Four Path Magitech

[Gildor]

Can someone please tell me how to download this and make it work? I know there are download links and stuff but they wont work for me.

[ZaggyDad]

There. I pretty much finished the abbey icon (though I'll prolly make an update at least by tomorrow...).



~Zaggy

[daniel.santos]

sweet Zaggy!  Maybe you can do the lighting like an aura around (behind) it?  Just a thought, you go with what makes you happy.

Gildor, you can download it from http://http://glest.codemonger.org.  Use the GAE 0.2 & Four Path Magitech 0.1.4 combo link.  However, 0.2 is pretty unstable, you may want to wait for 0.2.1 which will be a lot more stable for single player games.  GAE probably wont be stable for network games until 0.2.2 because I'm running into a lot of challenges.  I'm probably going to release 0.2.1 very soon.

[ZaggyDad]

Yeah...I forgot to make the rest behind.

~Zaggy

[hailstone]

Do you need the original Glest data for GAE 0.2 & Four Path Magitech 0.1.4 combo?

[ZaggyDad]

Yeah, it takes the regular glest data too. It would be a HUGE download if it didn't only have the new stuff.

How come in the xml of the units in FPS  you make the path go all the way down to the techs path and redirects it to the unit's images path when it could just go down to the units level instead? It's a waste of space.

~Zaggy

[Gildor]

Thanks  i still have to see if this works tho.

[daniel.santos]

Yeah, it takes the regular glest data too. It would be a HUGE download if it didn't only have the new stuff.

How come in the xml of the units in FPS  you make the path go all the way down to the techs path and redirects it to the unit's images path when it could just go down to the units level instead? It's a waste of space.

~Zaggy

Actually, it's the opposite of a waste of space.  I don't keep copies of any of the magitech files (images, sounds, animations, etc.).  The FPM tree contains exactly only what we need and nothing else, that is why it depends upon the magitech tree being installed.

[ZaggyDad]

It doesn't work unless you add the magitech data to it. It doesn't have all the units that come with it, otherwise. So, how can it not be a waste of space, if it still needs the regular ones, too?

~Zaggy

[wciow]

I finally got round to making a new model for the FPM  

Its the graveyard:



I've upload the files to the SVN so you can take a closer look...

[daniel.santos]

wciow.
freakin awesome!!

ZaggyDad,
How exactly do you propose that I reference the files then?  Considering the FPM tree doesn't have copies of any of the magitech .wav, .g3d, .ogg, .tga or .bmp files, how can I access them by only specifying the the unit's level if the files aren't there anyway?  Try it out and you'll see what I mean, you'll get a file not found error when loading.

Then again there's always the FM solution.  If you haven't heard of that one before, "FM" stands for "fuckin' magic"  Really though, the FPM tree is only 22MB in size (excluding the .blend files) whereas the magitech tree is 80 MB.  If we put copies of all of the magitech media files in FPM, it would be 102 MB and then it WOULD be wasted space because the same files are sitting one directory tree over.

If you are on Linux, you can always create symlinks and that's better in a lot of ways, but it's not platform portable, so we use relative paths.

[daniel.santos]

wciow, I'm sorry I'm not really good with blender at all.  But can you scale it up by about 180% or maybe even 200%  This is a cool model!  Another thing I'm hoping to do is make real animations for destruction instead of immediately reverting to the "destroyed" model.  Like for this one, the walls could fall down and stuff (the crash sound can be configured to be delayed).  Awesome work!

EDIT: OK, I think size 8 would be perfect, this way I can set up the cell map to allow size to units through. I'll block off a few cells where there are tombstones as well.  I'm not 100% certain about the ground cover.  I think it looks awesome, but I can't tell units to go to a specific point within the graveyard.  bah, I suppose that doesn't matter (at all).  But I really think this is worthy of a nice large model.  This places an additional restriction on the builder, requiring a plot of land large enough for the advanced upgrades.

ANOTHER EDIT: The current model seems to fit with a size 5 cell map, so I guess that would mean a %160 increase in size to get it to fit with a size 8 cell map.  And if you want to do %180 and make it a size 9 cellmap, that's fine with me too!

[wciow]

I have to agree with Daniel, since this is a mod of the original Glest its completely reasonably to expect players to download and install Glest first and then install FPM on top. FPM is not standalone even though it uses the GAE rather than Glest.exe.

I'll make a scaled up version of the graveyard. I intentionally made it the same size as the castle. Making it bigger might look a bit weird since it will be a fair bit larger than any other buildings in the game. We'll just have to try it ingame and see how it looks.

Also I can take the ground cover out if you want. I assumed that units would just pass through the graveyard rather than actually stop on it.

[daniel.santos]

Also I can take the ground cover out if you want. I assumed that units would just pass through the graveyard rather than actually stop on it.

Yea, I agree on that.  Let's leave the ground cover in, it looks so good!

[daniel.santos]

ok, are you ready for the good stuff?  With so much free room in the graveyard, it will actually let you build buildings inside of it, crazy eh?  Either way, I think it works out, but maybe we should remove the ground cover after all.  Would it be much work to render one model with (at the larger size) and one without it?  Making it so large kinda changes the feel.  Maybe we could require that a crypt be build within a graveyard.  I think it really turns out cool that way.  I have it now that you can fit 2x2 units through the entrance.  I like the plants.

One thing I'm noticing however is that the surfaces that the plant's leaves are drawn on have a thin black border.  Maybe it's a slight mismatch in how the skin renders from one place to another.

I can't wait to see the rest of your new models wciow!

[wciow]

I can't wait to see the rest of your new models wciow!

I'm now off on holiday for one week!  

[orion]

DAMN!!! THAT IS NICE WCIOW!
Good job.

[daniel.santos]

I've merged wciow's larger graveyard model and made a few tweaks.  I posted it (plus a gae bug fix release) here. I've changed the skeleton enough in the last few releases that it's worth covering.  The skeleton gets his first level after 1 kill now, but he doesn't get the standard bonus, which is +50% hp and armor and +20% sight.  Here is the rundown:

• Calcified Skeleton: 1 kill, +25% HPs, +5 armor, +2% health stolen
• Agitated Skeleton: 2 kills, +25% HPs, +5 armor, +2% health stolen, +1 hp regen
• Belligerent Skeleton: 4 kills, +50% HPs, +8 armor, +4% health stolen, +1 hp regen

Skeletons die often and relatively easily because most of the heavy hitters on the magic side are ranged spell casters.  Some of the perks of skeletons is that they have a high resistance to cold, making it more viable to have an archmage nuking away and they are also highly resistant to piercing weapons.  These level bonuses are designed to make it more likely that your skeleton will survive.  If they get one kill, they become slightly stronger, but enough that it significantly increases their likelihood of living longer and getting more levels.  If your skeleton survives long enough to get 4 kills, they will have a total of +100% health (double the original), +18 armor, +2 regen and +8% health stolen.  Add all of this ugprades and assuming it's near it's master, this is what it looks like:

HP: 1492 HP (regen 7)
Armor: 50 (bone)
Health Stolen: 16%

They will still only do 70-130 damage, but they were never intended to be big damage dealers.  Remember that their weaknesses are fire and impact.

[ZaggyDad]

The enlightenment path needs more units.

~Zaggy

[daniel.santos]

I screwed up FPM 0.1.5a, please use 0.1.5b posted here.


EDIT: Ok, I messed up on the crusader a bit, he's not sucking mana like he should (game still plays, just a balancing issue).  You can fix this by editing four_path_magitech/factions/tech/units/crusader/crusader.xml and adding the following below line 78:

Code: [Select]

<ep-regeneration value="-5"/>

[daniel.santos]

The enlightenment path needs more units.

~Zaggy

Oh yea, it sure does.  We worked on the corruption side 1st.  We have plans for a priestess, but we need to figure out what else will make a good subfaction.  I like Duke's idea of completely removing the technician and technodrome from the enlightenment side and creating completely new units to make up for their loss.  Perhaps they keep the technician and can still build a catapult and perhaps another ground-based siege weapon.  Whatever technological units enlightenment gets, reason gets also, except they will be able to upgrade them to make them better, whereas enlightenment will not.  I'm not removing them until we have good replacements though.  The airship is a particularly strong defense against liches, so a new unit will have to be added that has the capabilities to kill those off, and be highly resistant to the Lich's attacks, but should also be vulnerable to one of the more standard magic units, like the archmage, behemoth, etc.  This can be accomplished by leaving them vulnerable to cold or impact damage.

[daniel.santos]

Ok, I got the new Lich/skeleton stopper to begin replacing the technician-based units.  The priestess is far from finished, I think I'm going to require that for each priestess, you must build one shrine.  For now, they cost 400 gold, 100 wood & stone and are slow to produce.  She will have another attack later, an area effect, foe-only holy light based attack.  For now, she has an earthquake attack.

Special effects for the earthquake attack aren't quite where they need to be (ground looks a bit more like agitated water than an earthquake) but it's close enough for now.  Also, if you instigate multiple earthquakes in the same area around the same time, it leaves the terrain screwed up.  This wont be too hard to fix, but for now, if you have a hoard of priestesses and you screw up your terrain, just save and reload, since terrain isn't saved (yet) in saved games.  Links posted in the gae thread

[ZaggyDad]

You might want to make piety a little easier to get. (Unless I'm just a whimpy player and don't make enough monks (which is probably the case ) )

You could make it so that monks can turn into something, or something. Or else you could make slower healing but faster moving units called missionary. (or something like that that has to travel a lot) It would be a Monk mounted on a donkey.

~Zaggy

[daniel.santos]

hehe, yea, I make a lot of monks.  The cost and time of creating monks is the price paid for the added abilities of paladin & crusader, as you'll notice the other costs are the same as horseman & guard.

I might give the monks more mana though because they seem to run out a little too quickly in big battles.  On the flip side, ever tried to kill a paladin that's getting healed by 5 monks?  You basically have to run them out of mana or kill the monks 1st.  But still (pre-priestess) in a large scale battle between corruption & enlightenment with approximately equal forces, I've found corruption to be more powerful each time.  I have a strong feeling that earthquakes will help even this out, but they aren't finished yet.  One of the main things earthquakes are supposed to do is to (randomly) knock units down, rendering them temporarily unable to attack, until they get up again.  Since the priestess' earthquake is using impact damage, it should effect Lichs & skeletons pretty well.

Also, the priestess has a unique type of armor that's a kind of new test to the game.  It's called "divine" and it's basically highly resistant to physical attacks, moderately resistant to cold & fire attacks, but vulnerable to energy attacks.  She doesn't actually wear armor, it's more a state of her being, faith, and relationship to the ethereal that these attacks don't effect others more closely tied to the physical plane.

EDIT: Oh, one more note on the piety thing.  I actually make lots of guards & archers as well, which don't use piety.  Guards are just about the slowest units on the tech side, but they are also the most heavily armored (I think paladin has as much armor now).  Archers are just deadly.  The only things they sucks at attacking are liches & skeletons, but they take down most others pretty quickly.  Not to say that it all couldn't use more balancing to find that nice little rock, paper scissors paradigm

[daniel.santos]

I've posted FPM v0.1.7 along with a new GAE release here.

I'm trying to get the FPM tree, with the corruption & enlightenment paths roughly balanced.  So the priestess' earthquake attack now does a bit less damage, but has a chance to knock down units caught in the effect.  You still have to target an actual enemy, but I'll probably modify it later so you can cause an earthquake anywhere, even if there's no unit at the location you specify.  Right now, I'm using the death and movement sequences for falling down and getting up, respectively, so it looks rather corny and confusing.  I'm hoping it wont be too hard to make some simple animation sequences for these (or at least the getting up).

Some strategy discussion
Priestess' are very resistant to piercing, slashing and impact damage, but are vulnerable to energy.  So if you are playing corruption, you may want to consider whacking her with soul steal which will do 125% damage) even if your Lich isn't damaged.  There aren't many corruption side units that will survive a single jolt of her lightning.  For enlightenment vs enlightenment, you're best option is to take her out with another priestess.  If you can't do that, and she's flanked by monks, you may be better off trying to kill the monks first because it's hard getting her health down in the 1st place, but it's still just as easy for the monks to get it back up.  A hoard of archers is always effective vs just about anything (except stone).  Either way, hope she hasn't leveled, because 4k mana is a lot of hurt.

Finally, when you have no other choice, try to have a paladin flanked by monks be the unit closest to her.  A paladin at full health can always withstand a single jolt from a priestess and if you are able to manage this, you may be able to take her down without loosing any units (even a high priestess).