LeaderEnemyBoss. Do you know when the patch is supposed to drop? They have been promising a patch for a long time now.

LeaderEnemyBoss wrote:

The Vanilla AI doesnt know how to do quests, at all. The developers gave the AI an Auto-Questsolver that automatically resolves some of the (non-competitive) quests within a semi random number of turns and a preset success chance. They didnt give the AI an Auto-Questsolver for the Victory quest though, probably because it would feel cheap if the AI would just "Auto-Win" after a set amount of time without the player being able to stop it. 

Implementing a "real" quest solving logic is a lot of work, because you need to do it manually for all the quests basically. But I have actually done it for a few special cases (most notably the "From Dust to rust" quest). In my internal build i have implemented a real questsolving AI for the first steps of the victory quest, so with the upcoming patch you will see AIs solving those first steps. I wont mention it as an official feature as long as its not complete yet though.

As for skill choices: I left them mostly how they were with ninakorus improved AI mod. Maybe I'll improve them some day, but in my opinion its not that bad if the AI has some "suboptimal"/random choices in there, as long as it makes some form of sense.

Very insightful. I had no idea the AI doesn't actually "solve" the quest and rather is moved along. In hindsight, this makes sense, as it sounds like quite a lot of work to program this level of behaviour for so many quests. I have no problem if you won't do much on that front, given the challenge and rewards. But if you do anything, the victory quest seems to offer the best VfM as all factions benefit.

Hero skilling is probably the least of our worries given how good it is already. Kudos to ninakoru then for a great job on it.

Feature request: the "Coastal Cultist" mod, included in this community patch, seems to not only put cultist in a costally-adjacent region but also spawn their initial units directly touching the coast. This is a terrible situation given that it almost-consistently makes it impossible to settle the City Center for the Cult's only city in an functional position within the first turn (a position which would allow their city center to reach level 2 or 3 for progress of their faction quest), sometimes this cannot be achieved within two or three turns (e.g. you lose the economy race, guranteed).
Ideally no one wants to spawn touching the coast as it vastly reduces your options. Being on the coast also makes it less likely that you will be surrounded by Minor Villages to interact with - a fairly crucial feature to a succesful Cultist playthrough, it would seem.
I'm frequently spawning on a 1 hex width piece of land, trapped by forest, as cultist - since using the patch.

A solution to Cultist Race + Tempest DLC issue needs to be resolved officially. When it finally is resolved, the community patch will need to change/remove its current solution. Given all this:
I would like the Coastal Cultist feature to be removed from the Community Patch. For those who still wish to use the current form of this feature: that simple mod is availible on the steam workshop (and is compatible). I hope that I've convinced you. Thank you for your efforts.

Truzzle wrote:

Feature request: the "Coastal Cultist" mod, included in this community patch, seems to not only put cultist in a costally-adjacent region but also spawn their initial units directly touching the coast. This is a terrible situation given that it almost-consistently makes it impossible to settle the City Center for the Cult's only city in an functional position within the first turn (a position which would allow their city center to reach level 2 or 3 for progress of their faction quest), sometimes this cannot be achieved within two or three turns (e.g. you lose the economy race, guranteed).
Ideally no one wants to spawn touching the coast as it vastly reduces your options. Being on the coast also makes it less likely that you will be surrounded by Minor Villages to interact with - a fairly crucial feature to a succesful Cultist playthrough, it would seem.
I'm frequently spawning on a 1 hex width piece of land, trapped by forest, as cultist - since using the patch.

A solution to Cultist Race + Tempest DLC issue needs to be resolved officially. When it finally is resolved, the community patch will need to change/remove its current solution. Given all this:
I would like the Coastal Cultist feature to be removed from the Community Patch. For those who still wish to use the current form of this feature: that simple mod is availible on the steam workshop (and is compatible). I hope that I've convinced you. Thank you for your efforts.

You will be happy to hear that my upcoming patch will indeed remove the coastal cultists mod, because I implemented a new improved spawn rule for cultists. They will still spawn in a region with ocean access, but will no longer spawn in small peninsulas right at the ocean.

ETA on the patch? Just curious. No rush.

Slashman wrote:

ETA on the patch? Just curious. No rush.

beta testers will get the test version in a in a few hours. Everything else depends on whether there are bugs or not ;)

New version of ELCP is in beta testing now

If anyone wants to join the beta testers group, join the discord and message me

requirements: has to play EL on a regular base, has to be online in discord often, has to be willing to suffer through bugs ;p

Hey everyone, the new version of ELCP, compatible with EL v1.6.10 is here! Remember to join my [Discord Channel], if you want to have a chat. Further information for newcomers on page 1 of this [thread].

This patch includes some long requested features, among them the ability to alter the default speed of armies on the world map, Mezari and Vaulters being treated as the same faction when it comes to faction randomization, and the Removal of the coastal cultist mod. Dont worry, Cultist still spawn in a region with ocean access, but their new spawn logic will no longer place them on these weird peninsula spawning locations.

On a different note, it has come to my ears, that ELCP is no longer compatible with Apple Macs. Now I myself dont have a Mac, so I can't test around. However, if you are a Mac owner, and are interested in helping me create a Mac compatible version, just joind the discord channel and message me :).

Remember, XML related balance change can be reverted by my [Vanilla Balance Mod].

Downloadlink (Installer) || Downloadlink (Zip)

Note: Multiplayer saves from older versions are not compatible with newer versions (Singleplayer saves are fine)

Changelog for v2.2.0:

• Ports the Community patch to Endless Legend v1.6.10 S3
• The official patch solves the Cultis Village upkeep bug, therefor my workaround is no longer needed

General

• Added a new advanced pre-game setting: "Army Speed Scale Factor" (by morgoth)
  • Sets the default speed of Armies on the world map
  • Default Value is "Classic" (same speed as Vanilla)
  • Can also be changed ingame with the new /SetArmySpeed console commando (Single Player only)
• Removed the "Coastal Cultists" mod and replaced it with a new custom spawn logic
  • While immediate ocean access is important for Cultists (as they cant get it later in the game for obvious reasons) there have been complaints, that cultist spawns near water sometimes leave the player little options to explore alternative spots if the spawn is bad
  • A new revamped spawn logic ensures that the region a Cultist player starts in a region that has ocean access, while simultaneously preferring more central spawn locations in the region itself
  • This should give the player more options to explore an alternative colonization location if necessary
  • Also heavily reduced the chance for cultists to spawn in volcanic regions
• While at it, also ensured the Morgawr spawn in a region with ocean access
• When starting a new game with "Faction Randomization" set to "Unique", the game will now treat Vaulters and Mezari as the same faction, so only one of both may spawn
  • Custom factions based on Vaulters or Mezari are exempt from this rule

UI

• Players can now modify the Zoom Level at which the World View transitions from the detailed 3D View to the less detailed abstract View (programmed by morgoth)
  • The new slider has been added to the UI-Options menu
  • Note: High values can lead to decreased performance when zooming out
• Changed the sorting of heros in the Academy Screen in order to make finding heroes that need orders or a level up easier
  • Heros that have skill points left or need an assignment are now sorted to the front
  • Accordingly, when opening the Academy Screen the default position is now at the start of the hero list

Balance [XML]

• The resource bonus gained by controlling an oceanic region now scales with the Era the Player is in (starting with 0 at Era 1 up to the old value 0.5 at Era 6) (thanks Cornebre)
  • The resource amount gained from oceans always felt disproportionate in the early game, especially since two of the stronger factions (morgawr and allayi) have immediate access to it
  • The change should lessen the early game dominance of oceans while leaving their late game value intact
• Halved the effect of Centre of Influence and Dust accumulator
• Increased base Initiative of Dust Bishops (Broken lords support Unit) by 10 in order to make usage of their healing passive more reliable

AI

• AIs will now actively solve the Winter Most Worrying competitive quest
• Updated the Unit Design weights (by CeltiK)
• Fixed a bug that led to AI Colossi rarely being equipped with accessories
• When creating or altering unit designs, the AI will now try to avoid choosing accessory items with capacities the Unit already has
• Fixed a bug introduced by an older version of ELCP that led to pre era 4 empires sometimes preferring their units to be naked instead of equipping iron - whoops! (thanks CeltiK)
• Fixed a bug that led to the AI being overaggressive with weak armies
• Fixed a bug that caused Armies with only a hero in it to be jobless due to the AI perceiving it as a Naval Army (thanks Cornebre)
• AIs are better at chosing save settling locations during wartimes
• Necrophages army commanders are no longer confused by large army sizes (>8), which led to them doing nothing previously
• Fixed conflux collection logic, AIs value them correctly now and will no longer try to collect already collected ones
• Army Commanders will no longer skip whole turns if the target they want to reach is unreachable due to an ongoing battle
• AIs no longer try to use Soul Burn as non-Broken Lord, getting stuck during eclipses
• AIs can now buy stockpiles from the market
• AIs will now prefer assigning kapaku governors to cities with volcanic terrain
• Fixed the nonfunctional diplomatic response function to war declarations, AI are now able to consider strategic Alliances during war times
• AIs will now value war declarations on enemies they are in war with higher (exposed a new variable "AtWarWith" for modders to use)
  • They are also less eager to play wardog for the player, except when the player offers to join the war aswell
• Allied AIs will take note, if you dont answer help requests during wars
• AIs now have a minimum value they assign to resources, in order to prevent them from being too generous when they are rich

Hi Leader!  Made an account for 2 reasons: To thank you for your work on the CBP and to maybe ask / suggest something.  I absolutely love the EL soundtrack, but I feel like I'm missing a large part of it due to my affinity for some factions and distaste of others (gameplay mechanics wise).  So, I was wondering if, on your next update, you could put an option that cycles all of the songs EL has to offer despite the chosen faction.  I wanna hear the Kapaku and the Morhgar themes while i play a 3 hour cultist game! lol

Again, great work keeping this game fresh and interesting!  

Hi,

I have a collection of silly questions, observations and suggestions. It's really just to consideration, rather than any expection that you should work on them:

• Do patches by Amplitude overwrite the community patch? I just logged in to finish my last game and ... several things seemed suspiciously changed. Note this was the first time I logged in since the 11 Oct patch and I (think I) used default options to install it.
• I commented previously on the AI being inactive to tackle the victory quest. Aside from that, should it then not also have access to the wonder victory? In the 40-50 turns since the leading AIs had been moved to main question completion, I cannot say they have made much of an effort to build the wonder. At least, I never got a notification that they started on a wonder and in cheat mode I did not see a wonder in the build list.
• Related to that, is there a way to make the victory progress tool tip for the wonder show the progression towards the wonder construction? As is, to me it seems like it will show 0% until the very end. Or, if that's easier, show warnings for like 50% and 80% or comparable, similar to other victory conditions.
• Also, would you agree that the AI researching way more technologies that it "needs" to is problematic, if it is to have a realistic shot at the science victory? I would assume that especially the Vaulters would seek that one and they have ended up at 68 techs just before I won - and only 3 of them victory techs. Ok, I traded it some techs, but not to that extent. Conscious that how many techs to research is a hefty strategic decision, but that seemed too much. It might have won the game already with more focus ...
• How difficult would it be to visually split the expansion penalty into a) the penalty due to the number of cities and b) the local penalty, i.e. due to number of borough districts? I would find that useful to keep apart, but it's a nice-to-have.

Thanks again for your continued work on this. It's great! The changes of your recent patch look great, so I am tempted to try Morgawr now.

Shadowhal wrote:

Hi,

I have a collection of silly questions, observations and suggestions. It's really just to consideration, rather than any expection that you should work on them:

• Do patches by Amplitude overwrite the community patch? I just logged in to finish my last game and ... several things seemed suspiciously changed. Note this was the first time I logged in since the 11 Oct patch and I (think I) used default options to install it.

Yes they do! And its good that way, since older community patches are not compatible with newer versions of "Amplitude patches" anyway (which is why I remove all download links after an official patch hits). I typically port ELCP to the newest version in a matter of one to three days. You can check that the community patch is active by keeping an eye on the game version displayed in the lower left of the main menu.

• I commented previously on the AI being inactive to tackle the victory quest. Aside from that, should it then not also have access to the wonder victory? In the 40-50 turns since the leading AIs had been moved to main question completion, I cannot say they have made much of an effort to build the wonder. At least, I never got a notification that they started on a wonder and in cheat mode I did not see a wonder in the build list.

They can build the victory wonder, but they rarily do - I've seen it happen once or twice. I think it was programmed deliberatly that way because the wonder victory was very easy to achieve and basically unstoppable in Vanilla so it would be frustrating for the player. Why Amplitude never thought about nerfing the wonder victory or construction cost reduction is beyond me. Anyway I may do something about that in the future.

• Related to that, is there a way to make the victory progress tool tip for the wonder show the progression towards the wonder construction? As is, to me it seems like it will show 0% until the very end. Or, if that's easier, show warnings for like 50% and 80% or comparable, similar to other victory conditions.

Yeah I noticed that .. may correct that if I find time.

• Also, would you agree that the AI researching way more technologies that it "needs" to is problematic, if it is to have a realistic shot at the science victory? I would assume that especially the Vaulters would seek that one and they have ended up at 68 techs just before I won - and only 3 of them victory techs. Ok, I traded it some techs, but not to that extent. Conscious that how many techs to research is a hefty strategic decision, but that seemed too much. It might have won the game already with more focus ...

Well its easy to make the AI beeline tech victory, but the question is more, if that would be fun. Would make high difficulties even faster than they are right now. Actually Im thinking of reducing the resource bonuses the AI receives on Endless a bit. Now that the AI is actually somewhat competent in keeping production queues filled these games are over so fast ...

• How difficult would it be to visually split the expansion penalty into a) the penalty due to the number of cities and b) the local penalty, i.e. due to number of borough districts? I would find that useful to keep apart, but it's a nice-to-have.

Dont know, but my todo-list is so huge that minor changes like these arent really on the menu now.

Thanks again for your continued work on this. It's great! The changes of your recent patch look great, so I am tempted to try Morgawr now.

LeaderEnemyBoss wrote:

Morladum wrote:

Hi Leader!  Made an account for 2 reasons: To thank you for your work on the CBP and to maybe ask / suggest something.  I absolutely love the EL soundtrack, but I feel like I'm missing a large part of it due to my affinity for some factions and distaste of others (gameplay mechanics wise).  So, I was wondering if, on your next update, you could put an option that cycles all of the songs EL has to offer despite the chosen faction.  I wanna hear the Kapaku and the Morhgar themes while i play a 3 hour cultist game! lol

Again, great work keeping this game fresh and interesting!  

As far as I know it alread does that? Each faction has a short and a long variant of its theme, and the long versions play regardless of who you are playing from time to time (as far as I know).

Hey again Leader.  Just played a campaign for a few hours and I'm almost 90% sure all of the faction themes aren't being played.  Again, if its not too complicated to code or w/e, mind trying to put a full loop of the soundtrack as an option? 

Oh, and thanks for the quick reply.  Your dedication to this patch is admirable! <3

Is there a list anywhere of all the changes this patch makes to the game?

Are there any balance changes for heros in this mod?

Does this disable achievements like all other mods do?

KnsCtyShufl wrote:

Is there a list anywhere of all the changes this patch makes to the game?

Are there any balance changes for heros in this mod?

Does this disable achievements like all other mods do?

The opening post has a short list, the complete changelogs come with the patch (there is also a link in the opening post).

There a many balance changes, but no hero specific ones.

This mod does not disable achievements and it infact allows other mods to be used without disabling achievements as well ;).

Hey everyone, the next version of ELCP is here! Remember to join my [Discord Channel], if you want to have a chat. Further information for newcomers on page 1.

This new patch marks the start in my endeavor to make the AI behave a bit less passive and a bit more like a real player. A new Victory Layer teaches the AI how to do the Victory questline and lets it react more strongly towards Victory notifications (depending on difficulty and Shared Victory setting). I also revamped the market behavior, which will in turn make market resources a bit more scarce. Finally the AI took some lessons in basic army grouping and defending cities during wars. It will probably not be perfect, but it is a start.

Speaking of Victory notifications: I already nerfed the peace point distribution for Diplomatic victories a while back, but the [latest diplo-playthrough of SB] shows, how little has changed. I decided to rework the Diplomatic victory alltogether. A new (optional) buffer mechanic neuters the old "spam treaties in one turn to instantly win"-playstyle. I also addressed other internal victories, the main goal being to extend the game length a bit, since experienced players reliably finish around turn 100. Additionally Victory-Warnings are displayed a bit earlier, so other players hopefully still have time to react.

All Kapaku players also have reason to rejoice: A new Worldgeneration-Option will ensure their starting region to be volcanic, even if no other volcanic regions are allowed

Remember, XML related balance change can be reverted by my [Vanilla Balance Mod].

Downloadlink (Installer) || Downloadlink (Zip) || Downloadlink (Mac)

Note: Multiplayer saves from older versions are not compatible with newer versions (Singleplayer saves are fine)

Changelog for v2.2.2:

General

• Fixed a bug of ELCP, that lead to faction specific traits being rendered useless until restart, when hovering over "demanding gods" in the faction creation screen (thanks Mindful!)
• Fixed an Issue of the Mac Version locking up when entering the "Join Game"-Screen (hopefully, thanks Robin Claassen)
• Quests that require a region to be "secure" now ignore naval Units by default
  • A number of issues could cause quests to be harder to solve than intended (like the Sea Monster blocking the quest because it likes to watch the beach)
  • Modders can use the new property IncludeNaval="true", if they want to reactivate the old behavior of ConditionCheck_RegionContainsEnemy
• The Victory status for the Wonder Victory will now display, how far an Empire is in its construction of the "Temple of the Earth's Core"
• Added a new Advanced World Setting "Volcanize Kapaku Regions" - Ensures that starting regions of Kapaku players are volcanic
  • Is active by default and can be deactivated in the Advanced World Setting pregame menu
  • In Vanilla Kapaku player occasionally spawned in non-volcanic regions (especially when several of them where present)
  • With this option activated, if no suitable region is found, the next best region gets transformed into a volcanic one
  • Can be combined with setting "Volcanic Regions" to "None", which results in no volcanic regions except the Kapaku starting ones
  • Is inactive without the Inferno DLC

UI

• Hero level up notifications now close automatically, if the heros' skill points have already been spent (similar to how booster notifications work)

Balance [Core]

• ELCP's progressive tech trade cost now incorporate a small exponential factor
  • That means players doing many tech trades will suffer a growing penalty in tech trade costs, while players that only occasionally trade techs while notice little difference
• Added a new ruleset for how Diplomatic Points from treaties accumulate (Idea by Gleb Strelets, programming help by Cornebre)
  • Is active by default and can be deactivated in the pregame menu
  • Instead of immediatly gaining Diplomatic Points from treaties, they are now stored in a buffer instead
  • Each turn a fixed amount of Diplomatic Points are transferred from this buffer onto the players Account
  • This effectively makes "from 0 to 100" Diplomatic Victories impossible
  • The default transfer-limit per turn is 30, it is influenced by game speed and map size
  • It can also be altered by the "Diplomatic Point Gain"-Multiplier (United Empires Council Tech, Winter effects)
  • Buffer and transfered amount are displayed in a new info panel in the lower left of the diplomacy screen
  • Note: Diplomatic points gained from relations are unaffected by this change

Balance [XML]

• Reduced Diplomatic Points gained via diplomatic treaties from 0.1 to 0.05 per influence point spent
  • On default settings sub-turn-100-victories are still very much possible, this change makes treaties less dominant and increases the need of Alliances
• Increased the required base amount for the Economic Victory from 666600 to 777000
• Reduced the World Size scaling of Economic and Diplomatic Victories from 1.4/1.8 for Large/Huge worlds to 1.3/1.6
  • The scaling for larger World Sizes felt "right", while the the amounts needed on normal map sizes was rather easy to achieve
  • Accordingly the base difficulty to reach these Victories got increased, but the scaling with map size got reduced
• Victory warnings for Economic, Technology and Diplomatic Victories are displayed a bit earlier
• Increased the Influence cost of "Catspaw" by 50%
  • Catspawing naval armies is one of the main reasons, morgawr tend to spiral out of control early on
  • Increasing the influence cost should force morgawr players to commit more influence gathering if they want to pursue this route
• Reduced the FIDSI gain of oceanic facilities across the board (more so for the stronger ones)
  • Most Facilities are strong on their own and very cost effective (netting the player resources, stockpiles, buffs, and even weakining other players)
  • The reduced FIDSI gain should lower the impact of a (lucky) early sea grab)
• Significantly reduced the effects of the following Facilities: Luxury Boost Facility, Strategic Boost Facility, Component Design Facility, Cargo Nexus Facility
• Mercenary Corps/Freelance Guards now also reduce the Buyout cost of Mercenaries and Heros by 20%
  • This feature is mostly overlooked, mainly because mercenaries are too expensive in the important midgame portion of the game.
  • The added bonuses makes the tech a bit more lucrative, even if you dont plan to use it immediatly.

AI

• A new AI-Layer teaches the AI a stronger focus on Victory conditions
  • AIs will react strongly to Victory warnings of other players (will take Difficulty and Allied Victory settings into account)
  • AIs will consider pursuing a science victory earlier
  • AIs can now actually solve the victory quest (without cheating!)
  • This new Layer is still experimental, further improvements may come in future updates
• AIs can now group up armies
  • Previously AI armies mostly acted independent of each other
  • A bunch of new function have been implemented in order to teach the AI the value of "army balls"
  • New preemptive city defense behavior hopefully makes the AI a bit better at defending its cities during war times
  • Is still experimental, report strange behavior
• Reworked the way AIs use the resource section of the market place
  • Previously buying and selling resources was calculated independently, which could lead to the AI buying and selling the same resources in the same turn
  • In general the AI was to "sell happy", selling everything they cant use RIGHT now and flooding the market with resources
  • The reworked AI will be way less likely to do that, but will be more likely to buy out resources (especially luxuries) they can use
  • As a consequence the market place will be less "crowded" with goods
• AIs will now consider engaging in proactive resource and/or technology trades with friends
• Tried fixing the Settler Spam bug .... again and again
• AIs will now consider creating unitless Armies with heros they have no other usage for
• Fixed some issues with the new WarResponse function that sometimes led Empires to show "irrational" behavior like declaring wars on Allies as a reaction to another Empire declaring war on them
• AIs are less likely to irrationally abandon alliances and peacy treaties in times of need (when they are losing a war for example)
• Fixed a bug that prevented naval armies from being able to use bombardement
• Loosened the range requirement for navy tasks in order to prevent naval AI armies from being jobless
• AIs recognize now when a city is unsiegable (due to it having no unoccupied exploitation tiles around) and will look for better targets accordingly
• Added a helper function that helps the AI to more efficiently regroup large army balls, since the generally larger unit counts in comparison to vanilla sometimes overwhelm the AI
• Non-Kapaku AIs will no longer research volcanic techs without possessing volcanic regions

Modding

• New Debug-Command: "/Teleport" teleports the selected army to a world coordinate of the players choice
• Army Debugger is now displayed correctly for colossi

This work is seriously increadible.

Many thanks for doing this