Mod: project: a watcher nation

[Gandalf Parker]

Ive just added to the Mappers Wishlist for a command which expands the #cannotwin command to set a nation to unwinnable for scenario purposes to provide a #cannotlose command. That would allow for adding a nation to a game in order to
a) enter the game and check on things from the inside
b) enter to get a map view
c) enter to grab an image of the score graphs
d) enter to send messages to everyone in the game
This might be during a test game, or a scenario, or even a large server game.

However I also understand that we are to the point that most of our desires will need to be handled on our own. So, what might be some MOD features that could be built into a watcher nation which would insure that it stayed in the game against dominion death and AI attacks well into a couple hundred turns? Even if it didnt actively play?

If I gave them a start location in some spot surrounded by mountains, with no neighbors, wouldnt most things we do not affect the "local neighborhood"? Or I could even add a tiny "province" spot to very corner of a map file. A single-pixel sized province.

How about a special immobile god with godview? Can godview be added to a new spell and given as a freeby? Or maybe added to a magic-site starter site for viewing? Some way that it wont take up a global spell slot.

And maybe give it the highest defensive castle and totally cranked PD?

Suggestions?

Gandalf Parker
--
I have a very fertile mind. Just ask me and I can fertilize anything.
(wait, that didnt come out right)

[Loren]

I think you could make such a mod nation:

Their units would all be immobile. Give them a national spell that summons a castle defender--1 gem cost. It's a commander designed to be all but immune to remote attack spells, it provides a *BIG* castle defense bonus. It's also got a very high holy level. It also can summon itself.

How would you kill such a nation? It would take a truly insane army to breech it's walls and on preach you're not going to get a dominion kill.

[Sombre]

Just put them in a province with no connections. Dominion ceases to be an issue. Then give them invicible PD made from 20 doom horrors per point or whatever and various national spells to observe others.

It's not very complex.

[Gandalf Parker]

Thanks Sombre.

From my mapping I thought that lack of neighbors killed the dominion thing.
I would consider automatic domes but I dont want to kill off any AI casters. Id like to avoid having them waste time on trying spells on me at all but I dont think thats possible.

I didnt figure it would be complex. But since Im not the modder you are I wanted to see if I was missing anything that would work well with this.

Do you have a quick example on how to give the nation access to the world view without using up a global slot?

[Aezeal]

you would need to alter each map you'd play on though but I guess it could be worth it in some cases. I'm only troubled about how you could see the entire map.. if the watcher nation takes up one of the already scarce global slots it would be a shame (personally I think 5 slots is not enough for huge games.. 1/ player would be better.)

[djo]

Even without connections you need to be careful with dominion, as there are events which drop your dominion. In Yarnspinners 2 in Dominions 2, our non-playing host ran the watcher nation, and he unexpectedly got dom-killed. One or two preachers would probably enough to avoid that, but you can't ignore it entirely.

[Gandalf Parker]

I could make those preaching statues as part of his starting army.

As to updating each map, thats not a problem for me. It would be nice to come up with a mod that can operate on its own so that others can use it easily. Or have it come up with most of the need covered and written in suggestions on how to use the map to improve on it.

But for me, I tend to blur mods and maps anyway. I think of mods usually in the sense of extensions to maps. Maps and server are home territory for me. I think of this as something I might use in server games and I would probably automate it so just appending the commands to the end of the .map file. And since the game numbers its provinces from bottom left to top right pixel-line by pixel line then I can just change the pixel in the far upper-right corner to a white one then append the commands as if placing me in the province of last-province+1

[Gandalf Parker]

ONE of the many ideas I had for this game would be to create some videos.
I could run an all-AI game except for my watcher nation. Then record the score graphs each turn and turn it into an animation to you can watch things change as the game progresses.
Or record the scores.html frame by frame so you can watch the numbers go up and down in a time-lapse view.
Or (what would need this mod for) a view of the map progressing thru the game. Watching the flags gain ground and lose ground as the game is played out until one nation rules. Then display an image of that god declaring victory!

(or more likely, wait for someone to grab the ideas and do them better than I could)

[lch]

That last post sounds close to my game graphs. You are aware of them? See my Drawing pretty graphs thread, the files are on your server.

http://valhalla.techno-mage.com/scores/scoresgraphs.php for scores.html to chart and
http://valhalla.techno-mage.com/webstats.php for displaying a graph over time.

I have started something else that shows province overship for a map, too, but I didn't complete it. It's on my long backlog list of projects.

[Gandalf Parker]

I totally understand long backlists of projects. I had something like that also. I was working on stripping a map to just the borders, recording the white-pixels as XY locations, and using it to fill in the nations color to show ownership. It was to duplicate the game-progression view of many other games.