Mod: project: a watcher nation

[Gandalf Parker]

OK I think I can get most of this but the spell part.
Does anyone want to help out with how to put "Eyes of God" into a magic site?

[Gandalf Parker]

Or does anyone know how to change the gem cost of a copied spell?

[Sombre]

It's in the mod manual.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by Sombre

It's in the mod manual.

As always I always count on and fully appreciate your helpful suggestions Sombre

[Gandalf Parker]

OK I have this so far. Its about as close as I can get to what I want.

#newspell 2999
#copyspell "the Eyes of God"
#name "Observance"
#researchlevel 0
#restricted 94
#end

But I cant seem to change some things. It still requires that I build up 50 gems before I can cast it. Giving a gem income to the Watcher god I made helps but not the best answer. Id like to be able to cast it on the first turn and forget about it.

And I cant seem to get it to be non-global.

Does anyone know the "effects number" for this spell?
Or the Spec Number for worldwide if its seperate from global?

[Sombre]

-rolls eyes-

The first thing you're trying to do (set the cost) is clearly laid out in the mod manual. Under spell modding.

As for making it non global,.... do you mean you don't want it to take up a slot, but still want the full Eyes of God effect? I don't think that's going to be possible.

[Gandalf Parker]

Heehee. Manual isnt that helpful at finding out you spelled the command wrong. Ok changing fatigue cost to fatiguecost helped that alot.

As for the other; I know that few people have played with the eff and spec commands but it appears that the global bit setting is seperate from the spell effects bit setting. Copying the spell might not be a good idea since Im not sure if the bit setting can be used to alter the mask once its in place. But maybe building the spell from scratch and adding the Eyes of God effect without the global added in could work.

[lch]

As I explained in the Spell Guide Beta-0 thread, your current line of thought unfortunately leads nowhere. So here's a more fruitful thing that you could do, simulating the same as the Eyes of God global:

1. Copy the spell "Astral Window" into something that requires no gems and is pretty much impossible to cast (H8S10B10 or something like that), via spell modding.
2. Add a totally inaccessible province with lots of H8S10B10 casters, as many as there are other provinces in the game, via map modding. Set them to monthly cast. Have them target all the provinces that are on the map.

Alternatively, use regular Commanders and give them all Stone Spheres via map modding. A bit of a problem is that Stone Spheres have a slight chance of giving horror marks, which will increase hosting times a bit (horror marking checks, horror attack checks) and might make you lose one of your scrying commanders to a horror over time.

That's probably the closest you'll get with modding only, for a Watcher nation that doesn't take up a global slot.

[Gandalf Parker]

OK. After finally placing an alpha version of this on my website, a couple days later Johan gives permission for me to discuss some of the hidden switches in Dom3. The --comptrn switch in particular will make this project not as big a deal as before.

It will still have some possible use in mega MP games. But I was more interested in letting people watch mega AI games.

But now everyone has a "watcher" on their machine. If you start a game with AIs, and use the --comptrn switch, then Dom3 will create trun files for everyone including the AIs. That means if Ulm is an AI that you can pick up Ulms file and look at it. See what Ulm buys, makes, researches, assigns, etc.

Thank you Johan for releasing some of the NDA (non-disclosure agreement) stuff from the beta group. I have hated not being able to discuss things like the hidden switches before now.

[Gandalf Parker]

OK the Watcher mod on my site has been updated to version 02.
http://www.Dom3Minions.com
I neglected to make the observance spell available on all 3 eras. Since I usually use era 1 to test I failed to notice it for abit.

The mod is still not in its final stage but I have found it useful already. Mostly for testing maps, and nations mods. I can enter the game as Watcher and cast observance on the first turn. That lets me see how the nations have been placed on the maps (far enough, too grouped, or maybe not enough starts). And I can watch the early growth of nation mods as AIs to see if they are "broken" as far as AI play.

I still think the mod will be useful in mega games for the admin. Add a white dot to the upper corner of the map and give it no neighbors. It makes a great home for the watcher nation to see the entire game, interact with messages or rewards, and not affect the game play.

So far the only problem is the Observance spell taking a global slot. Im still working on that but for now you could safely use it until globals start showing up in the game.