MP: ANDalusian Sun: Lolomo wins after more than 2 years of gruelling competition!

[Calahan]

I'm back a bit earlier today than I planned, so I hope I shouldn't have any problem getting the map sorted by the end of the day. But I do have two other problems though.

***Rant Warning*** / ***TL;DR Warning***

The first is in response to this, and regarding the Expanded Nation pack this game is set to use.

Originally Posted by llamabeast

... I'm only suggesting using the pack because it's convenient and the fact that it includes stuff we're not using does no harm.

Sorry llama, but "does no harm" isn't quite correct, as the Expanded Nation pack creates a lot of new units and summons that can be wished for. (I've tested this to be correct)

And while I haven't examined every single nation in the pack, my instincts tell me that given "balance" isn't always a mod creators first instincts when their creative juices are flowing, there's a good chance somewhere in that mod pack is a nation with a "summon super-monster" spell that summons an uber SC that is completely OP, and which is probably well worth 100 pearls in this game. Or a similar monster added as a Pretender (as you can wish for them as well)

And I see no reason why being able to wish for "something" connected to one of the mod nations in that pack (and not in this game) should be an option in this game. Plus the ever present problem with mods of something being overlooked which screws up a unit already in the game by giving it weapons (for example) that it shouldn't have. (like the example of New Jomon having Blowpipe recruits and a Scout with leadership)

So I for one would prefer to use the New Jomon nation mod rather than the Extended Nation pack (since that adds who knows what to the game via Wishing). As that gets rid of the wishing problem, and minimises the chance of yet-to-be-discovered bugs.

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My second problem is again with the Holy Wars mod, since has anyone else noticed how the Holy Sites mod really disrupts site searching with all the new Holy Sites. Here's a sample of just one of them to demonstrate their awesomeness.

Distant Holy Site. - No gems, +20 gold, and allows recruitment of...

Pilgrim - Cost 5gp 2r
HP 11
Prot 1
Mor 11
MR 11
Enc 3

Str 10
Att 8
Def 11
Prec 10
Move 2/12

Weapon - Quarterstaff / Armour - Robes


Battle Pilgrim - 10gp 11r
HP 12
Prot 10
Mor 13
MR 12
Enc 5

Str 11
Att 11
Def 13
Prec 10
Move 2/10

Weapon - Broad Sword / 4 Parry Shield


Pilgrim Warrior Saint (comm) - 70gp 12r

HP 14
Prot 9
Mor 15
MR 14
Enc 5

Str 12
Att 12
Def 16
Prec 10
Move 2/10

Leadership 80
H1. Sacred. Standard (20)
Weapon - Enchanted Pike (magic) / 4 Parry Shield


So those 3 units are basically bog standard Militia and Medium Infantry, plus an expensive H1 Priest that can be a rubbish magicless thug to a bless nation (who likely have national commanders far better for thugging given that they took a bless in the first place) and a standard effect that can be reproduced with a few nature gems for a Sleeper or Horn of Valour. (and those don't take up a precious commander recruitment slot either)


In testing I found a fair number of these new Holy Sites, all of them pretty much as useless as the above one, with one stellar province I came across in testing having...

Dojo - +1E
Grand Temple - Allows you to recruit crap units
Distant Holy Site - More crap units and +20g
Theologian's Guild - More crap units

I'm sorry, but when I find 4 sites in a province, I do not expect to see results like that.


(IIRC) This is the exact same problem that was reported with the Underwater sites that the UWGIM mod added (before some were removed or edited, again IIRC). In that by adding lots of rubbish low level sites, that might indeed add "a nice bit of flavour" to the game, but in doing so caused regular sites that might actually be useful to players (ie. those that give gems) to become rarer, and thereby interfere with the amount of gems that players are used to finding in previous games. And indeed actually punishing players (due to it replacing a regular site) for finding one of these new sites. Since nobody should think of these new holy sites as being "extra" sites, as that's not how site distribution works in the game, as it is more accurate to view these new Holy Sites as being "replacements" to the regular site you would have otherwise found anytime you find one of these new Holy Sites.


It's too late to remove the mod now that nations are selected (almost entirely due to the new spells it adds), but I highly suggest that the section of the mod that adds new Holy Sites be removed from the mod for this game**. Since I can't see how anyone could be relying on these sites, or the units they give, as part of their strategy. And I for one have no interest in recruiting units like Pilgrims, Followers, Monk, High Guards, or any of the vast majority of rubbish that these sites contain. Please give me +1 gem instead any day of the week.

As if I want Indy-type troops like the ones 80% of these sites produce, then I'll recruit regular Indy troops like I do every game I want them. And as most players know, the "recruitment window" for almost all Indy troops is within the first 20 turns at best. And you will need a big bless to really use any of the sacred troops over regular troops, but in that case you almost certainly have national sacred troops anyway for your bless (unless you're a nut job who takes a big bless without any national sacreds to use it on). So all that these extra units from these sites really mean is you have about 10 turns to use them at most, and then for the rest of the game, instead of having a site that could have been giving you gems, it is in fact costing you gems (in lost gem income) by even existing in the first place. (as it took the place of a regular site you would have otherwise found instead of it)


I'll say this yet again, "more does not equal good", and the chance of finding more rubbish sites certainly doesn't enhance a game of Dominions for me. As I get my enjoyment from playing the game, and not from seeing "a nice new unit that looks pretty, but I won't ever use because it's useless". Mod creators do a wonderful service to the community, but sometimes in their excitement to add new things, they forget how the actual mechanics of the game works (ie. Site distribution, AI spell casting), and sadly as a result, their mods can sometime affect the game in a negative way. And creating new sites, even more so than creating new spells, is definitely a case of "more does not equal good". Especially if the new sites are rubbish, as in this case there's no such thing as "I know, I'll add a few extra low level sites for fun and flavour, since that won't do any harm ", as it does do harm if you know how the game works


** (and the idea of new sites sent back to the drawing board for the mod itself. Maybe make sure that each site at least gives "something" rather than just new units. Even if it's just +1 gem or +50 gold. Players should generally be happy to find sites, not annoyed, and I was distinctly annoyed to find almost every new Holy Site when I was testing the mod).

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And I apologise for all the whining I'm doing, but when I plan to (potentially) invest several months into a game, I don't like the thought of that time and effort being wasted due to experimental mods, or mods that screw with the core mechanics of the game and alter how it plays (such as mods that add spells and sites). Since I'm afraid the more my competitive instincts are increased by the thought of playing a good game with a good group of hardened players, the more my willingness to be a mod testing lab rat goes down.

Anyway, rant over, please resume your day Map hopefully on the way in a few hours.

[Colonial]

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but wouldn't upping parcentage magic sites in setup effectively deal with the 'sh*te sites' problem at significantly less imput effort than changing the mod? Would randomly boost blood hunting I guess...

[Amhazair]

Originally Posted by Calahan

...[Rant.]... (Including some good points)...[rant]...

1) From a quick glance through the dm file when the mod was first suggested I think about half of the sites had some gem income, allthough the main draw should be the recruitable units. Looking at it again though, the half with gems are mostly the uncommon sites. Wheter the recruitables are good enough to justify it is another matter though. I definitely did not go trawling through the file to (try to) find out, but the ones I encountered in my few test games ranged from decent (will probably recruit some, but won't alter my strategy) to useless. Which does indeed seem underwhelming, although sample size is small.

I don't think editing out the Holy Wars sites after nation choices is a good idea though, for the same reason it wouldn't be a good idea to remove it entirely. I don't know how likely it is, but I can easily imagine someone with decent but capital-only sacreds (Utgard, Atlantis, New Jomon, T'ien Ch'i spring to mind among the ones in the game) using the easy availability of independent sacreds to help justify going for a (somewhat bigger) bless than they otherwise would. I will say I briefly considered this before looking to select nations myself, before deciding that trying to figure out if the sacreds from the mod were worth it was too much effort.

If no one objects I can easily hike up the site frequency a bit though, (50? 55?) to compensate for the few gem sites lost due to new holy sites. That way you can have your "boring-but-useful" gem generators, and others will still have their "flavourul and well made but ultimately useless" new units and everyone is happy(ish?)

2) In all the mods I've looked at so far (which includes 3/4 of the ones in the nation pack) I haven't seen a single unit that's worth wishing for over the "usual suspects" (Seraph, Chayot, Mandaha,..) Allthough I definitely won't vouch for every single one. Easy to overcome with the blanket rule "no wishing for units outside of the Mods intended for use." (And there's definitely nothing worth wishing for in New Jomon nor New Ulm)

I won't say much on possible bugs as that's out of my area of expertise. I did go out of my way though to use all national spells and summons from both nations after the blowpipe scare and didn't notice anything else untoward, but best not to consider me an authority on the issue.) I definitely wouldn't mind using only the strictly necessary mods, but apparently uploading the newest version of Jomon, Broken swords on it's own isn't possible, so it would need someone going through the effort of making the combo mod. (If someone wants to explain to me in very, VERY small words how to do go about it I don't mind doing this myself, but it would probably be more work to explain to me how to do it, than to actually do it. )

[Fantomen]

The wishing problem I see as minor, but I suppose you're right.

We could perhaps increase the magic setting to compensate for the holy sites?

[Amhazair]

Originally Posted by Fantomen

The wishing problem I see as minor, but I suppose you're right.

We could perhaps increase the magic setting to compensate for the holy sites?

Hah! I used way more words than you to say the same thing. You suxxors!1one11!

[Calahan]

Blood is overpowered as it is, so I really don't think it needs the boost that increased site frequency would give it. Not even sure why it was increased to 45 from the LA base of 35, but that was in from the start so....

Why not just edit the mod to make sure each new Holy site give at least +1 Astral, thereby making sure each new Holy Site is at least as good as the base game site "Ancient Temple" is, which gives +1S (as I suggested above towards the end of my novel)


And you could set a house rule for the wishing problem, but I must admit that this idea is really doing a number on the logic circuits in my brain. Since this would not be a rule to solve a hardcoded problem with the base game that we can't solve any other way (like copying Bogus orders). But instead a rule to deal with a problem that we are adding. So we ourselves are deciding to create this problem to the game with our choice of mods, and then making a rule to accommodate the exact problem that we ourselves are creating due to our choice of mods?!??! [:Calahan's brain explodes:]. I apologise if I'm the only one who finds that idea simply whacky.

I'm far from a modding expert, but nation packs have been used as stand alone mods in games several times before, so I have a hard time believing it can't be done again here so that we only use the New Jomon nation. Sure the mod might need editing, but the code is already in the Extended Nation pack (assuming that actually works properly, since it's never been tested either), so it should be just a matter of lifting the code out of the Expanded Nation Pack (which I might attempt to do once I get the map sorted).


Edit - Although I do agree with Fantomen in that the Wishing problem is a minor one. But it is a problem (that we are creating) none-the-less.

[Colonial]

keeping up my general stalking of your game, Byzantine Pythium has 7 unique archangle summons that might merit a wish, particularly the seventh

[Calahan]

Ok, the map is more-or-less done. I'm about 80%+ happy with it.

The unhappiness comes from one or two starts being a little good/bad compared to some of the others. And while I was hoping to have several starts near the coast so that players can't just play the easiest ever game of "Where's Wally" with Marignon, in the end I only managed to have 4 coastal starts. Atlantis don't need a coastal start though, neither do they have a preference for one. So players will have a 25% chance of guessing where Marignon are. (in the test starts I did to bug hunt the starts, Atlantis often started away from the coast)

Each Land capital is at least 4 provinces away from their nearest Land neighbour. So that's X-1-2-3-4-X. All Land capitals have between 4-6 neighbours, with the ones having 4 getting at least 2x Mountain or Forest neighbours to ensure decent Capital resources. I had to put R'yleh in the smaller of the two inner lake provinces I created, as in the larger one they would share neighbouring provinces with Land caps. (which I really want to avoid)

I've also included a save game so you can see where the starts are (the location of the nations in the save game is entirely random apart from R'yleh.)

I'd also like to ask for some volunteers to create some test games on the map with the nations in the game to see if all the nations start in one of the intended start provinces. As I wasn't able to use the usually #start map modding command for some reason (guessing it was to do with Marignon). So instead of being able to indicate which provinces are to be a start location, I've instead had to go over the map making every other province a no-start. As such I might have missed one which could really screw thngs up badly. Although I have created half a dozen test games with the attached version, and each time everyone has started in one of the intended places. Which are....

1. 28
2. 41
3. 67 (C)
4. 69 (C)
5. 94
6. 128
7. 147 (C)
8. 150
9. 199
10. 185
11. 210
12. 237 (C)
13. 244

14. 95 (R'yleh)


I also had to remove a connection between 28-44, as I wouldn't have been able to get equal spacing without it (it looked a bit illogical anyway as it goes through a huge mountain). I think I've corrected all the connection and terrain errors. I also hope I've found and removed all the provinces tagged as many sites (although there were more than I thought, and harder to spot, so I could have missed some).

If I have generous amounts of free time between now and the start (ie. tomorrow) then I might have another bash at doing the map to increase my happiness level to 90%+. But if I don't get the time, I'm confident that the attached one will produce a balanced enough game.


@ Amhazair - Don't upload the map to the server yet in case I do have another attempt at balancing it.

[Amhazair]

Question for anyone with a bit of modding knowledge: Is combining several mods really as simple as copy/pasting the relevant parts one after the other? (Provided the ID conflicts had been resolved in advance) In view of the various minor issues we're having I thought I'd see if I could figure out how to do it, (In the expectation of getting nowhere and giving up after some frustrating tries.) and looking at some previous combo mods and it sure looked like this was the case.

So I tried it with the 3 mods we're using, and I did manage to start up a game without any explosions. (Also, al New Jomon recruitables are as they should be, and pretenders are the CBM version, but I didn't go around summoning all the possible summons or searching for (holy) sites or the like.)

So, behold: My first ever modding effort, (hopefully) combining CBM 1.84, Holy Wars LE and New Jomon, Brokens Swords 1.4, while fixing the blowpipe issue, and (again, hopefully) adding a minor gem income to all Holy War sites* I did not touch the Cur Scout's leadership, as I don't feel confident about it and don't want to screw up more than I fix.

*Mostly 1S, though I took any excuse given to me by the name of the site or the recruitables to use another gem type to not skew gem type balance too much. In 2 cases of a site with a very impressive name I added 2 gems.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE: Someone look at it, test, do stuff with it. While I'm actually surprisingly confident about my effort, and I'll never claim I know nothing about modding anymore if this works, I still insist I know very little about it and thus need to be supervised.

Follow up question: Do people have to enable the combined mod to create their pretender, or doesn't it really matter since any pretender created using the separate mods will also be legal using the combo version?

[Amhazair]

Well, since no one else dit I tested it out some, and it looks to work perfectly. Holy sites have their extra gems, and the Jomon summons are as they should be, as are the EDM and regular-but changed by EDM ones I tried. Unless someone else finds a bug I declare the Combo-Mod a-go. I will attach it to the OP. Use the version on the OP, I did fix the gem income from two sites in the OP version. (apparently they didn't show in my first try due to being on a wrong line or something.)

Llama comes back from his trip tomorrow, so I suggest we see about starting the game on monday.