Spell Guide Beta-0

[Gandalf Parker]

Yes summons looked pretty easy. And I kinda figured if anyone had done it then it was probably DrP or Endoperez.

Im shooting for a variation of Eyes of God without the global (for the watchers mod so that non-players can observe games)

But the stuff on eff and spec started me thinking again of my program to create random nations. Im tempted to add generating 4 or 5 random spells for each nation just to see what those numbers do.

[lch]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Yes summons looked pretty easy. And I kinda figured if anyone had done it then it was probably DrP or Endoperez.

Im shooting for a variation of Eyes of God without the global (for the watchers mod so that non-players can observe games)

That's a nice idea, but the game does not work like that. You can't make a global into an "instant" spell. For determining spell effects, the game stores two numbers, the #effect (which should rather be named "type") and the #damage (which would prolly make sense to name "effect" ). When a spell is cast, then the game looks up what it does by its #effect value first - this determines if it is targetted, a global, or things like that. That's what happens in the client's GUI as well, you can then target a province, add more gems for dome-like spells or global-like spells, stuff like that. During the hosting phase, it will determine what kind of spell it is by #effect number, again, and then look up the hardcoded thing that happens by the #damage number. For example, "The Eyes of God" is #effect 10084 (a global) with #damage 15 (global number 15 - generates scouting reports for all the provinces). If you'd try to keep the #damage number and change the #effect number, hoping to keep what the spell does, it won't work: you'd have Flames from the Sky with #effect number 10041, or Internal Alchemy with #effect number 10111. You don't get the things that the global 15 gives.

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

But the stuff on eff and spec started me thinking again of my program to create random nations. Im tempted to add generating 4 or 5 random spells for each nation just to see what those numbers do.

That's poking around in the mud, and it isn't going to reveal much. The spell stuff is mostly hardcoded, regarding what a spell does. There won't really be hidden effects that you can't get via #copyspell as well - though there are internal, "invisible" spells that don't show in the spellbook which can be used as well. I guess that DrP's lists should have those, if not, I can provide the data.

So, it won't work this way. I'll reply in your "watcher nation" thread about what you can do instead.

[DrPraetorious]

I believe that lch is correct, but there is some sharing of damage codes - if you look at the list, it is clear the damage values for global enchantments, domes, scrying and some other things are drawn from the same list.

So, maybe, you can combine a dome spell effect with a global enchantment and get something different. This generally hasn't worked for me though (so I couldn't make a global quagmire, for example.)

[lch]

Originally Posted by DrPraetorious

So, maybe, you can combine a dome spell effect with a global enchantment and get something different. This generally hasn't worked for me though (so I couldn't make a global quagmire, for example.)

No. Trying to get a global Quagmire won't work at all, because AFAIK Quagmire is a battle spell. That's very wishful thinking, hoping that it can be made into a ritual spell.

You are right that globals and other map enchantments like Domes fall kind of into the same category, as they're stored the same. But the game primarily queries three parameters when it checks the enchantments list: the #damage number, the target province id and the nation id. Globals have a -1 set for target province id, which is the query value in all the checks concerning the Eyes of God, too. For other enchantments like Domes, this would instead be the target province id where the Dome is, and it won't match. (side comment: the game actually uses a value of -1 as wildcard for the queries, but specifically not so for the province ids)