Mod functionality requests Thread - Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension

Hi,

I am hoping that this thread can be used to request mod functionality.

I would greatly appreciate it if the "generate resources" ability of various Smiths could be directly accessed. Together with the Gold command as well as the "poploss" and "incunrest" commands (already available) this would open up some really cool features like:

1: Slaves that actually work (for you that is), by putting the "resource bonus", perhaps coupled with the Gladiators "one battle only" on various Slaves! Now you actually get something out of them! One could also just use summon allies, and thus generate additional options in a wide variety of situations.
2: Blood Based Factories using Soylent Green, which is basically a Golem that churns out weapons/armor and needs to eat people via poploss! (resource command + poploss)
3: Mages that dont want to be disturbed by noisy construction work! Or perhaps, they are beautifull mages that distract construction work? (negative resource bonus)
4: If those mages are stealthy, they could also be used to reduce the production of enemies castles.
5: One could also have a multifunctional Resource increase Golem, he can eat Gold, or people! Your choice

I'd kill for #poppergold as a nation specific option. It opens up serious possibilities.

NOOOO! ... it's made out of people!

It is likely that the smith resource ability will appear as a mod command. If not at release, then in an early patch. it's a minor fix.

Will #coaststart and #coastrecruit be added as commands? I like nations like LA Atlantis and Burritos.

It would be nice if the terrain based recruitment commands could also have a regular and foreign version. That is, I would like to be able to mod in a unit that can only be recruited in a forest without a fort.

Also, we seem to be missing #plainsrec and #farmrec for the full suite of options.

#innatespell as a monster mod command, e.g. #innatespell "Falling Fires" or #innatespell "Soul Vortex". That would allow you to have a mage pretender who can still be used for expansion. It also opens up some other scenarios like CoE3-like demilich Stygian Paths, especially if InnateSpell functions like item spells in letting you cast them without a lab.

Similarly, a map command #startschool to let certain nations start with certain things already researched. Useful for scenarios games, especially AIs. (Maybe I want to play against Marverni with Gifts From Heaven pre-researched!)

wilsonmax wrote: #innatespell as a monster mod command, e.g. #innatespell "Falling Fires" or #innatespell "Soul Vortex". That would allow you to have a mage pretender who can still be used for expansion. It also opens up some other scenarios like CoE3-like demilich Stygian Paths, especially if InnateSpell functions like item spells in letting you cast them without a lab.

This would be fantastic and would allow all kinds of cool stuff.

I want the #descr tag to be able to used for magic sites.

Replace #evil and #wild on thrones with nation-style PD commands (#defunit, #defcom, and #defmult). #defmult would provide an additional scaling factor with which to calculate (besides throne level - and, hopefully, indie strength). Being able to provide a negative number to #defunit and #defcom for access to the classes specified by #montag would further increase the flexibility and potential randomness in choosing throne defenders.

Also, would be nice to have a #slothresearch command for monsters so that one doesn't have to #copystats an EA Arco philosopher. The command could take a scaling factor for research adjustment per Sloth/Productivity scale taken.

I would love to see tags like #watershape, #landshape, and #forestshape for all terrain types, including plains and farms. I would also love see an option for #battleshape.

A way to force a certain type of terrain for a nation to start in would be useful, as would being able to change starting forts without changing all the forts. Perhaps even the ability to remove all of the additional 'components' of starting forts that they get for free at the beginning of the game.

happyfungi wrote: I would love to see tags like #watershape, #landshape, and #forestshape for all terrain types, including plains and farms. I would also love see an option for #battleshape.

I too would like to see #battleshape. I managed to hack them in using custom onebattlespells, but it is clumsy and prone to bugs with other mods. Battleshape would allow us to easily make commanders that generate units, gold and other cool stuff by participating in battles.

#battleshape ?
You mean changing battle at start of combat?

Also I don't follow how this generates stuff?

Kristoffer.Osterman wrote: #battleshape ?
You mean changing battle at start of combat?

Also I don't follow how this generates stuff?

It means units that change shape at the start of combat. I use my hack to do it in my Dwarf nation to make their mages lose magical power in combat (they are good at forging and rituals but don't like to toss fireballs around).

You can use this with other shapechange commands to make them generate stuff in the same way that modded commander retinues work (this where you use changeshape commands to make recruitable commanders come with troops).

Essentially you make a unit that summons troops, spreads dom or whatever and make that commander #firstshape a similiar commander without those abilities. This way once recruited the unit will make monsters once before changing shape to the mundane commander without those abilities. In the same way you could give commanders #battleshape to make them spend a turn in aform that makes gold or monsters or whatever. Sombre is the dude who originally figured this thing out.

#restricted (at least for spells, I haven't tested magic items) only works with nation numbers, not nation names. That makes the #newnation command much less useful.

#battleshape could also be used to transform a mundane unit into a spell caster in combat A use could be to turn a unit without priestly abilities on the main map, into a unit with divinely inspired Holy magic, but only in combat. Another use would be to have a race who is very good/bad at rituals,research and forging and very bad/good at combat magic.

Could also be used to make units that look mundane on the strategic map but are actually big monsters in battle.

happyfungi wrote: Another use would be to have a race who is very good/bad at rituals,research and forging and very bad/good at combat magic.

You can use #onebattlespell "Power of the Spheres" for this now, but that ha its own issues

PlatinumJester wrote: #restricted (at least for spells, I haven't tested magic items) only works with nation numbers, not nation names. That makes the #newnation command much less useful.

This is true. You should use #selectnation instead at the mean time. It seems to work fine.

Moddable fort build times, moddable fort improvements, roads in non-fort provinces, moddable sailing distance.

Burnsaber wrote:

Kristoffer.Osterman wrote: #battleshape ?
You mean changing battle at start of combat?

Also I don't follow how this generates stuff?

It means units that change shape at the start of combat. I use my hack to do it in my Dwarf nation to make their mages lose magical power in combat (they are good at forging and rituals but don't like to toss fireballs around).

You can use this with other shapechange commands to make them generate stuff in the same way that modded commander retinues work (this where you use changeshape commands to make recruitable commanders come with troops).

Essentially you make a unit that summons troops, spreads dom or whatever and make that commander #firstshape a similiar commander without those abilities. This way once recruited the unit will make monsters once before changing shape to the mundane commander without those abilities. In the same way you could give commanders #battleshape to make them spend a turn in aform that makes gold or monsters or whatever. Sombre is the dude who originally figured this thing out.

Kristoffer,

I would really like to see this addition as well. I would place it close to the top of my "mosted wanted" modding changes.

Being able to selectively clear properties from a unit would be extremely helpful, there's a few abilities that aren't available as mod commands that you have to copystats an existing unit to get, and quite often you get a bunch of other things you don't want with them. Some of the traits the doom horrors have like vanish after a while for example, sometimes you just want a unit that vanishes but isn't true ethereal or has void sanity. An alternative would of course be to add all those rarer traits as mod commands so that copystats is no longer necessary.

Edited by: Admiral_Aorta

I would definitely be in favor of getting all of the traits as mod commands. Another reason, in addition to what is mentioned above, is if you want to combine unmoddable traits that separately appear on two or more different monster types, then #copystats wont help. (Admittedly, this might be a rare case.)

Edited by: _noblesse_oblige_

It hasn't been mentioned here that I could find, so I thought I would pipe up on it to keep it on the radar:

Flaming Arrows didn't work on modded ranged weapons in Dom3. Has this or is this giong to change in Dom4? It was a saddening limitation that basically made modded ranged weapons fit poorly into the overall game framework. Could we perhaps get a tag like #battleenchantable or something to make it so flaming arrows can affect them?

Hmm, not with the current mechanics. I'm not sure how much rework it would would mean to JK.
Currently a weapon is replaced by another weapon with a secondary effect, and that is done in a special function somewhere. (Come to think about it, there might be new weapons that will not be affected by flaming arrows). It is not just a tag on a weapon.
It might be possible to do something similar as blessed weapons, but I have no idea how much work it would mean.
I would like the feature myself. The current mechanic is somewhat clunky for me as well.

Kristoffer.Osterman wrote: Hmm, not with the current mechanics. I'm not sure how much rework it would would mean to JK.
Currently a weapon is replaced by another weapon with a secondary effect, and that is done in a special function somewhere. (Come to think about it, there might be new weapons that will not be affected by flaming arrows). It is not just a tag on a weapon.
It might be possible to do something similar as blessed weapons, but I have no idea how much work it would mean.
I would like the feature myself. The current mechanic is somewhat clunky for me as well.

I'm not a programmer but would it be possible to have a weaponproperty like #flaming [wpnnumber] which tells the game to switch the weapon to that weapon under flaming arrows. Of course if the switching is the property of the spell, it's likely impossible to make it moddable with the current spell modding commands.

Another thing. The new EA T'ien C'hi hero, the Dragon girl is super cool. She seems to always come with the custom Pearl of light magic item, even when I modded her to be recruitable commander. It would superamazing if we got this as a mod command, like #magicitem [itemnmbr] to make that commander always come with that item. The things we could do with that..

- make an order of mages that have an custom spell (by having a modded cursed spectres that give them the spell)
- make no magic comanders that can scry or offer other ritual support
- have weird heroes, like a peasant that is wielding an armament of cursed artifacts.
- have heroes come with their gear, like niklatu and his rainbow armor and sword of swiftness
-perhaps make a monster with more than 4 arms (by making a 4-armed commander come with copper arms)
- make commanders that are automatically cursed, muted, diseased, chestwounded or crippled.