Mod Mod: Blinking Monkey Spell Mod (aka God's Will)

Ballbarian · #1 July 15th, 2007, 11:45 PM

Well, Ekatala (the blinking idiot Guru monkey) has burned my butt for the last time...

Since we have no "in game" toggle to dissuade the casting of certain spells by the AI I offer an alternative with this very simple mod. This mod was going to be called "God's Will", but I decided on "Blinking Monkey Spell Mod" in honor of the long deceased (and despised) Ekatala.

My thought was something along the lines of: "God forbids you monkeys to cast blink in the upcoming battle."

The current list of changes could grow as I remember key irritants, but these just bothered me. Breath of winter is not all that bad since you just have to remember to keep the water mage away from the non-cold resistant guys, but it seems like I am always forgetting until it is too late. I figure that if I want a SC to cast breath, I will just give him some gems.

Version 1.00 changes to spells:
Blink -> requires a gem now.
Touch of Madness -> requires a gem now.
Breath of Winter -> requires a gem now.

It is my understanding that mods can be changed and adjusted even after the game is in progress, so this might be useful knowledge for long single player games. [Please correct me if I am mistaken.]

Feel free to make suggestions, and of course, you can always make changes to your own copy of this mod for your own games. I really just made this for my own use, but thought others might find it useful as well. [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon40.gif[/img]

"From this time forward, God's will shall be enforced.
Thou shalt not cast touch of madness on thine neighbor.
Thou shalt not blink into the enemy ranks to die horribly unless I will it.
Thou shalt not freeze thine neighboring mages just to watch them turn blue. So sayeth the Lord."
--Ballbarian

Frostmourne27 · #2 July 16th, 2007, 01:11 AM

you are correct - mods can be changed during the game. Simply edit the mod file, save the changes, and reload the mod (that is, go to mod preferences and turn the mod off and then on again)

One possible issue with this sort of change is that the AI can uses those spells fairly well as long as it isn't human controlled

In my current game, pangaea is making excellent use of centaurs with gift of madness. I haven't really had much problem with breath of winter, but it's not that great in Dom3 - fatigue is a nuisance, but its not fatal like it was before.
Also, its possible that gurus with gems for enslave mind or some such will now waste them on blink, making a bad problem worse, but I doubt it. It does make blink spamming hard, not that it was that useful anyway.

Sombre · #3 July 16th, 2007, 01:57 AM

Instead of making these spells cost a gem (which makes them pretty worthless) why not just remove them from the game entirely?

Saulot · #4 July 16th, 2007, 02:07 AM

I concur with Sombre. Research level 12 does the trick.

Ballbarian · #5 July 16th, 2007, 08:33 AM

Nope.
I don't want to remove them from the game. Well, maybe the suicidal blink spell...

But there are still times that I would script breath of winter on my sea king, and touch of madness can still useful in many situations. My only issue with these last two spells, is that I really don't want them cast unless I script them. Granted they can still pop up if the mage has gems, but most guys with gems will hopefully cast more entertaining and less disruptive spells instead. If the guys with gems begin to waste them on these spells when other items were scripted, then I will likely disable them the next turn.

@Frostmourne27,
Thank you for confirming that. I had read somewhere that you could, but had never tried it.

One of my blink spamming monkeys can be seen in the banner below:

Sombre · #6 July 16th, 2007, 10:34 AM

Yes, that's a brave blinking monkey, about to take the fight to ermor from the lotus position. Give him a sword of sharpness and he's away!

jutetrea · #7 July 16th, 2007, 06:37 PM

I still very much wish for spells to be categorized, self buff, buff other, offensive

Then place each command in the top and bottom section (1xturn and rest of battle) of the scripts

self buff, self buff, hold, attack rear.

buff other, buff other, buff other, offensive

offensive

Or just go offensive/Defensive even.

Scripting every mage now is a pain, and even scripting 5 then have them cast buffs is a pain when you want them to be purely offensive.

OR

Be able to toggle spells on/off in "cast a specific spell" per mage. This would need a ctrl-# type setup as well, otherwise you'd still have to click,click tons of spells...even if just once in most cases. A "deselect all"/"select all" feature would be nice too.

Here's to wishing

Gandalf Parker · #8 July 16th, 2007, 07:15 PM

Quote:

Ballbarian said:
Version 1.00 changes to spells:
Blink -> requires a gem now.
Touch of Madness -> requires a gem now.
Breath of Winter -> requires a gem now.

It is my understanding that mods can be changed and adjusted even after the game is in progress, so this might be useful knowledge for long single player games. [Please correct me if I am mistaken.]

Feel free to make suggestions, and of course, you can always make changes to your own copy of this mod for your own games. I really just made this for my own use, but thought others might find it useful as well. [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon40.gif[/img]

The keyword is that mods can be changed in mid-game. Just so that new players know. You have to start the game with the mod in place. You cant turn on a mod in mid-game.

For that reason, many people recommend that you create and use a dummy mod for every game that you start. That way, if things pop up as available mod-fixes, you can paste them into your dummy mod continually adding them.. This mod, the blessings fix, various indept fixes, heroes, etc.

I rather wish that the devs would note the general tendency and have the game automatically recognize a filler.dm even if it doesnt exist. That way mods can always be added later in a game. I think that it would help in boosting mod use which they do seem to be interestd in.

Gandalf Parker