Magic Paths Hard Limit

[MakeYourTime]

Hello,

I have a question that someone is possibly able to answer. It concerns heavy cheating in singleplayer, so if you have a problem with that, go away and gripe somewhere else. I don't need to be lectured by some smartass on how cheating while playing against myself is immoral.

Basically, I want to know how to get around the seemingly hardcoded path limit for pretender gods. I've tried basically everything, but can't seem to raise certain values over a fixed limit.

So far I've tried:
* Modifying the pretender file with a hexeditor. This doesn't seem to work, neither when raising nor lowering magic path values, so I suppose there must be a kind of checksum. I don't know how it's calculated or where it's stored, though, so I can't change it on my own. If one of the devs were willing to give me information on this, I'd be really happy.

* Creating a mod with values over 10. This simply does not work. The #magicskill mod command does allow you to grant paths up to a value of 10, but everything above that is off limits. There is no technical reason for that, because paths seem to be stored as a signed byte, which should technically go from -127 to +126.

* The #magicboost 53 x command is helpful, but is limited to +-5 in any single path, which doesn't really help.

* Avoiding the aforementioned limits to modding through the repeated use of the #custommagic x 100 command. This allows me to grant a number of additional paths to my pretender, which is nice, if somewhat impractical. However, through use of this command, I've discovered a somewhat strange fact: There seems to be an absolute limit to the number of random paths available in any one game!

Seriously. When you raise the values of a singular unit above a certain limit with this command, no other unit in the game will be able to make use of random paths after this. They simply won't get them anymore. Also, there seems to be a limit of about 120 extra paths all in all, which is still a lot but rather low for what I want.

* Using a memory editor like ArtMoney to directly change the path values at pretender creation. Simply doesn't work, makes the game crash. I suppose this is an intended cheat prevention measure, I'm not going to argue with that.

So, what I'd really like to know, especially from the devs themselves, is where all these changes to the general gameplay come from. There didn't use to be these kinds of limits. Back in Dominions 2, I used to love just running through singleplayer maps with a 127-Everything pretender, researching everything by turn 15 and then just goofing around and smashing the world like a proper god should be able to. I understand a certain preoccupation with cheat prevention, since this is a very multiplayer heavy game, but there is a specific option for this, which can even be deactivated.

So, what gives? What did you guys to the storage of paths values that I suddenly can't screw around with them anymore? Anyway, thank you all for reading. I hope someone will be able to help me with my problem.

[PvK]

That random path limit thing sounds like it bears further study to see how it would impact other mods. For instance, I was thinking of adding many more random paths for more varied mages. I'd hate to write the mod and then have it not work.

[lch]

Have you tried turning off the cheat prevention option when starting the game? Maybe then you can use that ArtMoney thing.

[MakeYourTime]

That random path limit thing sounds like it bears further study to see how it would impact other mods. For instance, I was thinking of adding many more random paths for more varied mages. I'd hate to write the mod and then have it not work.

Don't take just my word on it, I noticed that only in about three instances. I was more interested in getting around the problem, not how and why exactly it is caused. So maybe you'll not see it happen at all, except if you try to grant literally hundreds of random paths. Could be that it is just a false alert.

Anyway, thanks for the reponses, I figured the problem out. The trick lies in changing the values after the check for negative creation point values (and not giving Priest paths to a pretender without Holy. ) I hope you can make some use of the random path thing.

[PvK]

Thanks MYT.