[MOD] Temporary Balance Mod

from Elemental Forums

This is carrying on with the work I was doing with the last version of the game. Below are the changes I have made or will be making in order to fix some of the issues that people are having with the game. 

 

Yes, I know they will change and\or fix these issues in future versions but this is a means to have something now and for my own practice as well. I am learning the XML code as I go so please leave requests and\or ideas you have on how to make the game better.

 

This could be anything from balancing\changing spells to Monster changes, etc.

 

Currently this is what I have done and what I plan to do:

 

Pioneers will cost gold to be produced, this is in order to slow down the pioneer spam. This is my reasoning for it and I am open to suggestions on how to tweak it and\or change it in order to make it better. By giving the pioneers a cost of 150 gold, the AI will be limited in how much they can produce, especially in the early game. This will slow down their expansion and will make the game play longer. The reason why just increasing production probably wont work well is because the game is designed to have different phases to it. These phases are the EARLY, MID and LATE game phases. The AI will not expand as much in the later stages. If I increase production it will have them taking a long time to build pioneers and they can't build anything else (as they will want to build as many pioneers as possible). With gold, they will not try to build pioneers unless they can afford it, and I would rather they could be built quickly so they can then move on to other stuff.


This means I have changed starting gold to 300 so that the AI can build a couple of pioneers at start (may increase it more if it needs better balance). Also changed the Wealthy ability to give an extra 300 gold, rather than 1000 because the Krax faction would have a major advantage with 1000 gold.


I have changed the population values and changed some of the population buildings to be able to give you more pop this way your cities will have larger populations. This is mainly cosmetic as you wont get any more gold or anything because of it. I personally hate that the game has such small populations in the towns. Prestige is increased so that the cities will grow at the same pace so instead of just 1 prestige when you start the game it is increased by 10 and buildings which give prestige will give by a factor of 10 (10, 20, etc.) Since four turns is a year, it shouldn't be strange for your population to increase by a hundred or two people.


I had implemented changes to monsters in the last version of FE but have to look through the file first to make sure there weren't any other significant changes. Will be changing monster intelligence to be much more aggressive and they will attack more frequently.



Fixed the Forge and Blacksmith to give defense to trained units rather than units stationed (this is how it is supposed to be but they made a mistake in the code, they will fix this next version but I just went and did it anyway) If any other buildings are not working properly, let me know, I will fix it.


Made Birth of Summer and the Empire twilight spell (these are land healing spells so that you can repair razed land) cost 150 mana and made them a general spell that you start with rather than something which requires Earth 5 and needs to be unlocked. Also changed Dispel Enchantment to 45 mana (AI were putting 5 or 6 curses on my city without even seeing my city, that would have cost a ridiculous amount of mana to dispel). I am considering making the outpost spell of Pariden be much more expensive with mana, let me know what you think.


Made it so every city you build (conclave, town, fortress) can build walls. Now, this is something that could be changed. Meaning, I could make different cities have different kinds of walls or walls that give different kinds of bonuses, etc. For now, though, they all get the same.



I changed the Minimum build time to 1, rather than 3.



If anyone has any suggestions or disagrees with a change I made and would like to have it a different way, discuss here and I will consider (or make different version) I will put up for download once I get some feedback from people on what they think of the changes and\or any requests. I can also change skills\abilities, starting choices, etc. There are a lot of things that could be changed.


 



16,643 views 18 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

The restore land spells allow you to pretty much build anywhere on the map. I don't think they should be that cheap or easy to get to. I made mine Earth3 and 150 Mana. So you can invest that into a rare occasion where a city has been razed or where you really want a city. But you can't just remake the whole of Elemental into a grassy paradise. Razing is much less common in the new build since conquered cities no longer have a permanent Unrest penalty. 

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

I suppose. I guess it depends on the playstyle. I am one who likes to raze every city and rebuild them haha. I can easily change how much it costs, but I don't like that it is only left to Earth because if you don't have Earth spells, you are screwed basically.

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top



 

Pioneers will cost gold to be produced, this is in order to slow down the pioneer spam. This is my reasoning for it and I am open to suggestions on how to tweak it and\or change it in order to make it better. By giving the pioneers a cost of 150 gold, the AI will be limited in how much they can produce, especially in the early game. This will slow down their expansion and will make the game play longer. The reason why just increasing production probably wont work well is because the game is designed to have different phases to it. These phases are the EARLY, MID and LATE game phases. The AI will not expand as much in the later stages. If I increase production it will have them taking a long time to build pioneers and they can't build anything else (as they will want to build as many pioneers as possible). With gold, they will not try to build pioneers unless they can afford it, and I would rather they could be built quickly so they can then move on to other stuff.




This means I have changed starting gold to 300 so that the AI can build a couple of pioneers at start (may increase it more if it needs better balance). Also changed the Wealthy ability to give an extra 300 gold, rather than 1000 because the Krax faction would have a major advantage with 1000 gold.




I have changed the population values and changed some of the population buildings to be able to give you more pop this way your cities will have larger populations. This is mainly cosmetic as you wont get any more gold or anything because of it. I personally hate that the game has such small populations in the towns. Prestige is increased so that the cities will grow at the same pace so instead of just 1 prestige when you start the game it is increased by 10 and buildings which give prestige will give by a factor of 10 (10, 20, etc.) Since four turns is a year, it shouldn't be strange for your population to increase by a hundred or two people.




I had implemented changes to monsters in the last version of FE but have to look through the file first to make sure there weren't any other significant changes. Will be changing monster intelligence to be much more aggressive and they will attack more frequently.



I changed the Minimum build time to 1, rather than 3.




 

I like these changes in particular. I am learning to mod my own game as well. Where would you change these 4 ideas in the XML files? Especially how do you make pioneers cost gold?

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

You can make pioneers cost gold by going into the coreunits file. Look for the pioneer units, there is one for each faction. 

 

Then you should add this code in:

 

<ProductionRequirement>
<Type>Resource</Type>
<Attribute>Gold</Attribute>
<Value>50</Value>
</ProductionRequirement>

 

Change the value to be whatever you want them to cost (multiplied by 3)

 

The value there is for an individual, so since pioneers are 3, they will cost 150 if value is set to 50.

 

Starting gold can be changed in elementaldefs and is at the beginning of the file, just see where it says starting gold.

 

To change the wealthy ability go into coreabilities and look for wealthy then change the value there.

 

Changing population and monsters is more complicated.

 

minimum production time is in elementaldefs

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting seanw3, reply 1
The restore land spells allow you to pretty much build anywhere on the map. I don't think they should be that cheap or easy to get to. I made mine Earth3 and 150 Mana. So you can invest that into a rare occasion where a city has been razed or where you really want a city. But you can't just remake the whole of Elemental into a grassy paradise. Razing is much less common in the new build since conquered cities no longer have a permanent Unrest penalty. 

For real? Anywhere? I would have thought those spells would only work to restore the land from a razed city. They should never be allowed to restore any land tile. That just goes against the cataclysmic nature of the game.

 

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Not everywhere. It will be pointless to cast it in a desert or a tight spot that would normally not support a city. In addition, the normal distance to closest city applies. In fact it is a difficult spell to use because it requires extensive knowledge of how tile yields are calculated to be used properly.

 

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Good point Hf. I guess it is just bad for me, who already knows what the tile yield will be. Still, find a forest that is not too close to a city and you can usually get a 3/4 spot. 

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top


  Cheers BlackRainz, love your mod.  Glad it's still here. 

I don't know for sure but it seems like, at least, the monsters are same as last update.  

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Wanting to increase prices sovs and champs can sell things for at the shop. Is there a global value somewhere or would I be looking at tweaking a ton of different values per item ?  Anyone know ? 

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting BlackRainZ, reply 5
You can make pioneers cost gold by going into the coreunits file. Look for the pioneer units, there is one for each faction. 

 

Then you should add this code in:

 

<ProductionRequirement>
<Type>Resource</Type>
<Attribute>Gold</Attribute>
<Value>50</Value>
</ProductionRequirement>

 

Change the value to be whatever you want them to cost (multiplied by 3)

 

The value there is for an individual, so since pioneers are 3, they will cost 150 if value is set to 50.

 

Starting gold can be changed in elementaldefs and is at the beginning of the file, just see where it says starting gold.

 

To change the wealthy ability go into coreabilities and look for wealthy then change the value there.

 

Changing population and monsters is more complicated.

 

minimum production time is in elementaldefs

 

Gotcha thanks for the help!

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Supreme, reply 10
Wanting to increase prices sovs and champs can sell things for at the shop. Is there a global value somewhere or would I be looking at tweaking a ton of different values per item ?  Anyone know ? 

 

I am pretty sure it can be done by tweaking each and every item. Not sure about a global value, I can try looking for it. Haven't thought about it.

 

The world is a post apocalyptic world, yes, but you as a sovereign are supposed to be healing it. When you build a city, it heals the land around it for free so I don't see the problem in being able to cast a spell which heals most land types. I increased the value to 150.

 

 

Some monsters have changed a little (mostly the elemental lords but they have made some other minor changes and I have already finished editing it) I will put the mod up again soon. Hope to have more discussion on things to change though.

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top


It would be rude of me to say nothing has been done, but I feel even with dense monsters / challenging AI / etc.  A lot of monsters are still tame. There's a bit more than before, both monsters and army.  Already wolf packs and mite mobs.  It's an improvement.  Still not what I envision with the larger monsters though.  Slag and Drake are most frustrating.  Cause whether or not they'll actually do something is a toss up.  *sigh*  AI still build in / near their lairs.  IF the AI ever clears them out, I'd quit griping.  But I have not seen any evidence that they do. 

On the other hand,  one game a faction was killed on turn 2.  (after the first turn button ).  But that was one game.  Unless it happen more often, it's just an outlier. 

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

It has happened a couple of times from what I have seen. There is no way to make the monsters attack cities right now. What I did was make the monsters more intelligent so they are more aggressive. This doesn't mean they are going to be 100% different hehe. There is only so much that can be done, but I know for a fact they do attack more, it just still probably isn't enough. I did not play around with radius and all that.

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

Well every item, be it armor, weapon or mutton chop has a <ShopValue> tag,  but something makes it only give you 10% of that amount.  It'd be much easier to say bump to 20 or 25 than go thru every item.  I'll keep looking. 

Reply #15 from Elemental Forums Top

I will try to look for something. IT may be hardcoded though.

Reply #16 from Elemental Forums Top

Shop values are malleable, but the rate of exchange is not. 

Reply #17 from Elemental Forums Top

Yeah so a global value would be impossible to change at this time i suppose.

Reply #18 from Elemental Forums Top

Forgive me if you've done this already,  but changing Arena to give trained units 1xp / turn @ 100%  just like the adv. guild does for heroes.