New modding commands from 4.29 for filters and stuff!

[elmokki]

• New item/monster commands: #airshield, #overcharged
• New monster commands: #monpresentrec, #ownsmonrec
• New site commands: #summonlvl2, #summonlvl3, #summonlvl4
• Death power can be negative for growth power

• guardspirit can now use negative values

I have no idea what some of this stuff does but growth power, air shield and overcharged sounds fun for sacreds. I suspect the rec-monster commands are for events. I have no idea what #summonlvlx does and I'm not sure what to do with #guardspirit. Random foul spawn for guardian spirit for foul spawn nations sounds hilarious though, but might not be worth the coding effort.

EDIT: Oh, wait, there are descriptions:

airshield [0-100] (percentage pretty certainly)

overcharged [stun dmg]

monpresentrec [monster nbr] | "monster name" | [-montag]

(this monster can only be recruited if a unit of "monster name" type is present in the recruiting province)

ownsmonrec [monster nbr] | "monster name" | [-montag]

(this monster can only be recruited if a unit of "monster name" type is owned by the recruiting player)
  #summonlvlx [monster nbr] | "monster name" | [-montag]
(like #summon, except that the mage summoning must be at least level x)

I think #monpresentrec has some potential in making sacreds that can be recruited only if you have a primary mage in the province and some #summonlvl site commands might be mildly interesting too.

[Ealb]

In the very short term, airshield and oversharge should probably be added as both filters, yeah, but I'll also add them as customizations for hoburg clockworks; overcharge was very possibly added because I repeatedly whined on the forums that I couldn't do precisely that.

I'd thought of doing the same thing for guardspirit, but I agree it may not be worth the effort even though it'd be great.

[Ealb]

Actually, come to think of it, there's something to be said for having randomly-cobbled-together devils as guardian spirits, but that's more of a positive-#guardspirit thing than a negative-#guardspirit thing... although if the one were added it would presumably take care of most of the coding needed to make random foulspawn (or random voidspawn, heh)...

[elmokki]

It'd be neat to generate a pool of say, 10 units, and use the same pool for all nations that need it

[Ealb]

...or possibly a number of pools based on magic paths - if there were blood nations with #guardspirit they'd all pick from a pool of devils or foulspawns, any astral ones would get something void-y, etc. Probably too much work for how uncommon GS is, but it seems like it'd be thoroughly entertaining.

[elmokki]

Oh yeah, definitely number of pools. I was thinking of pre-defined pools in some file and referring to those with like #guardianspirit foulspawn or #guardianspirit devil etc. The program would generate the 10 (or however many) units with a montag and in the future just give the same montag when asked.

[elmokki]

Oh and obviously the pools can be referred to for site summon commands too.

[Freykin]

Once I'm finished optimizing nation generation, I'd love to try and tackle the pool generation you're talking about here for guardspirit. Or any sort of additional feature coding, really; optimizing is fun, but eventually I'll have done what I can to everything in that regard.

[Ealb]

It occurs to me that something perverse that could be done would be to use #monpresentrec to create an extra elite or sacred unit that was only recruitable when one of the nation's heroes was present...

[elmokki]

I find that a bit too restricting

[Ealb]

Well, it wouldn't be meant to be a feature of the nation so much as a feature of the hero - the nation would have its normal complement of sacreds and elites, and the relatively-mundane hero (think "just a commander" or "barely a mage" heroes) allows recruitment of their acolytes/minions, who are tiered-down versions of themself. Hmm, if the command works for commanders too, it could be an extra type of tier-one apprentice mages for a mage hero.

You may be right that it's too much work for how narrow it would be, though.

[elmokki]

I'd hate to see nation rosters with "Really nice mage you can only recruit if you get lucky". I'd be fine with it if the hero just spawned a magic site in your capital for recruitment though I guess.

It's a lot of work for a fairly tiny detail, but it's not like I've never coded stuff like that.

[Ealb]

I'm probably biased because I can't stand to play with less than 3 Luck... ><

[happyfungi37]

I think that would be useful to allow the ability to make a set of twin or sibling heroes without using up two hero slots and also to guarantee getting both at the same time more or less. Put one hero on the heroes list and be able to recruit the other if the first is in the cap.

[happyfungi37]

something slightly unrelated you could use montag to have a pool of heroes that could potentially spawn in each hero slot instead of set heroes. i also tend play with luck three on not gigantic maps, and sometimes even then.

I usually make the weakest hero generated in each, generated nation a multihero, unless they are all ubermages. It's a tweak I do by hand to add a feel somewhat like worthy heroes since many of those nations have a multihero.

[Ealb]

Incidentally, JK said today he'll be adding #seasonshape 1-4 as a command in the next patch. I think an interesting thing might be to have nations with (probably an additional bonus) sacreds who are only sacred 1 season of the year (but are noticably more powerful than year-round sacreds) or sacreds who aren't sacred one season of the year (but are somewhat more powerful than year-round sacreds).

Growth (spring/summer)/death (fall/winter) on-off (or, heh, living/undead) alternation would also be interesting. Ha, vine undead that are bone undead half the year would be cute, albeit weird to recruit with gold.

These could probably be done with the existing montag troop code if there was a way to force different linked units to have the same selections in the same slots (which admittedly is a big piece of what's missing for adding UW nations).