TBS Age of Wonders 1 & 2

[BING XI LAO]

BTW, I laid out a guide on hex editing the game, so if you have spare time, you can make any modification to the game that I can:
https://aow.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=ct&f=14,2663,,60

 

[BING XI LAO]

Check out the Upatch 1.6 discord to see the latest AoW2 graphical modding and mapmaking. https://discord.gg/UU9AExk7pW

I think we have a case of "typical slav modder" here, the style of the mod is absolutely CRAMMING the game with probably thousands of untis and miscellaneous graphics.... it's basically just a graphics mod.
But "The Groll" has returned as a mapmaker, and is using new map structures and graphics to make a floating island map!!!
Actually, he's mostly posting in this discord: https://discord.gg/ZSssHQmvMF

 

[octavius]

BING XI LAO, I was using a slightly older version, but after downloading the newest one, the problem seems to have been fixed. Jorgmun starts with -10 skill point, gets 0 when leveling up, and two other heroes got +12 and +30 skill points when leveling up.
So barring any unforseen incidents this is definitely the ultimate AoW1 mod so far as far as I am concerned!

 

[octavius]

Bing, how come you changed the Undead Reaper from Flying and no Strike back to the more conventional model?

 

[BING XI LAO]

Bing, how come you changed the Undead Reaper from Flying and no Strike back to the more conventional model?

Popular demand... sad!

 

[octavius]

BING XI LAO, I've run into a problem in the Coming of the Dread Lord map which is probably caused in some way by your Ziggurat mod, since I haven't seen anyone else experiencing this. The Big Bad is supposed to appear on the surface on day 65, but now he turns up at day 15, making things virtually impossible.

Looking in the editor I see he has a squadron on 7 Black Dragons and is placed behind a Fire tile that is set to last for 65 turns, to time the coming of the dread lord. In vanilla BDs have no resistance to Fire, but in your mod they have Fire Protection.
Do you know if Fire Protection will make AI controled units ignore Fire tiles?
(Or do you have any other ideas?)

 

[BING XI LAO]

BING XI LAO, I've run into a problem in the Coming of the Dread Lord map which is probably caused in some way by your Ziggurat mod, since I haven't seen anyone else experiencing this. The Big Bad is supposed to appear on the surface on day 65, but now he turns up at day 15, making things virtually impossible.

Looking in the editor I see he has a squadron on 7 Black Dragons and is placed behind a Fire tile that is set to last for 65 turns, to time the coming of the dread lord. In vanilla BDs have no resistance to Fire, but in your mod they have Fire Protection.
Do you know if Fire Protection will make AI controled units ignore Fire tiles?
(Or do you have any other ideas?)

I think something like that happened to me on another map. Lady Cynthia's Garden, basilisks tp in turn 1 and burn shit down.
Edit: figured that one out, it's because they got Tunneling. Will take a look at Dread Lord.
Maybe just stack them with a non-Fire resistant Goblin Rider?

 

[octavius]

Hmm...won't the AI just split the stack?
Anyway, some testing confirms that a hero with Fire Protection will ignore the Fire tile.

 

[BING XI LAO]

Hmm...won't the AI just split the stack?
Anyway, some testing confirms that a hero with Fire Protection will ignore the Fire tile.

Probably best to just mod fire protection off the dragons.

 

[BING XI LAO]

Working on two new maps now, this one will be two-level, mostly surface with the caves being used as alternate attack routes
Medium size, 5 player, weak indies, this is geared towards making a livegame that isn't intolerably long.
Entitled "The Spice-Marshes of Heulax"
What you see on the screen is about a quarter of the whole map's area - the lava is central and the Dark Elf start is hard by the eastern map edge.

 

[Justicar]

 

[BING XI LAO]

 

[octavius]

BING XI LAO,

Still having problems with your Ziggurat mod. I think I must have been barking up the wrong tree when I thought Black Dragons having Fire Protections broke the map and the Coming of The Dread Lord happened too soon. By cheating and observing the area, I can't work out why those stacks of Undead heroes and high level units suddenly decide to break the fire barrier when using the latest version of your mod.

I tested with Vanilla and all the units behaved as they should.
And looking closer at a game played with an older version of the mod (the .dlp is dated March 23), the heroes and units have appeared on schedule as of turn 17, while with the newest version the Dread Lord sometimes appear as early as turn 5, and some of the lesser heroes and their units break out on turn 3.

So the newer version must have done something with the Fire tiles, Fire Protection and/or AI behaviour, but I couldn't work out any pattern.
But the older version where the timed release seems to work as intended has a bugged skill system.

 

[BING XI LAO]

No direct or intentional change has been made to fires, fire prot, or the AI.
I'm running a test myself an it baffles me; for example one AI stack has left, while another yet lingers, unable to pass through the selfsame fire.

 

[BING XI LAO]

This renovation of the map may fix it. Two alterations are made: firstly the waiting-places behind the fires are expanded, because summoned spiders were sitting atop the fire, and I wondered whether their interspersement had not caused the movement calculation to alter. In AoW2, it is possible to move past webs (which should end movement for the turn) by such device. However, the fire damage was still incurred on some incidences at least, which suggests this may not be the same thing.

Secondly, all Orcs cities under the Undead flag are switched to Undead race, or to Orc flag. This is because in the mod, these two races have only neutral relations, which causes the AI to migrate them, thus causing its Orc stacks to rebel.

You have my apologies for inconvenience caused hitherto!

I have tested this edit to turn 6 so far, and observed no anomalies! Still, the test must go on to turn 15 to be sure.

 

[BING XI LAO]

Actually a further fix is required - the total rework of the stacks to either segregate the Orcs from the Undead, or to replace them with Undead. For some reason Undead units don't like being stacked with a neutral-relations Evil (not Pure Evil) race. Interesting.... sometimes they rebel from Undead leadership as a result.

 

[BING XI LAO]

The true culprit has been found: Tunnelling committed by summoned Earth Elementals.

 

[BING XI LAO]

This version changes the dirt to impervious Rock, and replaces the Orcs in these stacks.

 

[octavius]

Many thanks!
I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[BING XI LAO]

Many thanks!
I'll let you know how it goes.

There's another issue, which is the undead heroes can sumon a bunch of neutral-alignment earth elementals onto their own hex, then abandon the undead cause because they're pissed off at the neutral-aligned Elementals. Best to just ensure every spellcaster in that area is with a full stack of evil units.

 

[octavius]

Is this due to the modding of the racial attitudes? Or does is it (neutral elementals deserting Undead and High Men) happen in vanilla too? I can't remember myself.

 

[BING XI LAO]

Is this due to the modding of the racial attitudes? Or does is it (neutral elementals deserting Undead and High Men) happen in vanilla too? I can't remember myself.

Happens there too I think, the mod does make it possible to summon more elementals earlier however.

 

[octavius]

Maybe the elementals' alignments should be set to None instead of Neutral?

 

[BING XI LAO]

Maybe the elementals' alignments should be set to None instead of Neutral?

In my opinion they should be retained at Neutral, since that's congruent with the elementals in the Elric of Melnibone books from which the campaign's cosmology is heavily inspired.
Also, I would rather have summons be temporary in nature - whether through high upkeep relative to initial cost, or through bad morale, it matters not.

 

[octavius]

Funny, I was going to write something like "I'm not an Age of Wonders lore master, but I think the elementals don't care about Good and Evil, and are no instruments of The Balance"
Anyway, they only become temporary for the Undead and High Men AI players. The other races avoid deserting, while a human player will just summon dragons instead.
But I like the idea of temporary summons. I guess that's what I like about your mods; many good ideas. But "advertising" them as MP mods made me initially ignore them.