HOMM3 Tomes for CW Mini-Expansion Alpha now Available for Download!

[MattCaspermeyer]

The next update of the H3T mod is available!

Here is the list of changes:

Version: Alpha 2012-08-18
-------------------------

1. Bug Fix (to original game):
   1. Ice Orb unit features fixed - the features are supposed to be Ice, Ball, and Magic Immunity (the error was missing the comma between Ice & Ball).
2. Improvement:
   1. Goblin Shamans and Blood Shamans Magic damage undone and returned to Astral.
      1. Goblin Shamans:
         1. Throw Attack damage type returned to Astral.
         2. Astral Attack returned (was Magic Attack from previous release).
         3. Astral Attack damage is now 2-4 (was 2-3 from previous release).
      2. Blood Shamans:
         1. Spirit Rage damage type returned to Astral (was Magic in previous release).
         2. Spirit Rage damage reduced from 7-15 to 6-14 (just a minor attenuation).
   2. Gizmo AI updated:
      1. Gizmo now decides whether to attack or heal based on your power compared to your enemy's. For example, if your power is 25% and the enemy's 75%, there is a 75% chance Gizmo attacks the enemy and a 25% chance it heals your troops. Ally / enemy power is updated when Gizmo's turn takes place.
      2. Gizmo uses a scoring system to determine which ally needs healing / dispelling / more action points.
      3. Gizmo uses a scoring system to determine which enemy needs attack / fewer action points (the latter isn't used much since Gizmo initiative is so low, but will come into play in the future when Gizmo gets initiative bonuses).
      4. The scoring of either ally or enemy is based on whether Gizmo can get to that hex location on this turn or not. The unit with the highest score is the one selected by Gizmo.

Files affected:

• mod_homm3_tomes_cw.kfs
  • *.ATOM
    • GIZMO.ATOM - "scripted" ability now references "h3_gizmo_attack" for its script attack function
    • GOBLIN_SHAMAN.ATOM
      • Returned "throw" damage type to astral
      • Returned "badabum" damage type to astral
      • Changed "badabum" damage to 2-4
    • ORC_HUNTER.ATOM - "veterinar" ability now references "h3_hunter_veterinar_calccells" for script calccells function
    • PALADIN.ATOM - "prayer" ability now references "h3_special_prayer" as its script attack function
    • SHAMAN_BLOOD.ATOM - returned "bs_spirit_rage" damage type to astral
  • *.LUA - All new content (if possible) will be implemented in "H3_" files that harbor the same functions without that prefix
    • H3_NEW_SPELLS.LUA - implements the Hero's Gizmo spell cast function "h3_lina_gizmo"
    • H3_ORC_HUNTER.LUA - implements the changes to the Orc Hunter's script calccels function "h3_hunter_veterinar_calccells"
    • H3_SPECIAL_ATTACKS.LUA - implements the changes to the Paladin's script attack function "h3_special_prayer"
    • H3_SPIRIT_LINA.LUA - implements Gizmo's script attack function "h3_gizmo_attack"
  • *.TXT
    • SPELLS_SPIRIT.TXT - "spell_gizmo" now references "h3_lina_gizmo" for its script attack function
• mod_homm3_tomes_cw_en(g)_lng.kfs
  • EN(G)_ORCS_RAGE.LNG - file removed from archive (i.e. reversion to original)
  • EN(G)_UNITS_FEATURES.LNG - fixed cpi_orb_feat to properly delimit the Ice Orb features (note that this file is part of the AP base file set and CW does not use its own version)

As you can see, I'm still toying around with the Goblin and Blood Shaman damage. I returned their damage to Astral since I didn't realize in CW that there are quite a few units that do Astral damage. Because of this, I decided to leave the damage type alone, but plan to make resistance all spells / skills / abilities apply to Astral Damage type as well. Previously, Astral Damage was special and used by certain skills / spells / abilities to bypass resistance. Now Astral Damage / Resistance is an integral part of the game, and so those skills that previously relied on zero resistance (Ghost Armor comes to mind) will have to be re-examined.

For Gizmo, I think this AI will end up working better than what I implemented in my H3B mod. Let me know how this works - it should be significantly better than the stock AI. Also, I probably won't do any more Gizmo changes until Alpha Stage 2 (i.e. Resurrection; variable charges, initiative, and action points; dispell enemy spells, etc.).

Also, with respect to the files changed, you can see that I'm going to attempt to implement all my updates and new content in "h3_*.LUA files, where the * corresponds with the file that the unmodified function is located in - this is so that I change as few as the original CW LUA files as possible since there are issues with them that I posted here: http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpos...50&postcount=7. Also, this will make updating or using my mod with other mods or expansion packs (i.e. WOTN) easier. You'll note that most of the LUA file changes were just moving the changes from the original LUA files to there "h3_" counterparts.

By the way, I just finished by CW game and will be noting some observations in my other forum topic...

Thanks for trying out my mod and please provide comments!

/C\/C\

The mod can be downloaded here:

[Sir Whiskers]

Originally Posted by MattCaspermeyer

...but plan to make resistance all spells / skills / abilities apply to Astral Damage type as well.

Good approach, IMO. I remember being rather surprised (and disappointed) when certain items gave no Astral resistance, despite their description. Astral attacks have a useful role in the game, so I appreciate that you didn't go the other way and try to remove them.

Originally Posted by MattCaspermeyer

For Gizmo, I think this AI will end up working better than what I implemented in my H3B mod. Let me know how this works - it should be significantly better than the stock AI. Also, I probably won't do any more Gizmo changes until Alpha Stage 2 (i.e. Resurrection; variable charges, initiative, and action points; dispell enemy spells, etc).

As someone who uses Gizmo primarily for healing Level 5 units, how does your mod impact that strategy? In stock CW I find that Gizmo rarely heals my units, unless it has no choice (no enemy in range). It was very frustrating to have Gizmo kill off a few nearby zombies, rather than heal my black dragons for several hundred hit points.

[Fatt_Shade]

On Gizmo subject i must say that it worked great in HoMM3 babies mod for KB-tL, AI for it was improvement on old version. But it could get a bit out of hand if upgraded to max 90 rage cost / 1750-5000dmg / 3000heal / act as 3rd lvl dispell / 9 speed and initiative / 3 rest / 150 exp. Since in AP/CW Gizmo is spell. I hope you rebalance it some, but keep it useful with your changes from tLegend.

[MattCaspermeyer]

Originally Posted by Sir Whiskers

Good approach, IMO. I remember being rather surprised (and disappointed) when certain items gave no Astral resistance, despite their description. Astral attacks have a useful role in the game, so I appreciate that you didn't go the other way and try to remove them.

Thanks!

You know I had played The Legend for so long and both it and Armored Princess "respected" Astral Damage / Resistance as a special damage type where there was no resistance to it.

Now with Crossworlds, this "sacredness" has been ignored and Astral is now just another damage type akin to Physical, Fire, etc.

So with this, I needed to rethink what I was doing here and hence the changes to the release above.

Originally Posted by Sir Whiskers

As someone who uses Gizmo primarily for healing Level 5 units, how does your mod impact that strategy? In stock CW I find that Gizmo rarely heals my units, unless it has no choice (no enemy in range). It was very frustrating to have Gizmo kill off a few nearby zombies, rather than heal my black dragons for several hundred hit points.

You'll find that that strategy is incredibly augmented by the use of Gizmo!

There's nothing stopping you from downloading the mod, loading up an old save, and trying it out!

And guess what? If you find it is seriously lacking somewhere, just let me know and I'll fix it if it makes sense!

By the way, as you can see above, I'm constantly re-evaluating things as I play and if I make a change that doesn't feel right with respect to the flow of the game and other things, then I keep tweaking it until it does!

/C\/C\

[MattCaspermeyer]

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

On Gizmo subject i must say that it worked great in HoMM3 babies mod for KB-tL, AI for it was improvement on old version. But it could get a bit out of hand if upgraded to max 90 rage cost / 1750-5000dmg / 3000heal / act as 3rd lvl dispell / 9 speed and initiative / 3 rest / 150 exp. Since in AP/CW Gizmo is spell. I hope you rebalance it some, but keep it useful with your changes from tLegend.

Excellent point!

This is going to be the "fun" part of the Gizmo development down the road, but don't worry, I'll carefully implement spell Gizmo versus rage ability Gizmo from TL and I'll make changes based on feedback, too!

/C\/C\

[MattCaspermeyer]

The mod has transitioned to the second stage of the alpha development phase.

I'm starting to add new features to my mod for the game.

I've worked on making a common set of files between my AP and CW files to make modding both expansions easier. As it stands now, I'm working on two mods simultaneously and it is literally taking twice as long. I'm hoping with this change, that I'll be able to progress more rapidly between modding both games.

I've also included both the EN and ENG versions of the LNG files in the same archive to make the installation process easier as well as to make future different language variants easier to implement (if you'd like to volunteer to translate to a particular language in the future just let me know).

There are now just 2 KFS files to extract to your mods folder, but you still need to also extract TEMPLATES.LNG (more on this below) and so it should be easier to install / uninstall the mod now.

I am having a problem with modding CW and having files in the addon\mods forlder for AP. It mostly seems to be an issue with TEMPLATES.LNG and so for example if I have my H3T AP KFS files in the addon\mods folder then the fix that I implemented for the Pet Dragon Lightning Ball attack won't work any more. If I delete all the files in addon\mods then it works. Note that TEMPLATES.LNG must be separately extracted to the orcs\mods as mentioned above.

So it looks like (for now) if you want to experiment with the H3T CW mod, you have to backup and delete all files in the addon\mods folder. You can then restore those files if you want to play an AP mod. I don't know any way around this at this juncture, so if anyone has some insight, please let me know.

Here is the list of changes:

Alpha Stage 2 Changes:

Version: Alpha 2012-10-07
-------------------------

Bug Fix:

1. Ice Orb unit features fixed - the features are supposed to be Ice, Ball, and Magic Immunity (the error was missing the comma between Ice & Ball).
2. Fixed Ball of Lightning text description error.
3. The Paladin Prayer ability now heals plants, mechnical, and golem units per its description.
4. The Orc Tracker's Healer ability states: "The hunter heals and revives nearby friendly animals...". The revive part of that wasn't working so now Orc Trackers can resurrect a completely dead "beast" stack.
5. Goblin Shamans - Astral Attack damage is now 2-4 (was 20-25). Whether this is a bug or not is opinion, but the damage was the same as the Orc Shaman's (and looked liked it was simply copied and not changed from the Shaman's ability).

Improvement:

1. Added starting hero class variability to armies, spells, and items
2. Where possible, I've combined identical files between the AP and CW versions into a common KFS
3. Both the EN and ENG LNG files are now in the same archive (this supports future additional localizations)
4. Where possible, instead of changing the original function, I've added a new function with h3_ as a prefix to indicate that this is a modified (instead of new) function from the base files
5. With the above change, h3_ functions now go into a new LUA file with h3_ prefixed to its file name
6. Blood Shamans - Spirit Rage damage reduced from 7-15 to 6-14 (just a minor attenuation).
7. Gizmo AI updated:
   1. Gizmo now decides whether to attack or heal based on your power compared to your enemy's. For example, if your power is 25% and the enemy's 75%, there is a 75% chance Gizmo attacks the enemy and a 25% chance it heals your troops. Ally / enemy power is updated when Gizmo's turn takes place.
   2. Gizmo uses a scoring system to determine which ally needs healing / dispelling / more action points.
   3. Gizmo uses a scoring system to determine which enemy needs attack / fewer action points (the latter isn't used much since Gizmo initiative is so low, but will come into play in the future when Gizmo gets initiative bonuses).
   4. The scoring of either ally or enemy is based on whether Gizmo can get to that hex location on this turn or not. The unit with the highest score is the one selected by Gizmo.

Files affected:

• mod_homm3_tomes_common.kfs - this contains files that are the same between the AP and CW versions of this mod
  • *.ATOM
    • BRONTOR.ATOM - commented out the posthitslave for the above ground Brontor (ref: http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpos...9&postcount=10)
  • *.LNG
    • EN(G)_H3_HERO.LNG
      • Added combined slot - Shield / Regalia
      • Added combined slot - Belt / Artifact
      • Added combined slot - Artifact / Gloves
    • EN(G)_!!!EXP_PET_HINT.LNG - ensured that template name is "shock" and not some other character set that looks like it
  • *.LUA
    • H3_LOGIC_HERO.LUA
      • Added new hero_random_army function that randomly generates the hero's starting army per their army= list to their max supporting leadership
      • Created h3_add_hero_spell function to include the random generation of spells and scrolls if a spell in the hero class spell section is set to 0.
      • Created h3_add_hero_item function to include random generation of items if they are set to a negative integer
    • H3_ADDON_SPECIAL_ATTACKS.LUA - moved the paladin changes to special_prayer to a new file
  • *.PNG
    • INVENTORY_SLOT_ARTEFACT_BELT.PNG - new combined artifact / belt picture
    • INVENTORY_SLOT_ARTEFACT_GLOVES.PNG - new combined artifact / gloves picture
    • INVENTORY_SLOT_SHIELD_REGALIA.PNG - new combined shield / regalia picture
• mod_homm3_tomes_cw.kfs
  • *.ATOM
    • GIZMO.ATOM - "scripted" ability now references "h3_gizmo_attack" for its script attack function
    • GOBLIN_SHAMAN.ATOM - changed "badabum" damage to 2-4
    • ORC_HUNTER.ATOM - "veterinar" ability now references "h3_hunter_veterinar_calccells" for script calccells function
    • PALADIN.ATOM - prayer ability script attack is now h3_special prayer to implement the inclusion of plant, mech, and golem for units it affects
    • SHAMAN_BLOOD.ATOM - Spirit Rage damage reduced from 7-15 to 6-14 (just a minor attenuation)
  • *.LNG
    • EN(G)_UNITS_FEATURES.LNG - fixed cpi_orb_feat to properly delimit the Ice Orb features
    • TEMPLATES.LNG - fixed "shock" template for pet templates as it was misspelled and in a different language set
  • *.LUA
    • H3_NEW_SPELLS.LUA - implements the Hero's Gizmo spell cast function "h3_lina_gizmo"
    • H3_ORC_HUNTER.LUA - implements the changes to the Orc Hunter's script calccels function "h3_hunter_veterinar_calccells"
    • H3_SPIRIT_LINA.LUA - implements Gizmo's script attack function "h3_gizmo_attack"
    • LOGIC_HERO.LUA
      • Updated generation_hero function to call hero_random_army function to randomly generate starting armies
      • Updated generation_hero function to call h3_ replacement functions for spell and item generation
      • Updated hero_rebirth function to either regenerate the hero's army per their army= list or to return their starting army if they die in the Debir Training Center
  • *.TXT
    • HERO.TXT
      • Added new combination item slots
      • Updated hero class army= unit list so that units listed are selected randomly and those selected populated to max hero leadership
      • Updated hero class spell section to include spells with possibility to start game with them
      • Updated hero class item section to include possibility of starting the game with items in the list
      • Updated hero class slot section to include new combination slots
      • Added new spell_chance and scroll_chance variables to determine chance of random spells and scrolls
    • LOGIC.TXT - added H3B difficulty level variables to the difficulty section
      • New variables with implemented features:
        • releadmax: maximum leadership for rebirth of hero's army after loss
      • New variables whose features haven't been implemented yet (these features will be implemented in a future update):
        • eunit: enemy unit statistic scaler based on difficulty level
        • maplocden: enemy unit statistic scaler divisor based on map difficulty location
        • minstatinc: the minimum a stat will increase (or decrease) if eunit's scaling causes no change
        • emamaregen: enemy hero mana regen (percent of max mana)
        • ehlvldbc: enemy hero level at which they can cast an extra spell per turn
        • ehmanadbc: enemy hero mana (limit) at which they can cast an extra spell per turn
        • roundmrgk1: round at which mana_rage_gain_k goes to 1/2 and morale is -1
        • roundmrgk2: round at which mana_rage_gain_k goes to 1/4 and morale and initiative is -1
        • roundmrgk3: round at which mana_rage_gain_k goes to 0 and morale, initiative, and speed is -1
        • roundehero: rounds to add to mana_rage_gain_k when fighting an enemy hero
        • roundtower: rounds to add to mana_rage_gain_k when fighting towers
        • roundboss: rounds to add to mana_rage_gain_k when fighting a boss
    • SPELLS_SPIRIT.TXT - "spell_gizmo" now references "h3_lina_gizmo" for its script attack function

If you want to try this mod out, install it per the instructions in the *readme.txt file and you can just start a new game with any of the classes and note the variability in starting army, items, and spells.

Note that the maximum rebirth leadership of your hero (when you lose a battle) is specified by the "releadmax" parameter in the "difficulty_k" section of LOGIX.TXT.

Thanks for trying out my mod and providing feedback!

Here are some screenshot examples of possible starting Hero screens for the Paladin and Mage as well as their starting spellbooks. The download link for the mod is below the pictures.

/C\/C\

[BB Shockwave]

So, why do you call this "HOMM" mod? From the descriptions here it seems you just fixed some existing units in the game. I assumed a HOMM mod would do just that, make the game more like HOMM - castle building, mines, etc... You should really describe in more detail what this mod does, and name it thusly.

[Fatt_Shade]

@BBshockwave You should look his first mod for KB-tLegend and see why it`s called like that
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=27802
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=29080

Mat changed lots of things in game, and not just units. Game mechanics, skill working, spells ... Check it out, you`ll have fun playing it.

[alsakari]

Is there going to be a final version of this mod? Seems a worth-while mod

[MattCaspermeyer]

I think Fatt_Shade already replied, but the reason why is that in my mod for the Legend, the children that you have become the heroes in Heroes of Might and Magic III!



So they grow up and go into a time warp and arrive in Erathia / Enroth, etc. and go on to perform the tasks in HOMM3 that I grew up playing and really enjoyed. So, for example, Gelu is really the son of Neoka and goes on to partake in the Armageddon's Blade expansion of HOMM3.

So that's why it is called HOMM3 Babies. Now that I'm porting it to AP / CW, there are no babies that you can have in those expansions, so instead the babies are now tomes. The tomes describe the stories of the children that your hero and the various wives of TL had as they play them out in HOMM3 and its expansions.

These tomes are essentially items that you can equip on your hero that have similar bonuses as to their bonuses in HOMM3, except changed where there is no equivalent skill / unit in King's Bounty.

I really apologize for the long time it has taken, but there is only so much time in the day to work on it, and really I'm working on 3 mods simultaneously, and it requires playthroughs to ensure that everything is working.

The fact that WotN is so buggy, you can see how long it takes to develop quality expansions / mods for KB especially when modding the LUA files.

TL, AP, and CW are different enough that I can't just port the functions over and be done. I have to essentially play test everything and just because an idea works during the first test, there are situations where it may not work in other situations.

I'm almost done with my current TL playthrough with my H3B mod and then I plan to get back to H3T for AP / CW, but I've learned quite a bit and have some ideas now to aid in co-developing 3 mods simultaneously as well as how to implement the hero items properly.

So I hope that you'll be patient with me...



/C\/C\