Cavalier Lord

[flutteringwisp]

More a curiosity than an issue, but anyone have thoughts/opinions/reasons as to why the Cavalier Lord was changed from an upgraded Paladin to, essentially, an upgraded Elven Rider? It's definitely an interesting choice, it just also strikes me as odd, especially because it replaces the Paladin Lord as opposed to the Arch Demon who does not replace the Warlock. I'm just wondering how others feel about this change.

Slight tangent: If I wanted to change the name of a unit's class, how would I go about that? For example, changing Warlock to Eldritch Warlock. I'm also wondering about the random name generator and if there's a way to fiddle with that at all too.

[Boaster]

Mar 28, 2017 11:26:53 GMT -6 flutteringwisp said:

More a curiosity than an issue, but anyone have thoughts/opinions/reasons as to why the Cavalier Lord was changed from an upgraded Paladin to, essentially, an upgraded Elven Rider? It's definitely an interesting choice, it just also strikes me as odd, especially because it replaces the Paladin Lord as opposed to the Arch Demon who does not replace the Warlock. I'm just wondering how others feel about this change.

Slight tangent: If I wanted to change the name of a unit's class, how would I go about that? For example, changing Warlock to Eldritch Warlock. I'm also wondering about the random name generator and if there's a way to fiddle with that at all too.

I'm not sure what you mean... but I can say that in the mod, depending on what difficulty you play, the AI can possibly generate a Cavalier Lord instead of a Crusader. Cavalier Lord is a Special Champion used in the German quest in the Legends of Urak.

Name changes are done to individual files in the 'units\' folder of gs.mpq. Randomly generated names are in 'gs\chmptext.gs' file.



The Arch Demon will always spawn for AI controlled Death on Hard Mode.

[flutteringwisp]

My apologies. I assumed that because the Order AI had a Cavalier as their lord instead of a Crusader and Death had a Warlock instead of Arch Demon that those were just the only options without manual intervention. I also swear I didn't see the Crusader in the units bin when I started, but I just checked and he's definitely there. However, I was definitely on hard mode and Death wasn't led by an Arch Demon. though I still got the cinematic of Balkoth's death after beating Death, so idk. 

Thanks for pointing me to the files, though!

[Boaster]

Mar 28, 2017 14:43:35 GMT -6 flutteringwisp said:

My apologies. I assumed that because the Order AI had a Cavalier as their lord instead of a Crusader and Death had a Warlock instead of Arch Demon that those were just the only options without manual intervention. I also swear I didn't see the Crusader in the units bin when I started, but I just checked and he's definitely there. However, I was definitely on hard mode and Death wasn't led by an Arch Demon. though I still got the cinematic of Balkoth's death after beating Death, so idk. 

Thanks for pointing me to the files, though!

In the GS5R3, he should be an Arch Demon. Were you playing a solo Multiplayer game?

Cavalier Lord will show up on Easy or Medium, and the Kreuzritter or Sacred Knight (as a Leader) will show on Hard Mode.

When the Cavalier Lord reaches Level 15 in normal play, he will become a Kreuzritter and his experience restarts to zero, but will be at least Level 3.

[flutteringwisp]

I must've messed something up at the start, because I had the Cavalier and Warlock instead of Arch Demon and Kreuzritter. Which makes sense, because I was finding the game to be ridiculously easy for Hard Mode. Apologies again.

I do have a question about unit editing though. Is it terribly complicated to create a new race? For example, say I wanted to skeletons and zombies UNDEAD instead of DARK_ELF, would I simply need to change that in the unit file? And then there are certain units that have specific effects with other races and units, like the Windriders do more damage against Skeletons. Would it again just be a simple word change, or do I need to create a whole new archive? Ditto to editing the home terrain of units, for example giving Fire advantage in mountains and Chaos advantage in deseerts.

And on a similar note, some artifacts give special stats to a specific faith but are generally usable by several. How would I be able to change or set that specific faith?

I'm also attempting to switch the Kraken and the Giant Spider in almost all respects. I would like the Spider to come from a Level 2 Mage Tower and the Kraken to be the Legendary Creature. I'm slowly figuring it out, but if you have any pointers I would very much appreciate them.

Lastly, is there a difference between the two Amazon Princesses? (unit\wald2.gs and unit\waldf.gs)?

These questions are kind of veering from the original topic, so if you want me to create a new thread I'm cool with that.

[flutteringwisp]

Update on the Kraken and Spider issue:
I have been able to do just about everything I need, but only separately. I can get the Spider in the Mage Tower and the Kraken in the Temple, but the doodads don't switch. I can get the doodads to switch in the buildings and armies, but the units and sprites don't match. I can't seem to figure out how to do both, though, and I'm not sure why.


Nevermind, figured it out! Had to switch the texts, change the unit codes, then reassign the doodads back to the original locations.

[Boaster]

Mar 29, 2017 11:21:12 GMT -6 flutteringwisp said:

I must've messed something up at the start, because I had the Cavalier and Warlock instead of Arch Demon and Kreuzritter. Which makes sense, because I was finding the game to be ridiculously easy for Hard Mode. Apologies again.

I do have a question about unit editing though. Is it terribly complicated to create a new race? For example, say I wanted to skeletons and zombies UNDEAD instead of DARK_ELF, would I simply need to change that in the unit file? And then there are certain units that have specific effects with other races and units, like the Windriders do more damage against Skeletons. Would it again just be a simple word change, or do I need to create a whole new archive? Ditto to editing the home terrain of units, for example giving Fire advantage in mountains and Chaos advantage in deseerts.

And on a similar note, some artifacts give special stats to a specific faith but are generally usable by several. How would I be able to change or set that specific faith?

I'm also attempting to switch the Kraken and the Giant Spider in almost all respects. I would like the Spider to come from a Level 2 Mage Tower and the Kraken to be the Legendary Creature. I'm slowly figuring it out, but if you have any pointers I would very much appreciate them.

Lastly, is there a difference between the two Amazon Princesses? (unit\wald2.gs and unit\waldf.gs)?

These questions are kind of veering from the original topic, so if you want me to create a new thread I'm cool with that.

You're asking a lot, which is fine. Forgive me if I'm not specific enough about some things.

As far as changing the "RACE" stat, you'll have to understand that when you see a race of DARK_ELF, that DARK_ELF is actually a variable from the EXE and that variable was assigned a number. So if DARK_ELF equals 1, replacing '/race DARK_ELF def' with '/race 1 def' will equal the same result.

Creating a "new race" will actually generate problems.

The races actually correspond to the same numbers as the "faiths."

ELF = 0
DARK_ELF = 1
HUMAN = 2
BARBARIAN = 3
etc...

LIFE = 0
DEATH = 1
ORDER = 2
CHAOS = 3
etc...

In my experience, I have found that when I tried to change the CHWMF Orc Warrior's race to DARK_ELF, that I was unable to purchase that unit from a CHAOS building. The unit would show up in the dialogs, but it would always say I didn't have the resources. This was true for also trying to allow for other faith units to be purchased from a building... it would say "resources."

I haven't fully explored the differences between RACE and FAITH stats. But, as far as I have been able to tell, there is no discreet difference between "RACE" and "FAITH" in the unit stats.

I hope this answers some things. Be sure to try it though!



For artifacts that give specific stat bonuses to units of a particular faith and class... look at how the Stealth Boots are configured (_custom folder).


WALD2 does not have a mount set, where the mount_type is -1. Also, WALD2 is not presently in use and was for testing future additional unit definitions.

[flutteringwisp]

Mar 31, 2017 7:12:44 GMT -6 Boaster said:

You're asking a lot, which is fine. Forgive me if I'm not specific enough about some things.

As far as changing the "RACE" stat, you'll have to understand that when you see a race of DARK_ELF, that DARK_ELF is actually a variable from the EXE and that variable was assigned a number. So if DARK_ELF equals 1, replacing '/race DARK_ELF def' with '/race 1 def' will equal the same result.

Creating a "new race" will actually generate problems.

The races actually correspond to the same numbers as the "faiths."

ELF = 0
DARK_ELF = 1
HUMAN = 2
BARBARIAN = 3
etc...

LIFE = 0
DEATH = 1
ORDER = 2
CHAOS = 3
etc...

In my experience, I have found that when I tried to change the CHWMF Orc Warrior's race to DARK_ELF, that I was unable to purchase that unit from a CHAOS building. The unit would show up in the dialogs, but it would always say I didn't have the resources. This was true for also trying to allow for other faith units to be purchased from a building... it would say "resources."

I haven't fully explored the differences between RACE and FAITH stats. But, as far as I have been able to tell, there is no discreet difference between "RACE" and "FAITH" in the unit stats.

I hope this answers some things. Be sure to try it though!



For artifacts that give specific stat bonuses to units of a particular faith and class... look at how the Stealth Boots are configured (_custom folder).


WALD2 does not have a mount set, where the mount_type is -1. Also, WALD2 is not presently in use and was for testing future additional unit definitions.

That makes perfect sense, actually. So essentially if I wanted to make a new race, I would have to do some deep editing in the .exe file, which is so far beyond my capabilities, especially since the only purpose it would really serve is to satisfy a superficial desire. I would also imagine that the terrain benefits for each race/faith are also variables in the .exe file as I've found no evidence of them anywhere in the .gs, which is also largely superficial (I just personally think it makes more sense for the fire giants to be in volcanic mountains and the barbarians to be in the desert than the other way around).

However, as for changing the race/faith of an existing unit, I have noticed that some of those already happen. So far, these are the ones I've seen:

AIR Windriders = ELF
EARTH Riders = DARK_ELF
WATER Heavy Cavalry = HUMAN
FIRE Flame Berserkers and Flame Riders = BARBARIAN
CHAOS Goblins = DARK_ELF

I've also managed to change the race of the Giant Spider to DARK_ELF without any apparent problems so far, so I wonder why the Orc Warrior encountered issues but these others seem to work.


Because of this, however, I am wondering if a possible work-around for the terrains would be to make the fire units all barbarians and the chaos units all lesser fire giants. My only concern would be that it would affect things beyond terrain benefits, such as combat and artifacts.



Thanks for the artifact pointer and wald2 clarification, as well as all your help in general. I hope you don't feel obligated or burdened by all my questions, I'm just really enjoying your mod! It's adding a whole new facet to this game, and I can't wait for the custom campaigns to be released.

[Boaster]

Ahh. Well then, I must have been mistaken.

Maybe I was incorrectly linking the issues I was having with Orc units.? I remembered incorrectly, I'm sure, especially with your proof of other unit races.

Well, what I had tried to do in the past was make Orcs hirable in a Death Building, but to no avail.

So, the RACE and FAITH things aren't linked, as I had mistakenly remembered and thought. This is good.

However, still to make a "new race" in this case, shouldn't be hard. However, it would be mostly a cosmetic data change.

You could define some variables from START.gs. In the GS5's START.gs, you may notice a reference to 'gs5_globals.gs', but it is commented out of use. You could potentially activate the 'gs5_globals.gs' and use it to create additional races in there.

I.e. UNDEAD as a race and define it as 8, or 9, something after 7.

/UNDEAD 8 def

Or... you could make a new race variable and reference an existing number.

I.e. /ELDREN 0 def, 0 is the same as "ELF." or /UNDEAD 1 def, same as "DARK_ELF."

This would be just a new variable name that references the same number an existing variable already is defined to.

But it would do you no good to define a variable, but not have anything to constructively use it for.



I forgot to address your Terrain questions.

Terrain benefits are handled by FAITH in the 'units/easyunit.gs' and 'gs/terrmod.gs' files, the latter with the default values. However the 'units/easyunit.gs' uses variable 'get_terrain_mod' which gets the data from 'gs/terrmod.gs'.

delay_on_# relates to how slow a unit moves over the terrain in combat.
cost_on_# relates to how many movement points will be used moving over a tile of a terrain on the overland map.

The # corresponds to the terrain index number, which you can view from 'gs/terrmod.gs'.

You can manually set the delay and cost ONs in the unit definition files. I believe this may override the defaults as set forth in the terrmod file.


Hope this helps.

[flutteringwisp]

I feel like there's got to be a way to get Orcs into Death buildings, but I can see why it would be complicated.

Speaking of, though, I did notice that in the custom lord tables, wolves don't show up, and the Orc Warlord repeats. I don't know if it got messed up from all my editing or if it was always there, but I thought you might want to know. It doesn't really bother me too much.

I agree about creating a new race, so ultimately it doesn't seem worth it. But now I know in case I ever change my mind! 

The terrain stuff does help! I'm having a little trouble interpreting the data, but I'm tired and will probably figure it out eventually. Thank you so much!

One last question (for now): I'm interested in fiddling with some of the doodads graphically speaking. I've found where they're referenced in the the .gs, but I'm having trouble accessing the actual images, and possibly even installing new ones. I feel like I read something on the forum before about extracting images, but again, tired, so finding the thread is proving difficult.

[Boaster]

Yes, there was a post about extracting images. Any still sprites you could likely add to the game, but anything more than still pics will be a tall order and a new frontier.

And yes, the data interpretation of the terrain mods can be confusing. You will get it though. Give it some time.

[flutteringwisp]

Yeah, it's just the still sprites in the army roster and building dialogues. Editing moving sprites would be nice, but far too much work for me to handle, [Laugh out Loud]