Recharging God Powers - Mod?

[Venrez]

Hi folks

I've always believed the God Powers should regenerate after a certain amount of time. I always found it silly that the majority of god powers were single-use only and some are so overwhelmingly better than others it really makes some choices irrelevant.

Is there a way to Mod it so that all God Powers can be given recharge timers?

For example, the Tier 1 God Power would regenerate after 2-3 minutes.

The final Tier 4 God Power would regenerate after 10 minutes.

Just as an example.

- - -

I'd be happy to attempt it myself but I am not sure where to start when modding such an old game, as good as Mythology is and how much I adore it.

[RR]

So let's say Rain would regenerate 3 minutes after you cast it. If you have a 3v3 with 3 Ra players, they could Rain all game long, preventing players fromcasting any other spell and having the most op eco you would ever see. How on earth is that more balanced than what we have at the moment?

[Loggy]

I seem to remember reading somewhere that recharging GPs were originally scrapped by developers prior to the game's release because of balancing issues.

GPs already throw balance out the window in large games, for example with stacking bolts on villagers in the first minutes of the game.

[Venrez]

Originally posted by RebelsRising:

So let's say Rain would regenerate 3 minutes after you cast it. If you have a 3v3 with 3 Ra players, they could Rain all game long, preventing players fromcasting any other spell and having the most op eco you would ever see. How on earth is that more balanced than what we have at the moment?

The recharge times were just an example to get the point across. Obviously a 3 minute recharge is not fixed and would be subject to change once the Mod is made a reality and a more 'fair' time could be worked out taking into account all the various god powers at each level.

Rechargable God Powers may throw out balance in a competitive aspect, but I see no reason why it cant be a thing for an optional mod for those of us who primarily play versus the AI.

Originally posted by Loggy:

GPs already throw balance out the window in large games, for example with stacking bolts on villagers in the first minutes of the game.

Hence my point. I see Bolt as one of the most useless God Powers in the game, but I can see how it'd be game-breaking if in a 2v2 or 3v3 game you rush an opponents base and all use it at the same time to eliminate his starting villagers.

Its why I dont like Competitive play. Its all about winning and never about playing a game for the sake of playing a game. Its all about the most efficient, straightforward and fastest way to win.

But thats off-topic.

[[KeeN] Flame]

bolt most useless godpower in the game? you can bolt son of osiris, nidhogg, and norse ulfsrack when he builds a dock to gain a massive advantage. lol. please dude every game or sport is about winning. even at a casual level. except if you're training/practicing to be good. Then it's about improving. people do sports and games because they like the challenge to get good at something and enjoy doing that game/sport. having no progress in anything you do isn't fun at all. it's just boring.

[Venrez]

Your discussion is unrelated. I am merely talking about the possibility of whether a recharge timer can be modded in for the god powers. Can it be done?

[RR]

Originally posted by Venrez:

Your discussion is unrelated. I am merely talking about the possibility of whether a recharge timer can be modded in for the god powers. Can it be done?

The only way I can imagine something like this is by adding triggers to each map that refresh gp's after some time. Maybe someone can think of an engine that doesn't require all the maps to be updated, but I'm not capable of doing that.

[Venrez]

Im thinking that something must be able to be done with the games existing code.

For example, Atlantean / Titan godpowers regenerate a certain number of times after a certain number of minutes. With some simple editing, it should be relatively simple to adjust each and every godpower to have "99" charges and regenerate after a certain set amount of time for example.

The point is that the system is built in and already there. What we lack is the knowledge of how to modify it, or specifically what files to adjust and how.

[RR]

Originally posted by Venrez:

Im thinking that something must be able to be done with the games existing code.

For example, Atlantean / Titan godpowers regenerate a certain number of times after a certain number of minutes. With some simple editing, it should be relatively simple to adjust each and every godpower to have "99" charges and regenerate after a certain set amount of time for example.

The point is that the system is built in and already there. What we lack is the knowledge of how to modify it, or specifically what files to adjust and how.

Well modifying godpowers is easy and letting them recharge after some time is possible too as you mentioned; look into the files in the godpowers folder. I'm quite sure that a mod based on those files will cause desyncs though, even if both players have them (I already tried something similar), so if I was about to make a mod like that, I wouldn't use that approach.

[Venrez]

Originally posted by RebelsRising:

Originally posted by Venrez:

Im thinking that something must be able to be done with the games existing code.

For example, Atlantean / Titan godpowers regenerate a certain number of times after a certain number of minutes. With some simple editing, it should be relatively simple to adjust each and every godpower to have "99" charges and regenerate after a certain set amount of time for example.

The point is that the system is built in and already there. What we lack is the knowledge of how to modify it, or specifically what files to adjust and how.

Well modifying godpowers is easy and letting them recharge after some time is possible too as you mentioned; look into the files in the godpowers folder. I'm quite sure that a mod based on those files will cause desyncs though, even if both players have them (I already tried something similar), so if I was about to make a mod like that, I wouldn't use that approach.

Risk of Desync isnt really an issue since I primarily play singleplayer versus AI.

It would be nice to have a more reliable and stable version to play online with friends, but that can come in due time once an actual working version of such a mod is made in the first place.

Im not sure where to begin though. Every game is different and whilst I have extensive experience modding other games such as SC2, 7days and others, Im not sure which files need to be edited here and how they're handled by the game (where the files are kept after being adjusted, how they're opted to be enabled ingame, etc. I know there's the Mod Manager ingame as is, but what I mean is setting it up so that the game recognizes it as a mod to begin with).

Especially given Mythology is from roughly 2002 and the general game file architecture is quite different to how things are handled today.

[Flip]

Originally posted by Venrez:

Originally posted by RebelsRising:

So let's say Rain would regenerate 3 minutes after you cast it. If you have a 3v3 with 3 Ra players, they could Rain all game long, preventing players fromcasting any other spell and having the most op eco you would ever see. How on earth is that more balanced than what we have at the moment?

The recharge times were just an example to get the point across. Obviously a 3 minute recharge is not fixed and would be subject to change once the Mod is made a reality and a more 'fair' time could be worked out taking into account all the various god powers at each level.

Rechargable God Powers may throw out balance in a competitive aspect, but I see no reason why it cant be a thing for an optional mod for those of us who primarily play versus the AI.

Originally posted by Loggy:

GPs already throw balance out the window in large games, for example with stacking bolts on villagers in the first minutes of the game.

Hence my point. I see Bolt as one of the most useless God Powers in the game, but I can see how it'd be game-breaking if in a 2v2 or 3v3 game you rush an opponents base and all use it at the same time to eliminate his starting villagers.

Its why I dont like Competitive play. Its all about winning and never about playing a game for the sake of playing a game. Its all about the most efficient, straightforward and fastest way to win.

But thats off-topic.

I have to agree, I had a lot of fun playing with my dad. Doing strategy's that are really newbie (mostly rocks, phoenix and collosus spam, NO military, because they're weaker.... I taught :P). So I bought it again and it's really depressing, I'm trying to have a fun game but it just isn't fun anymore :(. I wish my dad still liked the game

[Venrez]

You can still type in things like PANDORAS BOX to get a random assortment of god powers, or DIVINE INTERVENTION to give each god power you currently have an additional charge. You just press enter, type it in and press enter again.

Simple cheats really. Thats all they are. Doesnt work in online play for obvious reasons.

There are many more, such as resource-specific ones or summoning an invincible Wolf thats like 5x as strong as a Titan.

But yeah, I'd like for rechargable god powers to be an active thing across all players rather than having to individually put in a code each time - also in doing so keeping the god powers you have chosen advancing through the ages.

Im going to have to do some searching and figure out how to. Im sure I am not the only player who would have some fun with it. Remember people, games are not always about stale 'exact' competitive tournament play. It doesnt have to be 100% balanced.

Even in the sense of single-use god powers, it isnt balanced. Some god powers are definitively worse than others, like comparing crappy Lure to Bolt, or rubbish Sentinels to Rain.

[Luxis]

Haha! Nice discussion. I like when there are people worried about balancing, pretty grat first reponse there! haha

Well, yes, there's a way. And I just did that. With ALL the spells. :)

Yes, RebelRising, there would be this issue with 3 Ra players, but I think that you are narrowing your vision there, maybe. haha
Well, if the problem is about the cooldown of the power and the duration of it.. well.. change that. Rain doesn't need to have a cooldown of 3 minutes, maybe 7 or 8, i don't know. And maybe it doens't have to have a 1 minute duration. You see? :)
It's just about finding a balance, just the name says, the balancing of things. haha
(and ain't that what life is all about? )

OK. To the actual modding! :)

There's a folder, guys:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Age of Mythology\god powers

All the powers are there and.. Well, I begun my research when I wanted to do this (because i also think it would be a great idea) by comparing spells that i know that have charges and that have recharge time. And there it was, the tags "<rechargetime>" and "<recharges>". So I simply add those too tags to the spell that doens't have it and voilá. :)
Yeah, thank Microsoft Studios for that. A preeeetty neat way to parameterize many aspects in the game. You just change the xml, save it, restart the game and your changes will be there.
That's it.

<OFFTOPIC>
I wanted to talk a little more about how i get here, though.. I was searching for "researching powers mod". :|
I have that idea, that you could build a veeery expesive "Temple" of some kind. And there you would be able to research a power, for a very great amount of resources also, to appear on your power pallete.
Yeah, ok, it would "break" the game. I would destroy the theme and all. But I want it. :| hahaha
Imagine the combos, how rich the gameplay would be!

"ohhh, but if you get this and that spells playing with an ally and he gets this and that spells.. then."

Yeah, ok, man. I know that a first glimpse this would leave a lot of breaches to become unbalanced. But its just that. Balancing. With a bigger effort, maybe things can be arranged. :)
So.. since i haven't found ANY mod that does that.. The next step is asking. How to do it. :|
And I know that now it actually would require all that RebelsRising said. haha
And maybe there may not even be a way to link Technologies with the Powers. :|
</OFFTOPIC>

So, Mr. Venrez... If you haven't done that already, do it. Its pretty easy. I did it with Find/Replace and Regular Expressions on Noptepad++. haha Changes all the spells with one click to have those two tags.
Any questions, you can ask me.

Good luck.

[Flip]

yay, 20 plenty vaults ._.

[Luxis]

Originally posted by Flip:

yay, 20 plenty vaults ._.

Haha! Yeah, there's that. I thought of that too. Maybe Plenty Vault would have to get the biggest cooldown haha. 15, 20 minutes, maybe? hehe

[nottud]

You could make a modified version of a RMS and use triggers to recharge the powers at appropriate times according to which minor and major gods they researched.