Patch 'n mod

[Cainehill]

Edi said:
The clam is changed in the Oceania mod, I'm not sure if it's changed in 2.15 itself, because the Oceania mod code has the change implemented.

Heh. That seems to make it unlikely that the Oceania mod will be used in many MP games - certainly not games that include other nations like R'lyeh that can utilize clamming without the mod. (It'd be one thing if the mod removed clams altogether, but to take it away from some nations while keeping them for the Oceania theme?)

[Alneyan]

Well, a clam would be useful before ten turns are over if you only wanted to alchemise water gems into astral pearls (you would need 10 water to get 5 astral via alchemy, and so a clam is better after five turns in this case). I get your idea though, even if this particular rule does not require an host watch. Setting the hoarding items to cost 160 gems each would make any hoarding strategy slightly counter-productive.

On the same topic, it would actually be possible to enforce a limit on the number of hoarding items per player. They would be set to cost the said 160 gems, and the host would have one nation in the game (and only one province, cut from the rest of the world). Set the Wish spell to cost nothing and make it available only to the host's nation, and the host could still forge enough hoarding items and give them to the players once they pay the regular fee. Once a player reaches the level needed to cast Wish, the spell would be set to normal cost/level, and no longer host-only.

On a somewhat related matter: is there a way to prevent Dominion from spreading for a certain amount of turns? I have been trying to do that, but the best I can think of would be to put Stone Idols in all provinces neighbouring the starting provinces, but that would take several turns at the very least.

[PvK]

A clam might be useful before 10 or 20 turns, but that doesn't mean that hoarding clams beyond some limit for 10 or 20 turns would be a good idea if the penalty was going to be a referee making you lose a turn and throwing away your clams and other penalty items and gems. Even if you only lost the clams, it would prevent unlimited hoarding of them.

As for tricks to keep dominion from spreading... I think stone idols and/or skeptics would work, if you are imagining giving them to some sort of referee nation while other nations are inactive for a few turns. It wouldn't need to take many turns if the map were edited so that the referee nation starts with enough (a whole bunch of) amphibious spy units who are modded to be able to teleport on turn 1 (maybe Teleport can be a zero-gem national Water-1 spell for the first few turns).

PvK

[Alneyan]

Skeptics. That was what I needed. Every nation would start with some of them, and they would be put around the starting province to prevent Dominion spread. Once the game actually begins, the Skeptics would be killed in battle. Thanks PvK!

I just noticed the #additem command. *Sighs* It would have worked as well, though it would have been more cumbersome. I thought you couldn't give specific items to commanders via the map making options, but I was wrong (as I am wont to be).

[Kristoffer O]

Edi said:
This is a repost from the bug thread, but thought it should be put here as well because it is relevant to this thread and won't be buried under other issues.

Three bugs with Oceania:

• Mermidon (1101), the land-form, has wrong action points. It retains the AP value of the underwater form, Base 24 modified by armor, when it should have base 14. As a consequence, they are as fast as heavy cavalry on land.
• Turtle warriors turn to regular mermen (1046) when you take them to land and back to water again. This is because the regular Oceanian merman (1046) has land-form merman (1047), which is shared by the turtle warrior. 1047 reverts back to 1046, regardless of whether it started out as turtle warrior or merman 1046.
• Turtle Captain suffers the same fate as turtle warrior, he just becomes merman captain.

I think the turtle warrior and captain bugs are a consequence of incorrect secondshape assignment, because turtle warrior is #1097 and turtle captain is #1099, but I can't get monsters #1098 and #1100 (presumably the turtle warrior and captain landforms, respectively) visible in any way. These bugs take a lot of the flavor out from Oceania, in my opinion.

Edi

Crap!

The Mermidon is quite easily fixed. Just paste in this in the oceania.dm
#selectmonster 1101
#ap 14
#end

The landshape stuff is more of a problem. There is currently no landshape modding command. A patch is needed to fix this problem.

BTW the turtle captain had cavalry move as well in his land shape.

There is an ad hoc way to solve the problem. The independent merman (can be found in independent seas) can be replaced by turtle warriors. The result would be that other uw nations might come across turtle warriors, but it is not very likely.

Making the independent merman a turtle warrior:
#selectmonster 1065
#descr "Mermen are amphibious beings related to Tritons but have fish tails instead of legs. Mermen have strange powers of transformation and can remove their tails to walk on dry land. Some mermen build coastal villages. They are used to fighting on dry land. They are called turtle warriors by their bethren and are often used in raids on inland provinces."
#spr1 "./oceandata/turt1.tga"
#spr2 "./oceandata/turt2.tga"
#weapon 1
#armor 25
#armor 114
#end

#selectmonster 1066
#descr "Mermen are amphibious beings related to Tritons but have fish tails instead of legs. Mermen have strange powers of transformation and can remove their tails to walk on dry land. Some mermen build coastal villages. They are used to fighting on dry land. They are called turtle warriors by their bethren and are often used in raids on inland provinces."
#spr1 "./oceandata/turtland1.tga"
#spr2 "./oceandata/turtland2.tga"
#def 10
#weapon 1
#armor 25
#armor 114
#end

Making the independent merman captain a turtle captain:
#selectmonster 1067
#descr "Mermen are amphibious beings related to Tritons but have fish tails instead of legs. Mermen have strange powers of transformation and can remove their tails to walk on dry land. Some mermen build coastal villages. They are used to fighting on dry land. They are called turtle warriors by their bethren and are often used in raids on inland provinces."
#spr1 "./oceandata/turtcap1.tga"
#spr2 "./oceandata/turtcap2.tga"
#hp 12
#str 11
#weapon 1
#armor 25
#armor 114
#end

#selectmonster 1068
#descr "Mermen are amphibious beings related to Tritons but have fish tails instead of legs. Mermen have strange powers of transformation and can remove their tails to walk on dry land. Some mermen build coastal villages. They are used to fighting on dry land. They are called turtle warriors by their bethren and are often used in raids on inland provinces."
#spr1 "./oceandata/turtcapland1.tga"
#spr2 "./oceandata/turtcapland2.tga"
#hp 12
#str 11
#def 10
#weapon 1
#armor 25
#armor 114
#end

You will also have to replace the recruitment nbr of the turtle warriors with the new ones.

#addrecunit 1097 -> #addrecunit 1065
#addreccom 1099 -> #addreccom 1067


---

Do you want this made in the oceania mod or do you prefer to fix it yourselves until next patch solves the problem?

I would personally prefer to let you fix the problem. A oceania 1.0, another 1.1 to fix this problem and a third 1.2 when next patch might be a bother. On the other hand it would probably be easier for you to find a consensus (regarding what Version to use in MP) if we posted a new official Version of the mod on our site.

Let me know what you think of the suggested solution and if there are any problems or bugs.

[Leadman]

Please post an offical Version on your site.

Thanks,
Leadman

[Olive]

Boron said:

It is only changed in the oceania mod :
Code:

---

 #selectitem "Clam of Pearls"

#mainpath 2

#mainlevel 2

#secondarypath 6

#secondarylevel 1

#end

 

---

Hm this is unfair though .
So in a game with oceania mod they are the only nation which can hoard clams en masse .
All other nations need a jade sorceress for that with lucky random picks or really luck with random picks from their mages .

Hopefully this idea is not followed in dominions 3 .
I wanna rather see more hoarditems there especially like soul contract

I don't understand. Does it mean that clams are totally wiped out ? Or are there any means to get some ? In my last game, I've enabled oceania (don't know why...) and I've pytium. I've empowered a 6th water level mage and he still can't forge any. How can I forge some ?

[Alneyan]

It means clams have different requirements: every school has a number, and all schools are listed in the same order as in the game (Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Astral, Death, Nature, Blood), with the first one (Fire) being 0, and the last one (Blood) being 7. Holy/Unholy have their own numbers, but they are irrelevant for magic items.

So, what those commands say is that clams require a level 2 in Water, and a level 1 in Nature. Oceania has no trouble getting such mages, but other nations will find it much harder.

[Olive]

OK, it's clear now. Thanks .