Modding questions, answers guaranteed Thread - Dominions 3: The Awakening

I will try to port over all of the questions and answers from the Dom3mods board in the future, but for now feel free to ask any questions about modding the game. I have yet to see a modding question go unanswered, big or small, tirivial or complex, so ask away.

Ok, I'll get the ball rolling here with a relatively simple set of questions.

1 - Please can you tell me if this is the complete list of spells that summon a random monster from a set batch of monster ID's, or have I missed one?

King of Elemental Fire - 2 Targets
King of Elemental Earth - 2 Targets
Queen of Elemental Air - 3 Targets
Queen of Elemental Water - 3 Targets
Tartarian Gate - 7 Targets
Awaken Treelord - 3 Targets
Bind Ice Devil - 6 Targets
Bind Arch Devil - 5 Targets
Bind Heliophagus - 4 Targets
Bind Demon Lord - 4 Targets

Release Lord of Civilization (Hinnom National) - 4 Targets
Call Amesha Spenta (Caelum National) - 6 Targets
Summon Tlaloque (Mictlan National) - 4 Targets

2 - Is there really no way to make a ritual spell that summons a random monster? I've heard there is some sort of complicated workaround, is that true? And if so, how would I go about writing the code for it?

3 - Is there any way to create a ritual spell that, like Tartarian Gate, summons a monster that has a percentage chance of being a commander rather than a regular unit.

Edited by: Calahan.

2- I'm not entirely sure how you mean, but if I interpret this as "summon a random monster from a constrained list" then you can do this by overwriting the LoC, Spentas, or Tlaloques and their attendant spells.

3- Similiar to above, you would have to overwrite Tart Gate.

Is it possible for a ritual to replicate the effects of entering Rlyeh's Void Gate?

No, and least not the whole thing. You can get random monsters as Truman outlined, and you can have insanity added for casting. You can't really have the units possibly attack the caster unless you are willing to sacrifice the random monster part and make it an assassination rather than summoning spell.

There's also the crossbreeding, animal, soulless, and longdead, summoning rituals.

Edited by: Bоо

TY for your replies, I have an idea for a mod nation that would be a non-aquatic H.P. Lovecraft inspired nation, but I need to get a better idea of what is possible- I am completely new to modding. A couple more questions:

1. Is it possible for a mod nation to have a national spell that summons a random monster from a list, without using the Hinnom, Caelum or Mictlan nation slots?

2. Is it possible for a mod nation to have a site at their capitol equivalent to R'lyeh's Void Gate, and if so, could a modder define a different set of monsters to be encountered / summoned via said site.

1. Yes, just steal any of the other non-national spells listed above, make it national and overwrite the monsters. Of course, stealing a spell that is already national is generally less disruptive.

2. Again, this would involve overwriting the R'lyeh void gate's original monsters, but it is doable.

Yu.gnomi: "stealing" the void gate and possibly the dominion effect of LA R'lyeh to make a land based lovecraft nation is much less disruptive than you might think, because more than half the MP games organised are without water nations anyway. I would personally love such a nation.

@ yu.gnomi - IIRC there is already a land based site that allows the summoning of Void Creatures. So you can probably just use that site rather than need to create a new one. The site is called "Strange House in the Mist". (check Edi's database for more info on the sites in the game Koti.welho.com )

Edited by: Calahan.

I found the "Strange House in the Mist" site once playing SP as LA Ulm. I managed to drive several of my mages insane entering it, but I don't think I managed to summon many void monsters. One of the mages got lost in time and space, and eventually returned to my capitol (not to the province the site was in) with an insanity score over 150, and was effectively just a red square on the GUI, whenever I selected my capitol, from then on. True story.

Thanks to all for helpful replies, I am going to start a thread regarding the mod nation I am planning, although I'm sure that a lot of work needs to be done before I can release anything for download.

Edited by: yu.gnomi

The reason you failed to summon void creatures is because your mages don't have the void summoner skill like the R'lyeh starspawns, you should try using strange house in the mist with starspawn priests and see if it's the same as the void gate.

@ Fantomen and yu.nomi
In one of my last games I was able to summon things in the Void Gate with an astral mage (as the discription says) from the Mod Warhammer Chaos Undivided. Still he got lost in time in space and got badly insane there. He returned sometimes somewhere in enemy land and was killed in the following batle. But with the first succecful summonig he got the summoning trait level.

I will do some further test. As the discription of the void gate says: an astral mage is needed, but only the starspawns and some other beings keep their sanity. I will try some other test in my games, if i can summon some thing and keep sanity with non human astral mages like demons, ether lords or other magic beings.

Greeting from the Legion

2 more questions:

1 if you are making a new land (i.e. non-aquatic) monster and use #copystats referring to an aquatic monster, is there a way to remove #aquatic from it? I have an idea for a size 3 melee monster that uses natural weapons and, aside from being aquatic, the Crab Hybrid (MA and LA R'lyeh critter) looks like a good template for me to start from.

2 when writing a new monster into a .dm file, what determines whether said monster is a troop or a commander?

Edited by: yu.gnomi

#clearspec removes special attributes including aquatic.

Monsters are commanders or troops depending on how they're recruited. If they're set to be recruited as commanders in the recruiting screen they become commanders, if set to be recruited as troops they're troops. Similarly there's different spell effects to summon units as commanders or as troops, or to set a unit as a pd commander or a troop.

You could have a unit that's simultaneously recruited as a troop or a commander by the same nation, or that can be recruited as a troop in the capital but as a commander everywhere (or the other way around).

Edited by: Bоо

thanks for your help, I hadn't read the sections of the mod manual dealing with #addrecunit and #addreccom (but now have).

I have a playable version of my mod, tho it still needs work, but I can't seem to upload it so that others can download and try it out.

Another question.

All the sprites I used for this mod were sprites from Burnsabers categorized sprites pack, which I opened in Gimp and touched up to my liking. About half the sprites I touched up for this mod ended up with a bunch of pink pixels by their feet, and roughly half look like their supposed to. Can anyone fill me in as to why those sprites have the pink pixels and if there is an easy way to get rid of it?

edit: nvmnd about pink-ness, black bucket-fill got rid of it.
edit2: black bucket-fill removed shadows under troops, a pink bucket-fill, using pink sampled from any unmodified game sprite, would have worked better.

-------------- ---------------------- -------------------- -------------------- ---------------------- ---------------------- -------------------------------
separate question- is there a way to make a land nation that spreads insanity like LA R'lyeh does?

I can make an UW nation that does, but the only way I know to use R'lyeh's nation slot (67) for a land nation is to use #clearnation, and the resulting land nation doesn't seem to spread insanity.

edit: this question was answered by Sombledon on his forum, unfortunately there does not seem to be a way to do this.

Edited by: yu.gnomi

I have a sprite question: if you mod in a unit without a sprite, the game assigns it one of two dragon sprites. One of these is the same as the dragons Jomon gets, but I haven't seen the other one anywhere in the actual game, and it isn't in the sprite dump. Is there any way of extracting it from the game files? It's a nice sprite, larger than the Jomon dragons and I wanted to use it as a basis for a modded unit.

Aorta. That dragon sprite was included in one of the sprite dumps, but possibly not one of the ones that did the rounds in public. I will try and find it on my PC, but I suspect I may have lost it.

Worst comes to worst you can rip it from the game having turned all the graphical filters off. If you use a certain resolution you can get it at the correct size with no degradation of the sprite (I forget which resolution that is though). iirc it doesn't have an attack sprite anyway, so it should be fine.

Trumanator wrote: 2- I'm not entirely sure how you mean, but if I interpret this as "summon a random monster from a constrained list" then you can do this by overwriting the LoC, Spentas, or Tlaloques and their attendant spells.

I was thinking along the lines of some sort of workaround I recall seeing involving MR values and a MR-resist spell that kills the unit. so there would be several forms for the unit, and the first successful MR save would be the ""random" element of the summon, and then an instant shapechange (or after 1 turn shapechange, not 100% sure how this sort of thing is modded), would transform the unit into its intended final form (ie. one that didn't have a MR value that was selected with the "random" element specifically in mind).

As I said though I remember reading about this a good while back, pretty sure it was Sombre who came up with it, hence me taking up his offer in the OP

I remember that method but I never heard if a #nextspell transformation would try to transform all monsters created by the ritual if multiple were summoned.

The only drawback of the method is that it consumes a whole lot of ids.

Edited by: Bоо

Sombledon wrote: Aorta. That dragon sprite was included in one of the sprite dumps, but possibly not one of the ones that did the rounds in public. I will try and find it on my PC, but I suspect I may have lost it.

Worst comes to worst you can rip it from the game having turned all the graphical filters off. If you use a certain resolution you can get it at the correct size with no degradation of the sprite (I forget which resolution that is though). iirc it doesn't have an attack sprite anyway, so it should be fine.

Awesome, thanks.

New Question

Is it possible to have a Commander that can change shape on the strategic map, but not change shape in battle? I'm thinking it can be done by having the two strategic map forms, call them forms 1 + 2, insta-changing to forms 1a and 2a respectively when they enter battle. And since there will be no link between forms 1a and 2a, that should mean they can't shift between any of their possible forms in battle (so if one form died, the commander would be dead, rather than shifting to another form),

Is this possible? and would it work like I've theorised?

Edited by: Calahan.

Yes. Use onebattlespell polymorph to change the commander into a form that cannot shapechange, which then changes back into a shapechanger at the end of battle. Which is how you've theorised.

Be aware onebattlespell polymorph can only target units 1-999 (or 1-1000?) so it isn't something you'd want to stick in every mod, since a lot of those 1-999 units shouldn't be fiddled with (they are used in events etc).

Calahan. wrote: I was thinking along the lines of some sort of workaround I recall seeing involving MR values and a MR-resist spell that kills the unit. so there would be several forms for the unit, and the first successful MR save would be the ""random" element of the summon, and then an instant shapechange (or after 1 turn shapechange, not 100% sure how this sort of thing is modded), would transform the unit into its intended final form (ie. one that didn't have a MR value that was selected with the "random" element specifically in mind).

As I said though I remember reading about this a good while back, pretty sure it was Sombre who came up with it, hence me taking up his offer in the OP

Good memory. You can indeed do it, at least in combat, with a series of mr resist killspells. With a little math and a lot of code and ids, you can summon a random monster, or turn something into a random monster.

But I couldn't get it to work outside of combat. I don't really understand why and it might well be worth another try. Do you want specifics of how to code it? We could write the code together in this thread as an exercise if you'd like.

Bоо wrote: I remember that method but I never heard if a #nextspell transformation would try to transform all monsters created by the ritual if multiple were summoned.

The only drawback of the method is that it consumes a whole lot of ids.

Ah if you make a whole load of monsters you need to either do it in combat, or use a method which hits all them clowns. I know there are ways to hit multiple units multiple times in a province, but I'm not very familiar with them .Llama's final sacrifice mod killed units under you command, but I don't remember how it targeted. I suspect it was just all friendly units in the province. It would be worth looking into that.

Sombledon wrote: Yes. Use onebattlespell polymorph to change the commander into a form that cannot shapechange, which then changes back into a shapechanger at the end of battle. Which is how you've theorised.

Be aware onebattlespell polymorph can only target units 1-999 (or 1-1000?) so it isn't something you'd want to stick in every mod, since a lot of those 1-999 units shouldn't be fiddled with (they are used in events etc).

Thanks for the reply/confirmation of theory. Didn't know Polymorth has to be used though, as I know the limitations on that, (1-999 ID's) and it might scupper my fantastic plan.

Which was in order to solve the "Holy Mage casting useless Holy spells in battle instead of awesome Evo spells" issue, I was dreaming of a mod that allowed all Holy Mages to switch between "Holy Mage" and "Mage" mode on the strategic map, and then in-battle would shape change to a mirror version of their "Holy Mage" or "Mage" form. So exact same unit just with no shape change ability. So the player could decide, by choosing between two forms, whether or not they wanted their Holy Mage to have any Holy ability in battle, or just be a regular mage limited to mage spells. While not having the unfortunate side effect of giving the mage two lives due to shape change. (although maybe not if HP are same. Need to refresh my memory on how HP damage transfer to second shape) works. But sounds like an awful lot of re-numbering would be needed for this to work, if indeed it's not out and out impossible. As next related question...

Q - Can Polymorph be used with any unit ID between 1-999, or does it have to be a unit that is already one of those monsters linked with the Polymorph spell (so Foul Spawn, Cat, Amphiptere etc etc. Edit - Just realised I'm confusing the Transformation ritual with Polymorpth). Not sure if the Polymorph mod command is the same as Polymorph the spell.

-------------------------------

Sombledon wrote: But I couldn't get it to work outside of combat. I don't really understand why and it might well be worth another try. Do you want specifics of how to code it? We could write the code together in this thread as an exercise if you'd like.

That sounds good, although I'll have to take a rain check on the "exercise" part for a few weeks, although it is something I'd really like to do.

Right now though I'm lacking free Dom time for such luxuries as modding, so mainly just thinking out load / planning ahead, in relation to some mod ideas I'd like to work on at some point down the line. So until my time frees up a bit I just have general queries on modding regarding what can be done, what can maybe be done with some tricks, and what's nothing but a pipe dream. Mainly so my plans don't start wandering off into fairy land.
.

Sombledon wrote:

Bоо wrote: I remember that method but I never heard if a #nextspell transformation would try to transform all monsters created by the ritual if multiple were summoned.

The only drawback of the method is that it consumes a whole lot of ids.

Ah if you make a whole load of monsters you need to either do it in combat, or use a method which hits all them clowns. I know there are ways to hit multiple units multiple times in a province, but I'm not very familiar with them .Llama's final sacrifice mod killed units under you command, but I don't remember how it targeted. I suspect it was just all friendly units in the province. It would be worth looking into that.

How many monster ID's are there. Isn't it 1-2999 (or something like that). And the vanilla game uses around 2100 of them (although aren't there some dead ID's in there? Probably insignificant amount though)

Edited by: Calahan.

Calahan. wrote: Q - Can Polymorph be used with any unit ID between 1-999, or does it have to be a unit that is already one of those monsters linked with the Polymorph spell (so Foul Spawn, Cat, Amphiptere etc etc). Not sure if the Polymorph mod command is the same as Polymorph the spell.

Any unit in that range is valid as a damage value for polymorph. See the Warhammer Dwarfs mod for interesting use of polymorph on onebattlespell.

Much like with copying spells to use for nextspell and onebattlespell, the only real complication is the limits imposed by the regular game and by other mods who also want to make use of those slots.

-------------------------------

Mainly so my plans don't start wandering off into fairy land.

This is a good idea when brainstorming mods for dom3. I would advise everyone here to take a similar approach, otherwise you end up planning a lot around one key thing that is known to be impossible, even if it seems like it should be trivial (like being able to copy a weapon, or change land fort recruitment for an underwater nation).

Calahalalalalalalalalsoran wrote:
How many monster ID's are there. Isn't it 1-2999 (or something like that). And the vanilla game uses around 2100 of them (although aren't there some dead ID's in there? Probably insignificant amount though)

I don't remember off the top of my head, but it's reflected in the MC spreadsheets and in the modding manual. There are only 100 or so dead IDs in the basegame stuff iirc.