Each turn of the sandclock causes me to fervently hope that this horrible enchantment had run out."

[ May 13, 2004, 23:12: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[MStavros]

Yup, 999 resource to 'disable' a specific unit for the AI is good enough.
999 gold might cause trouble sometime.