Age of Wonders 4

Age of Wonders 4

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Backgrounds Are Hero Skills
   
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Tags: Mod, Heroes
File Size
Posted
Updated
1.240 MB
May 21, 2023 @ 5:55pm
Jun 2, 2023 @ 7:16pm
11 Change Notes ( view )

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Backgrounds Are Hero Skills

Description
Description
This mod makes all 73 background character traits into hero skills. In this way, there is no forced RNG. Be aware that recruitable heroes over level 1 may already have a background hero skill, but it can be respecced. Additionally, for technical and balance reasons, affinity-granting background hero skills cannot be respecced (but they will never be chosen unless you pick them.) The effects of affinity-granting background hero skills are applied when you end your turn.


Purpose
There are a couple of things this mod effectively allows for:
  1. All heroes can have meaningful backgrounds. Since it is difficult to refresh the recruitable hero pool, you will not be forced to recruit heroes with useless backgrounds (i.e. a hero with a stability boost background when you have Dark culture.)
  2. Ruler heroes get access to background character trait modifiers. Since ruler heroes do not have access to these in vanilla, it is optimal to put all of your best gear on some recruited hero. By making background character traits into hero skills, rulers can be just as strong as recruited heroes.


Balance
While making this mod, I realized that there are a lot of potentially abusable background traits. To solve some of the balance problems (especially from the lack of RNG,) I made a handful of choices:
  1. Each hero can only have 1 background hero skill. (In vanilla, pre-defined template heroes like Jonas the Strong can have up to 2 background character traits, but all regular heroes have 1 background character trait.)
  2. Each background hero skill requires 1 skill point.
  3. Each affinity-granting background hero skill can only be chosen once for each player. This background hero skill cannot be respecced. (This will prevent abusing these skills to quickly get many high tier tomes.)
If you want heroes to have any number of background hero skills, check out Backgrounds Are Hero Skills - Unrestricted (other than this change, it is the same.)


Future Balance Ideas
I would like for heroes to have more than 1 background skill but it could be too strong. Here are some ideas I am considering (there can be a mix of ideas:)
  1. Having a background skill in 1 category will not limit you from having a background skill in another category.
  2. More powerful background skills require more skill points.
  3. Heroes can select another background skill at certain level intervals.
  4. Background skills are divided into tiers based on strength. You must select a lower tier skill before obtaining a higher tier skill.
  5. Background skills can be respecced (there is no way to prevent players from abusing temporary unit unlocks.)
  6. Players can get the same background skills on different heroes.


Used Files
  • Definitions_HeroSkills.rpk
  • SharedModifiers_UnitProperties.rpk
  • Traits_Background_Characters.rpk (MODIFIED!)
  • Lords.rpk (MODIFIED!)
  • Gameplay_Icons.clb
  • 1 vanilla language file (i.e. EN.mo)
Popular Discussions View All (2)
0
May 21, 2023 @ 5:57pm
PINNED: Bugs
Anooooj
0
May 21, 2023 @ 5:56pm
PINNED: Compatibility
Anooooj
54 Comments
Zy Aug 20, 2024 @ 11:50am 
I found a way to fix the Tome requirements, thanks to "Tome Limit"

Uploaded it here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3313196020
Zy Aug 20, 2024 @ 3:59am 
I thought I found the option to increase the tomes needed for the next tier, but whatever I change in there, it does not change the amount of tomes required in game.
I couldn't find a mod that changed the amount of tomes required as well or I would have "stolen" it from there.

If anyone has more ideas or find a mod that does exactly that, I wouldn't mind changing this mod to "fix" the tome requirement.

(2/2)
Zy Aug 20, 2024 @ 3:59am 
This Mod adds a new Tome to grant all the abilities to the Heroes therefore no second Tier 1 tome is needed to get to choose a Tier 2 tome.
It would be possible (and easy) to change all those abilities to a different tome and remove the tome it grants extra, but then everyone would be forced to choose this Tier 1 tome or miss out on background skills alltogether.
It is not possible to just add the skills to all Tier 1 Tomes without creating all 73 skills 14 additional times from scratch as there is no copy/paste function and then also add all those new skills in the exclusion list of each other, or you could end up choosing the same skill or multiple skills as many times as you have Tier 1 tomes. (The AI will certainly do that)

(1/2)
Shadevar Aug 17, 2024 @ 11:54am 
Hello,
When I have this mod enabled it appears to be changing how the tome progression works, and is only requiring completion of a single Tier 1 tome before Tier 2 tomes are unlocked. I'm guessing this is unintentional.

For reference, normally you need two Tier 1 tomes before Tier 2's are unlocked.

And just to confirm, I tested this with ONLY this mod enabled and NO other mods, and it was still causing this behaviour.
NagChampa Aug 2, 2024 @ 8:11am 
I also like the idea @GorishiDan proposed
NagChampa Aug 2, 2024 @ 8:09am 
@J I had this too. I hope this could get fixed because I hate the RNG with the hero bacjrounds and how its also impossible to cycle the pool of heroes. This mod is great for that but i dont want that random tome buff
Unter_Null Apr 7, 2024 @ 5:09am 
Doesnt work. Maybe because i cant even recruit lvl 1 hero, they all above that all the time.
Glaikit Mayfly Jan 1, 2024 @ 2:24pm 
@J & @General Jah
Changing the way how the skills are unlocked, or increasing the amount of tomes needed for the next tier by 1 would probably both work. But I don't know if the latter is even possible with the tools and the first option would probably mean remaking the mod from scratch. I'm not familiar enough with making mods for the game to try either.
General Jah Dec 10, 2023 @ 11:30am 
@glaikit Were you able to find a fix for this mod? Seems awesome and I want to use it but not if its bugged.

thanks!
J Dec 5, 2023 @ 7:49am 
@Glaikit Mayfly
Did you happen to find a solution?