mod: Grapejuice

[Grapjas]

Please report any bugs you find here or on Github(preferably) and feedback is greatly appreciated!

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grapejuice.zipgrapejuice.pyromod

 

text version of mod features

Spoiler

About Grapejuice

This mod aims to bring interesting new mechanics to the player, and- to some extend- increase realism. It started out simple with just adding 2 maps and randomnization. Then quickly became quite larger. 

The name mods name "Grapejuice" is inspired by people that misunderstand my nickname Grapjas for Grapejuice or think it's in any way related to it. Even though it's not i think it's quite a funny misunderstanding to me, so i embrace it. Grapjas is a Dutch word and means "Joker" (not as in batman joker though, lol). 

No doubt about it, this mod has much room for improvement, and may run things in an suboptimal way because i'm still learning alot. But i'll try to improve. 

Please report any issues you may find here on the forum or open a new issue on Github.

TL;DR version of what Grapejuice adds: 
•    Total rebalance of all units, per civ and even per rank. 
•    Ranged units have ammo.
•    With the new ammo feature, theres a new re-arm aura at military buildings.  
•    Units can charge the enemy for bonus damage. 
•    Units enter a wounded state when their health is low.
•    Various units have secondary weapons.
•    Espionage tech has been reworked.
•    Promotion has been reworked.
•    Some techs have been reworked.
•    Priests have been reworked and they can make a building that's new, "Field Camp".
•    Some particle effects have been added and others have been reworked.
•    2 New skirmish maps.
•    Player position randomnization for supported skirmish maps.

For the more detailed version of these changes read further down below (in the same order).

Total Rebalance

Every single unit has received individual balance changes based on their appearance ingame. The result of this is that civilizations feel much more unique. It makes Mauryans the quick moving and agile attackers, the Romans the well equipped but less mobile force and so on.
In short the balance goes as follows: 
•    Lightweight units have low armor, but are fast movers and attackers. 
•    Heavyweight units move and attack slow but can endure much more damage. 
The weight of weapons and shield size is being taken into account aswell. For the full in-dept view of the rebalance click here. 

There are however, also some general balance changes:
•    Pikemen got their hack damage removed and now have a 5x cavalry bonus damage instead of 3x.
•    Spearmen got their cavalry bonus damage removed. Increased their piercing damage and lowered their hack damage.
•    Soldier melee cavalry got their health reduced by 40 hp.
•    Support units: 
    •    Females now have twice as much health. 
    •    Females/priests/traders have the defense/speed of an unarmored unit. 
    •    War dogs have much less health now, though still very fast and gave them more attack.
•    Siege changes: 
    •    Rams only cost (alot) of wood, siege towers/throwers/shooters mostly cost wood and some stone/metal. 
    •    All types of elephants can be trained at the town phase and only cost (alot) of food. 
         Melee elephants are no longer siege units like they were but more of a shock unit with high pierce damage. 
         Elephant archers have much more ammo than horse archers. 
    •    Siege tower now shoots equal amount of arrows to number of garrisoned RANGED units (was capped before) and have an ammo pool. 
    •    All siege units now have much less pierce ressistance, because human ranged units (and also defense structures) 
         can't attack siege with ranged weapons anymore.
    •    Bolt shooters can now quite effectively counter siege units (as intended). 
    •    Mechanical siege units received some hack ressistance buffs, making it equal to the new pierce ressistance.
•    Ranged units  will recieve 10% weapon damage bonus for both weapons per rank. 
     Melee units will receive 20% weapon damage bonus per rank. 
     Elephant archers regain 20% of their ammo back on rank up.
•    Ranged units attack damage changes: 
    •    Javelin: Very high attack, low range, low ammo, low projectile speed, low spread - Cavalry have increased spread. 
    •    Bow: Good attack, high range, decent ammo, very high projectile speed, high spread - cavalry have less range. 
    •    Slingers: Low attack, medium-high range, plenty ammo, medium-high projectile speed, medium spread.
•    Heroes and champions now have the same attack damage per weapon type. 

Ammo

Ranged units, including siege units, have ammo and will need to reload their ammo at the new re-arm aura. Slingers will regain ammo slowly anywhere. 
The pink statusbar represents the unit ammo.

Re-Arm Aura

Military buildings and also the forge have the new re-arm aura. Ranged units inside it will fully restock their ammo every 3s. You need to have at least 1 forge on the field for the aura to work, meaning that the forge now plays a very important role and capturing it can severely weaken the enemy. Some military buildings have a bigger aura than others. 

Charge Attack

All human military units and also rams have energy and will use it automatically to charge their target within a certain range. While charging, the unit will consume energy at a rate. If they had energy left when reaching their target, they will deal bonus damage on that blow and consume the energy they had left. Rams total energy and bonus damage is based on the number of garrisoned units inside it. Units will only recharge energy is they are completely idle.
The yellow statusbar represents the units energy.

Wounded State

All units (even wildlife, siege etc), will enter a wounded state when their health drops below a certain treshold. This will make you think twice before commiting your army to fight because retreating may not be so easy anymore. They will receive movement and attack speed penalties while in this state. The state gets removed when units are healed/repaired to above that treshold.

Secondary Weapons

Pretty much all ranged units and some melee units have secondary weapons. They will automatically switch to melee weapons and otherwise use ranged based on these conditions:
•    If the targetted unit is getting to close.
•    The target is a siege unit or a wall.
•    The unit is out of ammo.

Espionage Tech Rework

Players will no longer be able to automatically see enemy unit stats. They will need to send spies via the espionage tech that will gather information about their infastructure and equipment. After buying the tech this information becomes available to you.

Promotion Rework

If there is a champion version of a unit type available, soldiers of that unit type will be able to promote as one. This means there are 4 promotion ranks available to some units. For example: If you play as the Athenians, the Athenian hoplite soldiers (unit type: spearmen) will be able to promote to city guards (unit type: spearmen) in the 4th rank. Can you make your men survive long enough to see them get promoted to champion status?

Defensive Techs Rework

Instead of 4 upgrades there are now just 2. They both give a positive and a negative bonus. Example: Soldiers +3 crush, +1 hack and pierce ressistance. 50ms attack and 0.25 movement speed penalty.

Priest Rework

Priests can no longer perform fantasy heals. They instead heal garrisoned units at a rate (stacks) in the structure they are in. In addition to this, they are the only one who can be appointed to make the new "Field Camp" building that is available to all civs. This building can be created in all territories and serves as a resting place for soldiers. Soldiers will heal slowly and can be increased by adding priests. But be aware, even though it cannot be captured, it's destroyed really easily.

Particle Reworks And Additions

Arrows now have slightly visible trails. Flaming projectiles like javelins, arrows and siege stones got their particles reworked.

2 New Skirmish maps

"A Path Beyond II" and "X". Both are 8 player maps. For a more visual presentation check the forum posts.

Player Position Randomnization

Supported maps can be found under the grapejuice filter, or you can simply check if they have my mod logo on them in the preview. Normally, skirmish map positions are always divided the same. For example: If you would always be in slot 2 at the game setup, you would always get the same starting position on that map. 

The new randomnization aims to make a change to that. No matter in which slot you are, players will be randomly placed across the available starting positions. It will keep teams together and it will NOT break the maps design (for instance if a map has 2 islands, it will make sure the teams are divided correctly between the islands).

Outro

Hopefully, you'll have fun playing the mod. 
There are some changes i didn't  mention here, i guess you just have to play and find out for yourself

Once again, if you encounter any bugs/issues (i'm sure there are some) please be sure to report them to me on the forum. I'll do my best to fix them.

 

 

 

Edited January 3 by Grapjas
3.1.3 release

[Grapjas]

Small update. Added a new variable to a map's script: 

// Setting this to true returns player entities to their original spot before randomnization (useful for atlas).
var g_atlasEditor = "false";

It does what the comment says. I also recommend loading in TriggerHelper.js in your map's xml file so atlas editor can open the map without any errors. Check my maps in the mod as examples. Updated the OP download.

Not relevant anymore.

Edited March 19, 2021 by Grapjas

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

On 29/01/2021 at 3:22 PM, Grapjas said:

Would love a function where we could reset explored data to none. Anyway,

Indeed. On skirmish maps, non-Iberian players can get the FOW lifted where the skirmish replacer Iberian walls had been placed. Would be nice if this were not so (perhaps when the map is loaded vision can be initialized after the skirmish replacer units have been set, or something). 

[Grapjas]

16 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Indeed. On skirmish maps, non-Iberian players can get the FOW lifted where the skirmish replacer Iberian walls had been placed. Would be nice if this were not so (perhaps when the map is loaded vision can be initialized after the skirmish replacer units have been set, or something). 

It's pretty much the only thing that keeps my mod from being entirely automated. I already have the code finished to do all the location mapping automatically but i cant use it because the previous spot will be visible without a manual workaround. Maybe one of the devs want to make a function in the future for us to reset exlored areas, but i'm sure they are busy enough as is already. Still hoping though 

[wraitii]

I created #5970 for that. No promise whatsoever that it will be worked on for A25, but it seems like it would  be useful for campaigns, which are aimed for A25, so maybe.

[Grapjas]

Mod is now up to date with A24. Updated the download links in the original post.

[Grapjas]

Massive update!

Video covering most things:

DETAILS: 

• * Added  most official WildFireGames skirmish maps to the mod, to be played with player position randomnization (and everything else in this mod). 
• Arrows, slinger & ballista stones, and bolts now have a (slight) trail.
• Redone flaming arrow/javs and siege particles (it was a fire trail, now it's more fireball with a smoke trail).
• New building: Field Camps. Available for all civs. They can only be build inside neutral and enemy territory (max 3). Max 10 (12 for some civs) can be garrisoned. Units will slowly heal while garrisoned and the heal can be boosted by garrisoning priests/doctors/surgeons and even more with the new added tech "Quick Thinking". The camp/tent can be destroyed easily even be a decent army of regular units, but cannot be captured.
• Reworked priests. They can now build (and also help build, with reduced effectiveness) the new Field Camps and can now attack, with weak power. They can no longer heal units on the battlefield, they instead now boost healing done in field camps. Limit = 6.
• Units now enter a wounded state when their health drops below a treshold. They will receive a movement and attack speed penalty while in this state. Units in this state will receive a bandage icon on them.
  ^{(Originally @wraitii' s idea )}
• Some general changes to units: 
  • All units move a little faster.
  • Slingers, Javelineers became slightly more accurate, archers slightly less accurate.
  • Slingers received slightly more attack speed and damage. 
  • Ranged champions and heros now have the same attack speed and accuracy.
• Archers including hero's and champions:
  • Attack damage is increased but they now shoot much slower, are less accurate, and take longer to aim.
    ^{(Logic: Some bows require considerable amount of power to draw, especially longbows)}
  • Ranged archer cavalry (incl hero & champ) now have less range, accuracy and attack power compared to ranged infantry 
     archers but higher attack speed.
    ^{(Logic: Cavalry archers actually used lighter bows than infantry)}
  • Champion and hero archers aim/attack faster and have more damage (like usual but tweaked the numbers).
    Hero archers have the same aim/attack speed as champions but much more health (unmodded) and damage (tweaked). 

 

* A few skirmish maps are not included for randomnization for this mod for various reasons with them mainly being:

1. The map is more a scenario type of map (extra units/structures).
2. There is not much point in randomnization if the starting positions are or nearly are identical (or symmetrical),
   and would otherwise need slight modifications for the mod. 

Look for the maps with my mod logo on them, they are the ones that work with randomnization. 

Updated original post download links and very soon after this post it will be updated on mod.io and also ingame->mod selection.

Ty all on IRC dev chat for answering questions

Edited March 12, 2021 by Grapjas

[Grapjas]

There was a buggy icon in regards of the above update that i needed to patch, which was actually caused by the compiler for some reason. Replacing the icon with the raw version instead of cached fixed it. Updated download links once again. 

[Lion.Kanzen]

I definitely want that, I'm one of those who like the rain ... the rain of arrows against the enemy.

[azayrahmad]

I'm especially interested in the wounded state feature, definitely want to adapt this to my mod . Is it possible to make injured units stance to Flee? I think it could make for a realistic unit behavior.

[Grapjas]

8 hours ago, azayrahmad said:

I'm especially interested in the wounded state feature, definitely want to adapt this to my mod . Is it possible to make injured units stance to Flee? I think it could make for a realistic unit behavior.

Shouldn't be hard to implement, look for the Health~grapejuice component in my mod. I've tagged the code used for the mod with a comment. You would need to place your code inside that if statement

[Grapjas]

Planned features can now be found on github.

Edited March 21, 2021 by Grapjas
Update

[Lion.Kanzen]

I never imagined that the time would come when mods would surpass the gameplay of the vanilla version.

[Grapjas]

@Angen did some of these things already with his battalion mod. Speaking of which, i still need to ask if i can use some of his code

So, @Angen can i please use your code from that mod?

[mysticjim]

This is an interesting one, mate, I'm intrigued by the wounded status of the troops. In play, does it change the game a lot? I'm assuming you have to be conscious of your units health a lot more otherwise you could send swathes of your army to a slaughter if they aren't in fighting condition. 

[Grapjas]

3 hours ago, mysticjim said:

This is an interesting one, mate, I'm intrigued by the wounded status of the troops. In play, does it change the game a lot? I'm assuming you have to be conscious of your units health a lot more otherwise you could send swathes of your army to a slaughter if they aren't in fighting condition. 

I'd say it changes the gameplay quite a bit. If your army is heavily wounded, you can get chased and slaughtered while retreating because healthy enemy units can actually catch up with you now. The trick would be to utilize the new field camps + healers in either neutral or enemy territory. It definitely needs some testing from players against players though. 

[Grapjas]

A sneak peak of the next update.

What it shows:

• Units will switch to melee attacks on walls (because ammo is valuable). Aesthetically weapons will be sheathed/unsheated when switched (no animation).
• Units have ammo bars (pink)
• Military structures & forge have a re-arm aura, some buildings have a large aura, most buildings have a small aura. This aura will only work if you have at least one forge
• Showing the re-arm aura in action (+ icon)

What it doesnt show but does work already

• If the current target is to close they will automatically switch to melee attacks
• If there is a champion counterpart of that unit type for that civ, soldiers will have a 4th rank. When reached, they turn into champions (without status effect attacks)

Units will be rebalanced according to their visuals ingame. I will work with a point system for this. Example - movement speed: Base speed will be something like 18 for infantry units and will be reduced with the armor they wear as following:

 Material

• Cloth: none
• Leather: -0.75
• Chainmail/iron: -1.5
• Shield: small -1, large -2
• Eligible Parts: Helmet, chest, arms (as one), legs (as one), shield

I will also work with the same point system for attack speed / ressistance (but different numbers). Primary melee units will probably receive an health bonus (as is). This means units will be rebalanced per civ differently, and even more specifically, per rank.

(read more on github - planned features)

Edited May 22, 2021 by Grapjas

[Grapjas]

I was a little unmotivated to work on the mod but im back at it.

Added a new prototype branch on github where you can follow the progress of the next update. Also made a spreadsheet i use for re-balancing units for the mod that you can look into if interested. It will work with a deduction system based on what the unit is wearing as described in my previous post.

Edited May 15, 2021 by Grapjas

[Grapjas]

Mod update. For a more visual presentation check out the orignal post up top. Heres a little more detailed text version of the update:

 

Units with ranged weapons have ammo. Units with low ammo (jav) will have very high damage. Slingers will regain ammo slowly anywhere.

Most units have 2 attack types, ranged and melee. Weapon swapping will not be manual. The unit will swap to melee if

• It has no ammo
• A targetted unit is getting to close
• The target is a wall / building
• The target is a siege unit

New aura called "Re-arm". All military structures (Barracks, Stables, Arsenals, Fortresses, Armycamps, Colony's) and also the forge will have this aura. Units that require ammo, simply need to stay inside it for at least 3 seconds for a complete ammo refill. This aura will only work if you have at least 1 forge. Some of these military buildings will have a large aura, and most have a small aura. Armycamp has a limited ammo pool units can Re-Arm from, and the Armycamp consumes ammo from the pool while shooting arrows. Once the pool is empty, the armycamp can't shoot arrows, or Re-arm units.

Units are rebalanced according to their visuals. Check this balancing sheet for more info (also check the additional changes tab).

4th rank: Champion. If there is a champion counterpart of the soldier, it will be able to promote as one. For example, the athenian hoplite will promote into a city guard.

Promotion rework. Units will not get bonus armor on promotion. They will receive a small heal, and (originally) ranged units will get a 10% bonus attack damage for all weapons. Melee only units have their default attack bonus on promotion (20%).

Technology changes. Instead of 4 defensive upgrades for units there are now just 2. They give both a positive and a negative bonus. Example: Soldiers +3 crush, +1 hack and pierce resistance. 50ms attack and 0.25 movement speed penalty.

Healers. They now provide healing in any structure they are garrisoned in. They can also build tents in which they can treat the wounded.

Spy tech rework. All enemy unit and structure info is now hidden and cannot be inspected when clicked / hovered. When you buy the Espionage tech this information becomes available to you, showing you information like health and ammo when clicking or hovering over enemy / neutral soldiers.

Charge attacks. Units have energy and will use it to charge an enemy. Energy is consumed at a rate while charging the target. The first attack deals bonus damage but consumes all energy. Rams max energy / regeneration rate / bonus damage, is based on how many people are garrisoned inside.

And some more stuff. I guess you just have to find out by playing the mod!

Any feedback and bug reporting is greatly appreciated.

Edited October 26, 2021 by Grapjas

[Lopess]

Grapejuice great job, I'll play it this weekend, several interesting mechanics.

[maroder]

really nice layout to introduce the new version congrats

It sounds great and I will certainly test it when I have time.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

@Grapjas, the mod looks awesome.

I have long been against ammo system but the way you have implemented it seems quite reasonable.

I like the ram/unit interactions as well as charging mechanic. I wonder if some units could be given more charge damage than others as a way to differentiate them. I can also try to test it this weekend.

[Grapjas]

4 hours ago, Grapjas said:

Slingers will regain ammo slowly anywhere.

I lied. Works now though (updated download links). Also, ty all for the kind words.

Edited October 26, 2021 by Grapjas

[Micfild]

Hi @Grapjas. I'm very curious about your mod and some of the mechanics it implements (like charging and ammo), since i'll only be able to play it at the weekend i went to check on some of the templates just for fun. I found out that the template_unit_infantry archer seems to have the sword stats of it's horse counterpart, instead of the stats of the sword infantry (i.e. it has range 6 and 6.5 hack damage). This looks like a minor typo to me, so i decided to report here.

Can't wait to test this mod, seems like fun!

[Lion.Kanzen]

People you should upload videos, later the others asking   what mods are about.